We Wrecked the Place: Contemplating an End to the Northern Irish Troubles

In "We Wrecked the Place," Jonathan Stevenson records the post-ceasefire reflections of thirty-two militants - both republican and loyalist - weaving their thoughts and lives into Northern Ireland's blood-spattered past. Peace is not possible without the consent of the warriors, and many of the men and women interviewed demonstrate a readiness for peace for the first time in their adult lives. Most IRA veterans finally realize that bombs will not produce a united Ireland. Most loyalists finally accept that sectarian assassination only weakens the union with Britain. The Troubles are over for nearly all of Stevenson's subjects, who reveal here who they are and why they felt compelled to turn to violence. Readers will meet Tommy Gorman, who joined the Provisional IRA in 1970, spent several years in prison on and off between 1971 and 1986, and is now a community worker in west Belfast and a member of Sinn Fein: Anthony McIntyre, who joined the Provisional IRA in 1973, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Long Kesh prison, earned a B.A. in politics while incarcerated, was released in 1992, and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in politics at Queen's University of Belfast; David Ervine, who grew up in heavily Protestant east Belfast, joined the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1972, sentenced to 11 years in Long Kesh, was released in 1980, and is now a political spokesman for the Progressive Unionist party; and a whole host of other characters whose stories are integral to the life-blood of the Troubles.

"We blew up London, we blew up Belfast, we wrecked the place. Now we're back to where we started," says a former IRA gunman quoted here. The author focuses on the conflict in Northern Ireland through the eyes of "the men and women who did most of the killing" as he interviews 14 nationalists and 17 loyalists. First he takes a detailed look at Irish history, progressing from Cromwell and William of Orange to the famine and the Rising of 1916, up to the present Troubles. Stevenson analyzes this "Beirut-style conflict" and many of its causes and effects: "Bloody Sunday" in 1972; the Bobby Sands hunger strike and the Anglo-Irish accord of 1985. He examines the problems inside the Protestant community: the division between the middle and the working classes as well as the Protestant movement fostering an independent Northern Ireland. He also considers the personalities: Ian Paisley, who always "managed to rouse loyalist violence without getting his hands dirty" and Gerry Adams's "shameless hypocrisy"?although he admires how Adams has put the IRA on the political path, i.e., taken the gun out of Irish politics. Stevenson, an American freelance writer living in Belfast, has written a complicated and interesting book about a seemingly hopeless political quagmire.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A candid analysis of the 25-year-old ``troubles'' in Northern Ireland, from the inception of the Provisional IRA in December 1968 to the ceasefires of 1994. Stevenson, an American who lives in Belfast, argues that the American civil rights movement of the 1960s activated the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland to demand full economic and political rights. Stevenson's dramatis personae are Republican and Ulster Protestant paramilitary prisoners and veterans of the violence that has claimed some 3,000 lives. Most have matured in prison and regret their youthful violence, while many are now active in community service. At the peak of the bloodletting, active paramilitaries never numbered more than 1,000 on each side, but the attacks could not go on without support from sympathizers in the community. Ironically, Stevenson finds that religious differences are not as important as a cause of conflict as political orientation and the romantic lure of revolutionary activity. The vast majority of both Catholics and Protestants shunned the gunmen and abhorred the outrageous killings committed by both sides: The author cites as particularly outrageous the 40,000 Catholics driven out of homes burned by Protestant bombs and many IRA assassinations. The presence of British soldiers in the province worsened the conflict. In particular, the use of torture and other brutalities by the British, and the killing of 14 Catholics in Derry in January 1972 by British soldiers exacerbated the conflict. When the IRA struck back at the British military, they became folk heroes in the Catholic community. Stevenson is optimistic about the future, as he points out that the majority of both Ulster Protestants and Catholics want to live in peace and share similar economic challenges in an area in which unrest has prevented needed investment and job growth. Stevenson succeeds in providing a learned, evenhanded report that concludes with hope for a passionate people bedeviled by ancient rivalries. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This book follows in the interview-based tradition of Tony Parker's May the Lord in His Mercy Be Kind to Belfast (LJ 3/1/94) and Kevin Toolis's Rebel Hearts (LJ 6/1/96) and is among the best of them. Stevenson, an American journalist living in Belfast, interviewed more than 30 Republican Nationalists and Unionist Loyalists involved in the conflict in Northern Ireland over the past 27 years. By placing their stories within the context of the political developments of the North, so that the perspective on the crisis is the author's, not the participants', Stevenson offers valuable critical judgments. Writing at a moment when the potential for peace could go either way, he examines the difficulty of bringing people who have become involved in what might be called an intimacy of violence into the process of talking with one another. The propensity for self-deception and hypocrisy among the hard men is legendary. Stevenson presents this sort of thinking on the part of all the players in Ulster, thereby revealing why the problem is so intractable. Highly recommended for both specialists and general readers.?Richard B. Finnegan, Stonehill Coll., North Easton, Mass.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Stevenson's insightful analysis of the "troubles" in Northern Ireland is based on countless interviews conducted with former paramilitaries from both republican and loyalist sides. After placing the contemporary conflict into proper historical context by providing a brief overview of the often confusing and always tragic circumstances that culminated in the political and spiritual division of a nation and a people, Stevenson weaves together a riveting collection of anecdotes, reflections, and regrets from exterrorists representing the extremist points of view that flourished during the bloody 25-year period between the inception of the terrorist campaign designed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1969 and the cease-fire abruptly embraced by both the IRA and the loyalists in 1994. In addition to examining the past, the author also turns his attention toward the future, offering a somewhat hopeful evaluation of the ever delicate and vulnerable peace process. A candid account of the political, cultural, and social conditions and stratifications that spawned and nurtured an era of incredible violence. Margaret Flanagan