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Title: Those Are Real Bullets: Bloody Sunday, Derry, 1972 by Peter Pringle, Philip Jacobson ISBN: 0-8021-3879-9 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 12 March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Bloody Sunday, Bullet by Bullet
Comment: In terms of sheer body counts, Bloody Sunday was not the worst day of the Troubles, as a number of IRA and Loyalist atrocities were to kill more people. However, the negative impact of Bloody Sunday on the course of the Troubles was incalculable. The assault on a civil rights march of Derry Catholics by the Parachute Regiment was intended to round up "Derry young hooligans," with the expectation of a few exemplary Catholic casualties, while reasserting the rule of English law in the "no-go" Catholic ghetto of the Bogside. Instead, 13 unarmed youths and middle-aged men were killed, and the British Army found itself in an operational, logistical, and public relations disaster. Political means toward achieving reform in Northern Ireland were discredited for the next 25 years, and 1972 was to become the bloodiest year of the Troubles. When the British Army arrived in the North in the 60's, they were often welcomed by Catholics as protectors from Protestant pogroms; after Bloody Sunday, every British soldier in Northern Ireland was to lead the miserable and paranoid existence of an unloved army of occupation, a constant target of unseen bombers and snipers.
The strength of Pringle and Jacobson's book is in its detail, stomach-churning at times. Although their style is journalistic and their prose plain, I supposed it must be effective, as I frequently found my eyes welling up with tears of rage. Most accounts of Bloody Sunday focus on the out-of-control nature of the Paras, but Pringle and Jacobson appropriately detail the command failures that led to the tragedy: the ill-conceived use of an elite, lethally-armed regiment to perform a police function; the decision to place civilians at risk; the lack of any overall political strategy to deal with the North; the failure of radio communications that placed the Paras beyond control of headquarters.
Aside from the political significance of Bloody Sunday, the drama of that day illuminates human nature at its best and worst: the teenaged first aid worker Eibhlin Lafferty, preventing a rabid soldier from finishing off a wounded man, asking him, "Are you mad?"; Barney McGuigan, waving a handkerchief to come to the aid of the dying Paddy Doherty, saying "They'll not shoot me" moments before his head was blown apart; Alex Nash, grievously injured running toward his dying son, Willie; the priests who braved gunfire to administer the last rites; the hapless Catholic businessman McKinney, stuck in the march on his way back from meeting an associate, shot by the army with his hands up.
I would have given the book 5 stars, but the account of the political aftermath of Bloody Sunday is perfunctory, and more follow-up on some of the participants would have been interesting. What happened to Alana Burke, who apparently had a spinal injury after been struck by a Saracen? What happened to the young soccer player whose leg was shattered by a bullet? How did the tragedy affect the lives of those involved in years to come?
There is a decent map of the Bogside included, which could have been more detailed, and might have been labelled with the location of exactly where the fatalities occurred.
Rating: 5
Summary: Highly Detailed and Definitive Work on this Awful Incident
Comment: Pringle and Jacobsen, the reporters who broke through the governmental code of silence to get to the truth behind Bloody Sunday, present a highly detailed and thoroughly engrossing report of the events of January 30, 1972, where 13 unarmed Catholic protesters were shot dead by British paratroopers. The authors provide an unflinching look at the chaos and horrifying events of that awful day. They also detail the events leading up to the incident, and pull no punches in looking at the causes and fallout from the indident. This is a must read for anyone interested in the events currently shaping Northern Ireland.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good Content, Biased View
Comment: This is a book that examines the events leading up to, and encompassed by, the infamous Bloody Sunday incident in Derry, Northern Ireland. One of the book's strong points is the level of detail with which the events of the day are examined. However, the analysis seems to be biased in favor of the nationalists. Still, there is alot of valuable content in the book as long as one recognizes that it represents but one point of view and is not necessarily impartial. For some additional information, there is some valuable commentary on Bloody Sunday in Tony Geraghty's book "The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence".
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Title: Eyewitness Bloody Sunday by Don Mullan, John Scally, Paul Greengrass ISBN: 1903582164 Publisher: Merlin Publishing Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title:Bloody Sunday ASIN: B00008DDHZ Publisher: Paramount Home Video Pub. Date: 12 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $17.39 |
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Title: The Troubles : Ireland's Ordeal and the Search for Peace by Tim Pat Coogan ISBN: 0312294182 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 05 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The IRA by Tim Pat Coogan ISBN: 0312294166 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 05 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: This Troubled Land : Voices from Northern Ireland on the Front Lines of Peace by PATRICK RUCKER ISBN: 0345446704 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 29 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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