The Volunteer: A Former IRA Man's True Story - Softcover

O'Doherty, Shane Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006276156 ISBN 13: 9780006276159

Publisher: Harpercollins/STL, 1993

Synopsis

In 1974, at the age of 20, Shane O'Doherty was sentenced to 30 life sentences at the Old Bailey. He was a terrorist who, single-handedly, had conducted a letter-bomb campaign on behalf of the IRA, during which two people had lost their hands and a further ten were injured in other ways. Previously, O'Doherty had been the IRA's chief bomb-maker. After 15 months in prison, and with the help of Quaker literature, he reached the conclusion that violence was utterly wrong. He declared his new-found pacifism in a letter to the Londonderry Press, and requested - and was allowed - to send apologies to his victims. He was eventually released from prison in 1989. In this book, O'Doherty provides an "anatomy" of an IRA terrorist and pleads for a cessation of the continuing atrocities.

About this title

Review

"No better explanation of why ordinary people turn to terrorism has ever been written. O'Doherty's compelling story is a brilliant, first-hand account of how the boy next door became a bomber. ...O'Doherty traces his early involvement with the IRA with disarming honesty and humour... Most riveting, however, is the story of his disillusion with the romance of republicanism and his complete denunciation of violence. ... The Volunteer is an excellent study of the civilian turned terrorist turned civilian." -- The Catholic Herald review, November 193, by Brian Dooley of Amnesty International.

"O'Doherty gives a graphic account of the making of an IRA man. Perhaps the book's greatest strength, and no doubt the feature that, as O'Doherty predicts, will irritate, is the emotional tone in which the story is told. He tells it how he saw and felt it at the time. When he is a stubborn, impetuous youth, he recounts as a stubborn, impetuous youth. When he is a blinkered perpetrator of callous violence, he recounts as a blinkered perpetrator of callous violence. When he becomes an older-but-wiser committed pacifist, the tone shifts yet again to reflect that incarnation."
-- The Independent, November 1993, by the European correspondent of the American Christian Science Monitor, Linda Joffee

"This is the best account of the life of an IRA volunteer yet written." -- The Irish Times, November 1993

From the Publisher

His book, first published in September 1993 by the Fount imprint of HarperCollins, became an instant bestseller in Ireland, and the film rights were initially bought by Janet Tobias, then one of Diane Sawyer's producers on ABC's Prime Time Live. The book is being re-published in Spain in May 2008 by Libros Libres, and is shortly being made available as an audio book.

There is no doubt that, given his active service record within the IRA, his book and courageous speaking on television and radio about the need to end the armed struggle prepared the ground for activists to embrace the democratic process.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harpercollins/STL
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0006276156
• ISBN 13: 9780006276159
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 204