ExpandIf you ever meet Denis Bradley, he will comes over as plain-speaking and somewhat war-weary. This timely book explains why.
His priestly position also provided access for security force members caught up in the post-Bloody Sunday mayhem. He tells of the distraught young army captain, recently posted, who called to unburden himself. Most revealing is his own friendship with Frank Lagan, local RUC superintendent and one of the few Catholics in the force.
Bradley takes us through the secret negotiations producing the short-lived IRA ceasefire of 1975 and how the younger northern IRA leaders replaced the older, who he depicts as akin to spoilt mafia godfathers. The breakdown of that ceasefire ushered in those soul-destroying decades of the Troubles, with “spiralling violence ... political vacuum ... also a maelstrom of moral confusion for many people, me included”, the author admits. It would take 16 years for another ceasefire to emerge.
Bradley returned to the backchannel and tells the inside story of the famous “the war is over” letter, penned, he relates, by those in the backchannel rather than the IRA. It helped unlock movement on the British side and again there is riveting detail here on the high-octane risks of those involved, not least by John Major and John Hume.
If I have any criticism, it is of the publisher for not giving us an index or maps to help those of us less familiar with Derry. Even so, the no-frills account presented here is masterly and deeply moving.Openings by Lucy Caldwell: Enlightening and enriching collection of stories that closes a loose triptych
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