Butcher Of Belfast

The bestselling investigation of one of Northern Ireland's most brutal and infamous murder cases 'Makes for gripping but altogether terrifying reading' Washington Times 'Dillon is recommended reading for anyone wishing to understand the complexities of British-Irish politics. He stands alone as one of the most creative writers of our time' Irish Times ________________________________ 'This was the ultimate way to kill a man.' In the 1970s, in some of the most violent days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a group of Protestant paramilitaries embarked on a spree of indiscriminate murder which left thirty Catholics dead in the Shankill area of Belfast. Their leader was Lenny Murphy: a fanatical Unionist whose Catholic-sounding surname had led to his persecution as a child, Murphy swore revenge on all Catholics, and with his gang wreaked havoc onto an already fractured city. Not for the squeamish, The Shankill Butchers is a horrifying and detailed account of one of the most brutal series of murders in British legal history - a phenomenon whose real nature has been obscured by the troubled and violent context from which it sprang.

A New York Times Notable Book and Winner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Neville's debut remains "a flat-out terror trip" (James Ellroy) and "one of the best Irish novels, in any genre, of recent times" (John Connolly). Northern Ireland’s Troubles may be over, but peace has not erased the crimes of the past. Gerry Fegan, a former paramilitary contract killer, is haunted by the ghosts of the twelve people he slaughtered. Every night, at the point of losing his mind, he drowns their screams in drink. But it’s not enough. In order to appease the ghosts, Fegan is going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all are called to account. But when Fegan’s vendetta threatens to derail a hard-won truce and destabilize the government, old comrades and enemies alike want him dead.

UVF: Behind the Mask is the gripping new history of the Ulster Volunteer Force from its post-1965 incarnation to the present day. Aaron Edwards blends rigorous research with unprecedented access to leading members of the UVF to unearth the startling inner-workings of one of the world’s oldest and most ruthless paramilitary groups. Through interviews with high-profile UVF leaders, such as Billy Mitchell, David Ervine, Billy Wright, Billy Hutchinson and Gary Haggarty, as well as their loyalist rivals including Johnny Adair, Edwards reveals the grisly details behind their sadistic torture and murder techniques and their litany of high-profile atrocities: McGurk’s Bar, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Miami Showband massacre and the Shankill Butchers’ serial-killing spree, amongst others. Edwards’ life and career has led him to the centre of the UVF’s long, dark underbelly; in this defining work he offers a comprehensive and authoritative study of an armed group that continues to play a pivotal role in Northern Irish society.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Soon to be an FX limited series streaming on HULU • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

In late nineteenth-century Toronto, municipal politics were so dominated by the Irish Protestants of the Orange Order that the city was known as the “Belfast of Canada.” For almost a century, virtually every mayor of Toronto was an Orangeman and the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne was a civic holiday. Toronto, the Belfast of Canada explores the intolerant origins of today’s cosmopolitan city. Using lodge membership lists, census data, and municipal records, William J. Smyth details the Orange Order’s role in creating Toronto’s municipal culture of militant Protestantism, loyalism, and monarchism. One of Canada’s foremost experts on the Orange Order, Smyth analyses the Orange Order’s influence between 1850 and 1950, the city’s frequent public displays of sectarian tensions, and its occasional bouts of rioting and mayhem.

On 13 April 1919, General Reginald Dyer marched a squad of Indian soldiers into the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, and opened fire without warning on a crowd gathered to hear political speeches. This is an account of the massacre set in the context of a biography of a man whose attitudes reflected many of the views common in the Raj.