
Deniable Contact provides the first full-length study of the secret negotiations and back-channels that were used in repeated efforts to end the Northern Ireland conflict. The analysis is founded on a rich store of historical evidence, including the private papers of key Irish Republican leaders, recently released papers from national archives in Dublin and London, and the papers of Brendan Duddy, the intermediary who acted as the primary contact between the IRA and the British government.
It disrupts and challenges some conventional notions about the conflict in Northern Ireland, offering a fresh analysis of the political dynamics and the intra-party struggles that sustained violent conflict and delayed settlement for so long.
Extracts and articles
Fake it till you make it: the IRA’s go-between who massaged messages to secure peace Irish Times, 30 April 2021
How stalled concessions on hunger strike prolonged Troubles for years Irish Independent, 2 May 2021
Brendan Duddy: a life in the shadows Abridged version of the epilogue to Deniable Contact Derry Journal, 28 May 2021.
Introduction: Negotiating Political Violence available in the Google Books preview of Deniable Contact
Reviews
Colin Kidd With a Titter of Wit London Review of Books 43 (9), 6 May 2021
Reviews on Amazon
Buying ‘Deniable Contact’
It’s £37 for the Kindle version of ‘Deniable Contact: Back-channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland’ from Amazon.
£52.50 for the hardback direct from Oxford University Press with promo code AAFLYG6 (If you have difficulty using the code – there is a problem with the Chrome browser – you can call OUP and they will sort it out).
£66.50 from Amazon.
Or you could ask your library to order it – either the print copy or an ebook. It’s unfortunate the book is so expensive – academic pricing model -but I hope a paperback will be available in 2022.