Dirty Linen

Martin Doyle, Books Editor of The Irish Times, offers a personal,intimate history of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of asingle rural parish, his own, part of both the Linen Triangle – heartland of the North’ s defining industry – and the Murder Triangle– the Badlands roamed by the Glenanne gang of security forcescolluding with loyalist paramilarites. He lifts the veil of silence drawnover the horrors of the past, recording in heartrending detail theterrible toll the conflict took – more than 20 violent deaths in a fewsquare miles – and the long tail of trauma it has left behind. He alsoconveys the texture of the times, the high streets where cars couldnot be left unattended, the newsflashes, the constant backgroundbuzz of threat and fear.Neighbours and classmates who lost loved ones in the conflict,survivors maimed in bomb attacks and victims of sectarianism, bothCatholic and Protestant, entrust him with their stories. Doyle marrieshis local knowledge with a literary sensibility and skilfully showshow the once dominant local linen industry serves as a metaphorfor both communal division but also the solidarity that transcendedthe sectarian divide.