Beginning with the death of legendary IRA figure Sean South of Garryowen on New Year's Day 1957, this title describes the background to what we have now come to call "the troubles" and paints portraits of the major players whose actions sparked the violence that erupted on the streets of Belfast and Derry in the summer of 1969. Throughout the decades of bloodshed, paramilitary leaders on both sides of the political divide continued to search for more so-called legitimate targets. This book charts how more and more innocent people were unwittingly drawn into the conflict against their will. It examines the killings which marked new lows in the republican/loyalist terror war, from the bombing of pubs and clubs to the advent of "human bomb" couriers, and revisits the horror story that was the infamous "Shankhill Butchers" case. It also covers the more recent murder of the author's colleague Martin O'Hagan, an act which sent shock waves through a battle-hardened media in Northern Ireland. O'Hagan was the first journalist in Ireland to lose his life at the hands of the paramilitaries and his death pushed the parameters of slaughter to new limits.

Milestones in Murder: Defining Moments in Ulster's Terror War

History

Jordan, Hugh

Europe

Mainstream Digital

A mindless sectarian psychopath or a loyalist folk hero who took the war to the IRA's front door? The name Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair is synonymous with a killing spree by loyalist terrorists that took Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. From humble beginnings as a rioter and glue-sniffer on Belfast's Shankill Road, Adair rose through the ranks of the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters to head its merciless killing machine, "C Company". Surrounded by a group of trusted friends, his reign of terror in the early 1990s claimed the lives of up to 40 Catholics, picked out at random as Adair's hitmen roamed Belfast. Determined to lead from the front, his men even fired a rocket at Sinn Fein's headquarters, writing themselves into loyalist mythology and embarrassing the IRA in its republican heartland. Its desperate attempts to kill Adair culminated in October 1993, when a bomb on the Shankill Road, intended for the loyalist godfather, claimed the lives of nine Protestant civilians. "Mad Dog" describes in graphic detail Adair's criminal empire and an egomaniac's bloody war against Catholics and anybody else who got in his way. Adair's friends and enemies talk for the first time about the murders he ordered, his sordid personal life, and his attempts - ultimately disastrous - to become Northern Ireland's supreme loyalist figurehead. Using sensational new material, the authors expose the mass murderers who did Adair's bidding and provide new insights into some of the biggest secrets of the Troubles, including the controversial murder of Patrick Finucane, the Catholic solicitor. With Adair back in jail until 2005, the final chapter of this story has yet to be written. One thing, however, is certain: we have not heard the last from a man who is unlikely to live out the rest of his life in obscurity.

Mad Dog

Biographies & Memoirs

Lister, David

True Crime

Mainstream Publishing

<p>The name Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair is synonymous with a killing spree by loyalist terrorists that took Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. From humble beginnings as a rioter on Belfast's Shankill Road, Adair rose through the ranks of the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters to head its merciless killing machine, "C Company." Surrounded by a group of trusted friends, his reign of terror in the early 1990s claimed the lives of up to 40 Catholics, picked out at random as Adair's hitmen roamed Belfast. <i>Mad Dog </i>describes in graphic detail Adair's criminal empire and an egomaniac's bloody war against Catholics and anybody else who got in his way. Adair's friends and enemies talk for the first time about the murders he ordered, his sordid personal life, and his attempts to become Northern Ireland's supreme loyalist figurehead. Using sensational new material, the authors expose the mass murderers who did Adair's bidding and provide new insights into some of the biggest secrets of the Troubles.</p>

Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company'

World

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Books by Jordan, Hugh