I came across this book months ago and thought it would be suitable for review in this journal. It is primarily about secrecy - the enabling legislation, the culture, the extra-statutory 'arrangements' and the failure of the courts to ensure accountability and prevent the excesses allowed by the lack of openness Cobain describes. But it is also about how our understanding of the past can be controlled by the state, including through decisions about what records are created, survive and are made available for research. An eminent Irish journalist, Fintan O'Toole, once spoke at
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