‘The Sunday Business Post : Full Story Page 1 of 3 eS an aaa reiterate maT Mar-11-2001 ‘Sunday's Homepage Today's Homepage indepth News Business Advice “Recruitment Property Newsletter) Resources Gontact Us Sitemap ‘Competitions StepStone™s € BudgetForum com 3 06 |ssEexsre Youn] ee core Ea ‘The Sunday Business Post Profle Doerr Printer friendly version | | Book Review Even account of the Northern issues By Daire O'Brien Dublin , Ireland, Bandit Country. By Toby Hamden, Holder and Stoughton sigé10 To be surprised by a book’ always welcome. The author was one of the: fist journalists on the scene after the Docklands Bombing which shattered the 1995/96 ceasefire and was also in situ in Northern Ireland at the time of the Omagh bomb. Uniike many Irish commentators operating at a significantly further distance from events, he never trots out the simplistic Briish state-sponsored line on the IRA as "terrorists" motivated by blood and chaos. Toby Hamden grapples with a ot of the issues that exhaust usin the Republic. He believes the IRA are notin for self-enrichment or personal advancement and acknowledges ~ as many do guilily down here — that there is a certain resonance to their willngness to put their ife on the line for nothing but a badly-warped dream ‘Then again, South Armagh republicans were responsible for two blatantly sectarian massacres in the 1970s ~ at Tullyvallenn Orange Hall and at Kingsmills - which devalues any claim they have to be genuine soldiers. Harden is never seduced by the whiff of gunpowder. He enters this most complex, and dangerous, terrain with an open mind, His conclusion is that South Armagh’s quarrel is not with British rule but with authority per se. In an interesting inversion, Harden suggests that the IRA struggle as a whole has piggybacked on the South Armagh IRA, rather than vice versa. He implies that the bigger picture of Dublin rule versus London rule is of far less relevance to the area than the anger invoked by being told what to do by an outsider. His theory is that a feudal system — without federal interference — has always operated de http://www sbpost.ie/story jsp?story=WCContent;id-13610 3/11/01The Sunday Business Post : Full Story Page 2 of 3 March 2001 + Your Opinion Tellus your opinion of the new site. + Editorial Comment on the article. ‘Tom McGurk Comment on the article. + Emily © Reilly ‘Comment on the arti. British system is buit to treat this as a threat to its very existence. Hence the triumphalist and intimidatory attempts to pockmark the landscape with the signs of ‘occupation ~ these merely acting as an insult that reinforced the toleration of, and quite often tacit support for, violence within the local population. He points out that the texture of the landscape meant that the planters of the seventeenth century never truly subjugated the area and that, in consequence, the ethnicity of South Armagh is strangely uniform and that deep roots connect the people to the land, Harden's book brims with fresh perspective and when he theorises ~ as he is not afraid to do ~ he does so with the confidence of someone who has made the significant effort of fistening to all sides and checking out their "facts". The most striking feature of the book is its proximity to real events, It reads ike a forensic historical analysis, yet, the subject it addresses, in Irish politcal terms, could not be more ‘contemporary. Itis one thing to write a book this well-researched and documented about a political/miltary situation that belongs firmly in the past. To do it when the group under question — the South Armagh IRA — is stl largely intact, is a formidable achievement. The relevance of the book is. further enhanced by the events of this month, when it appears that a demiitarisation in the ‘South Armagh region is crucial to the credibility of the peace process. Ina political situation where most people cannot rise above their own background noises to look at the facts coldly, Hamden has managed to issue a persuasive, quietly passionate plea for understanding of the South Armagh IRA's complex motivation. ‘The fact that he is an Englishman, and a correspondent for the Tory mouthpiece, the Daily Telegraph, makes his professional unwilingness to brand the South Armagh IRA as bandits bent on breaking down law and order admirable. His descriptions of the history and landscape of this curious, darkly anachronistic, teritory stay long in the reader's mind. He explains why British security forces found it impossible to penetrate such a closely-bound Populace. The history of South Armagh has always meant that strangers were regarded with suspicion, and this makes his achievement in ‘infitrating” the major republican families one of the strongest journalistic feats of the year. However, if it was just republican source material that Harden had unearthed, the book would bbe lopsided. The fact that, in the book's excellent appendices, he also publishes British security documentation, brings unprecedented documentary balance to his analysis. ‘The acknowledgements bear out the quality of the source material Interviews with John Hermon, Billy Wright and Peter Caraher are mentioned. With on-the-record comment lke that, ‘one can only trust that the many who have not been named as interviewees are not ignorant of life and death on the ground in Northemn Ireland, ‘The section on Robert Nairac — whose 1977 murder continues to hold the public imagination — is peerless. Despite hs grisly death, the descriptions of Nairac's naive attempts to "go native" are laughable. It was as if South Armagh was the setting for sixth-form public school panto as the ‘SAS officer tried to seduce some of the world's least impressionable people with stage paddy renderings of Irish folk songs. He exhorts his superiors to implement a crude line in propaganda decreeing that, when talking to the locals about the British presence, “Any soldier who has been killed must be either 18 years old, fresh from home or married with a new baby. Itis possible to gain sympathy and genuine emotion from these very emotional people.” ‘The savagery that surfaces in the IRA's actives is often reserved for one of their own. The murder of Eamon Colins in January 1999 was “reminiscent of those carried out by the loyalist hitp:/vww.sbpost ie/story jsp?story=WCContent;id-13610 3/11/01The Sunday Business Post : Full Story Page 3 of 3 Nor does he claim that the people of the region are not above being poisoned by the evils of ‘sectarianism, properly pointing out that hatred of the other side is embedded deep within the Catholic culture and seifiess attempts to break it down have never been seriously attempted by republicans, never mind meeting with any success. The towering achievement of this book is to strip away at the shallow demonisation of the ‘South Armagh IRA as unprincipled louts. Essential reading for anyone with a mind capable of changing. Daire O'Brien, a writer and broadcaster, is managing editor of Setanta.com. 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