Anatomy Of A Killing by Ian Cobain is a useful contribution to our understanding of the conflict in Northern Ireland
Anatomy Of A Killing: Life And Death On A Divided Island
Ian Cobain Granta £18.99
On the morning of Saturday, April 22, 1978, an ‘Active Service Unit’ (ASU) of the Provisional IRA in West Belfast was preparing to carry out a murder.
A few days before, an IRA intelligence officer had passed the name, address and photograph of a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) policeman to the ASU’s leader, Harry Murray.
On the day itself, Murray, dressed in his best suit and took a bus to the mainly Protestant town of Lisburn. In a hijacked car he was driven to a residential road on the southern edge of the town.
He went to one house and made his way into the back garden, hoping to find the owner.
Constable Millar McAllister, of the RUC Photography Branch, came out to see who the stranger was in his garden. Murray talked to him for a few minutes, then drew an old service revolver and shot him.
The first round knocked McAllister flat on his back; Murray then shot him three more times as he lay dying on the ground, before running back to the car. The killing was watched by McAllister’s young son.
At first it seemed that the IRA had got away with murder. But days later, those involved were rounded up, interrogated and subsequently charged by the RUC. Murray and three others were convicted and imprisoned.
In Anatomy Of A Killing, journalist Ian Cobain dissects both the murder and the context in which it took place. His description of the killing is as compelling a piece of non-fiction as I’ve read for a while, but this book will nonetheless make some readers uneasy.
I served in the Army in Northern Ireland so I’m biased, but it strikes me that Cobain is too ready to accept at face value the IRA members’ romantic gloss on their actions.
Several former members, including those involved in this murder, spoke to Cobain, whereas it seems few ex-security forces personnel did, on the record at least. The result is that parts of the book are unbalanced and seem dismissive of the motivations of those against the IRA.
So the book is strong in describing the differing routes the IRA members took into terrorism; less so in explaining how their supposedly lofty ideals led them into murdering a man in front of his young son.
The explanations the killers give are glib and unconvincing.
Nevertheless, this is a useful contribution to our understanding of the conflict in Northern Ireland and an interesting – in places fascinating – read.