"A gang of police thugs." "Renegades and perverted types." These were just some of the ways in which the men and women of the Garda Special Branch were describe

In the early hours of 30 April 2003, twelve armed and uniformed officers accompanied by four plain-clothes detectives burst into Alan Barker's house. They staye

Initially tasked with combatting the threat of Irish republican terrorists in the reign of Queen Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Special Branch went on to pla

The IRA's ability to exploit the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was central to the organisation's capacity to wage its 'Long War' o

The twentieth century was a time of rapid social change in Ireland: from colonial rule to independence, civil war and later the Troubles; from poverty to global