Ali Watkins — The Next One Is for You: A True Story of Guns, Country, and the IRA’s Secret American Army - with Sopan Deb

Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a sleepy, guerilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the small island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia's Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: The next one is for you or your family. As celebrated New York Times reporter Ali Watkins reveals in this exquisitely reported nonfiction thriller, the conflict in Northern Ireland might have gone very differently had it not been for a small, ragtag band of carpenters, family men, and fugitives in the United States. The Philadelphia Five, as they came to be known, supplied the Irish Republican Army at its moment of greatest need, bolstering the fight for a united Ireland but fueling the Troubles at an untold cost. This small group of Irish nationalists smuggled hundreds of rifles, rocket launchers, explosives, and armor-piercing bullets across the Atlantic Ocean and into Northern Ireland. Whether they were skimming money from innocuous-seeming charities, coolly slipping weapons into hidden compartments of vans and houses, or scouring local graveyards for the names of dead Irishmen to use on federal firearm forms, the gunrunners approached their mission--to unite Ireland under one flag, by any means necessary--with ruthless poise, even as European and American investigators closed in, members of their own movement began to turn on them, and bodies stacked up on all sides.A gripping tale of crime, rebellion, and the hazy line between them, The Next One Is for You is the definitive account of America's hand in the Troubles--a conflict whose resonance is still felt today, in the United States and Ireland alike.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780316538275?ic_referral=7pMhSJG1p9BUyQ_0ujy-43oILuiiGAZ_E3vKDh0E4SQwM4-bPjyJdk4d7Q0g5iOE3byTiRYVCzEjE51pe_yrytL0yL9AkAeDH8EebW2PpNqCAulpW95RUDHMHtdGLuxIvbsdugAli Watkins is a journalist for The New York Times, based out of the London bureau. Previously, she covered crime and law enforcement on the Metro desk and national security in Washington, also at The New York Times. She has also worked for BuzzFeed and at McClatchy Newspapers, where she was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for coverage of the Senate's report on the C.I.A.'s post-9/11 torture program. Watkins is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, where she began her journalism career as an intern at the Philadelphia Daily News. She grew up in Fleetwood, PA and now lives between Northern Ireland and Galway.Watkins is in conversation with Sopan Deb. Deb is a playwright, author and writer for The New York Times, where his topics have included sports and culture. He is the author of the novel "Keya Das's Second Act," and the memoir, "Missed Translations: Meeting The Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me." Before joining the Times, Deb covered Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign as a campaign embed for CBS News. His work has previously appeared on NBC, the Boston Globe and Al Jazeera America. His debut play, "The Good Name," received a reading directed by Trip Cullman as part of New York Stage and Film's 2023 summer season.*recorded 3/16/2025