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Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism
by Anthony McIntyre
Foreword by Ed Moloney
ISBN: 9781932982749
Soft cover. $21.95
336 pp including glossary
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Thomas E. Hachey, Professor of History and Executive Director of the Center for Irish Programs at Boston College, critiques Anthony McIntyre's new book.
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"I have researched and written about Northern Ireland during a 40 year career in which I have, since 1966, spent most summers and every sabbatical in Ireland, both North and South. But few of us in academe possess Anthony McIntyre's insight and understanding of Ulster's tragic sectarian divide. I have met "Mackers" on several occasions and have always been impressed by his instinctive grasp of the policies and personalities in Northern Ireland's more recent history (since the inception of the modern Troubles in 1968).
...I am an enthusiastic proponent of small publishers...And your cover design is attractive and the typeset is clear, distinct, and abundantly readable. The book, arranged in 13 topical chapters, provides a multidimensional treatment of some of the principles and policies which have been (at least since 1998) embraced by the contemporary Irish republican movement. Although the format precludes any chronological continuity, the reader is provided with a series of instructive vignettes which succeed in effectively conveying the cynicism, horror, despair, humor, and righteous indignation which resonates from the respective essays.
Ed Moloney is himself a shrewd analyst of the Northern scene and the Foreword which he provides offers a perspective synopsis of the Ulster conflict leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, just as it also contains biographical details about McIntyre's life about which the reader needs to be informed. This authoritative introduction complements the essays which follow, and provides a succinct context in which they can be somewhat better understood.
What is especially appealing about McIntyre's writings, apart from the manifest grasp he possesses concerning real vs. perceived agendas, is the way in which he can alternately employ disarming candor with ill disguised hyperbole in the treatment of his subject. Tommy McKearney is correct, of course, in noting how the author is much too embedded in the movement he critiques to allow for the detachment and objectivity required in historical analysis. But historians and the general reader will nonetheless value this collection while also appreciating how it represents an informed and articulate dissent from what has been the received wisdom on the transformation of Sinn Fein and the IRA.
The book contains an extensive glossary of names and terms which should prove especially useful for the uninitiated. Clearly, however, this is not a book which is likely to be used profitably in a college course without a companion history which narrates the full experience of Ulster's troubled society over the past four decades. Both the topics and the format (e.g. some essays, some interviews, etc.) are decidedly eclectic and will not therefore, provide any cohesive understanding of the events that shaped the provincial history. All the same, given the author's proximity to the republican movement there are more than a few of the essays which represent genuine primary source material.
...McIntyre's collection of post-Good Friday Agreement writings is indisputably distinctive. There are numerous titles now on the IRA, Long Kesh, etc., but there is nothing in print quite like the ruminations of an incredibly talented and intensely motivated veteran of the republican movement who has offered a subjective but scintillating commentary of how and why what appears to have happened may have been a deliberate illusion disguising the truth..."
29 May 2008
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| "When McIntyre wrote all this...he was scorned and ridiculed...The passage of time has brought vindication..."
—Ed Moloney
author of A Secret History of the IRA
"...When future historians come to write about the period between 1969-2005, McIntyre's book will be essential reading, for he was amongst the first to realize that the entire northern Irish peace process was orchestrated by synchronized lying..."
—Mick Hall
writer of Organized Rage
"For historians and other journalists, the writings of Anthony McIntyre are an invaluable resource...No future histories of the period and the process will have any credibility if they don't draw on it."
—Malachi O'Doherty
author of Empty Pulpits: Ireland's Retreat from Religion
"A fascinating insight into the politics of the six north eastern counties of Ireland...To not have this book on your 'Irish' book shelf is to have an incomplete understanding of the Belfast Agreement, alias, the Good Friday Agreement."
—Joe Graham, Rushlight Magazine
"Although Anthony McIntyre and I are poles apart politically, I admire his fine, incisive, honest and brave journalism. Anyone who truly wants to understand the underbelly of the Irish peace process should read Good Friday."
—Ruth Dudley Edwards, ruthdudleyedwards.com |
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