It is little known today that, in January 1939, the IRA launched a bombing campaign, codenamed The S - or Sabotage - Plan on mainland England. With cynical self-justification, they announced that it was not their intention to harm human life but in just over a year, more than 300 explosive devices resulted in 10 deaths, 96 injuries and widespread devastation. London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and many other towns and cities were targeted. On 25 August 1939, detectives in London defused three devices set to detonate that afternoon at 2.30 and arrested four terrorists. At the same time an identical bomb exploded in Coventry city centre killing five civilians and injuring 50, the highest body count of the campaign. Numerous arrests were made nationwide but ill-trained personnel and additional national security resulting from the threat of Nazi invasion caused the campaign to falter and fade away in early 1940. The author, a former detective, is well qualified to write this book, having spent 18 months in Northern Ireland combatting terrorism, for which he was commended by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Imbert, for displaying ‘courage, dedication and detective ability’.

It is little known today that, in January 1939, the IRA launched a bombing campaign, codenamed The S - or Sabotage - Plan on mainland England. With cynical self-justification, they announced that it was not their intention to harm human life but in just over a year, more than 300 explosive devices resulted in 10 deaths, 96 injuries and widespread devastation. London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and many other towns and cities were targeted. On 25 August 1939, detectives in London defused three devices set to detonate that afternoon at 2.30 and arrested four terrorists. At the same time an identical bomb exploded in Coventry city center killing five civilians and injuring 50, the highest body count of the campaign. Numerous arrests were made nationwide but ill-trained personnel and additional national security resulting from the threat of Nazi invasion caused the campaign to falter and fade away in early 1940. The author, a former detective, is well qualified to write this book, having spent 18 months in Northern Ireland combatting terrorism, for which he was commended by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Imbert, for displaying 'courage, dedication and detective ability'.

This detailed account of the Irish Republican Army's bombing campaign against Britain during 1939-1940 describes how initial attacks on economic targets turned into a series of terror bombings causing the deaths of seven innocent people. Though two IRA members were hanged, the real men responsible, named here, escaped. The author covers the political situation in Ireland prior to the attacks, the recruiting and training of the bombers, the bombing campaign and the trial of two men for the murder of five people in Coventry.

A survey of the IRA's bombing campaign in Britain before and after World War II. The text looks at the IRA's flirtation with Nazism and Eire's wartime neutrality and how that conditioned subsequent British policy towards Ireland, and examines the campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s. It also discusses the political and military mistakes which made British cities the most vunerable in Europe to terrorist attack and why Government agencies failed to eradicate the threat. This book includes material on what the IRA called its England Department, on how that IRA cell fuctioned and its objectives, and what was behind the IRA's reluctance to denounce the Downing Street Declaration.

The Irish Civil War ended in 1923. Eighty years on, documentary-maker Tom Hurley wondered if there were many civilians and combatants left from across Ireland who had experienced the years 1919 to 1923, their prelude and their aftermath. What memories had they, what were their stories and how did they reflect on those turbulent times? In early 2003, he recorded the experiences of 18 people, conducting 2 further interviews abroad in 2004. Tom spoke to a cross section (Catholic, Protestant, Unionist and Nationalist) who were in their teens or early twenties during the civil war. The chronological approach he has taken spans 50 years, beginning with the oldest interviewee's birth in 1899 and ending when the Free State became a republic in 1949. Last Voices of the Irish Revolution.

The Road to Balcombe Street is a page turning, true crime thriller recounting the story of an Irish Republican Army Active Service Unit, placed in deep cover in London, and their murderous campaign against the British establishment. Equally gripping is the story of the Metropolitan Police and their efforts to first identify the elusive group of terrorist, and then apprehend them. This is the true story of a deadly cat and mouse game played out on the streets of London that resulted in the infamous armed standoff at Balcombe Street.

In his latest thrilling book, much published crime author Dick Kirby draws on his fast moving policing service, much of which was with Scotland Yard’s Serious Crime Squad and the Flying Squad. As if that was not enough he brings in accounts of fellow coppers during the final decades of the 20th century to add a fresh dimension. It quickly becomes clear to the reader that Kirby and his colleagues practiced their art in a markedly different style than that prevailing today. Corners were cut, regulations ignored and pettifogging rules trampled on in the wider public interest of bringing criminals to justice and preserving law and order. Above all the best senior detectives led fearlessly. Kirby describes front line policing where the public came first and the criminals a poor second. There are great stories of arrests, ambushes, fights and meeting informants in unlikely places. Eyebrows may be raised at the book’s contents but many will feel that there is no place in the fight against serious crime for ‘woke-ness’ and political correctness and regret the passing of no-nonsense law enforcement.