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Among Communists
Northern Ireland is on fire. But rather than attending to the conflict raging around her, the young Sinéad Morrissey is obsessed with the Cold War, East Germany and the utopia of the USSR.
Set against the distinctive cultural milieu of Belfast Communism – its smoky meeting rooms, protests, marches, sports days, holidays, discos and Party bazaars – Among Communists tells a history of the Troubles unlike any other whilst simultaneously charting a young writer's journey into poetry.
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, surprising everyone – Western Communists most of all – Morrissey's family followed suit and fell apart. This memoir charts those personal and political earthquakes, weaving together a lyrical exploration of familial love, belief, contrariness and loss, and of the galvanising power of sudden endings to make and re-make the past.
Set against the distinctive cultural milieu of Belfast Communism – its smoky meeting rooms, protests, marches, sports days, holidays, discos and Party bazaars – Among Communists tells a history of the Troubles unlike any other whilst simultaneously charting a young writer's journey into poetry.
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, surprising everyone – Western Communists most of all – Morrissey's family followed suit and fell apart. This memoir charts those personal and political earthquakes, weaving together a lyrical exploration of familial love, belief, contrariness and loss, and of the galvanising power of sudden endings to make and re-make the past.
309 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 26, 2026
About the author
Sinéad Morrissey
20 books19 followersRaised in Belfast, she was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where she took BA and PhD degrees, and won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 1990. She has published four collections of poetry: There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996), Between Here and There (2001), The State of the Prisons (2005), and Through the Square Window (2009), the second, third and fourth of which were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. After periods living in Japan and New Zealand she now lives in Belfast, where she has been writer-in-residence at Queen's University, Belfast and currently lectures.
Her collection, The State of the Prisons, was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award in 2006. In November 2007, she received a Lannan Foundation Fellowship for "distinctive literary merit and for demonstrating potential for continued outstanding work". Her poem "Through the Square Window" won first prize in the 2007 British National Poetry Competition. Her collection, Through the Square Window, won the Poetry Now Award for 2010.
Her collection, The State of the Prisons, was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award in 2006. In November 2007, she received a Lannan Foundation Fellowship for "distinctive literary merit and for demonstrating potential for continued outstanding work". Her poem "Through the Square Window" won first prize in the 2007 British National Poetry Competition. Her collection, Through the Square Window, won the Poetry Now Award for 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 14, 2026
Exquisite in every way - Morrissey somehow manages to be both subtly critical yet also tender while reflecting on her childhood and the ideologies that shaped it… all in the most beautiful, lyrical prose. I was surprised at the amount of experiences I share with her; some a coincidence and some perhaps as a result of having parents that don’t neatly fit into the binary that still defines so much of life in NI… much to reflect on. Also - “the 1980s European equivalent of Outer Siberia” might just be my favourite description of Northern Ireland ever.
May 12, 2026
A beautifully written and thought-provoking memoir focusing on the experience of being a Party Child during the war in the North of Ireland.
Reading this felt personally resonant. As I gravitated toward the Communist Party of Ireland in my teenage years, after rejecting my institutional Sinn Féin upbringing (post 98), I was shocked to discover that the “big-C” Communists had largely rejected the national liberation struggle at the height of the conflict. Morrissey’s account captures that same sense of ideological dissonance; something still visible today in the condition of the CPI and its various northern splits (and splits of splits).
Morrissey demonstrates with remarkable clarity just how alien the CPI often appeared to working-class communities beyond the official trade union movement. The Party emerges as insulated, almost sealed within its own intellectual world – dreaming of Moscow while a very real class war was being fought in the streets of Belfast. The memoir succeeds not only as a personal history but as a quiet political reckoning, exposing the gap between the revolution the left aspires towards & the real form in which revolutions materialise.
Well worth a read. The Labour Party love made me cringe though.
Reading this felt personally resonant. As I gravitated toward the Communist Party of Ireland in my teenage years, after rejecting my institutional Sinn Féin upbringing (post 98), I was shocked to discover that the “big-C” Communists had largely rejected the national liberation struggle at the height of the conflict. Morrissey’s account captures that same sense of ideological dissonance; something still visible today in the condition of the CPI and its various northern splits (and splits of splits).
Morrissey demonstrates with remarkable clarity just how alien the CPI often appeared to working-class communities beyond the official trade union movement. The Party emerges as insulated, almost sealed within its own intellectual world – dreaming of Moscow while a very real class war was being fought in the streets of Belfast. The memoir succeeds not only as a personal history but as a quiet political reckoning, exposing the gap between the revolution the left aspires towards & the real form in which revolutions materialise.
Well worth a read. The Labour Party love made me cringe though.
September 18, 2026
An excellent, excellent book by my favorite poet. Life on the fringe. Crashes that you see coming from a long way off, but still surprise you when they break across the shore. I adored this book, though I must say I’m probably biased by my interest in the subject matter.
6/5 - I’ll probably read it again in a few months
6/5 - I’ll probably read it again in a few months
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews