"In the late 1960s, as the civil unrest in Northern Ireland turned from agitation and street violence to practiced urban warfare, the British government responded with increasingly sophisticated countermeasures, including military force. Both sides played down their intentions: the IRA took cover in democratic protests and the British claimed to be successfully containing civil unrest. Yet behind the scenes both were developing the strategy and technology of a full-fledged war." "In The Irish War military veteran and historian Tony Geraghty reveals the sinister patterns of action and reaction in this domestic conflict. Drawing on public and covert sources, as well as interviews with members of British intelligence, the security forces, and the Irish Republican Army, he brings to light the disturbing inner workings of an organized terrorist group and its military opposition. Tracing the roots of the Northern Ireland Troubles from the greatly mythologized Battle of the Boyne in 1690, The Irish War shows how the battle expanded to embrace forms of surveillance, interrogation, chemical analysis, and electronic eavesdropping, all of which carried dangerous implications for the population at large."--BOOK JACKET.