The Secret Army; The IRA, 1916--1970

New York, N.Y.: The John Day Company, 1971. First American Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Good/Good. ix, [3], 404 pages. Maps. Illustrations. Sources. Index. Some wear and small tears to Dust Jacket. Slightly cocked. Includes Part 1, The Glorious Years: 1916-1927; Part II, The Cosgrave Years: 1927-1932; Part III: The De Valera Years: 1932-1938; Part IV: The War Years: 1938-1945; Part V: The Campaign Years: 1945-1969; Part VI: The North Explodes and the Army Divides. Also includes Epilogue, Sources, Index, Map of Ireland, and Map of Dublin. There are 13 black and white photographs following page 180. Also includes Map of Ireland and Map of Dublin. Taped to fep is a note from Frank Durkan dated 11/4/71 thanking the recipient "for all your help. F." Frank Durkan (August 13, 1930 - November 16, 2006) was an Irish-American attorney best known for having represented numerous members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), including avowed gunrunner and pivotal North American member of the IRA George Harrison, who stood trial, and was acquitted, in 1982. In another prominent case, which occurred the previous year, Durkan convinced a federal magistrate to deny the United Kingdom's request that Desmond Mackin - accused of shooting a British soldier- be extradited to British custody. In addition to representing accused members of the IRA he would also participate in political campaigns aimed at legitimizing the cause of the new IRA within American political circles by lobbying the government on behalf of Irish-American republicans and Irish nationalists. J. Bowyer Bell (November 15, 1931 - August 23, 2003) was an American historian, artist and art critic. He was best known as a terrorism expert. Bell was fascinated by global terrorism conflicts and decided to "write [his] way back into academia".[2][3] While researching the Middle East, he discovered that the Irgun drew inspiration from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish War of Independence, and began to study the IRA. Bell and his family traveled to County Carlow in the Republic of Ireland in 1965, where he spent several months researching the Republican Movement. He discovered little had been published on Irish history after 1922, and the state archives were closed until the 1980s. He began research in the National Library of Ireland, and also interviewed Irish republicans in a Kilkenny public house and hotels in Dublin. The author spent more than two years doing on-the-spot research in Ireland and England, and interviewed scores of IRA participants. As a result, this book is a vivid picture of the many daring and foolhardy escapades of the IRA and a vital chronicle of its growth, development, and survival as a coherent entity in the Irish nationalist struggle. The Troubles began in Northern Ireland in 1969, and Bell's The Secret Army: the IRA 1916-1970 was published the following year, and was one of the first detailed histories of the IRA, along with The IRA by Tim Pat Coogan, which was also published in 1970. After the publication of The Secret Army Bell lived mostly in New York and London, England, and continued to visit Ireland annually. While researching in Ireland, Bell was tear gassed and shot at during riots in Belfast, which he described as "field work a bit too near the centre of the field". Derived from a Kirkus review: The longevity of the IRA is unique among 20th century nationalist liberation movements. Its tactics -- guerrilla warfare, shadow institutions, moral force and urban terror -- have been studied and emulated in India, Algeria, Cyprus and Latin America. Long overdue, The Secret Army is the first full-length account of "the secret army in the service of the invisible republic" and it is a remarkably thorough, impartial and perspicacious work -- the more so since author Bell has reconstructed policies and internecine schisms from interviews. Never abandoning Michael Collins' tactics forged in the 1918-1921 war with England, the IRA re-formed after each defection to the stagnant parliamentarianism of the Irish Free State. Nurtured on the litany of ancient Saxon wrongs cherished and counted like rosary beads, the IRA never progressed beyond radicalism and nationalism and never succeeded in achieving a social program until its most recent alliance with the Laborites. Bell follows its fortunes -- "the doldrums today, the gun tomorrow," and back again -- through the signing of the Treaty, the Civil War, the Cosgrave Ministry, De Valera's 'apostasy' and the rise of Fianna Fail, the "red" thirties, the dynamite campaigns, the pathetic incursions into Ulster in the late '50's and the "advanced rot of despair" of the early '60's followed by rejuvenation via the Ulster Civil Rights movement and the 1970 schism between the purists and the Laborites. Concentrating on internal organization, strategy and ideology, he avoids the pitfall of glamorizing the fixation by men of "narrow vision" on the 32-county Republic while saluting their futile and splendid endurance in the revolutionary tradition.