is the author of Gunsmoke and Mirrors: How Sinn Fein Dressed up Defeat as Victory, and the Observer’s Belfast correspondent. He reported extensively on the Troubles, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, and has previously worked for the BBC, and Welt Am Sonntag in Germany. His other books include Irish Batt: the Story of Ireland's Blue Berets in the Lebanon and Trimble, a biography of the Ulster Unionist leader.
