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

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Books about the Troubles always read as highly ambitious to me, because of how extensive and complicated a political conflict it proved to be; indeed, I must admit that there were several moments when I first started reading this where I worried if Rory Carroll was casting his critical-authorial net too far and wide, worried if the book would be overwhelmed by the full-scale, unrelenting intensity of the subject. Boy, was I wrong! The connections and links that Carroll draws between seemingly unrelated events paints an incredibly well-rounded, multi-faceted, and, yes, overwhelming (but in the best way!) picture of this decades-long 'war'—its gains and its costs, its deadly effects on ordinary people, and the price of political power. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. The book begins with Lord Mountbatten’s assassination by the IRA in 1979, an event which first drew the newly elected Thatcher into the Northern Ireland conflict. 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. Rory Carroll, a Dubliner who reported from Belfast in the mid-1990s, when Northern Ireland’s Troubles were winding down—and is now the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent—has knitted together an impressive array of sources to tell, for the first time, the complete story of the plot to kill the British leader. He chronicles, too, the hunt to identify and then catch Mr Magee and his accomplices.

I wanted you to imagine you were Margaret Thatcher at Chequers or the cabinet table taking decisions, she was doing her best as she saw it. 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.

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The interior of the Napoleon suite bathroom at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, after the bombing. Photograph: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

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.

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The author draws on his decades long experience as a seasoned journalist covering war torn countries and nonstate violent actors to weave the story. 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. 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. 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

Less than three months later IRA bombs targeting Falklands veterans killed 11 soldiers in London’s Hyde Park and Regent’s Park on the same day. And just over two years after that, Mrs Thatcher narrowly escaped death when the IRA bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton, demolishing the bathroom of her first-floor suite, killing five people close to her and seriously injuring 33 others. It was a moment when “history pirouetted”, writes Dubliner Rory Carroll, Ireland correspondent of the Guardian newspaper, in this extraordinary account of how the IRA planned the Brighton bombing, who the bomber was and how he was caught. After a brief overview / history of the ‘Troubles’ and an even more superficial account of Thatcher’s rise to the top the author gives a detailed & fascinating account of the plot to bomb the Brighton hotel. In certain places the book reads like a well crafted crime thriller! It really did keep me engaged and I was never bored when reading it. If you’re at all interested in the IRA, Margaret Thatcher, the Troubles, or history generally, this is a MUST read. 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

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The gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher, 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.

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. He begins with the infamous execution of Lord Mountbatten in 1979 - for which the IRA took full responsibility - before tracing the rise of Margaret Thatcher, her response to the 'Troubles' in Ireland and the chain of events that culminated in the hunger strikes of 1981 and the death of 10 republican prisoners, including Bobby Sands. From that moment on Thatcher became an enemy of the IRA - and the organisation swore revenge. The aftermath of the IRA bombing at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, on October 12 1984. Picture: PA Wire. If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us 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 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. 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.