Ebook: In sunshine or in shadow: how boxing brought hope in the troubles

Multi-award-winning author Donald McRae's stunning new book is a powerful tale of hope and redemption across the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland - thanks to boxing.
At the height of the Troubles, Gerry Storey ran the Holy Family gym from the IRA's heartland territory of New Lodge in Belfast. Despite coming from a family steeped in the Republican movement, he insisted that it would be open to all. He ensured that his boxers were given a free pass by paramilitary forces on both Republican and Loyalist sides, so they could find a way out of the province's desperate situation. In the immediate aftermath of the 1981 Hunger Strikes, Storey would also visit the Maze prison twice a week to train the inmates from each community, separately.
In itself, this would be a heroic story, but Storey went further than that: he became the trainer for world champion Barry McGuigan and Olympian Hugh Russell, who became one of the most...