There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History

Journalist Carroll (Comandante: Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela) dissects the Irish Republican Army’s 1984 assassination attempt on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Narrator John Keating confidently walks listeners through the complex web of history surrounding the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the key figures involved in this unprecedented attack on English soil. Carroll takes a comprehensive approach by examining the life and background of not only the bomber, Patrick Magee, and his compatriots, but also of Thatcher, the prominent Conservative Party members directly impacted by the event, and those leading the subsequent investigation. Likewise, Keating makes a determined effort to match the accent and attitude of his narration to the point of view being represented. The volume of details needed to explore how and why the bomb was set and what happened when it exploded could have been difficult to grasp without Keating’s steady intonation and sense of pace. This audio will be appreciated both by listeners with knowledge of the Troubles and those without.