While it certainly applies to the recent US presidential election, it also applies to our own country.
Although the period between 1922 and 1966 are often thought of as uneventful by many, the truth is that there were sectarian riots, murders, IRA activity taking place in an already uneven society. Thus, with these events still within living memory, it should be no surprise that the UVF campaign and the civil rights marches created a situation akin to using a flamethrower on a tinderbox.
These small details are crucial to understanding how a situation can deteriorate so quickly in the eyes of those who don’t understand what they’re seeing. And all too often they are not recorded by historians or, at the very least, are not given the same focus as a big event even though the latter wasn’t possible without the former.
Ironically, it’s often in the realm of fiction where these details really come to life. Little things like avoiding certain pavements because the direction you walk in would confirm your religion and British soldiers being a little too popular with local women at the discos. They convey a myriad of emotions and reactions that would seem out of place in a dry academic text.
Enter Anthony Canavan, stage left, with his new book Our Troubles.
On Amazon, it is described as:
…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.
It's interesting how the unashamedly partisan view has gained popularity in recent years. I remember being told by many that such an approach was not just unhelpful, but also mere propaganda.
Anyway, let’s discuss the book.
With the character of Finn being the character who appears the most, we follow him at various points in his life (school, university, job) which coincide with the conflict going into fifth gear. Along the way, he defends his brother from sectarian bullies, scares a Belfast Royal Academy pupil who mistakes his St Malachy’s uniform as a BRA one, sees his friends’ academic ambitions hovelled by their parents, becomes a third wheel on a day out and sees a cousin run away after his sister mischievously accuses him of loose talking.
Other stories revolve around trauma and who it affects: a kid who witnessed a shooting becomes a haunted adult, a former IRA man is plagued by memories of his time in Long Kesh, a former British soldier who lost his eyesight in Divis Flats and a married couple whose relationship was held together (tangentially) by the conflict hit the rocks when a form of peace emerges.
What really stands out are the little details: Finn’s family live in an area with a Protestant family, and both are pleasant but distant. When a rumour circulates that the UVF will burn out families who don’t have the Union Jack on their house, the Protestant family do just that and attempts by Finn’s father to get them to stand by their neighbours are awkwardly rebuffed. Undoubtedly a common story at the beginning of the conflict, it shows how the polite façade masked bigger problems that would come to fruition once pressure was applied.
Similarly, there is a tale of an aunt who views NICRA as trouble and suggests things are the way they are because that is life. However, her attitude changes when her husband is beaten up by a Brit and falsely imprisoned. Suddenly she becomes Countess Markievicz! Once again, probably all too common and a demonstration of how the whack of a baton does far more to politicise than all the literature in the world.
Moments like these are what really give the conflict a human face: how people react to events spiralling out of control and how old beliefs can be debunked in a matter of moments and Canavan is to be congratulated for capturing these details in a manner that serves the story and tells a historical truth.
Although it is an engaging and enjoying book, ultimately it sits uncomfortably between ‘thinly veiled memoir’ and ‘literary experience’, refusing to commit to one or the other.
Part of the problem is that some of the stories have nothing to do with Finn or his family which can throw the unsuspecting reader. Canavan does attempt to use North Belfast as a link for most (but not all) of the stories, but it’s never emphasised nor elaborated upon to the readers satisfaction. If you think of Last Exit to Brooklyn, the setting of Sunset Park grounds the text and allows (what is essentially) a collection of short stories to become a novel. Similarly, Robert Altman’s film Nashville tells the story of a variety of people over a five-day period in the city of Nashville and the location holds the narrative together.
If Canavan had adopted this tactic, as well as fleshed out the characters of the security guard, the former H-Block prisoner, the blind British soldier and the warring couple, we could have been discussing something fairly astonishing here.
Still worth reading for the small, but crucial, details.
Anthony Canavan, 2024, Our Troubles: Stories of Catholic Belfast during the Troubles of 1968-1998. Phaeton Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1908420336
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
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