Newly decoded secret documents reveal the mindset of the IRA in the years following the civil war.

Historian Tom Mahon and code breaker James J. Gillogly have spent the past few years breaking the IRA’s communications code. The code was used for the organisation’s most secret messages, including those sent back and forth to undercover agents in Britain and America. The results are explosive, and expose IRA secrets that have been concealed for over 75 years.

Featuring facsimiles of the actual coded documents, the discussions delve into nearly every matter conceivable for a paramilitary organisation, ranging from the importation of explosives to the use of IRA informants in the Gardaí. Documents detail the IRA’s secret agreement with the Soviet Union and its attempts to provide military assistance to China; military espionage for the Soviets in America; plans to stage a gas attack on Dublin; the IRA’s infiltration of the GAA and control of the Kerry football team and the struggle with Eamon de Valera and Fianna Fail. The book provides an unnerving insight into how the IRA saw itself and conducted its dangerous business in secrecy.

With the eye of a historian and the tools of a professional code breaker, Tom and James have together exposed a treasure trove of new information to create a wonderful and engrossing read.