The Belfast Boy

“I was born into the streets of West Belfast – Andersonstown Road, mid-eighties. One of five brothers with a little sister. Son of a working class mechanic. Mother kept the house. My life took me on a journey in which I would do the unthinkable – join the British Army. This is my story. From Belfast to basic training and beyond...”The Belfast Boy: Contact IED! The story of Colum F McGeown’s life, right up until he lost his legs in Afghanistan on Herrick 13. From working class boy to refined Guardsman in the British Army, these are his experiences from West Belfast and his psychological state, to rehab after his injury.At the age of 16, Colum was excluded from his family home, never to return. He had done the unthinkable for a Roman Catholic in working class West Belfast and joined the British Army. This book follows his thoughts and experiences as he moved from place to place, sleeping rough, determined to find his own space, identity, purpose... Colum’s life brought him to the Salvation Army, where he did find salvation and a place to launch himself and his life in a new direction. He found a friend in Victor, whose encouragement helped him to pursue a career in the British Army with vigour, resolve, conviction... There was conflict before even stepping on the battlefield, where he encountered people who would have a profound effect on his military career, and the man he was to become. The Belfast Boy is an ideal read for anyone interested in one man’s unique, personal journey to find something he could call his own.

John Chambers was brought up on Belfast's notorious Loyalist Glencairn estate, during the height of the Troubles. From an early age he witnessed violence, hatred and horror as Northern Ireland tore itself apart in civil strife. Kneecapping, brutal murders, and even public tarring-and-feathering were simply a fact of life for the children on the estate. He thought he knew which side he was on, but although raised as a Loyalist, he was hiding a troubling secret: that his disappeared mother - whom he'd always been told was dead - was a Roman Catholic, 'the enemy'. In a memoir of rare power, John explores the dark heart of Northern Irish sectarianism in the seventies and eighties. With searing honesty and native Belfast wit, he describes the light and darkness of his unique childhood, and his teenage journey through mod culture and ultra-Loyalism, before an escape from Belfast to London - where, still haunted by the shadow of his fractured family history - he began a turbulent and hedonistic adulthood. A Belfast Child is a tale of divided loyalties, dark secrets and the scars left by hatred and violence on a proud city - but also a story of hope, healing and ultimate redemption for a family caught in the rising tide of the Troubles.

This is the story of men from either side of West Belfast's sectarian divide during the Great War. Richard S. Grayson follows the volunteers of the 36th and 16th divisions who fought on the Somme and side-by-side at Messines, recovering the forgotten West Belfast men throughout the armed forces, from the retreat at Mons to the defeat of Germany and life post-war. In so doing, he tells a new story which challenges popular perceptions of the war and explains why remembrance remains so controversial in Belfast today.

Describes the life of Liam Leatham, a young Catholic boy, and his family as he prepares for a boxing match that he sees as the first step out of violence-plagued Belfast.

Twelve-year-old Tony Macaulay was appointed paperboy of Shankill Road in 1975. At the height of the Troubles, as bombs blasted, mobs clashed and sirens wailed through the streets, he did the daily rounds without fail. From barricades to the Bay City Rollers, platform shoes to paramilitaries, this is a story of happiness in dark times, a charming, funny and touching coming-of-age journey set in a very different - but very familiar - world.

A New York Times Notable Book and Winner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Neville's debut remains "a flat-out terror trip" (James Ellroy) and "one of the best Irish novels, in any genre, of recent times" (John Connolly). Northern Ireland’s Troubles may be over, but peace has not erased the crimes of the past. Gerry Fegan, a former paramilitary contract killer, is haunted by the ghosts of the twelve people he slaughtered. Every night, at the point of losing his mind, he drowns their screams in drink. But it’s not enough. In order to appease the ghosts, Fegan is going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all are called to account. But when Fegan’s vendetta threatens to derail a hard-won truce and destabilize the government, old comrades and enemies alike want him dead.