Torn Apart

Fifty Years of the Troubles, 1969-2019

Ken Wharton

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780750988155
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9780750991117
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Irish History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedications
• Foreword by Dr Aaron Edwards
• Acknowledgements
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• Prologue
• 1 The First and Second Days
• 2 The First British Soldiers Die
• 3 The Rise of the Provisional Irish Republican Army
• 4 Atrocities (1970–79)
• 5 Internment
• 6 The Bloodiest Year: 1972
• 7 The Police
• 8 Loyalist Paramilitaries
• 9 ‘The Nutting Squad’ and Informers
• 10 Mainland Attacks
• 11 March 1988: A Month of Infamy
• 12 Atrocities (1980–94)
• 13 Biting Back: Undercover Ambushes
• 14 Eight Days of Insanity: October 1993
• 15 Fifty Years On
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1 Fatalities by Year, 1969–98
• Appendix 2 Military Fatalities by Regiment
• Appendix 3 Prime Ministers Who Deployed Troops to Northern Ireland
• Appendix 4 Mainland European Fatalities
• Select Bibliography