Times of Troubles Britain's War in Northern Ireland

by Sanders, Andrew; Wood, Ian S.

• ISBN13: 9780748646555
• ISBN10: 0748646558
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-05-02
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Summary

'Bloody Sunday' is one of the iconic moments in British History, but what were the experiences of the soldiers in Ulster, many of them Scottish, and how did the wider events of the Troubles figure in their minds? Wood and Sanders give voice to these soldiers, with many new documents, interviews and diary entries now released to the public domain. On top of the seismic findings of the Saville report, this analysis is a timely revisit to events which still echo in the political consciousness of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. It is a period of history which prompts many questions about a liberal state. If it feels under armed threat within what it claims are its own borders, how should it respond and what are the rules of engagement? How accountable should they be to politicians, the public and the media? At what point do such operations become definable as war and how do they affect those who are called upon to carry them out? This book attempts to answer those questions. Key Features: * First title to analyse role of British Army in Northern Ireland * Draws on new primary sources including soldiers' diaries, log-sheets, interviews and previously unreleased MOD documents * Relevant to former members of the armed forces, particularly those who served in Northern Ireland (a demographic of over 300,000)

Author Biography

Andrew Sanders is the John Moore Newman Research Fellow at University College Dublin and the author of Inside the IRA: Dissident Republicans and the War for Legitimacy (Edinburgh University Press, 2011). Ian S. Wood is a historian, lecturer and journalist. He is the author of Gods, Guns and Ulster (2003), Crimes of Loyalty: a History of the UDA (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) and Britain, Ireland and the Second World War (Edinburgh University Press, 2010) and is a contributing author to A Military History of Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2012).

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vi
Acknowledgements	p. viii
Abbreviations	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
British Soldiers on the Front Line, 1970	p. 8
The Battle for Belfast	p. 42
Belfast: Winning the Battle?	p. 75
Derry's Walls	p. 103
War on the Border	p. 139
Unlawful Force?	p. 169
'At least I took no lives …'	p. 181
The Secret War	p. 210
Full Circle? Drumcree and Withdrawal	p. 236
Bibliography	p. 260
Index	p. 269
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