Living with Ghosts: The Inside Story from a 'Troubles' Mind

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Published not long after the signing of the Belfast Agreement, David McVea and David McKittrick’s Making Sense of the Troubles has become a staple general history of the three-decade-long Northern Ireland conflict. Living with Ghosts is a moving and deeply personal account of one man’s doubts and decisions, and the challenges of reporting a war on his doorstep. Rowan, a former longstanding BBC Northern Ireland security correspondent, was ever-present on TV screens during the final bloody years of the Troubles, then through tortuous years of wrangling over decommissioning.

Living With Ghosts is a memoir of Brian Rowan's journalistic encounters during the Troubles and an analysis of their meaning at many years’ remove. Big Caesars and Little Caesars : How They Rise and How They Fall - From Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson.In his journalistic career Rowan walked the thinnest of lines, where morals and principles were blurred, and as a result his mind became tortured. In his journalistic career Rowan walked the thinnest of lines, where morals and principles were blurred, and as a result his mind became tortured. But his highest profile was during the period covered by this book, one of furtive meetings with a succession of IRA spokesmen dubbed “P O’Neill”, operators from shady reaches of the security services and loyalist brigadiers in Shankill and east Belfast safe houses.

His story takes us beyond the often strict boundaries of the news into the very real dilemmas and fears behind its scenes. His story takes us beyond the often strict boundaries of the news into the very real dilemmas and fears behind its scenes. He goes deep into his contacts with the IRA, the loyalist organisations, MI5, Special Branch, the army and the many other players in the conflict period. The sense from reading Rowan’s memoir of reporting on the conflict, its resolution and aftermath is that it might never make sense.Brian argues that we cannot create a seamless narrative of the past, a full and agreed account of the past is not achievable, but, as he argues in the chapter on amnesty, there is a way out of it, albeit messy and never complete. The final part of this book describes how and why would-be Caesars come to grief, from the Gunpowder Plot to Trump's march on the Capitol and the ejection of Boris Johnson by his own MPs, and ends with a defence of the grubby glories of parliamentary politics and a thought-provoking roadmap of the way back to constitutional government. The saga of Boris Johnson and Brexit frequently crops up in this author's narrative as a vivid, if Lilliputian instance of the same phenomenon. He has remained a well-sourced commentator and occasional reporter on talks processes since leaving the BBC. In Living With Ghosts renowned veteran journalist Brian Rowan retraces his steps through Northern Ireland's conflict years, as he bravely delves into the darkness of those times.

In Living With Ghosts renowned veteran journalist Brian Rowan retraces his steps through Northern Ireland's conflict years, as he bravely delves into the darkness of those times. Living with Ghosts is a moving and deeply personal account of one man’s doubts and decisions, and the challenges of reporting a war on his doorstep. In his journalistic career Rowan walked the thinnest of lines, where morals and principles were blurred, and as a result his mind became tortured.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.