Hostage: Notorious Irish Kidnappings

by Paul Howard

The inside stories of Ireland's most famous abduction cases. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Ireland was hit by a spate of high-profile Lord and Lady Donoughmore, Belfast-based German industrialist Thomas Niedermayer, Ferenka chief Dr. Tiede Herrema, supermarket heir Ben Dunne, Quinnsworth's Don Tidey, and, bizarrely, the Aga Khan-owned Epson Derby-winner Shergar. The kidnappings had one thing in common -- they were all the work of paramilitary forces, carried out either as fund-raising efforts or for use as leverage to force the release of IRA prisoners. Hostage sheds new light on the Monasterevin siege, the ransom deals, the ordeals of the hostages, and how they were all rescued, except for Thomas Niedermayer, who, tragically, died, and Shergar, whose disappearance remains a mystery. It tells for the first time how the team was assembled to abduct billionaire Galen Weston, and why it all went wrong. Based on interviews with negotiators, hostages, gardai; and IRA sources, and the diary of one of the victims, Hostage reveals never-before-published details of these terrifying crimes.

264 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 2004

About the author

Paul Howard is a journalist with The Irish Times on Saturday.
Howard is best known as the author of the paper's Ross O'Carroll-Kelly columns and has written a series of books based on the the character of Ross.

Howard is the former chief sportswriter for the Sunday Tribune, and a former Irish Sports Journalist of the Year. He has written several nonfiction books, including The Joy, an account of life in Mountjoy Prison, The Gaffers: Mick McCarthy, Roy Keane and the Team they Built, an account of the McCarthy–Keane clash during the run-up to the 2002 World Cup. He also co-authored Steve Collins' "autobiography", Celtic Warrior.

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