{"product_id":"a-secret-history-of-the-ira-9780141028767","title":"A Secret History of the IRA","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe 1969 split between the Provisionals and the Official IRA is where A Secret History of the IRA begins, as Ed Moloney traces the Provisional movement from that break onwards. In Moloney's account Gerry Adams is the central figure, followed from his early years in Belfast to the reshaping of the Provisionals and the turn to electoral politics through Sinn Fein. Adams has always denied IRA membership, as The Nation's review notes. It is a book about the IRA's leadership for readers interested in the history of the Provisionals and the peace process.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Sunday Times review read it as a political history of the republican movement, from the Libyan arms shipments of the 1980s to Sinn Fein's 1998 decision to take seats at Stormont. It tells the secret history of the IRA and the peace process, and Publishers Weekly reported that the book dates secret contacts between the republican leadership and the governments to 1982, earlier than previous accounts. This Penguin paperback is the 2007 second edition, updated to cover the uneasy peace up to that year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEd Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA was reviewed on both sides of the Atlantic after it first appeared in 2002. Deaglan O Donghaile in the Sunday Times called it \"the most compelling and comprehensive account of the organisation to date\", though he wanted more on criminality and punishment attacks. Eamonn McCann in The Nation described it as the best book yet on the Provisional IRA.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoloney was born in England in 1948, went to school in Northern Ireland and was Northern Editor of The Irish Times and later of the Sunday Tribune in Dublin. He was named Irish Journalist of the Year in 1999. He died in New York on 17 October 2025, aged 77.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ed Moloney","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56338996527482,"sku":"9780141028767","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9780141028767.jpg?v=1765918999","url":"https:\/\/belfastbooks.co.uk\/pl\/products\/a-secret-history-of-the-ira-9780141028767","provider":"Belfast Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}