Clockwise from left: 'Ireland the propaganda war', 1984 [Library shelfmark: QP1.84.475], 'Lost lives', 1999 [Library shelfmark: H4.200.0592], 'The Thatcher years in Northern Ireland', around 1989 [Library shelfmark: QP4.90.1157], 'Interpreting Northern Ireland', 1990 [Library shelfmark: Q3.90.1860].
Northern Ireland was a scene of unrest and tragedy in the 1980s. Already a nation divided at the start of the decade, the Troubles reached their height as the 1980s progressed. The Library collections offer a rich and varied resource to study this period of history.
The book 'Lost lives' remembers the thousands of men, women and children who died as a result of the ongoing conflict between loyalist and republican paramilitary groups.
'The Thatcher years in Northern Ireland' considers the then Prime Minister's relationship with the security forces, the republicans and the unionists. It recalls events such as the hunger strikes in Maze prison, and the IRA bombing of the 1984 Conservative party conference in Brighton.
Newspapers of the time in the Library collections provide reports of the events as they unfolded, and books such as 'Ireland the propaganda war' offer a means of analysing the representation of the period in the media. Titles like 'Interpreting Northern Ireland' supply a critical examination of the accumulated research on Northern Ireland.
To read more about Northern Ireland in the 1980s, see also:
For more essays and videos about the 1980s, visit our retrospective 'Back to the future: 1979-1989' website.