Martin Doyle: UK Book Launch “Dirty Linen – The Troubles in My Home Place”
Presented by the ICC in partnership with the Irish Literary Society
The Irish Cultural Centre is delighted to present the UK Public Book launch of this superb new book by Martin Doyle of The Irish Times. Martin Doyle will be in Conversation with Journalist Anne Flaherty.
This is the finest memoir of the conflict I’ve ever read.’ – Fergal Keane
Doors 7.30pm. Starts 8.00pm
Tickets: £10 admission, £30 with preodered copy
About the Author:
MARTIN DOYLE is Books Editor of The Irish Times, which he joined in 2007.He started his career in London in 1990 with The Irish World, joined The Irish Post in 1992 and became Editor before moving in 2001 to The Times. He edited A History of The Irish Post, which was published in 2000 to mark the newspaper’s thirtieth anniversary. A native of Banbridge, County Down, he is a graduate of the University of St Andrews, where he studied French and German. He contributed an essay to The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working- Class Voices (Unbound, 2021) and to The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace (forthcoming)
About The Book
“Dirty Linen – The Troubles in My Home Place” is a personal and profound exploration of the impact of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish in County Down, Tullylish – part of both the Linen Triangle, heartland of the North’s defining industry, and the Murder Triangle, an area devastated by paramilitary violence. Martin Doyle, who grew up there, lifts the veil of silence drawn over the horrors of the past, recording in heartrending detail the toll the conflict took and the long tail of trauma it has left behind.
Doyle skilfully weaves together the two strands of history, with the decline of the local linen industry serving as a metaphor for the descent into communal violence, but also for the solidarity that transcended the sectarian divide. Neighbours and classmates who lost loved ones in the conflict, survivors maimed in bomb attacks and victims of sectarianism, both Catholic and Protestant, entrust him with their poignant stories. This unforgettable chorus of victims’ voices tells a terrible truth, but the survivors’ stories of endurance and love will also inspire and restore one’s faith in humanity.
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Praise for Dirty Linen:
‘Dirty Linen is nothing short of superb. How hard it must have been at times to write, but how important a book. – Wendy Erskine
‘Dirty Linen is an impeccably researched and incredibly moving hybrid memoir/social history of The Troubles in his home parish of Tullylish, Co. Down. Laden with devastating personal testimonies from neighbours who lost loved ones, this is an important book that commemorates the all too often anonymised victims of The Troubles.’ – Edel Coffey
‘…an extraordinary, beautifully written and vitally necessary intimate history of all the murders in a parish in Northern Ireland during the ‘Troubles’. Lost Lives for Tullylish, Co. Down.’ – Catriona Crowe
‘Martin Doyle’s moving conflict memoir, Dirty Linen, resonated powerfully with me’ – Conor O’Clery
‘Harrowing.’ – Roy Foster
‘This is an important, humane book, stunning in its sweep and power. It will prove to be a classic.’ – The Irish Times
‘Among the most moving works on the conflict.’ – Ian Cobain, The Observer
‘A powerful elegy, suffused with pity, humanity and authenticity, and a deep sense of place and time.’ – Eilis O’Hanlon, Sunday Independent
‘Compassionate … remarkable.’ – The Sunday Times
‘Doyle offers us a personal history of the Troubles that is as exacting as it is humane. An elegant, haunting book.’ – Patrick Radden Keefe
About the Interviewer, Anne Flaherty:
Anne Flaherty is a journalist born in London and grew up in County Clare; Anne has worked for the Irish Press in Dublin and The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from Africa and Asia. She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey. Anne is a key member of the ICC’s Literature Programming Team and she is also on the Board of Trustees here at The Irish Cultural Centre.
About The Irish Literary Society
The Irish Literary Society was set up in London in 1892 and has since met in various London venues to reflect on life as expressed via Irish literature and art.
The Honorary President of the ILS is Poet and Professor, Bernard O’Donoghue. He is the most recent in a notable line of Presidents which has included Poet Seamus Heaney, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, a founder of the Young Ireland Movement, Richard Barry O’Brien, Parnell’s friend and biographer, and Anne Yeats, the poet’s daughter. The current Honorary Vice President is Professor Roy Foster.
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