From his interviews with dozens of I.R.A. and Sinn Fein members (including some confessed killers), Taylor gained fascinating insight into the movement's past, present, and future goals. The I.R.A. is certainly not portrayed in a heroic light; Taylor is graphic in the descriptions of atrocities such as Enniskillen and the Harrods bombing. But the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein are given a voice, and readers may draw their own conclusions. Behind the Mask is an important book for those who want a better understanding of the conflict that has ripped Northern Ireland apart.
]]>It has been a long and controversial record, with opinion still differing on whether the security forces could have dealt more effectively with groups such as the IRA. Bloody Sunday is here, and Gibraltar, and Loughgall and all the rest. Some incidents rocked the IRA to its foundations, such as the loss of seven of its men at Loughgall. Others, such as the SAS killings of three unarmed IRA members at Gibraltar, and the deaths of the 1981 hunger strikers, added potent new icons to the IRA's gallery of martyrs.
Taylor does a particular service by recording the observations of Michael Oatley, the MI6 man who established ultra-secret channels of communication with the IRA. Oatley's impression of Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness is fascinating:
I was considerably impressed by his intelligence and firmness of manner. It was rather like talking to a middle-ranking army officer in one of the tougher regiments like the Paras or the SAS.Taylor is also good on the murkier side of intelligence operations, especially the penetration of loyalist assassination groups by security agents. Some of these, particularly Brian Nelson, rose to senior positions. This raises the question of whether elements in military intelligence aimed to break these organisations or, in some instances, sought to surreptitiously direct them against republican targets. Taylor sums this up with the judgement that the Nelson case raised disturbing questions about how far up the intelligence chain collusion between loyalists and the military went.--David McKittrick ]]>
Having served as the BBC's Northern Ireland correspondent for many years, Taylor is well placed to chart the ebbs and flows of the IRA--from the hunger strikes of the early 1980s to the massacre at Enniskillen. Moreover, he does so with the eyewitness accounts of many IRA member who agreed to be interviewed for this book. Their stories make fascinating--if sometimes nauseating-- reading. Incidentally, it's the self justification of these men that ends up more nauseating than their violence. But that's something we're all just going to have to live with, because men such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are now part of the political furniture and are likely to be key players in any Northern Ireland Assembly. Taylor has updated the text for this paperback edition to take in the 1998 Good Friday agreement and beyond, but only a fool would imagine this is the end of the story. If you want to know the plot so far, then this book is required reading. --John Crace
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