Douglass McFerran
1997
Praeger
178 pages
This is a weird book for the simple fact that its written as though it is the story of researching a book about the Irish Republican Army circa mid-90s when the Troubles of Northern Ireland were winding towards a peace of sorts. McFerren, a former Jesuit, a teacher at a college in San Francisco, and an author of books, wanted to understand the conflict between Republicans and Loyalists in Northern Ireland, so he took several trips to the six counties to interact with the Irish and listen to their points of view. The book is essentially its author reporting on these trips, discussing the little details he's noticed about walking around Ireland, little things his wife said, things that surprised him and challenged the ideas he arrived with. He is also just throwing into his that he's read something that said something, and the whole thing reads like a personal notebook rather than an investigation into a serious and violent conflict.
He very definitely speaks from the position of someone who understands Northern Ireland through the window of television reports of violence and repression, as he reports his surprise that he's not always witnessing violence, bigotry, and police brutality, when he's in Northern Ireland. The thing that seemed to surprise him most, and the thing that he has trouble letting go of even though its something virtually every decent book on this subject makes clear, is that the Troubles were not simply a matter of religious sects hating one another over religious differences. McFerren was a Jesuit, and was perhaps hoping to look more closely at the religious aspect of this conflict, which resulted in him speaking strangely about certain components of the IRA. When he discussed The Green Book, an IRA operations manual, parts of which journalist Ed Moloney published in his book, A Secret History of the IRA, McFerren noted it downplayed religion when, given the text's purpose, had no need to make mention of it.
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