'There Will Be Fire' by Rory Carroll
Two minutes that changed history? Well, maybe. The Guardian’s Rory Carroll makes a case that if Margaret Thatcher had not survived the IRA’s 1984 assassination attempt, the neo-liberal tide she unleashed on the world—in partnership with Ronald Reagan—might have abated. He adds that without her persistence, Reagan might never have met Mikhail Gorbachev, “a détente that recast global relations.” Well, maybe.
Written with the vivid page-turning descriptions of a novel, but grounded in reporting, There Will Be Fire accurately summarizes the long history of the Irish “Troubles” and offers pocket biographies of the key players in 1984, including Thatcher, her would-be assassin Patrick Magee and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. “Adams viewed the world through thick glasses and seemed to see everything, the field of battle, the mood in a room, the next move,” Carroll writes.
Adams remains an elder statesman in Irish politics. Thatcher was driven out of politics after a Conservative Party power struggle and died in 2013. Magee was released from prison in 1999 and now speaks at reconciliation conferences around the world with the daughter of a man who died from the bomb he planted—an explosion inches away from his intended target. That Magee and his speaking partner could overcome the vicious cycle of hatred and violence brings There Will Be Fire to a cautiously optimistic conclusion.
