Drayhorses

This third volume of Patricia Craig's trilogy or memoir - following her celebrated Asking for Trouble (2008) and A Twisted Root: Ancestral Entanglements in Ireland (2012) - takes its title from Louis MacNeice: "My diehard countrymen like drayhorses/drag their ruin behind them". A memoir of her upbringing in Belfast and life in London, from the 1960s onwards - but with scenes from childhood, adolescence, and later. A view of the Troubles from elsewhere but based on a strong familiarity with Belfast attitudes and exigencies. The atmosphere of London is sharply contrasted with that of Belfast. Some dramatic incidents not in the public sphere - for example, the funeral of hunger-striker Joe McDonnell - are included. Much brilliant literary content is covered, as well as personal involvement with some notable Belfast characters, such as Sinn Féin's Rita O'Hare, a close friend from schooldays (though later estranged). Throughout the memoir, personal, social political and literary comment and observations of high distinction - are conveyed, indubitably, in Craig's sophisticated, distinctive and idiosyncratic manner.