/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7131480]

Can /lit/ suggest me some books about the irish troubles? Possibly fictions set in those years, but history books are welcome as well

[Anonymous No.7132774]

pls

[Anonymous No.7134512]

>>7131480
Read Finnegans Wake but pretend it was written in the 1990s?

[Anonymous No.7134552]

>>7134512

Or LOTR, you could pretend that Saruman is the Queen and IRA are the goodies.

[Anonymous No.7134590]

You could read Murdoch's The Red and The Green which is set earlier than the Troubles but captures the nationalist sentiments and view of history during the Troubles from the green side during the 70s. (She later retracted her views as unhelpful)

Watching the Door, Kevin Myers' memoir might be helpful because it's a kind of dropped in this shit memoir not a I grew up knowing all these cultural tells.

Books on Operation Banner and Stormont are pretty common for military and political tactical reviews.

[Anonymous No.7134601]

The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace

[Anonymous No.7134683]

Irish Republican here, I've read many memoirs, poetry and journalisitic books on the Troubles but I've never read any fiction pieces, I don't see the point. That said, I've wanted to read Eoin McNamees The Ultras, which is about Robert Nairac who seemed like an interesting character. There are a few good fictionalised films though, Hunger, The Boxer, In the name of the Father, Hidden Agenda, Shadow Dancer. Also in theatre, the history of the Troubles Accordin' to me Da and Chronicles of Long Kesh, both by Martin Lynch

Some suggestions on journalism and memoirs:

"The secret History of the IRA" and "Voices from the Grave" by Ed Molony, Ten Men Dead (about the 81 hunger strike), Killing Rage by Eammon Collins, Peter Taylors books are very old now but probably the best example of investigative journalism in his day. He has a great list of his own recommendations here too, the David McKittrick books are invaluable
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/feb/22/bestbooks.politics

As for poetry, I love, love, love John Montague, he actually mentioned my father in one of his most well known poems. And of course Seamus Heaney

[Anonymous No.7134867]

>>7134683
>>7134601
>>7134590
Thanks a lot lads, really appreciate your help (>>7134512 >>7134552 also your help but in a different way)

I'm about to move to NI and I'd like to know more about its history, it's very fascinating.

[Anonymous No.7134922]

>>7134867
>I'm about to move to NI

How come anon? Do you live near it already(UK,Ireland) or are you from somewhere else?

[Anonymous No.7134996]

>>7134867
coolio fam, county down here. where you moving to? any questions?

[Anonymous No.7135069]

>>7134867
>wake up
>lie in bed admiring my legally owned guns
>get out of bed and eat my homegrown chicken eggs and bacon for dinner
>here the first minister condemn islam on the radio again
>take my child to school where I know they will get the best GCSE results in the whole of the UK
>spend my lunchtime strolling in the wide untouched forests and hills of Antrim with my dog
>laugh as the rest of the uk turns to a Islamic corporate shithole

[Anonymous No.7135080]

>>7134922
>>7134996
I'm going to study at the Queen's university in belfast, actually my mother is irish (as you can guess she's never taught me english) but I was born and raised in Italy

>>7135069
sounds good tbh

[Anonymous No.7136050]

>>7135080
Studying?

[Anonymous No.7136323]

>>7134867
if youre interested in the older history try these:

Connolly, S. J. Religion, Law, and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland, 1660– 1760. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
>Focuses on the Protestant north and pays particular attention to how Protestants were compelled to change their underlying assumptions of identity to fit with the reality of the preindustrial society in which they lived.

Bartlett, Thomas. The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation: The Catholic Question, 1690– 1830. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1992.
>Examines the political struggle to obtain rights for Catholics in a country where Protestants saw themselves as the nation.

Brockliss, Laurence, and David Eastwood, eds. A Union of Multiple Identities: The British Isles, c. 1750– c. 1850. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997.
>The focus of this book is on the period after 1815, when Colley’s anti-French/ anti-Catholic thesis seems an inadequate explanation for national identity after union with Ireland.

Smyth, Jim. The Making of the United Kingdom, 1660– 1800: State, Religion, and Identity in Britain and Ireland. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2001.
>Useful textbook on this issue; Smyth stresses the importance of the different but not separate national narratives of the four component peoples of modern Britain.

[Anonymous No.7136730]

>>7136050
Yes, Linguistics, apparently there's a fairly renowed professor in there.

>>7136323
Wow, thanks a a lot!

This whole situation is extremely intersting to me since I come from a region where people struggle for independence as well (although to be fair they're not nearly as justified as the Irish)

[Anonymous No.7136742]

Irish thread lads?
Donegal reporting in. Big time republican family, learned a lot about the troubles growing up, though I was very young when they ended the sentiments really stuck around for a long time.

My grandfather once got drunk and made me swear to kill every brit I ever see crossing the border. I don't know if my granda was in the IRA, but I'm fairly certain he was.
I later found out a friend of his, who I had known my entire life had spent most of his life in jail for gunning down several RIC members.

Those were fucked up times man, I'm glad I never had to live through them. I grew up with the stories and that was enough for me.

[Anonymous No.7136822]

>>7136730
no problem I'm gonna dump a few more books, don't feel obliged to read them all though!

Claydon, Tony, and Ian McBride, eds. Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c. 1650– c. 1850. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. DOI: 10.1017/ CBO9780511560439
>This useful set of essays, particularly good on Ireland, challenges commonly held notions that Protestant religion was a unifying force in the British Isles. The editors seek here to delve beneath platitudes about the place of religion in the 18th century and find a deeper understanding of the place and influence of the Protestant faith in British nation building.
link:
http://bookzz.org/book/850015/a0deac

Pittock, Murray G. H. Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685– 1789. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1997.
>Stresses the tensions within the process of creating a national identity.

Connolly, S. J. Divided Kingdom: Ireland, 1630–1800
>The best single-volume history of early modern and 18th-century Ireland has a chapter dedicated to Ireland in the Atlantic economy. The book also examines in detail the effects of the Cromwellian and Williamite settlements in Ireland. Despite the major changes brought by these attempts to pacify Irish Catholics and to transfer their property to loyal Protestants, Ireland remained a kingdom and not just merely a colony.
http://bookzz.org/book/2530699/fecec1

Brady, Ciaran and Raymond Gillespie, eds. Natives and Newcomers: Essays on the Making of Irish Colonial Society, 1534–1641. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1986.
>A significant collection of the best scholarship on Ireland up to 1986, with the Tudor contributions relating to England’s governance and reformation impositions, as well as the Gaelic aspects of the insurrections and the state of Irish towns during the period. Brady’s article “Court, Castle and Country: The Framework of Government in Tudor Ireland,” is especially illuminating.

[Anonymous No.7136823]

>>7136822
Canny, Nicholas P. The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established, 1565–1576. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1976.
>An earlier contribution to the now-weighty field of Elizabeth and Ireland by one of the leading scholars of the subject. Canny describes the changing policies and attitudes toward the Irish, beginning with the appointment of Henry Sidney in 1565, discussing not only the intricacies of financial and other policies but also the increasing polemical barbarization of the Irish that would color English attitudes from then on.

Lennon, Colm. Sixteenth-Century Ireland: The Incomplete Conquest. Dublin: Gil and Macmillan, 2005.
>An important survey of Ireland under the Tudors, with particularly strong chapters on town and country, society and culture in Gaelic Ireland, the fall of the Kildare ascendancy, and the impact of the Reformation. Emphasized in the second part of the book are Ireland’s responses to English centralization, as well as the introduction of plantation schemes.

[Anonymous No.7136834]

>>7136742
>My grandfather once got drunk and made me swear to kill every brit I ever see crossing the border
kek, just like when my grandfather told me he would have killed me if I turned out a fascist (he was sent to a polish concentration camp)

>>7136822
Eventually I will read them all, don't worry! I'm very curious to see the different approaches the brits used in colonising ireland and india tbh

[Anonymous No.7136893]

>>7136834
> I'm very curious to see the different approaches the brits used in colonising ireland and india tbh

You won't be disappointed then, cause the processes were actually similar in a lot of ways. Ireland though is pretty cool cause colonization began in the 1500s. It's strange to think of a European land as a colony, but Ireland effectively became just that. An interesting fact, for example, is that more people from England/Scotland settled in Ireland in the first half of the 1600s than they did in North American colonies like Plymouth colony and Jamestown because economic prospects were much nicer in Ireland, where the government might give you a grant of land seized form Irish natives in Northern Ireland

[Anonymous No.7138643]

>>7136893
>more people from England/Scotland settled in Ireland in the first half of the 1600s than they did in North American colonies

I had no idea! Again, thanks for all the useful information, really!

[Anonymous No.7139285]

>>7134867
Prepare to get the kicking of a lifetime. We don't like people like you here.

[Anonymous No.7139326]

>>7136730
Queens is a great institution, part of the Russel Group of UK's best research universitys. Are you Sicilian? They've a good international community and the Erasmus parties there are great craic.

>>7136742
The stories I've heard from family and neighbours should really be put into a book. Crazy times

[Anonymous No.7139338]

>>7139285
>We

Protestants and their nigger culture.

[Anonymous No.7140089]

Fiction =

Love and Sleep by Sean O'reilly (an edgy 4chan lit type is in a fucked up relationship with a socialist in Derry towards the end of the troubles. prob the best novel I've read about this place)
Eureka St by Robert McCliam Wilson is probably the best known / most critically acclaimed 'troubles novel'
A Goats Song by Dermot Healy - quite unique in that its set in various locations across the island of Ireland, North and south. A Catholic drinker from the south is in a tumultuous relationship with a Protestant girl from NI whose father is in the RUC

Non Fiction =

Lost Lives by various - an impartial catalogue of every single death in the modern troubles. essential if you're interested in this topic
killing rage by eamonn Collins as already mentioned above
jonny adair - the rise and fall of 'c' company for a loyalist perspective. reads like a Stephen King novel
Voices from the Grave about brendan Hughes and David ervine is decent too

[Anonymous No.7140157]

>>7131480
Blackstaff Press do good memoirs about life in Belfast during the Troubles.

This coming of age memoir is great- funny and poignant:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007449232/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201 pf_rd_i=0856409103&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0W2WV432QGZNCY0VBB3N

[Anonymous No.7140177]

How about a book about trying to escape Irish troubles?

[Anonymous No.7140191]

>>7140177