Customer Reviews

The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace

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While Coogan's Nationalist Opinions shine through like a beacon, his revelations and information appear to be incredibly well-researched. It amazes me how bigotry on the part of Unionists (especially Ian Paisley, who appears to have given birth to the Northern Ireland version of the Ku Klux Klan), closed-minded denial on the part of British politicians, and high-handedness of the British Army brought about the failure of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement and led to the accession of the IRA. Even the most unbiased person, when given all the objective facts -- which Coogan's writings amply demonstrate that the British government for years effectively censored such facts -- leads to the inexorable conclusion that British and Unionists played the biggest role in leading Northern Ireland to the violence of the Troubles, and that these entities themselves created a level of violence and murder equivalent to that perpetuated by the IRA. This book is a definitive work on the issues that still plague Northern Ireland.

I read this book several years ago because I was fed up of hearing about Northern Ireland on the news and (like most people in Britain) not knowing what the conflict was fully about. However Tim Pat Coogan only half rectified this.

On the plus side this book gives a comprehensive account of the main incidents, in a clear and engaging style, occasionally giving personal anecdotes to add a more human element to the proceedings. It quickly becomes apparent that contrary to the main conception, the conflict has very little to do with religion and all to do with a typical power struggle complicated by nationalism and ineffectual British governmental policy. Coogan presents the horrors (and there are some very disturbing ones) and the missed opportunities in an intelligent fashion. He's also an expert on the IRA.

Where the book falls short however is in it's blatant bias. Coogan is firmly on the side of the Irish nationalists (as am I), however he does not go far enough to explain the Unionist view point, thus many readers will go away bewildered at the protestants, perceiving them as deranged orange devils, as many British people already do (though in Ian Paisley's case they may be correct). Thus Coogan is pretty irresponsible especially as this can be a very emotive issue.

Overall, this book should still be read (it is a very enjoyable read), but with caution or preferably in tandem with another source that gives the unionist side more fully.

This is an important book about an important subject, but it fails to reach the high standards of his earlier work (such as the biography of Michael Collins). Its two major faults are that he talks about himself too much (who he has talked to etc) and that he fails to be a detached historian. He is consistently pro-Republican, an understandable viewpoint perhaps, but not good enough in a supposed history book. A telling feature is the ridiculously low profile given to Ulster's majority population, the Protestants. They appear only as faceless bigots or puppets of the British state. This is not just a Brit whinging, I was in Ireland when this book came out, and the Irish press found it equally hard to view this book as a balanced history. It is very hard to find impartial books on Irish history and this is not one of them. Read some Roy Foster as a counter-balance.

This is more of the same dross from a man interested in nothing more than selling books by the truckload to the lucrative Irish-American market. Coogan is one among countless Irish historians who take advantage of the public's general ignorance of Irish history. He presents the facts, as so many others have done, along the usual "Plastic Paddy" lines - poor victimised Irish, terrible cruel British, nasty Unionists and those nice, community police, the IRA... blah, blah, blah. This sort of drivel has turned Ireland into a historical theme park for the diaspora who come every year (with a genuine interest)in great numbers to see the land of their ancestors - what they get instead is a cynical, distorted history that bears very little resemblance to the truth. If you're truly interested in learning about Irish History as it really happened, have a look at "Modern Ireland" by Roy Foster or anything by FSL Lyons. Incidentally, if you're interested in the manipulation of Irish history for economic and other reasons, read "The Irish Story" by Roy Foster. The revisionist view of Irish history may not be too popular in Ireland, but the truth is never easy to face. Do yourselves a favour, and leave this book alone.

This book is so one-sided and biased that it loses the right to be termed a "history book" but is rather simply a Republican propaganda exercise by a man known to be totally prejudiced against the Unionist population in Ulster. A TOTAL waste of time and money. Embarrassing actually.