Kidnapping TPB

On a suburban Dublin road in late November 1983 an IRA gang kidnapped Don Tidey, chief executive of the supermarket chain, Quinnsworth. For 23 days, until Tidey was rescued, not only was his life was at stake but so was the reputation of the Irish State in dealing with its greatest national security threat, the Provisional IRA.

The Kidnapping is the extraordinary story of the Tidey kidnapping and its fall-out - the febrile context for his abduction; the fatal shoot-out in a Leitrim woods between gardaí, soldiers and the IRA men that led to his release; the escape of the kidnappers and bungled attempts to locate and capture them over several counties. Nobody has ever been prosecuted for the kidnapping, nor the tragic deaths of two men in Derrada Woods. Yet, the veteran IRA man believed to have been pulling the strings is still honoured in nearby Ballinamore.

Distinguished authors, journalists and Leitrim men, Tommy Conlon and Ronan McGreevy, have written a gripping and startling account of the kidnapping that also explores the personal, political and social impact of these events, right down to the present day as Sinn Féin is poised to take power north and south in Ireland.