What do you think?
Rate this book
Counterinsurgency and Collusion in Northern Ireland
Collusion by British state forces in killings perpetrated by loyalist paramilitaries was a dubious hallmark of the ‘dirty war’ in the north of Ireland. Now, more than twenty years since the Good Friday Agreement, the story of collusion remains one of the most enduring and contentious legacies of the conflict, a shadow that trails British counterinsurgency to this day.
Here Mark McGovern turns back the clock to the late 1980s and early ‘90s—the ‘endgame’ of the Troubles and a period defined by a rash of state-sanctioned paramilitary killings. Drawing on previously unpublished evidence, and original testimony of victims’ families and eyewitnesses, McGovern examines several dozen killings of republicans and their families and communities that took place in the Mid-Ulster area. Placing these accounts within a wider critical analysis of the nature of British counterinsurgency and the state use of agents and informers, McGovern paints a damning picture of covert, deniable, and unlawful violence.
Here Mark McGovern turns back the clock to the late 1980s and early ‘90s—the ‘endgame’ of the Troubles and a period defined by a rash of state-sanctioned paramilitary killings. Drawing on previously unpublished evidence, and original testimony of victims’ families and eyewitnesses, McGovern examines several dozen killings of republicans and their families and communities that took place in the Mid-Ulster area. Placing these accounts within a wider critical analysis of the nature of British counterinsurgency and the state use of agents and informers, McGovern paints a damning picture of covert, deniable, and unlawful violence.
- GenresIrelandNonfictionHistory
240 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2019
2 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 19, 2024
Counterinsurgency and Collusion
An incredibly important book that is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the war in the North of Ireland and wants to delve deeper than the “Catholic vs Protestant” narrative.
McGovern details many examples, mostly falling with the Derry/Tyrone/Armagh areas, of British state (military/RUC/UDR) clearly colluding with loyalist paramilitary groups, most prominent being the UVF.
Means of collusion range from simply turning a blind eye to loyalist attacks on catholic civilians and not following proper investigative procedures after to actively tampering with evidence and providing names and addresses of Catholics to loyalists.
The scale of collusion that McGovern describes is something that everyone in Ireland already knew but having all these details collected together is significant.
As is pointed out by McGovern,this widespread collusion makes complete sense when you examine the communities that members of both the British state (UDR/RUC) and loyalist paramilitaries come from. They both come from the same group, with quite a small population. And they ultimately have the same goals, the maintenance of the status quo for the constitutional question and the two tiered social structure. This gives rise to what McGovern terms “breakfast table collusion”.
A very dense book rammed with valuable information but not written the most digestible, it does feel like at times reading a very sad slog of helpless victims dying, but that is what happened.
Personally the most valuable part of the book for me was towards the end, as some of the cases detailing collusion were brought to court. The British state (judge) dismissed eyewitness accounts and didn’t question why evidence had gone missing, demonstrating that you can’t rely on the British state to truthfully investigate itself and give justice to victims families.
Would have been 5/5 if not for writing style.
4/5
An incredibly important book that is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the war in the North of Ireland and wants to delve deeper than the “Catholic vs Protestant” narrative.
McGovern details many examples, mostly falling with the Derry/Tyrone/Armagh areas, of British state (military/RUC/UDR) clearly colluding with loyalist paramilitary groups, most prominent being the UVF.
Means of collusion range from simply turning a blind eye to loyalist attacks on catholic civilians and not following proper investigative procedures after to actively tampering with evidence and providing names and addresses of Catholics to loyalists.
The scale of collusion that McGovern describes is something that everyone in Ireland already knew but having all these details collected together is significant.
As is pointed out by McGovern,this widespread collusion makes complete sense when you examine the communities that members of both the British state (UDR/RUC) and loyalist paramilitaries come from. They both come from the same group, with quite a small population. And they ultimately have the same goals, the maintenance of the status quo for the constitutional question and the two tiered social structure. This gives rise to what McGovern terms “breakfast table collusion”.
A very dense book rammed with valuable information but not written the most digestible, it does feel like at times reading a very sad slog of helpless victims dying, but that is what happened.
Personally the most valuable part of the book for me was towards the end, as some of the cases detailing collusion were brought to court. The British state (judge) dismissed eyewitness accounts and didn’t question why evidence had gone missing, demonstrating that you can’t rely on the British state to truthfully investigate itself and give justice to victims families.
Would have been 5/5 if not for writing style.
4/5
November 8, 2019
Chilling. Whilst I am not surprised many would be shocked by British support for sectarian death squats in Ireland.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews