The Yank: The True Story of a Former U.S. Marine in the Irish Republican Army

Crawley delivers a full-throated and unrepentant call for a united Ireland in this lucid chronicle of his service in the IRA. Born in 1957 to Irish immigrants in Long Island, N.Y., Crawley moved to Ireland at age 14 and, galvanized by the IRA’s opposition to British rule in Northern Ireland, made it his goal to join the group. He took an unusual path to membership, heading back to the U.S. to become a member of the U.S. Marines’ elite Recon unit before returning to Ireland in 1979 to fight for “Irish freedom.” As an IRA member, Crawley was involved in raising funds and getting access to firearms; the latter assignment brought him into contact with notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger. Crawley also plotted major attacks on the English, including one on the London electrical grid in the 1990s that led to his second stint in prison. While it’s difficult not to be swept up in the titillating details, readers may struggle to fully appreciate Crawley’s story, knowing that his actions contributed to the loss of hundreds of innocent lives—a fact that he addresses almost as an afterthought: “Civilians would unintentionally be killed. As inexcusable as that is, it was never deliberate.” Still, this is a clear-eyed look, from the inside, at a group willing to risk it all for a cause. (Sept.)