Drayhorses

This third volume of Patricia Craigs trilogy or memoir following her celebrated Asking for Trouble and A Twisted Root: Ancestral Entanglements in Ireland takes its title from Louis MacNeice: My diehard countrymen like drayhorses/drag their ruin behind them. A memoir of her upbringing in Belfast and life in London, from the 1960s onwards but with scenes from childhood, adolescence, and later. A view of the Troubles from elsewhere but based on a strong familiarity with Belfast attitudes and exigencies. Some dramatic incidents not in the public sphere for example, the funeral of hunger-striker Joe McDonnell are included. Much brilliant literary content is covered, as well as personal involvement with some notable Belfast characters, such as Sinn Fins Rita OHare, a close friend from schooldays (though later estranged).