The Arms Crisis of 1970: The Plot that Never Was

The number one Irish Times bestseller
In 1970, Taoiseach Jack Lynch accused two cabinet ministers, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, of smuggling arms to the IRA in Northern Ireland. The criminal prosecution that followed was a cause célèbre at the time. All the accused were acquitted, but it generated a political crisis that would be one of the major events of modern Irish history.

In the fifty years since, myth and controversy has surrounded the trial and its aftermath. Michael Heney has une...