{"title":"Troubles Books","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"kincora-britains-shame-mountbatten-mi5-the-belfast-boys-home-sex-abuse-scandal-and-the-british-cover-up-9781785375545","title":"Kincora: Britain's Shame : Mountbatten, MI5, the Belfast Boys’ Home Sex Abuse Scandal and the British Cover-Up","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe boys sent to Kincora, a home in east Belfast that ran from 1958 to 1980, are at the centre of this book by Chris Moore. It deals with the sexual abuse they suffered there and with claims that it was covered up. Moore draws on survivors' testimony and on help from George Caskey, the retired chief superintendent who ran the police investigation. It's for readers interested in the history of Kincora Belfast, including the Mountbatten Kincora allegations raised in the title.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoore calls Kincora Britain's shame, and his title also names Lord Mountbatten and MI5. Robin Ramsay, reviewing for Lobster magazine, traces four strands, Moore's decades of digging, how three abusers came to run the home, William McGrath and fringe loyalist politics, and the role of MI5. The book's allegations about Mountbatten and Kincora rest on Moore's reporting of survivors' accounts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn January 2017 the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, chaired by Sir Anthony Hart, found no credible evidence of a paedophile ring of Establishment figures at the home. Moore's book challenges that finding. He told the Andersonstown News in September 2025 that he didn't believe the full truth had yet emerged, as official files stay closed until 2065 and 2085.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoore began reporting in Northern Ireland in 1968, joined BBC Northern Ireland in 1979 and has followed the story since the early 1980s. His earlier The Kincora Scandal book came out in 1996, and Paul Foot in the London Review of Books judged its main conclusion hard to argue with, though he questioned its reliance on police sources. This Chris Moore Kincora account is published in paperback by Merrion Press.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9781785375545?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chris Moore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55706699137402,"sku":"9781785375545","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9781785375545.jpg?v=1765919023"},{"product_id":"stakeknifes-dirty-war-the-inside-story-of-scappaticci-the-iras-nutting-squad-and-the-british-spooks-who-ran-the-war-9781785374470","title":"Stakeknife's Dirty War : The Inside Story of Scappaticci, the IRA's Nutting Squad and the British Spooks Who Ran the War","description":"\u003cp\u003eFreddie Scappaticci, the Belfast man widely alleged to have been the British agent codenamed Stakeknife, is at the centre of this Stakeknife book by Richard O'Rawe. Stakeknife's Dirty War also looks at the IRA's internal security unit, known as the Nutting Squad, and at how British intelligence ran its agents, including through the Army's Force Research Unit. It is for readers interested in informers, agents and the IRA during the Troubles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eO'Rawe drew on interviews with former IRA volunteers, many of them anonymous, and on his own experience. He estimates that Scappaticci was involved in 35 killings and argues that his handlers knew of killings in advance, claims the Irish Times and the Irish Echo present as his own. Scappaticci always denied being Stakeknife, and he died in England in 2023 without being convicted of any Troubles related offence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eO'Rawe is a former IRA member who was interned in 1973, spoke for the hunger strikers and later worked for Sinn Fein. He told the Irish Echo that his IRA past helped him gain the trust of former volunteers. His earlier books include Blanketmen, a prison memoir of the hunger strike.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConor Lenihan, a former Irish government minister, reviewed it in Village magazine under the headline \"Close as we'll ever get to the truth\". Kevin Kiely gave it a strongly positive review in History Ireland. Since this Stakeknife book appeared in 2023, the Operation Kenova interim report of March 2024 found that Stakeknife probably cost more lives than he saved, without naming him. The final Kenova report in December 2025 did not confirm Scappaticci as the agent, because of the government's neither confirm nor deny policy, but said he had told his wife and an associate that he was.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9781785374470?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Richard O'Rawe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55730656936314,"sku":"9781785374470","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9781785374470.jpg?v=1754659013"},{"product_id":"in-the-shadow-of-history-sinn-fein-1926-70-9781526152954","title":"In the Shadow of History : Sinn Fein 1926-70","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the Shadow of History sets out to explain what happened to Sinn Fein in the decades after 1926, when a party that had stood at the centre of the revolutionary years of 1919 to 1923 found itself on the edge of Irish politics. It's a history of the party through those years, of interest to readers following the story of Irish republicanism in the period before the Troubles. This paperback of Agnes Maillot's study was published by Manchester University Press in September 2021, following the first hardback edition of July 2015.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book is arranged in four chapters. The first covers 1923 to 1932 and the pull between pragmatism and principle. The second, on 1932 to 1945, is framed as a time of oblivion for the party. The third looks at the Sinn Fein Funds Case of 1941 to 1948. The fourth examines Sinn Fein's relationship with the IRA from 1948 to 1969, the year the conflict in Northern Ireland broke out. So the account closes just as the Troubles begin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcross the four chapters of In the Shadow of History Agnes Maillot draws on newspaper reports, minutes of the party's Standing Committee and interviews she carried out herself. She is Associate Professor in Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University, where her main research area is the conflict in Northern Ireland. Her earlier book on the party, New Sinn Fein, was published by Routledge in 2005. She went on to write Rebels in Government, published by Manchester University Press in 2022. Reviewing that later book in the Revue Francaise de Civilisation Britannique, Philippe Cauvet of the Universite de Poitiers described her as an expert in Irish republicanism.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Agnes Maillot","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57158416367994,"sku":"9781526152954","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9781526152954.jpg?v=1786476049"},{"product_id":"four-shots-in-the-night-a-true-story-of-stakeknife-murder-and-justice-in-northern-ireland-9781529426779","title":"Four Shots in the Night : A True Story of Stakeknife, Murder and Justice in Northern Ireland","description":"\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9781529426779?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn 26th May 1986, the body of an undercover British agent was found by the side of a muddy lane, with a rope tied around its wrists and tape over each eye. Years later, it was reported that this murder might have been carried out by another undercover British agent, known as 'Stakeknife'. In 2016, a detective began to investigate this case, and would soon find himself running the largest murder investigation in British history. In a compulsive blend of investigative journalism and true crime thriller, Henry Hemming exposes the parallel worlds of the IRA and British intelligence through the lives of those inextricably bound up in both. He reveals the bravery of those who were crucial in ending the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the bloodiest and longest-running conflict in recent British history, and the determination of one detective in his dogged search for justice and the truth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinner of the Historical Writers' Association Non-Fiction Crown 2024. Now updated with a new chapter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'The best book about the Troubles since Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing' - Wall Street Journal\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor: Henry Hemming\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003ePost-war history, Military history, Military intelligence\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 27 Mar 2025 by Quercus Publishing.\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Henry Hemming","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57309821993338,"sku":"9781529426779","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9781529426779.jpg?v=1790463938"},{"product_id":"stakeknife-britain-s-secret-agents-in-ireland-9780862788438","title":"Stakeknife : Britain's Secret Agents in Ireland","description":"\u003cp\u003eIreland during the Troubles is the setting for Stakeknife, a book about two agents run by British intelligence. One, known by the codename in the title, worked inside the IRA's internal security unit. The other, Brian Nelson, was a British army agent in the Ulster Defence Association. It is for readers interested in the history of British intelligence during the Troubles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Stakeknife Greg Harkin and Martin Ingram write some chapters each and some jointly. Ingram's sections explain how the RUC, 22 SAS, 14 Company, the army's Force Research Unit and MI5 divided intelligence and agent handling. The book traces Nelson's career from the Black Watch to his death and argues his handlers crossed ethical lines in the late 1980s. It also claims 35 deaths occurred during the IRA agent's time in that unit, and alleges he helped draw Danny Morrison into a 1990 kidnap charge, which the Irish Democrat reviewer called its most controversial allegation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGreg Harkin and Martin Ingram come from journalism and army intelligence respectively. Ingram is a pen name for a former Force Research Unit member whose earlier disclosures in the Sunday Times and the People led the Ministry of Defence to seek injunctions. Harkin was Irish editor of The People in May 2003, when newspapers named Freddie Scappaticci as the agent, which Scappaticci denied. Press Gazette reported that Harkin interviewed him at his west Belfast home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the Irish Democrat in 2004, Paul Donovan read the book as further evidence of state collusion, but judged its suggestion that the agent shaped republican peace process strategy probably overstated. Operation Kenova's interim report in March 2024 concluded the agent probably cost more lives than he saved, though Reuters noted it did not name him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9780862788438?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Greg Harkin, Martin Ingram","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57309822222714,"sku":"9780862788438","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9780862788438.jpg?v=1790463942"},{"product_id":"enemies-within-the-explosive-true-story-of-johnny-mad-dog-adair-northern-ireland-s-most-infamous-paramilitary-godfather-9781785375811","title":"Enemies Within : The Explosive True Story of Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair, Northern Ireland's Most Infamous Paramilitary Godfather","description":"\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9781785375811?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnemies Within explores Adair's rise from neo-Nazi skinhead to leader of the notorious Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover-name for the assassination wing of the Ulster Defence Association, a Protestant paramilitary group that killed hundreds of people during the Troubles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith unprecedented access to Adair and his associates, critically acclaimed author and counter-terrorism expert Aaron Edwards paints a vivid picture of how the loyalist godfather built up an extensive terror network that was at one time responsible for more deaths than the IRA. Using his extensive contacts in the paramilitary underworld and security services, Edwards reveals for the first time the inside story of the race against time to bring down Adair in a bid to save the peace process, not once but three times. He also discovers startling new evidence of how attempts to remove Adair with informers inadvertently ushered in a return of UDA gangsterism that continues to pose serious challenges to peace and stability in Northern Ireland today.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnemies Within is the gripping, no-holds-barred story of loyalty, murder and betrayal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor: Aaron Edwards\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eMemoirs, European history, 20th century history, Military history\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 16 Sep 2026 by Irish Academic Press Ltd.\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Aaron Edwards","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57309822255482,"sku":"9781785375811","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/18372943482823.jpg?v=1790463945"},{"product_id":"neither-confirm-nor-deny-british-intelligence-lawless-agent-running-and-the-suppression-of-truth-9781785375804","title":"Neither Confirm Nor Deny : British Intelligence, Lawless Agent Running and the Suppression of Truth","description":"\u003cp\u003eSet in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Neither Confirm Nor Deny by John Ware looks at how the British Army, MI5 and the RUC ran agents inside paramilitary groups, and the moral and legal questions that followed. It centres on two men, Brian Nelson, intelligence officer of the loyalist UDA who worked for British Army intelligence, and Freddie Scappaticci, the IRA man widely alleged to be the agent codenamed Stakeknife. The British government has never officially confirmed who Stakeknife was. The Irish Times review calls it a weighty but accessible study for readers interested in the Troubles, state intelligence and the ethics of espionage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis neither confirm or deny book takes its name from the government's policy of not saying who was an agent, a stance the UK Supreme Court has upheld. Ware argues that governments and intelligence agencies repeatedly put gathering intelligence ahead of prosecuting crime, pointing to a 1981 MI5 decision that gave intelligence priority over criminal justice. He also covers Sir John Stevens's collusion investigations, the 2025 Kenova report, the 1989 killing of Pat Finucane and disputes over disclosure to bereaved families.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJohn Ware began in journalism in 1971 and was based in Belfast from 1974 to 1977. He worked for Granada's World in Action and became a long serving BBC Panorama reporter, covering Northern Ireland for decades. He received the James Cameron Prize for journalism in 2004.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReviewing it in The Irish Times, Harry Higgins called it timely and important, rich in detail and new revelations, though not without flaws. He described the neither confirm nor deny doctrine as \"less about protecting national security than preventing national embarrassment\". In the Irish Examiner, Diarmuid O'Donovan predicted it will remain the definitive account until British intelligence files from the period are released.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9781785375804?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John Ware","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57309828776314,"sku":"9781785375804","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/18372873482823.jpg?v=1790464595"},{"product_id":"the-northern-bank-job-the-heist-and-how-they-got-away-with-it-9781035917969","title":"The Northern Bank Job : The Heist and How They Got Away with It","description":"\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9781035917969?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe true story of one of the biggest bank heists in Irish and British history, and the questions that remain. On a Sunday evening in December 2004, two young men were at home with their families. Both worked for the Northern Bank's cash centre in Belfast. They heard knocks on their front doors. Within minutes masked men invaded their homes, overpowered their loved ones and disabled their electronic devices. The two bank officials were given a choice. Do what they were told or their families would die.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe following day, £26.5 million was stolen from the Northern Bank, the biggest cash heist in Irish and British history. Only one organisation had the ability to execute such an audacious, minutely-planned robbery, the Irish Republican Army. But the IRA was supposedly demobilised as a result of the Good Friday Agreement signed six years earlier.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet no one has ever been convicted of any crime relating to the heist. Glenn Patterson builds on his popular BBC podcast to shed new light on the infamous heist, the victims, the organisers and the abortive, at times comically inept, attempts to find the people who carried it out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor: Glenn Patterson\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eTrue crime\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 11 Jun 2026 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Glenn Patterson","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57309828841850,"sku":"9781035917969","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9781035917969.jpg?v=1790464599"},{"product_id":"milkman-9780571338757","title":"Milkman","description":"\u003cp data-bb-audio=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eListen while you read.\u003c\/strong\u003e The audiobook is on Libro.fm, and part of every sale comes back to our shop. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/bb-listen.thomasjohnjunk.workers.dev\/a\/9780571338757?s=product\"\u003eGet the audiobook\u003c\/a\u003e, and it opens the edition sold in your country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinner of the Booker Prize. Number one in the Irish Times list of the best Irish books of the twenty-first century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor: Anna Burns\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eModern \u0026amp; contemporary fiction\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 20 Sep 2018 by Faber \u0026amp; Faber.\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Anna Burns","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57309829071226,"sku":"9780571338757","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9780571338757.jpg?v=1790464611"},{"product_id":"the-dirty-war-bundle-four-books","title":"The Dirty War Bundle: four books","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis dirty war book set gathers four books on both sides of the dirty war in Northern Ireland, the hidden side of the Troubles where agents, informers and paramilitaries met.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnemies Within by Aaron Edwards tells the story of the loyalist Johnny Adair. Voices from the Grave by Ed Moloney tells the war as two men lived it, in their own words.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStakeknife by Greg Harkin and Martin Ingram centres on agents run by British intelligence during the Troubles, including the agent codenamed Stakeknife. Killing Rage is Eamon Collins's own account of his years in the Provisional IRA, written with Mick McGovern.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRead together, the four books show the conflict from loyalist, republican and intelligence points of view.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Belfast Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57405703520634,"sku":"BUNDLE-DIRTYWAR-01","price":63.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/18372943482823_ab082c25-0a06-4b65-a182-a90398876d0f.jpg?v=1791855735"}],"url":"https:\/\/belfastbooks.co.uk\/es\/collections\/troubles-books.oembed","provider":"Belfast Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}