The Volunteer

“O’Doherty gives a graphic account of the making of an IRA man. Perhaps the book’s greatest strength, and no doubt the feature that, as O’Doherty predicts, will irritate, is the emotional tone in which the story is told. He tells it how he saw and felt it at the time. When he is a stubborn, impetuous youth, he recounts as a stubborn, impetuous youth. When he is a blinkered perpetrator of callous violence, he recounts as a blinkered perpetrator of callous violence. When he becomes an older-but-wiser committed pacifist, the tone shifts yet again to reflect that incarnation.