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The Telling Year: Belfast 1972
World is running out of fresh vegetables. Irish don't like yoghurt. Chamber of Commerce say 'no' to Portadown hotelier because she is a woman. (Mind you, she looks good in her hot pants.) This is the North in 1972 and journalists previously employed on such frothy stories as these, now have the job of reporting the Saturday night bombings and the barricading of the ghettos. One of those reporters, Malachi O'Doherty, goes home to streets patrolled by Provo gunmen.The army and the IRA hold fire to let his mother walk to work between them. The moralistic columnists on the paper he works for, The Sunday News, say the IRA is 'a disease carrying vermin' and Malachi wonders if he is infected. The question of where a young man fits in between these equally absurd and opposed worlds, is a moral challenge that faces O'Doherty as Belfast inches inexorably and indulgently towards civil war. But first there are stories to write and even a bear to fight. Will Ulster Vanguard declare UDI? Who is dumping bodies in back alleys? Will the girl in the boutique get her tits out for the photographer? How much more of this can a man take?
234 pages, Paperback
First published March 20, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 9, 2018
A very readable account of the worst year of the Northern Ireland Troubles. O'Doherty was a cub reporter on the Sunday News in Belfast. Because it was a Sunday-only publication, the paper focused on Saturday night bombings and other horrors. But because a war doesn't operate on newspaper's timeline, reporters found themselves covering many mundane stories, and wandering all over Ulster for everyday feature. They tried to portray that people's lives continued, particularly outside of the hot spots in Belfast and Derry, despite the presence of the British army and the violence perpetrated by paramilitaries and troops. 1972 was the year 13 civilians were killed by British paratroopers in Derry on Bloody Sunday as well as some of the worst bombings including Bloody Friday. On Bloody Friday, 20 bombs went off in Belfast in 80 minutes, killing 9, including 5 civilians. This was also the year that bloody feuds broke out between the two wings of the IRA, and arbitrary sectarian murders increased. These sectarian murders would escalate in years to come. The victims were chosen simply because of their religion or perceived religion.
O'Doherty mentions Gerry Adams' role as a military commander in the Provisional IRA several times. This is noteworthy because Adams denies that he was ever anything but a political leader, and was never involved in the military wing of Sinn Fein. O'Doherty published Gerry Adams: An Unauthorised Life in 2017, the next of his books I plan to read. I saw O'Doherty speak at the John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh, NI in July, 2016. He continues to be a passionate chronicler of the Troubles, and a thorn in the side of some who prefer to deny the roles they played in the terror. He is both intense, and surprisingly affable, two characteristics that probably have helped him to survive decades of conflict.
O'Doherty mentions Gerry Adams' role as a military commander in the Provisional IRA several times. This is noteworthy because Adams denies that he was ever anything but a political leader, and was never involved in the military wing of Sinn Fein. O'Doherty published Gerry Adams: An Unauthorised Life in 2017, the next of his books I plan to read. I saw O'Doherty speak at the John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh, NI in July, 2016. He continues to be a passionate chronicler of the Troubles, and a thorn in the side of some who prefer to deny the roles they played in the terror. He is both intense, and surprisingly affable, two characteristics that probably have helped him to survive decades of conflict.
October 26, 2014
Seeing that I enjoy reading O'Doherty's articles in the papers when I see them, and because of the subject matter of this memoir, I still can't remember why I passed on purchasing this book when it came out in 2007, but I'm glad that I came to it now-better late than never.
The memoir charts O'Doherty's first job as a junior reporter at the now defunct, Newsletter affiliated Sunday News, which he began in 1971, against the backdrop of Belfast's descent into what would become its darkest year,1972, during which a frightening number of grisly events are experienced at first hand by the author either as a reporter, or thanks to the fact that his family home was in Riverdale, Andersonstown, where the Provisonal's E Company were actively engaging the British Army on almost an hourly basis.
It's easy to understand, from the number of articles I've read, or programmes I've watched, about the impact of events like internment, Bloody Sunday, the Abercorn and McGurk's Bar bombings and Bloody Friday on the general population and country as a whole during 1972, but it's hard to fathom what life was like for those living in the Andersonstown O'Doherty describes in the book, with bands of IRA volunteers openly operating in the streets, and the ever present threat of assault, arrest or even worse from the squaddies they were engaging with.
Yet he writes candidly about dodging bullets, taking beatings, listening to the volunteers who had basically commandeered his house launch a sub machine gun attack on an army patrol, while at the same time telling the story of his time at the paper, which was itself delivering an eclectic offering of journalism, given the era in which it was publishing. O'Doherty is no fan of violence, but is best situated to get many of the stories that are pertinent to the escalating conflict.
This is a fantastic read for anyone who has an interest in both the political and sociological aspects of the conflict in Belfast, particularly in the 1970s, and despite having read numerous memoirs of the Troubles over the years, this one provided me with a new insight into the life that many had to endure as a result of the violence.
As for O'Doherty himself, I'll definitely be reading more of his work, and have already purchased another of his memoirs, 'I Was a Teenage Catholic'.
Well worth the read!
The memoir charts O'Doherty's first job as a junior reporter at the now defunct, Newsletter affiliated Sunday News, which he began in 1971, against the backdrop of Belfast's descent into what would become its darkest year,1972, during which a frightening number of grisly events are experienced at first hand by the author either as a reporter, or thanks to the fact that his family home was in Riverdale, Andersonstown, where the Provisonal's E Company were actively engaging the British Army on almost an hourly basis.
It's easy to understand, from the number of articles I've read, or programmes I've watched, about the impact of events like internment, Bloody Sunday, the Abercorn and McGurk's Bar bombings and Bloody Friday on the general population and country as a whole during 1972, but it's hard to fathom what life was like for those living in the Andersonstown O'Doherty describes in the book, with bands of IRA volunteers openly operating in the streets, and the ever present threat of assault, arrest or even worse from the squaddies they were engaging with.
Yet he writes candidly about dodging bullets, taking beatings, listening to the volunteers who had basically commandeered his house launch a sub machine gun attack on an army patrol, while at the same time telling the story of his time at the paper, which was itself delivering an eclectic offering of journalism, given the era in which it was publishing. O'Doherty is no fan of violence, but is best situated to get many of the stories that are pertinent to the escalating conflict.
This is a fantastic read for anyone who has an interest in both the political and sociological aspects of the conflict in Belfast, particularly in the 1970s, and despite having read numerous memoirs of the Troubles over the years, this one provided me with a new insight into the life that many had to endure as a result of the violence.
As for O'Doherty himself, I'll definitely be reading more of his work, and have already purchased another of his memoirs, 'I Was a Teenage Catholic'.
Well worth the read!
November 2, 2008
A really good book about the so called "Troubles", the ethno-national conflict of Northern Ireland. Very well written, reads like a novel, nice touch also to add photographies relating to what he writes about. Very enlightening!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews