Customer Reviews:
 The Best Book Yet Written on Northern Ireland November 16, 2001
Seosamh (Manhattan)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
McCann is a journalist and socialist, an activist in the People's Democracy movement in the late 1960's and now a memeber of the Socialist Workers Party. This book brings to life and contextualises the origins and progress of Britian's war in Ireland. It is an enthralling read, backed by personal experiences of the collapsing Stormont regime, the introduction of internment, Bloody Sunday and Britain's diasterous militarisation of northern society, the armed response by Republicans and the ensuing events. The 2000 version has a pertinent update and further contextualises the ceasefires, the Good Friday Agreement, the rightard shift within Sinn Fein, internationalisation of the conflict, the entrenchment of sectarian politics and bemoans the opportunities for class struggle missed in the intervening years. This is a MUST READ for anyone either living in, active in or interested in the political diaster that is the state of northern Ireland.
unblinkered richness March 7, 2005
I. McLarnon (belfast)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
McCann's War and an Irish Town is an essential read for anyone determined to look beyond the surreptitious vagaries of the mainstream press when they report on Northern Ireland. This goes hand in hand with his commentary on how the republic also became a country dominated by a conservative and inward looking ruling class. The most recent edition attempts to explain why the armed conflict was continuing, then over twenty years since its outbreak.McCann was a leading figure in the Northern Ireland civil (NICRA) rights movement. This gives him a unique authority in detailing how events unfolded in the run up to the summer of 1968. The communal politicians helped inflame the situation and the armed wing of the orange state the RUC forced nicra the only means the catholic dispossessed had of voicing their very real grievances. It seamed that the only reasonable thing to do in the situation they faced was to turn to armed struggle as this was the only option they were being offered. The true value of the work however lies in the second part of the book where the historical reasons for Western Europe's poorest workforce being divided is unambiguously detailed. Other Marxist authors fall into the communal trap and see either the Catholics as being the colonial oppressed and the Protestants as the dupes to the British state or what are basically inversion of this scenario on behalf of the 'other' side. McCann shows how the communal divisions are understandable in light of how both the British and Irish ruling classes deliberately offered one side favourable circumstances over the other. Hence it is understandable that the protestant working class could not accept the home rule movement when it became dominated by the Bishops and Irish petit bourgeois who wanted to cut economic ties to Britain in order to grow their own native industries. A death sentence for their jobs as well as their religious liberties. These fears where confirmed by the Irish republic who pursued the disastrous economic nationalism and openly instituted Rome Rule. The justified fears of the protestant working class caused an antagonism towards their fellow catholic workers and the discrimination which had always existed was exenterated. Giving the catholic working class good reason to look to conservative nationalism an latter to want to join the republic. McCann also demonstrates that the Northern Ireland conflict is also due to a failure of socialist to build a purely working class party with an internationalist outlook. He details how the history of the Irish labour movement has always ended up looking to various communal politicians who have been prepared to speak in radical terms but are really destined to betray the cause of labour to a vision which is intolerable to one part of the working class. Thus causing the latest reawakening of communal divisions.
 A period of turbulence and hope December 28, 2003
Gareth Smyth (Beirut)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A book of two halves - a second half of analysis derived largely from the author's Marxism, and a first half of compelling reportage written from the heart of the struggle for civil rights and social justice in Derry city in the late 1960s. McCann remains to this day an engaged, humane and perceptive observer and participant in the politics of the north of Ireland. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand a crucial period of great turbulence and hope.
|
