Policing Ireland's Twisted History

by Wilson, Alan M.

• ISBN13: 9781462064670
• ISBN10: 1462064671
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-23
• Publisher: Textstream

Summary

Ireland has long been a country of conflict. More than 400 years ago, the occupying English "planted" pre-Celtic Scots in the northern province of Ulster and divested the native Irish Celts of the land their ancestors owned for 2,000 years. This created a deep-seated enmity between the English and Irish, Protestant and Catholic-and it finally exploded in the Troubles. Author Alan M. Wilson was on the front lines for the bloodbath that tore Northern Ireland apart from the late 1960s through the first years of the twenty-first century. Policing Ireland's Twisted History reveals Wilson's remarkable, true story of growing up in Belfast and serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulary as an inspector and as a member of an elite anti-terrorism unit. Wilson's only goal was to help protect the innocent on both sides. Unfortunately, he became a target himself. Brutally honest and unflinching, Wilson traces his experiences serving Ireland's divided society for nearly ten years. From watching friends die to the tit-for-tat murders occurring on the streets to staring death in the eye more than once, Wilson reveals the deep, gut-wrenching search for the meaning of it all in the midst of the world's longest-running terrorist situation. A firsthand look at the Northern Ireland conflict, Policing Ireland's Twisted History offers an eye-opening, intimate examination of this devastating struggle.

Excerpts

I began with the intention of recording personal experiences and lessons learned from my service in the Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve in 1971 and 1972 and in the Royal Ulster Constabulary from 1973 till 1980. But something unexpected happened. These memories took me deeper and deeper into my Irish and Ulster psyche while I attempted to place them in a context of the history of Ireland, Britain, and Europe. I wanted to understand why such evil existed in Ireland, and most particularly in my home province of Ulster. I have become an ardent student of European history, most particularly since leaving my homeland to immigrate to Canada, then working throughout North America and Europe and later living in Brussels. These travels have exposed me to Irish Celtic and Ulster Irish people in places as far apart as Belgium and California. In the places where I have lived and visited Ulster Protestants and Irish Catholics, settlers now live in peace and claim a common ancestry along with a common celebration of the patron saint of Ireland. Every individual outside of Ireland with Irish roots, whether from the north or south, is Irish on Saint Patrick's Day. And yet in Ulster three-quarters of the population claimed, when I lived there, to be British ahead of any Irish connection.