This is not a history book but a work of narrative nonfiction. No dialogue or details have been invented or imagined; in instances where I describe the inner thoughts of characters, it is because they have related those thoughts to me, or to others, as detailed in the notes. Because I have elected to tell this particular story, there are important aspects of the Troubles that are not addressed. The book hardly mentions loyalist terrorism, to take just one example. If you’re feeling whataboutish, I would direct you to one of the many excellent books cited in the notes that address the Troubles
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