WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Rita’s education
RICHARD RUDKIN recommends the extraordinary memoir of the late republican activist and politician, Rita O’Hare
Seven provisional IRA staff officers are among a group who escaped from the prison ship Maidstone in Belfast, January 24 1972. Speaking at a press conference are (l-r) Thomas Toland, 25, Thomas Kane, 24, Thomas Gorman, 26, IRA Chief of Staff Sean McStiotain, Rita O'Hare, Joe Cahill, Martin Taylor, 21, Peter Rodgers, 17, Sean Convery, 31, and James Bryson, 23.
[PA archive] 
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
Rita - A Memoir
Rita O’Hare, Greenisland Press, £18
AS a former British soldier who was in the North of Ireland in the early 1970s, I have read many accounts from those involved in the Troubles, including former military personnel. Every now and again, a book emerges that stands out from the rest. Rita — A Memoir is one such book.
The life of Rita O’Hare was a remarkable one. Born in 1943 to a Protestant mother and a Catholic father who joined the Communist Party aged 17, Rita grew up in the middle-class area of Andersonstown, West Belfast.
Similar stories
From colonialism to the Troubles, the story of England’s first colony is one of exploitation, resistance, and solidarity — and one we should fight to ensure is told, writes teacher ROBERT POOLE
Remembering a dedicated T&GWU activist, internationalist and anti-sectarian