Dr William Matchett

After reading about Micheal Collins's Squad and their operations during the Irish war of independence I started with this book to get a grasp on Northern Ireland period of so called Troubles from british perspective.

Basically this was Irish war of independence take 2 because goal of Irish Republicans was gaining independence for whole Ireland - including the northern parts.

Using almost the same methods as before IRA started acting in the north targeting police officials hoping to pressure the London into acting with overwhelming force (goal was same situation as it was with Black and Tans and other paramilitary forces London used from 1918 'til 1922). And it worked at least to the degree - army took over at first and after a while this proved a disastrous move and soon police was brought back into the fray since law enforcement was seen as an only way to achieve anything without estranging the local population.

And so starts the story of RUC, Special Branch and all other covert services used by London government during the Troubles.
History is written very well, in order how things happen and developed over the years. Author knows what he is writing about and it becomes very clear that what was achieved over the years helped a lot to bring IRA in Northern Ireland to the political solution. Whether people like it or not peace talks started in the 1990's (not after 2001) and it is highly unlikely that IRA would move to peace talks and political solution if they felt they could continue with their operations. Myth and epic sagas aside nobody gives up just like that. Also I liked the comments in some reviews I read in terms of how can they say it was successful when it took them almost 30 years to reach any agreement. It is true, it took 30 years but it took that long because IRA had a sanctuary within the Irish Republic. If that was not the case then it would be much shorter conflict - just take a look at terrorist groups in Germany during the 1970-1980's, they were taken in a rather short time because they had nowhere to hide. Or Italian terrorist groups in the same period. If terrorist group does not have back-up rally location and remains in small area - they all get caught very soon.

That being said it is rather sad (albeit predictable) how politicians always hang the people they use for enforcing the rule of the law. Same happened with RUC and SB. As soon as peace talks started these two formations where branded as repressive, secret state forces that oppressed and basically (through so-called collusion) even put the weapons into hands of [unsuspecting and unwilling I guess] IRA troops. to commit the atrocities. All of this sounds rather ludicrous but time will bring forth documents of the time and truth will come up.

Is the author biased - very probably. He is defending the RUC and SB, basically entire security apparatus used in the period of Troubles and he paints IRA as a rather cruel and aggressive bunch bent on blood-spilling, murder and mayhem (which is of course black-and-white presentation too).

But he includes the failures and grave mistakes of security forces too - inclusion of army from the beginning, creation of so called supergrasses and CID approach to tackling IRA that did more harm then good, actions of army FRU and MRF that also caused a lot of troubles and most definitely allowing some of the terrorist attacks to unfold in order to keep their sources and strategic leverage for more important issues (no matter how cruel this might sound but this is practice in any war, regular or irregular; same was done during WW2 to prevent Germans from discovering their communication is successfully decoded, mathematics in conflict is not aiming at zero but aiming at lowest possible number, unfortunately).

And I do agree with the author in his final chapter - while London officials have admitted to almost all of the above critiques, Sinn fein and IRA never accepted responsibility for any wrong-doing and never publicly said anything in this regard. Unless this is done there can never be true healing of relations in Northern Ireland.

Very interesting book, highly recommended.… (mais)