Aaron Edwards

Aaron Edwards is the author of the critically acclaimed books Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Aden and the End of Empire (Mainstream/Transworld Books, 2014; 2015), UVF: Behind the Mask (Merrion Press, 2017) and Agents of Influence: Britain's Secret Intelligence War Against the IRA (Merrion Press, 2021).

His last book, A People Under Siege: The Unionists of Northern Ireland, From Partition to Brexit and Beyond, was published by Merrion Press in 2023.

His new book, Enemies Within: The Explosive True Story of Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair, Northern Ireland’s Most Infamous Paramilitary Godfather, will be published by Merrion Press in September 2026.

Aaron's work has featured in the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Belfast Telegraph, Belfast Newsletter, Irish News, Hot Press, Fortnight Magazine and The Dublin Review of Books.

He is a frequent media commentator on security issues, providing analysis to the BBC, RTE, Al Jazeera, Vice News, Times & Sunday Times, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times, Daily Express, Irish Mail on Sunday, Sunday Business Post, Christian Science Monitor, Irish News, Belfast Telegraph, Belfast Newsletter, New European, The Economist, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), The Herald on Sunday, Profil (Austria); DPA International (Germany); Tagesspiegel (Germany) and The National.

He has been a Senior Lecturer in Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst since 2008 and is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of History, Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester and a Graduate Supervisor in Modern War Studies and Contemporary Military History at the University of Buckingham.

Born in Belfast in 1980, he obtained his PhD in Politics from Queen’s University Belfast in 2006 and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and UK's Higher Education Academy in 2012.