Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown

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When do you think the troubles in Ireland started? I bet you get wrong answers, in 1169 Henry II invaded, then Henry VIII, James I, Oliver Cornwell. The millions who died in the potato famine and Queen Victoria who cut out any help. The big 1915 divide its endless. I remember this event very well. It was 1984, the fifteenth year of the Troubles, and London seemed to have endless bomb scares (and bombs, some of which are covered in detail here) during that period. The author was twelve and living in Dublin. I was eighteen, living in London, my father born and brought up in Cork. I can honestly say that it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a book so much. Given the subject matter, perhaps ‘enjoyed’ is not the correct word to use - but certainly engaging and beyond interesting. The book is marketed as ‘a blend of true crime and political history’. Most true crime writing takes crimes that are obscure or opaque and uses them to illustrate wider points about the society in which they took place. There was, though, never much mystery about the Brighton bomb. Many understood what had happened as soon as they heard the bang. Magee was eventually arrested and convicted but he was released from prison after the Good Friday Agreement. He wrote a book and spoke freely about what he had done – he once lectured to undergraduates in my own department. Carroll has conducted over a hundred interviews but he does not really have much to add to what we already know about the Northern Ireland Troubles. At times, his account is padded with banal detail. We are told twice that down the corridor from the room in which Magee was setting the bomb, a guest was paying a photographer ‘to take erotic portraits of his female companion’. One sometimes senses that an author desperate to reach his daily quota of words is raising his eyes to heaven: ‘an azure sky unfurled over the Atlantic’; ‘the sun hung in a cloudless sky over London’; ‘a patch of sky [was] paling over the Palace Pier.’

its difficult not to compare this book to "say nothing" --both extremely thoroughly researched, exploring the social and political evolution of the ira over time, focusing on specific leading "characters" to drive the narrative, balancing informing and storytelling. that being said, i think they compliment each other well, they build on each other instead of serving as substitutes. because there will be fire focuses on the brighton bombing, there is a much more intense concentration on that event (of course), but also the role of thatcher and her government in the troubles in the lead-up

When will my book be dispatched from your warehouse?

This book shows you every thing that the police did inclining just how bad Southern Irish was in not helping, you almost think they supported the IRA. Moreover, some readers may be unsettled by his scrupulous even-handedness in detailing the motives and actions of terrorists and those attempting to save lives by thwarting them. He is ambivalent about two of his main characters. One is Gerry Adams, the calculating president of Sinn Féin, the Ira’s political wing: a brooding, manipulative presence who is the epitome of strategic patience. The other is Thatcher herself, who refused to be pressured by hunger strikers in the Maze prison into granting IRA inmates “special category status”. Ten of them died. This, above all, made the ira seek revenge against a woman they saw as a cruel and implacable foe. In this fascinating and compelling book, veteran journalist Rory Carroll retraces the road to the infamous Brighton bombing in 1984 – an incident that shaped the political landscape in the UK for decades to come.

To be upfront about this, I have never liked Thatcher. I think she was an evil, uncaring monster. She let the Hunger Strikers die to prove a point and after 10 men had died and it was called off, gave in to the demands which were reasonable anyway. She broke the miners union and severely damaged the social structure of Britain. It is her behavior that set in motion to move to Brexit. I appreciated that the author remained quite neutral on the central question that motivated the Troubles, fairly portraying the good and bad actions of both sides. I also liked the wide variety of sources that Carroll was able to incorporate, giving the reader a peek into the many people who were involved in setting up the bombing as well as bringing Magee to justice.

i will say this book did nothing to endear margaret thatcher to me, but i wouldnt necessarily say thats the fault of the book and moreso how my personal politics reacted to his descriptions of her. i can definitely see much more clearly why irish nationalists feel so strongly about her So, add Carroll's name to that hypothetical list of nonfiction writers who are able to encase significant, highly-charged historical events in a palatable, easy-to-read, novel-like narrative structure, that will appeal to both academic and amateur historians alike. I want the reader to see her as a human figure, she’s not just some icon with a halo of hair and a stern voice. She was also a human being and a politician.” I do remember 1984 when bomb went off but didn't know just how bad it was. Perhaps been a Labour man in my 20s in house full of Thatcher haters you did not realize that it was important. KILLING THATCHER is the gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher and to wiping out the British Cabinet - an extraordinary assassination attempt linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles and the most daring conspiracy against the Crown since the Gunpowder Plot.

Apart from Magee and Thatcher, the person who looms largest in this book is former Sinn Féin president, TD and abstentionist MP Gerry Adams. It was Adams who told Magee and others in Long Kesh that they could defeat the British if they built a political movement and retooled the IRA for a “long war”. He declined to speak to Carroll. Later, the 1981 hunger strikes are described as the “animating force” that led to the Provisional IRA actively seeking revenge against the Prime Minister.If you want to truly test yourself as an author, an excellent prompt is, "Try to write a book about the Troubles without taking a side." Rory Carroll's There Will Be Fire is proof that it can be done and done very well at that. Famously the IRA statement after the bombing said the following, and it was very much taken seriously by the Thatcher Goverment. The one person who stands tall in this entire book is Margaret Thatcher. There is a subtle admiration even by those who are trying to bring her down and political opponents. Her entire strategy, rise in politics after two losses, her response to the Irish problem and the almost superhuman response to the bombing make you admire the person! For me, this was the first account with her as a central character and I surely would want to read a bit more of her era and stories set in this era. The book follows the story of the Brighton bombing in England in 1984. The bombing was executed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in their campaign to unite all of Ireland and very nearly killed Margaret Thatcher. Most of the book follows the bomber and then the police attempts to identify and arrest him. This is the very short version of an extremely long story.