In Northern Ireland, old and bitter enemies are sharing power. Ulsters historical No men first Ian Paisley and now Peter Robinson lead a devolved administration with IRA hawk Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister. How was this deal of all deals achieved? How was war transformed into peace?



Award-winning news correspondent Brian Rowan takes us behind the scenes, and follows the path from the Stormontgate spying scandal to the formation of the Executive. His analysis of the Stormontgate affair is provocative and original: it nails the lie that it was all a securocrats plot. He traces the remote origins of the Peace Process back to the Hume-Adams talks in the late 1980s, but the heart of the book covers the last five years.



How the Peace was Won is the inside track on how the deal was done. Rowan talks to the players in the endgame, and brings his years of reporting experience to the pages of this book. He discusses the dilemmas of reporting a war while living in that conflict a conflict in which the puppets and strings became a tangled mess.

How did Adams and McGuinness change the orders? What made Paisley say yes? How now does the North make peace with its past? In How the Peace was Won the hardest questions are asked and answered.

 

Author Description



Brian Rowan was the BBCs Security Editor in Belfast, reporting the period leading to the ceasefire and then to the formal ending of the IRAs armed campaign. Four times he has been a category winner in the Northern Ireland Journalist of the Year awards. He is now a freelance writer and broadcaster, a regular contributor to the Belfast Telegraph, and this is his fourth book on the peace process.