THIS is the most gloomy and most timely book I have read in a long time. I would bracket it with Martin Dillon's The Shankill Butchers and The INLA: Deadly Division, which was also co-authored by Henry McDonald. In the wake of the IRA killings in Lurgan, it is the sort of work that would surely confirm the decision of anyone intending to emigrate from the Six Counties or indeed, from the Twenty-Six.
Apart from containing, as one might expect, a comprehensive list of sectarian slaughter going back to the establishment of the northern statelet, the book makes the following points.
Concerning ethnic cleansing:
"Loyalists have consistently alleged that in Fermanagh, in particular, the IRA is locked in a land war with its Protestant neighbours. By killing the head of Protestant households republicans are able to drive unionists out of areas, with the result that the land falls into nationalist hands, pushing them further to the east of the province
On Portadown (and ipso facto the Drumcree issue): "It should never be forgotten that, while the UVF leadership protest that they do not see the general Catholic population as their enemy, many of the rank and file, especially in polarised areas like Portadown, simply hate Catholics. A few of them would have no problem `stiffing a taig'.
Comparing the UVF and the Provisionals: "The modern UVF straddles two worlds - sectarianism and political innovation. At times the organisation can swing from one extreme to another. This dualism is also reflected within the Provisionals. There are clearly more Provos who equally loathe sectarianism and would be personally horrified at accusations that they are sectarian. But there are other Provos, especially in areas like north Belfast and Tyrone, who simply hate unionists and would be happy to expel them all from Ireland to Britain."
Not exactly cheering, then, but highly appropriate reading material nonetheless for the current marching season.
Cusack and McDonald are also good on the relationship between the loyalist paramilitaries and the bigger Unionist political parties. Amongst other episodes, they remind us of Paisley's and Robinson's active participation in the early days of the Ulster Resistance movement. Paisley led the first UR march in Co Down. Also at the head of the march was Noel Little, one of three UR activists subsequently arrested in Paris while trying to set up an arms deal with South Africans, based on the theft of plans for the Blowpipe ground-to-air missile from the British security forces.
And they quote David Ervine recalling how "a prominent DUP member expressed surprise when told that the UVF was preparing to call a ceasefire". Said Ervine: `He told me we should keep going, that we had the IRA on the run and there was no point in giving up now.
I would take issue with the authors on the inference to be drawn from their account of the Dublin bombings. The weight given to the UVF statement which concludes this episode (". . . it would have been unnecessary and, indeed, undesirable to compromise our volunteers' anonymity by using clandestine security force personnel, British or otherwise, to achieve an objective well within our capacities .. .), when taken in conjunction with certain of the authors' judgments - which are juxtaposed with an account of the murder of Senator Billy Fox by a Provisional IRA unit - does throw doubt on British intelligence involvement. The authors say: "It suits the IRA and its supporters to perpetuate the belief that the British were responsible
Republicans, to justify their cause as one of struggle against British rule in Ireland, must also play down the role of the indigenous loyalists and their struggle."
The latter statement is true, but putting it with the former has the effect of shrugging off the activities of units such as the British Army's 14th Intelligence and Security Company a little too lightly. The fact that the files on the bombings available to the Irish government do not contain evidence which would stand up in court is mentioned; it might also be observed, however, that the files compiled by John Stalker on the existence of a shoot-to-kill policy on the part of the British/RUC do not contain such evidence either. We know why, and we know what happened to that conscientious policeman.
However, apart from such judgments - and there are others, such as the glossing over of the role of the Conservatives and the Unionists in wrecking the peace process, which are seriously flawed - this is a worthwhile compilation carried out by two good journalists.