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

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should serve as a lasting reminder of why Northern Ireland should never again return to full-scale conflict, a lasting reminder of the sadness and the pity of it all, a lasting reminder that war is hell.” So – 3,712 death over a period of 40 years. From three year old Jonathan Ball, an English kid killed in Warrington, a town in England, when the IRA planted bombs in litter bins in a shopping mall (a 12 year old boy was also killed in that one) all the way to 91 year old Martha Smylie who was killed by a UDA bomb which was planted at the Imperial Hotel in Belfast. The bomb damaged her old peoples’ home next door and this old lady was badly injured, and died the following day. A reporter from the Irish Times named Kevin Myers was in the middle of it. He was in a house and was shot at by some sniper from a house across the road. A soldier who was down in the street shot at the sniper and the reporter thought that saved his life. He ran down to the street to get away from the madness. He saw three kids throwing stones at the soldiers from an alley between two houses. He told them there was shooting going on and they didn't believe him, they hadn't noticed it. Then the soldier who had just shot at the sniper thought there was another sniper in the alley where the kids were, and fired again.

I’m from the North of Ireland and lived through the troubles. This book a reminder of how abnormal a society I lived in. Excellent reference book I got it when first published 20 years ago. I believe it is now a collectors item. Lost Lives: The Stories of men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, (2nd Ed., 10 May 2001). Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company. ... [] - [Book] The authors - three of them Belfast-born and the fourth an American - are award-winning journalists. Over a seven-year period, they examined every single death which was directly caused by the troubles. Their research has seen them interview withnesses, scour published material and draw on a huge range of investigative sources to produce a work of epic proportions. Never before has conflict anywhere in the world been subjected to such meticulous scrutiny.

A film based on the book premiered at the 2019 London Film Festival [6] and was broadcast on BBC One in February 2020. [5] The film features voiceovers from the actors Kenneth Branagh, Roma Downey, Adrian Dunbar, Brendan Gleeson, Ciarán Hinds, Sean McGinley, Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Stephen Rea, and Bronagh Waugh. It is 90 minutes in duration. The film features graphic contemporary footage of the Troubles that is juxtaposed against imagery of the natural landscape of Northern Ireland including rivers, waterfalls, and a swan. [5] The lives of 18 people from the book are detailed by voice overs in the film. [5] The deaths chosen for inclusion in the film are broadly representative of the ratio of deaths of Irish republicans, Loyalist paramilitaries and forces of the British state. [5] It was announced in January 2021 that the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland had received an archive relating to the book consisting of "265 folders of mainly newspaper cuttings relating to most of those individuals who died as a result of the conflict". [4]

As a reference book, Lost Lives is indispensable; as a landscape of history painted in fine detail, it is unique. For anyone interested in Northern Ireand - or in the human cost of conflict anywhere - this is destined to be the defining work.' On 23 October 2019, a film (1 hour, 29 minutes) based on the book Lost Lives was released in the UK for one night only.There may be some who believe that more detail should have been given to provide more context for each death, but had the authors done this the work would have lost it's poignancy and impact as the individual deaths got lost in the political and religious miasma. Lost Lives is a major cinematic film inspired by the book of the same name. Written over seven years by five journalists, it is a book that, uniquely, records the circumstances of every single death in a conflict – the Northern Irish ‘Troubles.’ There are over 3700 entries in the book. Over 3700 lost lives. It is focused on the human and emotional cost of conflict. On the price that is paid when we try to settle difference through violence. There are over 3,700 entries. Over 3,700 lost lives.

The book and the film do not mention peace talks and negotiations that sought to bring a cessation of the conflict. [5] Robert McCrum in his 2000 review of the book for The Guardian wrote that "It is not fiction, though it is full of heartrending stories, any one of which might provide a gifted writer with the bare bones of a shattering novel. It is not biography, though it is full of ordinary people's lives. It is not really journalism, though it has been compiled by four journalists who may, collectively, have just written the book of their career" and that "There is not space to do justice to the scholarly comprehensiveness, the magisterial evenhandedness or the moral integrity of this astonishing book. 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". [1] Reception [ edit ] John Breslin (7 December 2020). "Lost Lives: Calls to make rare book on the Troubles available to the public". The Belfast Telegraph . Retrieved 1 February 2021. Lost Lives traces the origins of the conflict from the firing of the first shots, through the carnage of the 1970s and 1980s to the republican and loyalist ceasefires and beyond. All the casualties are here: the RUC officer, the young soldier, the IRA volunteer, the loyalist paramilitary, the Catholic mother, the Protestant worker, the new-born baby. Each account is imposible to ignore. The book was published by the Scottish publishers Mainstream Publishing of Edinburgh. It was reprinted in 2008. [3] 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. [2] Thornton said that much more material had become available since the book was published and he and the other authors had hoped to update it but no publishers were interested. [2] 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". The death of co-author Seamus Kelters also affected them emotionally. Thornton said that "It's wonderful that the book is still being recognised as important...But it's in the past". [2] This is an incredible piece of meticulous journalism about an era many of whom are totally ignorant. My only criticism is the inflated price of such a book.It was also shown on BBC One NI at 21:00 on 16 February 2020, and on BBC Two at 22:00 on 7 March 2020. (It was available on BBC iPlayer for a period after its broadcast.) Lost Lives is a cinematic, feature-length film inspired by the book of the same name. Written over seven years by five journalists, it is the only book to record the circumstances of every death in the Northern Irish Troubles.

This work may be written objectively but as you read it you cannot help getting sympathetic, sad, angry and frustrated at the immense lose of life that went on year after year despite all communities condemning death after death after death. This work shows that war of any kind is not only needless but wastes lives on all sides whether the people affected are involved or not and shows how terror and fear cripple communities into submission despite their resistance.Lost Lives: The Stories of men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company. ... [3816] - [Book]