Stray Bullets
Having served over thirty years in the RUC / PSNI I was medically retired with CPTSD. Dissociative Identity Disorder also evolved in me as a residue of CPTSD. I wrote a novel, 'The Bitter End of Dreams', through which I hoped to reflect the experiences of working class folk caught in the grip of a sectarian conflict. I set my story in Belfast, but replaced the Judeo-Christian god with that of Mithras. I also gave Northern Ireland an extra county. Such counterfactual alterations opened up for me the opportunity to place my story deep within the NI Troubles without being shackled to specific timelines, events and real people - thus avoiding the risk of libelling anyone, while being able to write a story, familiar to many, and retaining a sense of place and the tragedy of the Troubles. I'm going to talk openly about elements of policing the Troubles, religion, politics, sectarianism and our toxic ideologies. I've explored these topics in my novel, as well as the placing of actual events and atrocities; albeit heavily disguised or deeply submerged in subtext.To better frame my thoughts I will, firstly, discuss each chapter in sequence before reading that chapter. In this way I should be able to complete a spoken word version of my novel while using the opportunity it provides to elaborate on its creation process in the context of the NI Troubles.Thank you.
*Apologies to the many folks who conversed with me on several social media platforms. Due to the level of hate, including threats, from ex-RUC colleagues I've decided to stay off social media and the like. I'm very dismayed by such reaction, but, in hindsight, no longer surprised.*
Stray Bullets
State-Terrorism and PIRA's 'No Alternative' to violence: Part II: 'The Thing Was Always Planned.'
Moving forward I consider some statements made in the past by PIRA volunteers in respect of 'engineering' the conflict, or, conversely, having the armed struggle forced upon them by the actions of the British.
As ever I must admit to straying off on one - or two - tangents, such as a 'murder safari', a term I've coined for, well, it'll become evident...
Sources referred to in this episode:
Alonso, Rogelio, The IRA and Armed Struggle, London and New York: Routledge, 2007
Hennessey, Thomas, Northern Ireland: the Origins of the Troubles, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2005
MacStiofáin, Seán, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, Edinburgh: Gordon Cremonesi, 1975
O'Doherty, Malachi, The Trouble with Guns: Republican Strategy and the Provisional IRA, Belfast: Blackstaff, 1998
White, Robert W., Provisional Irish Republicans: an Oral and Interpretive History, Westpoint, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993
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