Living with Ghosts: The Inside Story from a 'Troubles' Mind

Product Information

The saga of Boris Johnson and Brexit frequently crops up in this author's narrative as a vivid, if Lilliputian instance of the same phenomenon. Brian Rowan’s intense new book, Living with Ghosts, might be said to be in disagreement with the title of the earlier work. For many of us who have lived through the troubles, the past is something we’ve tried to forget, move on from, suppress. He goes deep into his contacts with the IRA, the loyalist organisations, MI5, Special Branch, the army and the many other players in the conflict period.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. In Living With Ghosts renowned veteran journalist Brian Rowan retraces his steps through Northern Ireland’s conflict years, as he bravely delves into the darkness of those times. In his career Rowan walks along the thinnest of lines on a path where morals and ethics and principles are blurred, and his mind becomes tortured. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today. In Living With Ghosts renowned veteran journalist Brian Rowan retraces his steps through Northern Ireland’s conflict years, as he bravely delves into the darkness of those times.There are Big Caesars who set out to achieve total social control and Little Caesars who merely want to run an agreeable kleptocracy without opposition: from Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell through Napoleon and Bolivar, to Mussolini, Salazar, De Gaulle and Trump. Brian talks of personal experiences during the troubles not just his own but how others were affected.

In reality, every democracy, however sophisticated or stable it may look, has been attacked or actually destroyed by a would-be Caesar, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Big Caesars and Little Caesars : How They Rise and How They Fall - From Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson. But his highest profile was during the period covered by this book, one of furtive meetings with a succession of IRA spokesmen dubbed “P O’Neill”, operators from shady reaches of the security services and loyalist brigadiers in Shankill and east Belfast safe houses. Ferdinand Mount opens up a fascinating exploration of how and why Caesars seize power and why they fall. Living with Ghosts is a moving and deeply personal account of one man's doubts and decisions, and the challenges of reporting a war on his doorstep.

There is a comforting illusion shared by historians and political commentators from Fukuyama back to Macaulay, Mill and Marx, that history progresses in a nice straight line towards liberal democracy or socialism, despite the odd hiccup. In his journalistic career Rowan walked the thinnest of lines, where morals and principles were blurred, and as a result his mind became tortured. Rowan, a former longstanding BBC Northern Ireland security correspondent, was ever-present on TV screens during the final bloody years of the Troubles, then through tortuous years of wrangling over decommissioning. Across its pages, veteran journalist Brian Rowan retraces his steps back through the tunnel of Northern Ireland's conflict years and into the darkness of those times.

His story takes us beyond the often strict boundaries of the news into the very real dilemmas and fears behind its scenes. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Living with Ghosts is a moving and deeply personal account of one man’s doubts and decisions, and the challenges of reporting a war on his doorstep. He goes deep into his contacts with the IRA, the loyalist organisations, MI5, Special Branch, the army, and the many other players in the conflict period. In his journalistic career Rowan walked the thinnest of lines, where morals and principles were blurred, and as a result his mind became tortured.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Living With Ghosts is a memoir of Brian Rowan's journalistic encounters during the Troubles and an analysis of their meaning at many years’ remove.