Tapes secretly recorded in the Long Kesh internment facility, where suspected IRA militants were detained without trial, revealed the degree to which the British government discarded human rights in its crackdown and speak to today's "states of exception."
A hometown headline 50 years ago introduced the author to the Troubles in Northern Ireland; at the anniversary of Derry's "Bloody Sunday" a hard-won peace feels precarious.
Pride's "Crystal Chandeliers" didn't chart when he released in in the US in 1967; a decade later it was a unity anthem for Northern Ireland residents hoping for peace.
"What is needed is not “official” history, but a decision to properly open sensitive archival material to facilitate the writing of evidence-based history. The political will to facilitate that is highly unlikely to materialise."
The Hill's correspondent argues that the pattern of inciting violence and denying responsibility on display in Washington on January 6 has a grim resemblance to the work of demagogue Ian Paisley during the Northern Ireland Troubles.
British soldiers deployed to Northern Ireland in 1969 in an operation intended to be a temporary action to quell sectarian violence and inflammatory mob and police attacks on Catholic civil rights advocates. They remained until 2007, a lesson that American politicians should heed.
I covered the Troubles in Northern Ireland for NBC News for four years, from the summer of 1969 until 1973. Even as a journalist with significant experience covering conflict, I knew I was in for a new ride.
