Children of the Troubles: Our Lives in the Crossfire of Northern Ireland

by Laurel Holliday

Overview

In this remarkable second book in the Children of Conflict series, Laurel Holliday presents a powerful collection of young people's memories of growing up in the midst of the violence in Northern Ireland known as "The Troubles."
"All my life I have been afraid. When it would get dark I would lie in bed and be frightened to move in case men would be outside who were going to smash the doors in with a sledge hammer and then shoot whoever is in the house as they have done before."
-- Bridie Murphy, age twelve
More than sixty Catholic and Protestant children, teenagers, and adults chronicle their coming-of-age experiences in the war zone, from bomb-devastated Belfast to the terrorist-ridden countryside.
"It was like my head exploded. It's an experience you can't really understand -- getting shot in the head -- unless it's happened to you.
-- Stephen Robinson, wounded while walking home from secondary school
For the first time in thirty years there is some hope for an end to the murders and bombings that have wounded more than 40,000. But the ravages of war remain indelibly etched on the minds and souls of the generation known as children of "The Troubles."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476775333
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	02/04/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Laurel Holliday, formerly a college teacher, editor, and psychotherapist, now writes full time in Seattle. She is the award-winning author of the Children of Conflict series: Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries; Children of The Troubles: Our Lives in the Crossfire of Northern Ireland; Children of Israel, Children of Palestine: Our Own True Stories; and Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America. Laurel Holliday is also the author of Heartsongs, an international collection of young girls’ diaries, which won a Best Book for Young Adults Award from the American Library Association.

Editorial Reviews

The second book in the celebrated "Children of Conflict" series, following Children in the Holocaust and World War II (Pocket, 1995).

Library Journal

YAThrough poetry, autobiographical accounts, and reflective prose, the children of Northern Ireland's conflict tell their stories of growing up and living in the crossfire. Holliday solicited materials for this anthology and received over 600 replies; she selected and edited the writings for consistency and Protestant/Catholic balance, but the words belong to those directly or indirectly involved in this generations-old struggle. Irish idioms are explained as are any unfamiliar references. The contributors experienced these events during their youth or adolescence but many of them wrote as adults remembering the horror. Each selection is introduced with a picture and short paragraph about the author. Holliday's 17-page introduction gives an overview of this conflict and discusses its current status. This first-person approach to understanding conflict and its impact on young people is a valuable asset to any high school collection but especially for those schools offering units in conflict resolution, current events, or world history. Readers will feel empathy toward their peers growing up under tragic circumstances not only in Northern Ireland but in other tension-filled war zones throughout the world.Dottie Kraft, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

School Library Journal

"This reader was moved to tears numerous times...an immensely powerful work..." -- Washington Post Book World

John Prados

"A powerful and haunting addition to the literature of those fateful days when the whole world was at war." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer

John Marshall

"Most poignant...a major addition to theliterature of uncelebrated war." -- New York Newsday

Herbert Mitgang

"A splendid anthology...In al the diaries there is a between-the-line sene of the writers' collective awareness that they were addressing future generations. it is as if they wanted to leave a testament for posterity. Indeed they have." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ruth Fischer

"Children, always so precious...assume divinity in this poignant volume that touches the worst level of inhumanity...[a book] for days when perspective, priorities, and our human resolve need a jolt." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

Paul Dean

An occasionally powerful collection of young people's memories and impressions of Northern Ireland's violent civil strife.

Holliday continues her Children of Conflict series (Children of the Holocaust and World War II, not reviewed) with this collection of brief essays, poems, and diary entries that people sent to her in response to her requests made through newspapers and schools. Because the 60 children, young adults, and adults (recalling events from the heights of "the Troubles" when they were children) were not responding to a specific questionnaire, the results are not always focused, detailed, or engaging. The author considers it a "testament to these writers' courage . . . that not a single person in this anthology asked to be anonymous," but lack of anonymity (and the b&w photos of each contributor) prevents those who admit having committed sectarian crimes from discussing their acts in detail, and thus keeps much of the collection blanketed in banality. The book opens with a young Irishman's teenage memories of how he "split a black soldier's head open" during a riot, and then vomited after seeing a woman keeping watch over her dead son's corpse, "his intestines hanging out like snails." While the book never again captures such drama or gore, there are passages about Catholic boys being savaged by British militia for the crime of carrying empty milk bottles and petrol (popular ingredients of handmade bombs) and the anger, fear, and grief felt by Protestants in the wake of IRA bombings. The anthology is at its best when offering first-hand accounts of hunger-striker Bobby Sands's funeral, expressing resentment over terrorists targeting even the milkman of a police officer, and conveying the courage of "pigs in the middle," who socialize and sympathize with the other side.

The bibliography and chronology add to the book's value as a teaching tool for high schoolers, but adults will find this collection lacking the more candid and unrehearsed eloquence of other first-person works on "the Troubles."

Kirkus Reviews