In A Tragedy of Errors Kenneth Bloomfield examines the troubled history of Northern Ireland between 1920 and 2006 and produces a detailed and wide-ranging j’accuse. Bloomfield is well placed to offer an insider's perspective. He served as a senior member of the Northern Ireland civil service from 1956, heading the service between 1984 and 1991. His home was bombed by the Irish Republican Army in 1988. Subsequently, he acted as victims commissioner, producing a report—“We Will Remember Them”—in 1998, and served on a group that sought to facilitate the recovery of the bodies of the “disappeared.” Early in this book, he states that many of Northern Ireland's “agonies could have been avoided with more wisdom, foresight and courage” (4). Then, in turn, he assesses the records of the British state, the southern Irish state, and the players within Northern Ireland, identifying and analyzing the sins of commission and omission that, he believes, contributed to the Northern Irish problem. He is confident and frequently convincing when analyzing the first and last of these categories but is less assured, and briefer, when taking to task the politicians of the Irish Free State/Republic of Ireland.

It is impossible to summarize Bloomfield's many indictments in a succinct and evenhanded manner. Few individuals or bodies are spared his coruscating pen. Bloomfield is familiar with a considerable range of pejorative adjectives and employs these with great zest, although he is occasionally admiring of individuals or of particular characteristics of individuals about whom he is otherwise critical. One of the more interesting aspects of the book is Bloomfield's trenchant criticism of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, which he argues alienated unionists while failing to halt the rise of Sinn Féin. A similar position has been taken by others, including Henry Patterson in Ireland since 1939: The Persistence of Conflict (London: Penguin, 2006), but in Bloomfield's case it is clear that the negotiation of the agreement without the participation of the Northern Ireland civil service still rankles. He admits that he was in part responsible for several errors, including the failure to respond constructively in the 1960s to valid criticisms of Catholic underrepresentation in the civil service of Northern Ireland and an injudicious reaction to loyalist attacks upon a People's Democracy march in January 1969. The reaction was more critical of the marchers than those who set upon them.

It may be a consequence of years spent wrestling with a single (seemingly insoluble) problem or a career expended advising politicians, but Bloomfield does not take the reader's ability to assimilate an argument for granted. He is apt to elucidate his points with great clarity, do it again, and then do it once more—just in case. This tendency is exacerbated by the structure of the book, which sometimes sees him cover the same ground three times (once for the British, once for the southerners, and once for the northerners) before capping it off with a further restatement in the extensive concluding chapter. This renders ironic Bloomfield's amusing—and repeated—observation that John Hume was in the habit of repeating himself to the point of tedium.

Unsurprisingly, the tone of the book is consistently negative, and the air of disillusion is amplified by Bloomfield's pessimism for the future. His conclusion that “we shall need, I fear, better men framing better policies if we are to escape from this unenviable impasse” is mitigated to some extent by his assertion that there are many people “who seek to be bridge-builders, who want to provide an alternative to the politics of mutual distrust and animosity” (258–59), but he offers little hope. Bloomfield voted for the Good Friday Agreement despite remaining unconvinced that it offers a firm foundation for a stable and peaceful future for Northern Ireland. He is not at all certain that the eclipse of the center ground (as represented by the Ulster Unionist Party and Social Democratic and Labour Party) by the irredentist voices of unionism and nationalism (the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin) is a price worth paying for reduced violence. He is skeptical—like many other moderate people—as to the commitment to the democratic process of former “terrorists” and squeamish at the thought of “people responsible for a prolonged and ruthless campaign of murder and destruction” (249) sitting in government. These misgivings are exacerbated for Bloomfield by the unusual system of cabinet governance devised under the agreement; each minister in the new Northern Ireland executive has a great deal of independent executive responsibility for his or her portfolio, ensuring that there is very little collective responsibility. Under this system, the various parties certainly divvy up power, but are they really power sharing? Most important, he raises a truly troubling long-term issue; while the current process may well offer a means of managing the sectarian segregation that is “still deeply entrenched” (3) within Northern Irish society, it may not dissipate and may even copperfasten this atavistic divide.

Bloomfield combines his privileged perspective and his intelligence to produce a book that is regularly insightful. His lucid and direct prose style ensures that it is readable and at times provocative. This is a questioning book that is refreshing in its refusal to evade some of the less palatable consequences of the “peace process.” It is rarely original, however, and given his approach and the book's structure A Tragedy of Errors too often reads like a repetitive jeremiad written by an aspirant Cassandra. Bloomfield offers an analysis that was worth writing and is worth reading, but a long essay or a considerably shorter book would have been more efficient and less wearying.