Government considers buying rights to book chronicling 3,700 deaths in Troubles

The Government will consider buying the rights to the out-of-print Lost Lives book that details each of the 3,700 people who died in the Troubles and making it available online as a cross-community memorial.

Efforts will also be made to make it a joint initiative with the Northern Ireland Executive.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Colm Brophy has said "the Government would be happy to explore how we can be helpful, perhaps through a collaborative effort, in ensuring this hugely valuable work remains available for the future".

And former unionist senator Ian Marshall who organised an Oireachtas screening of the Lost Lives documentary based on the book, has said he will contact Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill about working with the Government to jointly acquire the rights as an all-island initiative.

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Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles was first published in 1999 and is seen as a “non-contentious” and objective record of the life and circumstances of the death of each of the victims of the Troubles.

It was researched and written over a number of years by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea and last re-printed 12 years ago.

The 1,600 page tome is out of print, the original Scottish publisher Mainstream in Edinburgh is no longer in existence and copies of the book that are available online are offered for sale for hundreds of euro.

Lost Lives is seen as a chronicle of the Troubles acceptable to both sides as a collective legacy.

Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan describing the book as a “monument to the people who died” raised concerns in the Dáil this week that the book will not be re-printed and that its objective record would be lost.

“In many instances, the dead are being invoked for a particular political purpose. There is nothing wrong with that, but legacy issues have become part of the territory on which political division in Northern Ireland now operates.”

The Dublin Bay South TD said if the Government let the opportunity pass it will be too “contentious and difficult for us to get any collective agreement between communities in Northern Ireland as to how we can put together one complete memorial for all the people who died”.

Mr O'Callaghan said the idea came from an article in The Irish Times by Fintan O'Toole who suggested the rights should be bought and the book made available free online.

Mr O’Callaghan said it is “written without judgment, political objectivity or a narrative. It simply records the stories of the men, women and children who were killed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.”

He said that if State was in a position to buy the rights to the book “I believe it would achieve something in trying to ensure we have some monument, that the voices of those who died would be recognised”.

Mr Marshall said it was a “fantastic idea” for both governments to acquire the rights to the book as he noted one copy of it was for sale online for £1,400. He said there were major issues around legacy. “It is so easy to create offence,” he said adding that the book chronicled the facts in an objective fashion.

The Minister described the book as “a work of both extraordinary scholarship and great empathy”. It served as a “powerful reminder of the dark events of our recent history and demonstrates how crucial it is to ensure the successful and sustained operation of all the institutions of the Good Friday agreement”.