Making Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict

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After a chapter of background on the period from 1921 to 1963, it covers the ensuing period--the descent into violence, the hunger strikes, the Anglo-Irish accord, the bombers in England--to the present shaky peace process. On the republican side the IRA gradually changed the emphasis from open confrontations and car bombings to more carefully planned sniping attacks, together with bombing attacks in England.

McVea tell that story clearly, concisely, and, above all, fairly, avoiding intricate detail in favor of narrative pace and accessible prose. At first the authorities did not display serious concern about the groups of men who barricaded districts and patrolled them, sometimes carrying sticks and clubs.But in a major departure the document formally conceded that Dublin had a legitimate interest in Northern Ireland affairs, declaring: ‘A settlement must recognise Northern Ireland’s position within Ireland as a whole. The same criticism of lack of emotion can be levelled at Jonathan Bardon's Beyond the Studio: A History of the BBC in Northern Ireland. After high-pressure late-night sessions, with Heath personally taking a leading role, the shape of the Council of Ireland was eventually hammered out. But there was a problem, because in the northern part of Ireland, known as Ulster, there were a bunch of Protestants who didn't want to be part of Ireland.

Five journalists spent seven years writing “Lost Lives”, a chronicle of the deaths of some 3,500 people killed in the Northern Ireland conflict. The irony was that the man regarded as Unionism’s most professional politician had in the space of a year made two major miscalculations. For decades its Protestant majority dominated Northern Ireland’s politics and discriminated against their Catholic neighbours.A majority of Unionist voters were against the proposition, while perhaps 30,000 or more of them were so opposed to accommodation that they joined loyalist paramilitary groups prepared to use force to resist what they saw as any further erosion of Protestant rights.

This amounted to an acceptance of the IRA argument that its prisoners were different from other inmates jailed for criminal as opposed to paramilitary offences. In this fully revised and updated version, McKittrick and McVea take into account the momentous events of the ten years that followed their first publication, including the disbanding of the IRA, Ian Paisley's deal with the Republicans and the historic power-sharing government in Belfast. Many of the main parties and other elements were not speaking to each other, while the SDLP had for many months refused to meet British ministers. Where the book is vivid, as it often is, is in its careful use of quotes as emotional as the two authors refuse to be.What it does do is offer a useful reminder of everything that has continued to happen in spite of the Troubles: ordinary social and cultural life, from Seamus Heaney to Irish dancing. In this history David McKittrick, a journalist (who was once a correspondent for The Economist) and David McVea, a history teacher and journalist, explain how politicians and civil and religious leaders in Northern Ireland, as well as the governments of Britain and Ireland, created the conditions for mistrust and rebellion.