Over three decades he has interviewed and investigated some of the most professional, dangerous and ruthless killers in Ireland. Now Dillon explores their personalities, motivations and bizarre crimes.Many of Ireland's assassins learned their trade in fields and on hillsides in remote parts of Ireland, while others were trained in the Middle East or with Basque separatist terrorists in Spain. Some were one-target-one-shot killers, like the sniper who terrorised the inhabitants of Washington State in the autumn of 2002, while others were bombers skilled in designing the most sophisticated explosive devices and booby traps. Another more powerful group of 'trigger men' were the influential figures in the shadows, who were experts in motivating the killers under their control. All of these men, whether they squeezed the trigger on a high-powered rifle, set the timer on a bomb or used their authority to send others out to commit horrific and unspeakable acts of cruelty, are featured in this book. The Trigger Men takes the reader inside the labyrinthine world of terrorist cells and highly classified counter-terrorism units of British Military Intelligence. The individual stories are described in gripping, unflinching detail and show how the terrorists carried out their ghastly work. Dillon also explores the ideology of the cult of the gunmen and the greed and hatred that motivated assassins in their killing sprees. There are penetrating insights into the mindset of the most infamous assassins: their social and historical conditioning, their callousness......

    Reporting the Troubles brings together over sixty stories from the journalists who were on the ground. This remarkable, important book spans the thirty-year conflict, from the day in 1969 that the violence erupted on Duke Street in Derry, to the Good Friday Agreement and the Omagh bomb. Contributions include: Anne Cadwallader (BBC, RTE, Reuters) on the 1983 Maze breakout, Denis Murray (former BBC Ireland Correspondent) on one of the less-remembered deaths of the Troubles that has stayed with him, John Irvine (ITV News Senior International Correspondent) on covering ten funerals in one week, Paul Faith (Press Association) on taking the famous `Chuckle Brothers' photograph of McGuinness and Paisley, Conor O'Clery (Irish Times) on Ian Paisley, Martin Bell (BBC) on working in Belfast, and staying at the Europa one of the many times it was bombed, Kate Adie (BBC) on a lesson learned from the Troubles, David McKittrick (BBC, Independent) on the peace line.

    It’s the bloodiest year of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ and sixteen-year-old Eimear O’Callaghan, a Catholic schoolgirl in Andersonstown, West Belfast, bears witness in her new diary. What follows is a unique and touching perspective into the daily life of an ordinary teenager coming of age in extraordinary times. The immediacy of the diary entries are complemented with the author’s mature reflections written forty years later. The result is poignant, shocking, wryly funny and above all, explicitly honest.This unique publication comes at a time when Northern Ireland is desperately struggling to come to terms with the legacy of its turbulent past. It provides a powerful juxtaposition of the ordinary, everyday concerns of a sixteen-year-old girl – who could be any girl in any British or Irish city at this time, worrying about her hair, exams, clothes, discos – with the unimaginable horror of a society slowly disintegrating before her eyes, a seemingly inevitable descent into a bloody civil war, fuelled by sectarianism, hatred and fear.Written by an experienced broadcaster and journalist, Belfast Days demonstrates how one person’s examination of her own ‘story’, upon rediscovering her 1972 diary on the eve of the publication of the Saville Report, provided her with a new perspective on one of the darkest periods in twentieth century British and Irish history.

    The stories of two undercover agents -- Brian Nelson, who worked for the Force Research Unit (FRU), aiding loyalist terrorists and murderers in their bloody work; and the man known as Stakeknife, deputy head of the IRA's infamous ‘Nutting Squad', the internal security force which tortured and killed suspected informers.

    The lecturer encouraged the class to 'see history all around you', to 'dig deeper and ask why'.It was from these humble beginnings that Catherine began researching the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in County Galway, which she had passed every day as a child on her way to school. Slowly, she began to uncover a dark secret that had been kept for many years: the bodies of 796 babies had been buried in what she believed to be a sewage tank on the grounds. But who were these children, how did they get there and who had been responsible for looking after them?Determined to ask why, Catherine doggedly set about investigating further. Her quest for justice for the Tuam babies and those who went through that home would span over a decade as, often against fierce resistance, she brought to light a terrible truth that shocked the world, impacted the Vatican, and led to a Commission of Investigation in Ireland.Part memoir, part detective story, Belonging is both Catherine's account, and that of those 796 children for whom she came to care so deeply: one of the tender love of a mother and her child; of pain and trauma; of the unforgettable screams which echoed through the corridors as children were taken from their mothers; and of a mystery which continues to this very day, as so many are still left without answers, still searching to know where, and to whom they belong.

    Based on almost 100 brand-new interviews, and told with McKay’s trademark passion and conviction, this is essential reading.Containing interviews with politicians, former paramilitaries, victims and survivors, business people, religious leaders, community workers, young people, writers and others, it tackles controversial issues, such as Brexit, paramilitary violence, the border, the legacy of the Troubles, same-sex marriage and abortion, RHI, and the possibility of a United Ireland, and explores social justice issues and campaigns, particularly the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights.

    He served with the Legion in Cambodia and Bosnia, then returned to civilian life, but military habits would not allow him to settle.His need for intense excitement and extreme danger drove him back to the lifestyle he knew and loved, and using his Legion training, he became a ?hidden soldierOCO by opting for security missions in Iraq and Haiti.In Iraq he was the sole survivor of an ambush in no manOCOs land between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, the most dangerous place on earth.An intense, exciting and vivid account of extraordinary and sometimes horrific events, "Hidden Soldier" lifts the veil on the dark and shadowy world of security contractors and what the situation is really like in Iraq as well as other trouble spots.This bestseller also includes photographs taken by Padraig OOCOKeeffe while he was a Legionnaire and when he was in Iraq."

    Sentenced to 539 years' imprisonment for IRA crimes including two murders and many terrorist attacks, O'Callaghan served six of those years before being released by royal prerogative.The reason? For the previous sixteen years O'Callaghan had been the most highly placed informer within the ranks of the IRA and had fed the Irish Garda with countless pieces of invaluable information. He prevented the assassination of the Prince and Princess of Wales at a London theatre; he sabotaged operations, explained strategy and caused the arrests of many IRA members. He has done more than any individual to unlock the code of silence which governs the IRA's members, and in effect made it possible to fight the war against the terrorists.The Informer is the story of a courageous life lived under the constant threat of discovery and its fatal consequences. It is the story of a very modern hero, who is not without sin but who has done and is doing everything in his power, and at whatever personal cost, to atone for the past.

    Uncover their mesmerizing, realistic stories of combat, courage, and distress in readable and balanced stories told from the front lines.Witness the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced U-boat packs and strategic bombing, unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners.World War I reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of our modern world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole populations lost their national identities.If you like gripping, authentic accounts of life and combat during WWI, then you won't want to miss WWI: Tales from the Trenches.

    The book includes an account of the murder of the Irish crime reporter, Veronica Guerin.

    That afternoon she went with her fiancée to watch Tipperary and Dublin play a gaelic football match at Croke Park. Across the city nine men lay dead in their beds after a synchronised IRA attack designed to cripple British intelligence services in Ireland. Trucks of police and military rumbled through the city streets as hundreds of people clamoured at the metal gates of Dublin Castle seeking refuge. Some of them were headed for Croke Park.Award-winning journalist and author Michael Foley recounts the extraordinary story of Bloody Sunday in Croke Park and the 90 seconds of shooting that changed Irish history forever. In a deeply intimate portrait he tells for the first time the stories of those killed, the police and military that were in Croke Park that day, and the families left shattered in its aftermath, all against the backdrop of a fierce conflict that stretched from the streets of Dublin and the hedgerows of Tipperary to the halls of Westminster.

    Dan Breen was to become the best known of them. At first they were condemned on all sides. They became outlaws and My Fight describes graphically what life was like 'on the run, ' with 'an army at one's heels and a thousand pounds on one's head'. A burning belief in their cause sustained them through many a dark and bitter day and slowly support came from the people

    Despite his family’s strong republican ties and his own attempt to join the IRA, Hartnett shocked family and friends when he changed allegiance and joined the British Armed Forces. In 2001 Hartnett returns to his native Ireland, but this time as a member of the British Army’s most secretive covert counter-terrorist unit in Northern Ireland, Joint Communications Unit Northern Ireland aka JCU-NI, the FRU, 14 Intelligence Company, or simply ‘The Det’. For the next three years Hartnett is directly involved in some of the highest profile events of that period, from the arrest of John Hannan for the bombing of the BBC in London, to the tragic murder of David Caldwell; the prevention of the murder of Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair and some of the biggest blunders by British Intelligence in the history of the Troubles, including the true story behind the murders of Corporals Howes and Wood at an IRA funeral in 1988. ‘Charlie One’, the call sign for the most wanted targets of British Intelligence operations in NI, documents the journey of an Irish Republican serving in Britain’s most secretive counter-terrorism unit. Filled with roller coaster emotions and explosive revelations of British Intelligence covert capabilities and operations, Charlie One provides a truly unique, detailed and unbiased account of the secret war fought on the streets of Northern Ireland.

    Within an hour, they had killed an off-duty policeman in front of his young son.In Anatomy of a Killing, award-winning journalist Ian Cobain documents the hours leading up to the killing, and the months and years of violence, attrition and rebellion surrounding it. Drawing on interviews with those most closely involved, as well as court files, police notes, military intelligence reports, IRA strategy papers, memoirs and government records, this is a unique perspective on the Troubles, and a revelatory work of investigative journalism.

    With clarity and objectivity, Coogan examines the IRA's origins, its foreign links, bombing campaigns, hunger strikes and sectarian violence and its role in the latest attempts to bring peace to Northern Ireland. Meticulously researched and featuring interviews with past and present members of the organization, this is a compelling account of modern Irish history.