But a new book suggests the threat to the 70-year-old earl was well-known and key flaws in his security handed his killers their opportunityForty years ago today, Martin McGuinness, chief of staff of the IRA since 1978, was on the verge of realising the ambition he had vowed to fulfil when he took command. He…
In his 1975 book about Irish nationalism the Parisian writer Maurice Goldring wrote about the void which can too easily be concealed behind the noise of battle. ‘To substitute a “spectacle” for the participation of the masses is to hide a wasteland behind gaudy coloured hoardings. The emptier the political arena becomes, the more vivid the colours…
