Rough Beast

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Rough Beast written and read by Máiría Cahill.

NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER IN THE IRISH NON-FICTION CHARTS

"Rough Beast is shocking, important and unputdownable." Roddy Doyle

Rough Beast is Máiría Cahill's harrowing story of her life and of what she went through at the hands of what is now Ireland’s largest and richest party. That story is told here for the first time in full detail and with unsparing honesty. It is a story of unimaginable trauma and political corruption. It brings to life a world of paramilitary secrecy and parallel laws, but above all it is the story of one young woman’s defiance of the power wielded by ex-gunmen inspiring fear and silence, and their influence over elected politicians.

Máiría Cahill grew up steeped in the traditions of Irish republicanism and the shadowy world of the IRA: her great-uncle Joe was one of the main founders of the Provisional IRA and her grandfather was Gerry Adams's mentor in the republican movement. From an early age she seemed destined for a glittering career within the increasingly successful political machine of Sinn Féin, which was then enjoying the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. She worked in a radio station alongside leading republicans; the Sinn Féin offices were her second home. She knew Gerry Adams and other senior republicans as family friends.

But at the age of 16, she was sexually abused by a prominent Belfast IRA man. When she confided in some friends she trusted about the abuse, one of them told the IRA without Máiría's knowledge. A year later the organisation came calling, and forced her to take part in an inept and grotesquely insensitive internal investigation. She was subjected to round after round of interrogations by senior IRA men and women, usually in a network of safe houses around Belfast. Doubt was cast on her account of what had been done to her. Her assailant was allowed to confront and denounce her. Eventually her rapist was permitted to vanish from Belfast while Sinn Féin and the IRA professed bafflement about his whereabouts.

Critics Review

Rough Beast is shocking, important and unputdownable.
Roddy Doyle
A true story of crime, memory, and justice, Rough Beast is absorbing and endlessly moving. It is a meteor of a book, blazing and unforgettable.
Flynn Berry
Remarkable and shocking...Cahill writes with clarity and describes events in a direct, no-nonsense way
Irish Times
A book that goes head to head with republicans like no other, because she knows the situation from the inside.
Olivia O'Leary
[A] searing memoir of rape and abuse at the hands of the Irish Republican Army
Financial Times
The most perceptive and devastating insight into the deranged morality of the Sinn Fein/IRA movement of recent years
Sunday Independent
[A] searing account of sexual abuse
The Telegraph
A book which everyone in the British Isles should read
Impartial Reporter
A brave and pentrating critic of Irish republican politics, Cahill is a brilliant and powerful writer
New Humanist
Cahill’s uncompromising account of her abuse should make any Sinn Féin supporter feel deeply uncomfortable
Business Post
Cahill’s modest story is an important record. It hints at an adjacently possible world that doesn’t have to repeat the poisonous cycles of the past... The book momentary clears the pall of forgetfulness on less regarded acts that fall outside the shiny allure of grand narratives. As such, it’s worth its weight in gold.
Slugger O'Toole
Ms Cahill writes in harrowing detail of her treatment by Sinn Féin when she went public and why she feels let down by the PSNI. For all those with an interest in how society treats women, republicanism or modern Irish politics, this book is a must read.
Newstalk

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