WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Who Was Responsible for the Troubles?
Britain's role in Northern Ireland conflict largely absent from tendentious account
UNDER OCCUPATION: Shankhill Road, Belfast, 1969
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
THIS book by Liam Kennedy does not claim to be an objective assessment of the Northern Ireland Troubles and the author does not attempt to conceal his political views.
His comment that Dan Breen, an Irish War of Independence guerilla, was a “leading gunman from my own county” gives a clue to his perspective, not just on the Provisional IRA but the early 20th-century struggle against the British.
Kennedy emphasises statistics of violent deaths and injuries to justify the conclusion that the Provos were mainly responsible for the Troubles. Those statistics, and the Provos’ prosecution of a long war, underpin the book’s main thesis.
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Remembering a dedicated T&GWU activist, internationalist and anti-sectarian
Despite plummeting living standards and multiple crises in housing, education and health, another Fianna Fail-Fine Gael coalition approaches after an election with low turnout and no breakthrough for the left, writes NICK WRIGHT
RICHARD RUDKIN recommends the extraordinary memoir of the late republican activist and politician, Rita O’Hare