Anthony Canavan OUR TROUBLES

Gripping stories, high in atmosphere and tension, of what passed for "ordinary" life in the besieged world of North Belfast during the Troubles of 1968 to 1998: house raids, searches, checkpoints, State blackmail, arrests, murders, informers, "say nothing" - a world of survival by camaraderie, courage, and caution in the face of absolute power. Our Troubles is a collection of compelling and honest stories about the Troubles in the North of Ireland - particularly the hot spot of North Belfast, from where the author hails and which accounted for one in six of the deaths in the Troubles. Two of his uncles were killed in the conflict. A great strength of the stories is the author's focus on what he knows personally and the passion he feels on the subject. He does not fall into the trap (which has become something of a convention in writing about the Troubles) of looking at the conflict from every point of view, but writes with a deep understanding of what he knows intimately: the Catholic experience of the Troubles. This was terrible as the conflict was ongoing, but even after it was over, a sense of grievance lingered because of what was perceived as a political lack of respect for what Catholics had suffered. "...Automatically, Finn added Kevin Myler to the mental list of people he knew who had died in the troubles: Uncle Christy, Uncle Jimmy, Terry Morgan, other neighbours from home. Kevin's death didn't seem exceptional. ...As they filled in the blanks - Paddy and Colm were much better at keeping track of people than Finn was - it became clear that of the forty-two boys in their year, only about half had ordinary lives. Some had just dropped off the radar, the rest were in prison, on the run, or dead. So there was nothing special about Kevin. ..."