Non Fiction

Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein
by Peter Taylor
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Never before has an outsider had such access to record the remarkable history of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein - the "Provos" - from their dramatic beginnings to the critical juncture they have reached today.

Thirty years ago, the Irish Republican Army was a fading memory. It had dumped its guns and embraced left-wing politics. The result was that when sectarian violence erupted in 1969 and nationalist areas came under loyalist attack, only a handful of IRA veterans were on hand to defend the. Taunting graffiti read "IRA - I ran away." The consequences were momentous. The IRA split and the Provisional IRA was born to become the most famous organisation of its kinds in the Western world. For more than a quarter of a century the Provisional IRA have fought a bloody campaign, in which over 3,000 lives have been lost, to force the British government to disengage from Northern Ireland and re-unify Ireland.

Today their leaders, once branded as 'terrorists', have been feted at the White house and held talks with British Ministers. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are now Westminster Members of the British Parliament, steering the 'Provos' to what they hope will be an historic peace in Ireland. In a series of remarkable, first-hand interviews with the Provisional IRA who fought on the military and political fronts and the British who countered them, this book tells the extraordinary story of the evolution of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein over 30 bloody years, from gunmen and bombers to potential statesman.

The author, Peter Taylor, has reported Northern Ireland for more than 25 years and has made over 50 documentaries on the conflict for ITV's 'This Week' programme through the seventies and for BBC TV's 'Panorama' through the eighties and nineties. In addition he has authored several series for BBC television - 'Families at War,' 'States of Terror,' '25 Bloody Years,' and 'Defence of the Realm.' In 1995 he was presented with the Royal Television Society's presigous Judges' Award for his lifetime's coverage of the conflict. This was added to three other RTS Awards he has received for his BBC documentaries 'Stalker,' 'The Volunteer,' and 'The Maze.' He has also won several other domestic and international awards for his work.

This is his fifth book on the subject of Northern Ireland.