A Secret History of the IRA
{{Short description|2002 book by Ed Moloney}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox book
| image = A Secret History of the IRA.jpg
| author = Ed Moloney
| isbn = 978-0393051940
| pub_date = 30 September 2002
| language = English
| publisher = Penguin Books
}}
{{italic title}}
A Secret History of the IRA is a book by journalist Ed Moloney, first published by Penguin Books in 2002.
Content
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Reviews
Reviewers responded favorably. In The Blanket, an online journal, reviewer Liam O Ruairc described the book as potentially "the standard if not the definitive work on the history of the Provisional IRA".{{cite web|url=http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu:81/oruaircreview.html|title=Disturbing Secrets|first1=Liam O.|last1=Ruairc|date=2003-03-18|accessdate=2014-04-04|website=iupui.edu}} Eamonn McCann, in The Nation, commented that it was "the best book yet" written on the Provisional IRA as it traced the rise of the Provos from the burning out of Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast in August 1969 to "the enclosure of the movement's leadership within conventional bourgeois politics through the Good Friday Agreement of 1998" (Belfast Agreement).McCann, Eamonn. The Nation, November 2002.
A central theme in the book is the role that Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has played in the Irish republican movement. In his review, O Ruairc noted that the book could have been "better titled A Secret History of Gerry Adams". In The Sunday Business Post Online, reviewer Tom McGurk, in reference to the strategy articulated by Danny Morrison at the 1981 Sinn Féin Ard-Fheis, wrote that the book "grippingly" detailed Adams's struggle to move from the Armalite to the ballot box "without a split and without bodies in ditches".McGurk, Tom. "Three Words that Led from Armalite to Ballot Box," The Sunday Business Post Online, 6 October 2002.
The book was met with controversy because of some of the revelations it contains. Those revelations reveal both a strength and weakness, in that some of Moloney's sources were willing to speak in great detail but with the caveat that they remain confidential.Stanage, Niall. "A Secret History of the IRA", The Sunday Business Post Online, 6 October 2002.
References
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External links
- [http://www.nuzhound.com/book.php/ Reviews of A Secret History of the IRA] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080429054327/http://www.nuzhound.com/book.php |date=29 April 2008 }}
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Category:2002 non-fiction books
Category:Irish non-fiction books
Category:Provisional Irish Republican Army
Category:Books about the Troubles (Northern Ireland)
Category:Books about Northern Ireland
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