Everyday life after the Irish conflict is the first book to address the specific topic of the intersection of the processes of conflict transformation and devolution with daily life in Northern Ireland in a rigorous and systematic fashion. Bringing together new research from established academics, new voices and civil society actors, this book documents the changes that have occurred in people’s everyday lives as the region moves away from a violent past. Supported with a wealth of new empirical material, the book charts the impact of devolution and conflict transformation in four parts: an overview of the changes is followed by chapters that explore the areas of space, place and human relations. The third part looks at economic and social life while a concluding chapter takes a comparative approach by addressing the differences and similarities between the Northern Irish and Scottish experiences of devolution.

Lee Smithey examines how symbolic cultural expressions in Northern Ireland, such as parades, bonfires, murals, and commemorations, provide opportunities for Protestant unionists and loyalists to reconstruct their collective identities and participate in conflict transformation.

“For those puzzled by Northern Ireland, Belfast Diary offers a well-written, sympathetic and clear-eyed view” of life during the Troubles (New York Times Book Review) In the late 1960s, the ongoing conflict between the Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists of Northern Ireland—divided by their stance on the country’s constitutional position as part of the United Kingdom—escalated to new, terrifying heights. Chicago journalist John Conroy was there on the frontlines, living among the people most affected by it. In Belfast Diary, Conroy offers a street-level view of life in a Catholic Ghetto in West Belfast, painting vivid portraits of its citizens and the violence they faced during the Troubles: bomb threats, murder, police brutality, and more. Conroy’s recounting of this tumultuous moment in Northern Irish history has been hailed as the best explanation of the more than twenty-five-year conflict. Now with a new afterword, Belfast Diary conveys an understanding that is an essential prerequisite to peace: the resolution of intractable problems around the world requires understanding ordinary people as well as leaders.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One of The New York Times’s 20 Best Books of the 21st Century "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review "Reads like a novel ... Keefe is ... a master of narrative nonfiction. . .An incredible story."—Rolling Stone A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, and more! Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

This ground-breaking book provides the first comprehensive investigation of the history and memory of the Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain. It examines the impacts of the conflict upon individual lives, political and social relationships, communities and culture in Britain, and explores how the people of Britain (including its Irish communities) have responded to, and engaged with the conflict, in the context of contested political narratives produced by the State and its opponents. Setting an agenda for further research and public debate, the book demonstrates that 'unfinished business' from the conflicted past persists unaddressed in Britain, and advocates the importance of acknowledging legacies, understanding histories and engaging with memories in the context of peace-building and reconciliation.

Immersive, engrossing report on the European refugee crisis A mother puts her children into a refrigerator truck and asks, “What else could I do?” A runaway teenager comes of age on the streets, sleeping in abandoned buildings. A student leaves his war-ravaged country behind because he doesn’t want to kill. Everyone among the thousands of people who come to Europe in search of asylum each year possesses a unique story. But those stories don’t end as they cross into the West. In Lights in the Distance, acclaimed journalist Daniel Trilling draws on years of reporting to build a portrait of the refugee crisis as seen through the eyes of the people who experienced it firsthand. As the European Union has grown, so has a tangled and often violent system designed to filter out unwanted migrants. Visiting camps and hostels, sneaking into detention centers, and delving into his own family’s history of displacement, Trilling weaves together the stories of people he met and followed from country to country. In doing so, he shows that the terms commonly used to define them—“refugee” or “economic migrant,” “legal” or “illegal,” “deserving” or “undeserving”—fall woefully short of capturing the complex realities. The founding story of the EU is that it exists to ensure the horrors of the twentieth century are never repeated. Now, as it comes to terms with the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, its declared values of freedom, tolerance and respect for human rights are being put to the test. Lights in the Distance is a uniquely powerful and illuminating exploration of the nature and human dimensions of the crisis.

An almanac to the world of Gilles Peress' Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, delineating the decades of conflict in Northern Ireland In Annals of the North, New York-based photographer Gilles Peress (born 1946) and writer and lawyer Chris Klatell combine essays, stories, photographs, documents and testimonies to open up for the reader the complicated and contradictory storylines that emerged from the conflict in the North of Ireland. Weighed down by 800 years of colonization but only the size of Connecticut (with half its population), Northern Ireland provides a remarkably intimate stage set. Interweaving text and image, Annals of the Northexamines the multifaceted struggle between Irish Republicans and Nationalists, Protestant Unionists and Loyalists, and the imperial British, to explore broader themes of empire, retribution and betrayal, as well as the tense dialectic between the ordinary demands of everyday life and periodic explosions of violence. The book is at once wide-ranging yet deeply personal and political, alternately dense and humorous, legal and literary.

Everyday Violence in the Irish Civil War presents an innovative study of violence perpetrated by and against non-combatants during the Irish Civil War, 1922–3. Drawing from victim accounts of wartime injury as recorded in compensation claims, Dr Gemma Clark sheds new light on hundreds of previously neglected episodes of violence and intimidation - ranging from arson, boycott and animal maiming to assault, murder and sexual violence - that transpired amongst soldiers, civilians and revolutionaries throughout the period of conflict. The author shows us how these micro-level acts, particularly in the counties of Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, served as an attempt to persecute and purge religious and political minorities, and to force redistribution of land. Clark also assesses the international significance of the war, comparing the cruel yet arguably restrained violence that occurred in Ireland with the brutality unleashed in other European conflict zones.

In the last generation, Northern Ireland has undergone a tortuous yet remarkable process of social and political change. This collection of essays aims to capture the complex and shifting realities of a society in the process of transition from war to peace. The book brings together commentators from a range of academic backgrounds and political perspectives. As well as focusing upon those political divisions and disputes that are most readily associated with Northern Ireland, it provides a rather broader focus than is conventionally found in books on the region. It examines the cultural identities and cultural practices that are essential to the formation and understanding of Northern Irish society but are neglected in academic analyses of the six counties. While the contributors often approach issues from rather different angles, they share a common conviction of the need to challenge the self-serving simplifications and choreographed optimism that frequently define both official discourse and media commentary on Northern Ireland. Taken together, the essays offer a comprehensive and critical account of a troubled society in the throes of change.

Fresh look at Kurdistan Iraq today, including the role of central government and international forces, and the region's political and economic future.