The Irish War [Paperback]

Praise for Tony Geraghty’s Brixmis:

‘Geraghty is one of the few military writers who could have delivered this excellent book… filled with anecdotes, quotes from secret documents and official briefings that bring it alive and make it an exceptionally readable official history of one of the unsung heroes of the Cold War’
- James Adams, Sunday Times

‘Packed with dramatic accounts of spy-like things… fascinating revelations celebrate old-fashioned British pluck, amateurism, eccentricity and modesty. Its pages are rife with madcap and brilliant ideas for outwitting the
“opposition”’
- Thomas Blaikie, Spectator

‘Knocks spots off most fictional attempts to tackle the same subjects’
- Economist

A full and definitive account of the war waged between Irish Republicans and England over three centuries by the bestselling author of ‘Who Dares Wins’, with emphasis on the latterday role of the special forces.

From the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 to the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, Britain and Ireland have been in mortal conflict over the sovereignty of the Emerald Isle. In ‘The Irish War’, bestselling author Tony Geraghty writes a full and compelling account of the tragic three-hundred-year war, tracing the path to today’s weary peace.

From his years of reporting the outbreak of the troubles in 1969 for the Sunday Times to the present, Tony Geraghty has covered every bloody twist and turn of the IRA and the Loyalist campaigns, but his unerring eye for detail took him back through the centuries to uncover the roots and causes of the grievances and feuds that have been so ruthlessly fought over in the past twenty-five years. The result is a powerful history of England’s ruthless aggression against her small Catholic neighbour and that tiny island’s utter determination to oust the bullying intruder. After the battles of the Boyne and Aughrim, deserted by the last of their officers and with inferior resources, the Irish reinvented the rules of warfare to their advantage. The battle cry of Sinn Fein – ‘Ourselves Alone’ – went up and a code of fighting that ignored the rules of war was let loose.

Tracing the roots and meaning of the terrible war that has been fought overtly and covertly for three hundred years, ‘The Irish War’ is essential reading for all those seeking to understand the relations between these two nations.

THE INSIDE STORY OF THE BITTER INHERITANCE OF A 300-YEAR OLD WAR.

As the IRA turned political agitation into practised urban warfare, the British government responded with increasingly sophisticated counter-measures. Both sides played down their intentions while behind the scenes they developed the strategy and technology of full-fledged war.

With access to top-level experts, military veteran and historian Tony Geraghty reveals the sinister pattern of action and reaction in this domestic conflict. Whether or not the politics of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement finally break the grip of the “physical force tradition”, the legacy of covert warfare engendered by this long and bloody struggle will affect British and Irish liberty for years to come.

Praise for Tony Geraghty’s 'BRIXMIS'

“Knocks the spots off most fictional attempts to tackle the same subjects.”
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ECONOMIST
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“Geraghty is one of the few military writers who could have delivered this excellent book.”
'SUNDAY TIMES'

“Deighton, Le CArre, Forsyth and Co., eat your hearts out. There’s nothing like a true spy story to knock the fiction off the bookshelf and former Para Tony Geraghty has delivered the killer punch.”
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SOLDIER MAGAZINE
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Tony Geraghty, author of the SAS history Who Dares Wins, The Bullet Catchers and Beyond the Front Line, is himself a military veteran, first with the Paras and then as a British officer in the Gulf conflict. As a liaison officer with US forces he was awarded an American decoration. He is also an Irish citizen.