Killing Rage

Collins, Eamon with Mick McGovern

ISBN 10: 1862070474 / ISBN 13: 9781862070479

Published by Granta, London, 1997

About this Item

371 pp. Wraps have moderate edge and corner wear. First page has clipped corner. Few numbers penned to back endpaper. Spine straight, lightly creased.

Seller Inventory # 026579

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Killing Rage
• Publisher: Granta, London
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1862070474
• ISBN 13: 9781862070479
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Condition: Good +
• Seller catalogs:
  • Politics

About this title

Synopsis

Since the 1970s, people have been murdering their neighbors in Northern Ireland. This book is the true account of the small-town violence and terror which lies behind the headlines.

Review

Eamon Collins never pulled a trigger for the Irish Republican Army. But he helped organize several hits--some "successful," others not. Upon joining the IRA, he was warned that "in all probability, [he] would end up on the run, in prison, or dead." Collins would end up all three: after a bombing attack--in which he had played no part--he was arrested, and after five days of punishing interrogation, agreed to turn informer. Changes of heart eventually led him to recant his confessions, and he was sent to prison. Upon his release, the IRA forced him into exile "outside the war zone." As time passed, he returned to his family home and tried to move on. In 1995 Collins appeared on British television to tell the story of his life in the IRA.

Killing Rage presents his story in fuller detail, allowing Collins to try to explain "why a segment of people within the Catholic population believed that the best way to redress their grievances was through violence." Collins also painted an unsavory portrait of the IRA--while showing their Protestant counterparts in an equally unflattering light.

In his introduction, Collins admits he is sorry about the deaths he caused:

But my sorrow is not enough.... By exposing myself to the anger of my former comrades and the families of my victims, I wanted to show that I had thought long and hard about what had happened and that it is possible to become a different person--as we all have to become different people if we are to live together in Northern Ireland without political violence.

Killing Rage, however, clearly reopened old wounds. Collins was found murdered on January 28, 1999. --Sunny Delaney