Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles

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There are countless names of people listed here whom I had never heard of as we'll as all those I knew personally or who were neighbours. The effect is overwhelming, which is why it took me so long to finish--I could generally only read 2-3 pages at a sitting. The 3,638 names do not appear at the tap of a screen, they come instead in a tome of 1,630 tightly printed pages. By 2020 Lost Lives was out of print and the surviving authors agreed they did not want another print run.

But Seamus mostly understood that this was a sign of the book's egalitarian appeal; that Lost Lives' goal, which was simply to record every death caused by the Troubles, was recognised and appreciated as much by thieves as it was by professors. Thornton said that he and the other authors were opposed to any potential governmental involvement in the reprinting of the book as it would "leave it open to political influence".

He has also worked as a producer with BBC Northern Ireland's political unit and its current affairs programme Spotlight. For anyone interested in Northern Ireland - or in the human cost of conflict everywhere - this is destined to be the defining work. Featuring high-end cinematography, an orchestral score and readings by an ensemble cast of Irish actors, including Kenneth Branagh, Brendan Gleeson, Roma Downey, Liam Neeson, Bríd Brennan and Stephen Rea, the film is a requiem. This book is a labor of love and compassion by the four journalists who worked on it over the course of seven years. Here are the men who chose to fight, here are the people who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Collectively, they provide a renewed sense of just how widespread and all-consuming the Troubles were, how they caught up combatants and civilians, young and old alike" and that "there are images here that couldn't have been shown on the nightly news, interrupting the detachment instilled in the original prose". Hewitt said he felt the actors were not just "lending their voices but giving their voice in support of what the film represents for us" which was "A reminder of the terrible loss, in the hope that we do not repeat the mistakes of our past". Interest in the massive tome spiked last week after an Irish minister said his government would explore ways to ensure the book "remains available for the future". It is the story of the Northern Ireland troubles told as never before; it is not concerned with the political bickering but with the lives of those who have suffered and the deaths which have resulted from more than three decades of conflict. It’s necessary to have a war memorial such as this for the Troubles, even unusually in literary form.The book was out of print by December 2020, and Chris Thornton said that he and the surviving authors did not wish the book to be reprinted.

This is a moving and funny debut novel set in a quirky coastal community you will be desperate to visit after reading. I admit to having no personal connection with the events described at all, but I remember being very moved when we visited Belfast a couple of years ago and spent an afternoon in the museum which had at the time an exhibition detailing the history you describe.And that is exactly what the authors have done, without prejudice or bias, they have produced an epic work that cuts through all the scandals, finger-pointing and accusations that dominate all the other works written about the Troubles and simply states who, where and how without trying to assess the why (which lets face it no-one has ever really managed to answer properly). The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The exhibition ended with a display of notes on a large wall showcasing the reactions of previous visitors.

Now that the Troubles seem to be over, the publication of Lost Lives is perhaps the great monument for which the bloody history of Northern Ireland has been waiting.It is human nature that this should be so: we have seen our task as simply providing the facts which will allow readers to make their own judgements. The book was written by four journalists, the late Seamus Kelters, David McKittrick, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, as an compilation of the Troubles related deaths across three decades. Eventually Dermot Lavery and Michael Hewitt came up with a proposal, concentrating on 18 deaths for their 90-minute production, utilising what David said are "powerful and sometimes quite shocking images" from the Troubles to accompany the narratives from actors such as Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt and Sir Kenneth Branagh. In their story, as in others in this catalogue of evil, the humanity of those who rush to help the injured comes in moving contrast to the inhumanity of those behind the bomb. The information detailed includes the "name, date of death, location, profession, religion, age and marital status, together with a brief summary of the circumstances of the particular death".