Out of the shadows

How two spooks and a chip shop owner helped broker peace in Northern Ireland.

- CATHY O’SULLIVAN

OPERATION CHIFFON: The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland, by Peter Taylor (Bloomsbury, $38.99), is out now in ebook and audiobook, and in print on August 1.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which largely brought peace to Northern Ireland. The story of how that historic agreement came to fruition, though, is as complex and astonishing as the conflict itself. In Operation Chiffon, veteran author and documentary maker Peter Taylor offers a fascinating account of the figures in the shadows from MI5 and MI6, the UK's intelligence agencies, and their backchannel dealings over many decades with those connected with the IRA to broker a peaceful resolution.

Taylor's first experience of Northern Ireland came at the age of 29 when he was sent to report on the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, in which 26 unarmed civilians were shot by British soldiers during a protest march in Derry. Thirteen of them died. Like many British people, Taylor admits he was ignorant of much of what was happening in Northern Ireland before that assignment and was reporting for an audience that did not really care.

For decades, working for British television, he was a witness to "the Troubles" - a conflict that left more than 3600 people dead and thousands more injured by paramilitaries and the security forces - and the subsequent peace. He recounts the events that marked the period and the growth in anti-Irish sentiment in Britain as the IRA took its campaign of violence to major English cities in retaliation for the British forces and unionist paramilitaries' treatment of Irish nationalists.