Irish Times reporter Ronan McGreevy and fellow journalist Tommy Conlon have retold the “powerful and important” story of Don Tidey, the Quinnsworth managing director who was kidnapped and held hostage for 23 days by the Provisional IRA in 1983, in a new book titled The Kidnapping.
McGreevy thanked Mr Tidey, who was present at the book’s launch in Books Upstairs, on Dublin’s D’Olier Street, on Thursday evening, for agreeing to take part in the project.
“It can’t have been easy for you, Don, to have participated in this book. You have, for understandable reasons, shied away in the past from talking about it. I hope this book demonstrates not only your strength of character during those 23 days in captivity, but a life well led before and after the events of Derrada Wood.”
Mr Conlon also paid tribute to Mr Tidey, thanking him for putting his trust in him and Mr McGreevy. “One could feel the courage and the stoicism, the forbearance, the grace under pressure, one could sense it in the room with you, all those years later.”
The book was launched by veteran RTÉ broadcaster Bryan Dobson. In a speech delivered at the launch Mr Dobson acknowledged the great sacrifice made by Private Patrick Kelly and recruit Garda Gary Sheehan, who were shot dead by the Provisional IRA on December 16th, 1983, during the rescue of Mr Tidey at Derrada Woods, near Ballinamore, Co Leitrim. “A soldier and a young garda had been shot dead by republican paramilitaries while in the discharge of their duty – they had stood in the gap of danger,” Mr Dobson said. Two sons of Mr Kelly were present at the launch.
Mr Dobson praised the book for telling what was for many a “forgotten story”, and for putting the incident in the wider context of 1980s Ireland, “a dark period in our recent history”, one that “should not be forgotten”.
