Dirty Linen: The Troubles in My Home Place

Martin Doyle in Conversation with Brian Rowan

Join us for the launch of Dirty Linen, Martin Doyle’s latest book. Martin offers a personal, intimate history of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish, his own, part of both the Linen Triangle – heartland of the North’s defining industry – and the Murder Triangle – the Badlands devastated by paramilitary violence. He lifts the veil of silence drawn over the horrors of the past, recording in heartrending detail the terrible toll the conflict took – more than twenty violent deaths in a few square miles – and the long tail of trauma it has left behind.

Neighbours and classmates who lost loved ones in the conflict, survivors maimed in bomb attacks and victims of sectarianism, both Catholic and Protestant, entrust Doyle with their stories. Writing with a literary sensibility, he skilfully shows how the once-dominant local linen industry serves as a metaphor for communal division but also for the solidarity that transcended the sectarian divide. To those who might ask why you would want to reopen old wounds, the answer might be that some wounds have never been allowed to heal.

Copies of the book will be available to buy on the evening of this event.

About Martin Doyle

Martin Doyle is the Books Editor of the Irish Times. A former Editor of the Irish Post, he has worked in journalism for over three decades and is a regular contributor to the media and arts programming.

About Brian Rowan

Brian Rowan is a journalist and author, and a former BBC correspondent in Belfast, who has reported on all the major developments in the peace process. Four times he has been a category winner in the Northern Ireland Press and Broadcast Awards, including twice as specialist journalist. His latest book – Living with Ghosts – is a personal reflection on reporting conflict, and on that walk along the thinnest of lines. More recently, his work has involved a ’25 Pieces’ exhibition and booklet drawn from his extensive news archive. It charts the hard road to Good Friday 1998, and the journey since.