The Troubles refers to the conflicts that took place (mostly) in Northern Ireland, beginning in the 1960's. The conflict is often thought of as a religious conflict, and while there were certainly religious aspects, it was not all based around religion. Ireland was divided into two regions: Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Unionists, who happened to be mostly Protestant, wanted Northern Ireland to remain joined with the United Kingdom. Those who did not, mostly Irish Catholics, wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and become one. These political issues led to religious discrimination and conflicts, thus leading those who aren't local to believe it was a religious conflict. One of the most interesting and shocking things that I learned in this book was that these paramilitary organizations were in the business of kidnapping folks, who were/or were thought to be informants, and killed them before burying them in secret locations. I was familiar with the violence and bombings, but not that. Over 3,000 people died because of these conflicts.

This book has been suggested a thousand times in the book group that I am in. This is not on the list of books that I have pre-selected to read for my 2023 Reading Challenge, but I am currently ahead of schedule on that, so I figured I could cram one more in. I have been working a lot on my ancestry lately and have found several ancestors that came over from various places in locations in what is now Northern Ireland. Obviously, they came over before the events in this book, but I thought it would be a good way to understand more about that region. It was a real combination of factors that led me to pick this book up at the library, and I have to admit that I am not disappointed with that decision.

The content was very interesting, and the writing style was both faced paced and engaging. Despite it being a nonfiction book, it had plenty of murder and mayhem and really read like a well researched historical fiction mystery novel. (Which is not what I typically read, but it was a nice change of pace from some of the slower paced items that I have been reading.) I learned a great deal about the conflict between Protestant and Catholic groups, which is one of the reasons some of my ancestors wound up coming over. It was very eye opening to see that bodies are being discovered up into recent years. I think a lot of people, especially if they are not from Europe, mistake this conflict as a strictly religious conflict, and it was not. That was probably my biggest takeaway from this book. I went into reading it properly misguided, so this was an extremely beneficial book for me in a lot of ways. If you are wanting to learn more about Ireland, or the Troubles, this would be a wonderful book to start with.