Battles

There have been quite a number of features that have detailed and explored conflicts of various kinds.

I’ve covered various wars – from the safe distance, I hasten to add, of home, or decidedly after the cessation of fighting. A trip to Bosnia resulted in two articles: one on the impact of the siege of Sarajevo; the other on a brave and extraordinary theatre company in Mostar that kept performing during the war.

I profiled Lance Corporal Ian Malone, one of the first soldiers from a British Army regiment (and the first Irishman) to be killed in Iraq – a piece on a brave and gifted man that appeared, in different forms, in both the Daily Telegraph and the Irish Times.

I also profiled the remarkable experiences of five British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, three of whom were horrifically injured by IEDs, and two who were cited for extraordinary acts of bravery. (The aftermath of a very different, though deadly, bomb attack – the nail bomb that caused carnage in a gay pub in London’s Soho in 1999 – was covered in Life Goes On.)

By contrast, I’ve also looked at the often idealistic yet inspiring work of campaigner and documentary film-maker Jeremy Gilley and his organisation Peace One Day, which has fought tirelessly to first establish and then put into effect an annual day of “global ceasefire and non-violence” (21 September).

The feature Torn Apart analysed the emotive issue of father’s rights, profiling a man who fought long, hard, though ultimately unsuccessfully – against the law and, he would argue, in-built prejudice – to prevent his ex-wife taking his son to live on the other side of the world.

For further skirmishes, including my first-hand experiences at the World Poker Championship, the significance of the British riots of 1981 and 2001, and the demanding and ancient art of deer stalking, head here.