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

Product Information

A film based on the book premiered at the 2019 London Film Festival [6] and was broadcast on BBC One in February 2020. This book is a labor of love and compassion by the four journalists who worked on it over the course of seven years. 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 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. Featured in the film are Kenneth Branagh, Bríd Brennan, Roma Downey, Adrian Dunbar, Michelle Fairley, Bronagh Gallagher, Brendan Gleeson, Dan Gordon, Ciarán Hinds, Conleth Hill, Susan Lynch, Des McAleer, Martin McCann, Ian McElhinney, Sean McGinley, James Nesbitt, Liam Neeson, Emer O’Connor, Stephen Rea, Judith Roddy, Michael Smiley and Bronagh Waugh.

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 aim of the book is to provide a chronological list of all those who have died during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, either through direct violence or indirectly as a result of actions taken during this time. It turned out that Number 2555, Ronnie Finlay, aged 32, Protestant, married, 3 children, factory worker, shot by the IRA on 23 August 1983 as he left his factory, was her dad's best friend. 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.Lost Lives: The Stories of men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, (3rd Ed. On 9 August 1971 running gun battles erupted between the IRA, the Protestant militias and the British Army. 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".

That there should be a similar volume for the victims of all conflicts is self-evident, just as self-evidently there never will be. 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. 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). Written over seven years by five journalists, it is the only book to record the circumstances of every death in the Northern Irish Troubles. As a reference book, Lost Lives is indispensable; as a landscape of history painted in fine detail, it is unique.

The bomb damaged her old peoples’ home next door and this old lady was badly injured, and died the following day.