Belfast diary : war as a way of life /

A riveting firsthand account of the ceaseless strife and conflict that characterize daily life in Northern Ireland. Conroy, a journalist who spent an anxious year residing in a Catholic ghetto in Belfast, focuses on the desensitizing effects of sustained violence upon the average citizenry. What emerges is a bleak yet accurate portrait of the ironic normality of life in the war zone. An insightful examination of the costly human toll exacted by a way of life typified by desperation and perpetual terrorism. Index. MF. 941.6'70824 Belfast (Northern Ireland) Social life and customs / Violence Northern Ireland Belfast / Conroy, John Journeys Northern Ireland Belfast [OCLC] 87-47539

Perhaps more than any book in the recent spate of writing about the conflict in Northern Ireland, Conroy's account conveys a street-level atmosphere and provides a context in which ordinary people are seen and heard. A Chicago journalist, the author lived in West Belfast in 1980 and returned in later years to gather material. He lived in the small, working-class Catholic district of Clonard where he found his neighbors haunted by myths, legends and history, their lives defined by civil war and the lot of being Irish. In Conroy's view there is ``encroaching similarity'' between Protestant and Catholic communities in the North. Unemployment, once largely a Catholic experience, is today an issue for others as well. Conroy's experience, as well as the North's history, give credence to the popular notion that violence has been effective in achieving progress in Ireland. This is an informative, powerful, sensitive evocation of people who ``don't need any practice'' in suffering. (October) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A Chicago journalist's low-key but vivid picture of daily life in war-torn Northern Ireland in 1980. When Conroy couldn't get a ""pleasant hotel"" quickly enough (as most American journalists do), he settled on a boardinghouse in Belfast's Clonard district, the heart of the Catholic ghetto. There, his landlady Bridget Barbour and others taught him much of day-to-day Catholic (""Irish Negro"") life. Though he'd planned to move to a more neutral district when a flat opened up, his fascination with what he was learning in Clonard kept him there for the ten months that he remained in Ireland. He witnessed the hunger-strike deaths of Tommy Sands and others, was present for an IRA break-in to his own boardinghouse, developed an intense sympathy for the Catholic situation (though the account he presents is humanistic and levelheaded rather than partisan), and was able to deduce that, despite daily bombings, street attacks, riots, and arrests, life does go on--even pleasurably, at times. With a brief history, he shows that ""The Troubles"" have in fact been present for hundreds of years. Conroy concludes with a quote from King William, who, as he conquered King James for the 36th time in 36 years, is said to have commented, ""We've been doing it so long that we don't need any practice."" In other words, there's no end in sight. Simple, unpretentious, and enlightening: Northern Ireland realistically--and sympathetically--portrayed. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.