I have an ineradicable respect for all the great religions and even for some of the little cranky ones, trying though these can be.A Place Apart was the first book in which Murphy probed geopolitical developments alongside travel commentary.

[8] Murphy herself, however, identifies a later 1981 book on the nuclear arms industry, Race to the Finish?, as the turning point in the politicisation of her writing style.

Equally indisputably - and by now this is common knowledge - the Provos had made a careful plan to attack the William Street barrricade; two senior volunteers were armed and waiting in a house to shoot at the army; and the paratroopers saw an armed group racing out of Glenfaddagh Park, where the Provos had parked a car containing guns.

Catholics commented sourly that after the grovelling public speeches of various Irish cabinet ministers [...] the “Free State” might as well rejoin the UK.

And Loyalists commented, equally sourly, that Britain had lost a wonderful opportunity to show the world what she really thought of those Fenian bastards.A Place Apart would go on to win the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize in 1979, awarded to books that promote peace and reconciliation in Ireland.