Peter CostelloTerence O’Neill, by Marc Mulholland (Historical Association of Ireland Life and Times Series UCD Press)
Looking back Terence O’Neill was a determined man who was overwhelmed by forces on right and left in Northern Ireland which were beyond his control. What he initiated in 1963 ended in the current power sharing, a concept a long way perhaps from what he planned. But then the intervention of the likes of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, not to speak of countless others over the long years of turmoil created events that took a different course. Marc Mulholland of the St Catherine's College in Oxford, an established expert on both O'Neill and on the mysteries of the new Conservatism, provides a succinct account of the man and his trials which should be essential reading for anyone concerned to understand the nuances of Northern Ireland rather than the broad stroke treatments we are so often treated to.
