Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

Lighting Candles
A Paramilitary's War with Death, Drugs and Demons
By: David Leslie
Narrated by: Ruairi Conaghan
Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
4.5 out of 5 stars (20 ratings)

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.

Access exclusive sales and deals.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Lighting Candles

By: David Leslie

Narrated by: Ruairi Conaghan

Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £27.99

No valid payment method on file.

Add payment method

Switch payment method

We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method

Switch payment method

Pay using card ending in

Switch payment method

By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

When Manny McDonnell was twelve, he awoke to discover British troops surrounding his home in the toughest area of trouble-torn Belfast. Internment had begun and, encouraged by a fiercely Republican mother, he took to the streets with other school kids, throwing bricks, bottles and petrol bombs at soldiers.

Jailed at fifteen for having IRA links, he became a unit commander leading deadly missions for the INLA before joining the IPLO, a group so vicious even the IRA ordered it to disband. But his decades of commitment to a free united Ireland turned to disillusion when bombs indiscriminately killed two little boys in mainland Britain.

It was a wake-up call and, sickened by the way events were unfolding, McDonnell distanced himself from the Troubles and began to spend more time in Scotland with major gangland players Paul Ferris and Tam 'The Licensee' McGraw. Friendly with both, he then faced difficult choices when the two fell out and became bitter rivals and sworn enemies.

Lighting Candles is an astonishing and horrifying exposé of one man's journey through the blood, bombs and bullets of the paramilitaries to the criminal activities of drug-smuggling gangsters. It is also a story of how, no matter what has gone before, it's possible to put the past behind you and begin again.