A vital examination of Nortthern Ireland fifty years since the start of the Troubles, focusing on the events of 1969. As the fiftieth anniversary of the Troubles approaches, Ken Wharton takes a thorough look at the start of the Troubles, the precursors and the explosion of violence in 1969 that would last until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and cost 50,000 casualties and nearly 2,000 civilians’ lives across Northern Ireland, the Republic and England. Utterly condemnatory of the Provisional IRA and their ilk, Wharton pulls no punches in his assessment of the situation then and seeks to dismiss apologists today. His sympathy lies first with those tasked with keeping order in the province, but also with the innocent civilians caught up in thirty years of immense bloodshed. Based on the powerful testimony of those who were there at the time, The Troubles is written with passion and detailed knowledge of the experience of the squaddie. AUTHOR: Ken Wharton is a former soldier who has committed himself to telling the history of the Troubles years without pulling punches from the standpoint of the Security Forces and innocent civilians. He has previously written The Bloodiest Year and Bloody Belfast for The History Press, was associate producer of the History Channel’s Soldiers’ Stories: Northern Ireland and has appeared on . He has also given lectures on the Troubles at Sandhurst Academy.
100 b/w images