Southside provisional: my life in the IRA

x2013; Ed Moloney,journalist and author

It x2019;s August 1969 andNorthern Ireland is burning. Catholics are marching for civil rights andloyalist attacks have brought the British army onto the streets to quell theriots. In the middle-class suburbs of south Dublin, the political atmospherethat is transforming the North finds an unlikely convert in law student Kieran Conway.Determined to play his part, he goes to Londonto join the IRA.

Following his training,he participates in gun fights, bank raids and intelligence-gathering sorties inEngland, on the Irish border and in Derry, where he encounters the young MartinMcGuinness. Arrested during a British Army raid on a safe house, he isimprisoned in Crumlin Road prison, where he participates in the successfulhunger strike for political status. He is transferred to Long Kesh, where he becomesadjutant to the legendary Billy McKee. On his release, he reports back to theIRA and is appointed to its general headquarters staff, where he serves duringthe controversial ceasefire of 1975. Profoundly disillusioned by thedysfunction within the movement, he resigns in late 1975 and returns touniversity, although he rejoins the IRA in 1981 before eventually leaving forgood in 1993.

SouthsideProvisional provides candid portraits of the leading IRA figures of the1970s, alongside detailed accounts of the politics, organisation, training and operationalmethods of the IRA. Throughout the story, Conway x2019;s personal journey from teenagemiddle-class Anglophile to committed IRA activist is set against the politicaland military developments of the 1970s. He is not afraid to address difficultissues such as the IRA bombing campaign and its response to the loyalistkilling of nationalists.

Honest, fearless and frank,Southside Provisional is a fascinating first-handaccount of Conway x2019;s time within Ireland x2019;s most secretive and notoriousorganisation.