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Description
"Readers who have known what it is to feel unease, anxiety or even fear when stopped by a British army foot patrol somewhere in the wilds of the north, will realise, when they read this book, that they should have been bloody terrified. This is the story of Bernard O'Mahoney, self-confessed "cold and violent thug", who joins "the Professionals" at the age of 19, for the perfectly straightforward reason that otherwise he is about to be sent to prison. The book details his tour of duty on the Fermanagh border during the IRA's hungerstrike... O'Mahoney is also the author of a book about the violent club culture that surrounds ecstasy. His co-author on Soldier of the Queen is the accomplished journalist Mick McGovern, who also co-authored the acclaimed Killing Rage by former IRA man Eamon Collins. Soldier of the Queen is a compelling read, nasty and shocking, but with a grotesque ring of truth about it. Bleak. It makes you laugh, too, but only in the way O'Mahoney laughts at McPsycho. Scarily." Sunday Tribune
“Forget those SAS memoirs. Ex-soldier Bernard O’Mahoney knows what life was really like fighting an everyday war against the IRA.” Maxim
“Bernard O’Mahoney’s Soldier of the Queen captures perfectly the life of a British soldier at a key point in the history of Ireland in the late 20th century, and it is acidly funny... [It] is as good a book as you are likely to find about military life and soldiering in Northern Ireland.” The Irish Times
“This is a rarity: a book written by a foot soldier rather than by members of the elite or specialist units — and O’Mahoney tells it how it was. It is told in a squaddie’s words and with unblinking, often distasteful honesty. But then a sanitised account of a dirty war would be rank cowardice.” Newcastle Upon Tyne Evening Chronicle
“The strength of this account lies in its honesty and in how the author never tries to hide the truth of what he was, nor offer easy excuses.” Garda Review |
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Author
Bernard O’Mahoney travelled extensively after leaving the army, and in the early nineties he worked providing security at nightclubs in London. He wrote about his experience of the violence, drugs and gang warfare associated with the nightclub culture in So This Is Ecstasy?.
Mick McGovern’s first book as co-author was Killing Rage, the autobiography of former IRA supergrass Eamon Collins. He has worked on Thames Television’s This Week and has made documentaries and written for the Observer and New Statesman.
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