Introducing Dalzell Press, the publishing arm of the Feldstein Agency. 

https://www.dalzellpress.co.uk/

Published October 7th, 2023:

Dalzell Press is very pleased to announce the publication of a new edition of Lesley Allen's debut novel, The Lonely Life of Biddy Weir.

"The Lonely Life of Biddy Weir is a story that will stay with
me for a long time."   Chris Whitaker, author of We Begin at the End

"What a big hearted book this is."  Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days

A charming and uplifting story, perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is
Completely Fine, A Man Called Ove and It Ends With Us.

Biddy Weir is a quirky girl.

Abandoned by her mother as a baby, and with a father who's not quite
equipped for the challenges of modern parenting, Biddy lives in her own
little world, happy to pass her time painting by the sea and watching the
birds go by. That is, until she meets Alison Flemming.

Because there are a few things about Biddy that aren't normal, you see.
And Alison isn't afraid to point them out to the world.

All of a sudden, Biddy's quiet life is thrown into turmoil. If only there was
someone to convince her that, actually, everyone's a little bit weird . . .

A story of abuse and survival, of falling down and of starting again, and
of one woman's battle to learn to love herself for who she is, The Lonely
Life of Biddy Weir is Lesley Allen's startlingly honest debut novel.

Lesley Allen lives in the seaside town of Donaghadee, in County Down,

Northern Ireland. She is a freelancewriter and communications consultant.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-8380871-7-3    £15.00    E Book £7.99

Published March 8, 2023:

Never Waste a Good Hysterectomy:                 Memoir/Women’s Health

Life lessons from a crisis

Melanie Verwoerd

“I’m a very level-headed person,” Melanie Verwoerd told the gynecological oncologist. “However, I feel like my dogs during a thunderstorm. I’m desperately trying to find somewhere to hide, but everywhere I go, it is still there.”

A week earlier, another gynecologist had paused mid-sentence during a routine ultrasound examination. Something big was wrong.

Blood tests showed elevated tumour markers and scans revealed a huge ovarian tumour with at least a 70% chance of being cancerous. A few days later a radical hysterectomy was performed.

As the terror grew, the only way for her to make sense of what was happening was to write. This book is the brutally honest reflection of the year that followed the operation.

Although it is brutally honest, it is also hope giving, and insists that women’s voices be heard.

Melanie Verwoerd is a former Member of the South African Parliament, South African Ambassador to Ireland and Executive Director of UNICEF. She is a published author, columnist and top-rated political analyst from Cape Town, South Africa.

Melanie was born into an Afrikaner family and grew up during the height of Apartheid in South Africa. At the age of twenty she married Wilhelm Verwoerd, the grandson of the former Apartheid Prime Minister HF Verwoerd, generally regarded as the architect of Apartheid. In 1990, after a brief spell at Oxford in the UK and following the unbanning of the ANC, she and her then husband returned to South Africa.

Shortly after their return Melanie met with Nelson Mandela, who encouraged her to “use her surname and voice for the bigger good”. She stunned many by joining the ANC. Her political involvement also led to her being ostracized by her community and numerous death threats from the far-right Afrikaner movements. During the first democratic elections in 1994, Melanie was elected as a Member of Parliament for the ANC under the presidency of Nelson Mandela. At the age of 27 she was the youngest female MP in the history of the South African parliament. During her time in parliament she worked closely with, amongst others, Nelson Mandela and participated in the writing of the South African Constitution. She was re-elected in 1999 and in 2001 was appointed as South African Ambassador to Ireland.

Her #1 best-selling memoir, When We Dance, was published in Ireland in November 2012. It entered the Irish bestseller list at number two and reached number one the next week. It remained in the top 10 best sellers for six weeks. The book was also published in South Africa in May 2013 under the title, The Verwoerd who toyi-toyied.  Melanie’s next book, Our Madiba: Stories and reflections of those who met Nelson Mandela was launched in 2014 by Archbishop Tutu. In 2015 she co-authored 21 at 21: A nation coming of age which features interviews with South Africans born in 1994. It was published in Germany by Peter Hammerverlag in 2017 under the title Südafrika mit 21.

In 2007 Melanie received the Tatler International Woman of the Year Award in Ireland.

Memoir/Women’s Health  ISBN 978-1-8380871-6-6

  Price £12.00/€13.50 paperback original

£5.99/€6.99 E Book

Publication Date: 8 March 2023

Published January 12 2023

The Stamp of Beauty   by Fionola Meredith

"Fionola Meredith creates a visceral story 

of mistaken love that manages to both

 disturb and entertain."

                                                                             David Park

A young married woman begins an intense affair with an older man as a way of escaping her manipulative mother. But she comes to realise that her lover is a mirror image of her mother – just as seductive, just as demanding, and ultimately just as dangerous.

Set in modern-day Ireland, this unsettling novel from Belfast journalist Fionola Meredith charts the course of an unlikely and deeply dysfunctional ‘age-gap’ relationship to its inevitable conclusion. Disturbing yet darkly humorous, forensic but somehow compassionate, this compelling debut unflinchingly reveals what lies at the heart of the male fear of intimacy, and the hidden impulses which can drive our most fatal attractions.

Fionola Meredith is a writer, broadcaster and commentator, based in Belfast. She is a long-established contributor to the Irish Times and to BBC Northern Ireland, and writes a weekly opinion column in the Belfast Telegraph.

The Stamp of Beauty is Fionola’s debut novel. Aside from her media work, she enjoys messing about in boats, and is a member of East Belfast Yacht Club. She lives in Belfast with her husband, Robbie, and their Dalmatian dog, Ripley.

ISBN  978-1-8380871-5-9               £14.00 paperback original £6.99 E book   

Published in September 2022

Murder Memoir Murder                        

Anthony J. Quinn

Murder Memoir Murder is simultaneously a memoir and a crime fiction story involving a hunt for a missing IRA informer, set in the landscape of a rural parish in South Tyrone. At its core, it is fiction based on truth, but it is also a meditation on truth and storytelling. The novel investigates two true unsolved murders in the author’s parish - one that took place in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, the other in 1982 at the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles – and the web of connections hidden in a tightly-knit community.  At the heart of this true story with fictionalised elements is a searing and honest portrait of home and how the author’s family organised itself after the Troubles.

Anthony J. Quinn’s nine crime novels have received critical acclaim from The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Express, Der Spiegel, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Irish Times, the Irish Independent and other newspapers.  His debut novel Disappeared was shortlisted for a Strand Literary Award in the United States by the book critics of the San Francisco Chronicle, The LA Times, The Washington Post and other US reviewers. It was also listed by Kirkus Reviews as one of the top ten thrillers of 2012. After its UK publication in 2014, Disappeared was selected by the Daily Mail and The Sunday Times as one of their Best Novels of the Year. It was also long listed for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. He currently lectures in creative writing at Queen’s University Belfast and runs the Lost Landmarks storytelling project in Counties Cavan and Tyrone.

Pub date: 22 September 2022

ISBN 978-1-8380871-4-2    crime fiction

£12.00 paperback original    £5.99 E book 

Did She See You?

Jason Johnson

'...knowing where the lies are is the greatest

knowledge...'

A murder at an Irish hillside cottage. A mother shot by her mentally ill daughter. The girl’s migrant stepfather, Denis, the only witness. Denis visits Miriam at the psychiatric prison all the time. But she gives no explanation for the killing, instead voicing endless imagined social media exchanges day after day.

When online star Dagny O'Reilly takes an interest in the case, Denis will not assist. But when Dagny secures a prison visit, a chilling new truth emerges and, miles away, a second murder.

Did She See You? tells of a search for truth along a disintegrating border between real and unreal. It is a tale of sacrifice, vengeance and the mighty persistence of love.

Jason Johnson is the co-author of Slave (Ebury Press, 2018) and the author of four novels: Aloysius Tempo (Liberties Press, 2015), Sinker (Liberties Press, 2014), Alina (Blackstaff Press, 2006) and Woundlicker (Blackstaff Press, 2005). He lives in Northern Ireland.

 Publication Date: 22 September 2022

ISBN  978-1-8380871-3-5 Crime Thriller 

  £12.00 paperback original    £5.99 E book 

Published January 2021

Afraid of the Dark

A Memoir of Mental Health and Fatherhood

Jonny McCambridge        Memoir/Mental Health/Parenting

‘ . . . a man in a blue uniform comes into the room. Softly he walks to the side of the bed and shines a torch into my eyes. At first I'm confused, but then the awful realisation hits me – he's checking to make sure I'm still alive. I am on suicide watch. . .’

In May 2013, 38-year-old Belfast journalist Jonny McCambridge seems to have the perfect life – a beautiful wife and a newborn son, a top job in local media and a bright future in the newspaper industry. But just four months later, in the early hours of a September morning, he finds himself in the acute ward of a local psychiatric hospital. It’s a voluntary admission – but only because a doctor insisted that the alternative was to for him to be forcibly sectioned.

How has Jonny’s life so dramatically fallen apart? And how will he be able to ‘find a way back to any sort of a life from this’?

This is one man’s heartfelt, viscerally honest account of his attempt to overcome the mental health demons which tormented him for decades and brought him dangerously close on more than one occasion to concluding that life simply wasn’t worth living anymore. We follow him on a turbulent, frequently painful and at times darkly hilarious journey to recovery. We see him return to work too soon and then having to abandon his media career; we witness him adjusting to a new life as a ‘stay-at-home’ dad, going on to become the world’s least likely blogger and ultimately, finding meaning and purpose in his role as a full-time father.

Afraid of the Dark is a book which will speak to anyone who struggles to articulate their own emotions or to make sense of all that life throws at them, as well as those who at times feel crushed by the challenges of new parenthood.

‘

Jonny McCambridge was born in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1974. After completing a degree in history and politics at Queen’s University, he worked in the NI media industry for almost two decades, holding a number of senior editorial positions, including Deputy Editor at the Belfast Telegraph. In 2016, Jonny gave up daily newspaper journalism to concentrate on looking after his son. In 2017 he launched the popular blog, What’s a Daddy For? In 2020, he was appointed News Editor of the News Letter.  Jonny currently lives in Hillsborough with his wife, Debs, also a journalist, and their seven-year-old son, James. 

ISBN  978-1-8380871-2-8

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Published November 2020

Peninsula                          Literary Fiction

Tanya Ravenswater

‘To lay the past to rest, once and for all. To be able to forget the bad, remember the good. To reconnect with the indisputable beauty of the landscape.’
 

Gillian and David – strangers with their own reasons for returning alone to Northern Ireland. When they find themselves in neighbouring holiday cottages, their intention is to avoid getting involved.

Life is everything but predictable.
 

Forced to resolve issues from the past, each must stay in the flow of a present which brings its own challenges. In reconnecting with the ‘raw truthfulness of the countryside’, they feel driven to confront inescapable truths about themselves and others – and drawn to consider fresh, uncharted possibilities for the future.

A compelling novel about people being alone and together; the upsides and downsides of family and community; about those with the power to wound or heal; dialogues and silence; about bridges broken and bridges to be built.

Peninsula is a lyrical evocation of a landscape; another iteration of Ireland’s ‘terrible beauty’. And a story which acknowledges the darkness in human experience, while celebrating the pleasures and the lighter side of being alive.

Tanya Ravenswater is the author of the novel Jacques and the short story collection, Modern Fairy Tales For Grown-up Girls. She is also an award-winning poet. Born in Northern Ireland, she now lives in Cheshire, UK.

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Published in October 2020

The Upside of Down                   Memoir/Mental Health

Tara West

The novelist’s memoir of depression and recovery.

Tara West is the author two novels. Poets are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan (Liberties Press, 2012) and Fodder (Blackstaff Press, 2002).

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Published in March 2020

Treasury of Mindfulness                  Mind, Body, Spirit

Paddy Brosnan

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“Paddy Brosnan has a gift for making mindfulness and the philosophy behind it immediately understandable in everyday life.”

                                                                      Padraig O’Morain

From author and mindfulness expert, Paddy Brosnan (This Works, Hay House, 2018) comes Treasury of Mindfulness. A collection of simple yet precious resources which will enhance your life and add to the quality of your everyday experiences. This book is filled with useful and engaging resources and tips and is ideal for those new to mindfulness and those who have been practising for some time.

Open this treasure chest to find whatever you might need at a given moment – and in the process, discover lots of other unexpected, delightful and useful ideas for living mindfully.

Treasury of Mindfulness opens with a couple of short, chapters outlining in simple terms the key principles of mindfulness and how to develop the practice in everyday life. Then there is the Treasury itself, where the reader can rummage around to find exactly what they are looking for, or, even better, in which they can randomly open a page whenever the mood takes them and trust that whatever they’ve landed on is something they will find helpful and thought-provoking.

Each entry in the Treasury features one of four different kinds of mindfulness tools;

• A Mindful Meditation - the formal practice by which we can develop our ability to live mindfully.
• Everyday Mindfulness – simple ways to incorporate mindfulness into the things we do every day.
• Mindful Ideas - these are all things that the author has found to be really beneficial to his practice, and which have helped him live more mindfully. They are fun and will add a different, more relaxed quality to your life if you do them regularly.
• One-Minute Mindfulness - in times of stress, anxiety, panic or frustration, we are not always in a position to sit quietly and meditate for even 5 or 10 minutes. There are lots of mindful techniques to help us in moments of turmoil and some of the most useful of these are featured in the One-Minute Mindfulness exercises.

As well as the above, scattered liberally throughout the Treasury are a number of beautiful quotes from inspirational people, past and present – and some from the author of this book too. A great way to use these would be to think of them as your ‘thought for the day’, to be mulled over for a while before moving on. Also included is a separate chapter focusing on mindfulness for kids which features some really fun mindful activities especially for children.

Paddy Brosnan is a mindfulness teacher and inspirational speaker. A committed Buddhist, he has practiced mindfulness for nearly two decades and has taught tens of thousands how to do the same through his workshops, retreats and books. www.paddybrosnan.com

Too Close  (New Edition)                     Psychological Thriller

Gayle Curtis

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'So addictive' Lisa Hall, bestselling author of Between You and Me.

A gripping psychological thriller of family secrets and the crimes we commit to keep them, .

Cecelia and Sebastian have a connection like no other - more than just brother and sister, they'll go to any lengths to protect each other. Growing up in a bleak old farmhouse, their mother gone and their father violent and abusive, the twins have only each other to keep them alive.But when the secrets of their mother's disappearance start to emerge, and truth and lies are thrown into question, events take a terrifying turn.

As Cecelia tries to break away from the ties that bind her to her brother, Sebastian is determined that the twins should be together - whatever the costs.

See what people are already saying about Too Close - the most twisted psychological thriller you'll read this year.

'A horribly absorbing tale that uses the most innocent domestic details to paint an intimately disturbing nightmare' Anthony J. Quinn, author of Disappeared

'The ending is incredible... chilling and powerful' Bibliomaniac

Gayle Curtis is also the author of I Choose You (Thomas & Mercer, January 2020 and Safe No Longer (Thomas & Mercer, May, 2020).

Published in October 2019

Tugboat Stories                      Memoir

George Matteson

Publication date: October 22nd, 2019

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Tugboat Stories is a modern day Life on the Mississippi, with a touch of Moby Dick (in the detailed yet lyrical description of the boats, their work, and the people that work them), exploring one of the core themes of a uniquely American experience − life on the river − written by one who has lived it in one of the great harbors of the world.

Tugboat Stories is a suite of linked stories based on the author’s career as a seaman and owner/operator of tugboats working in New York Harbor from 1971 to 1998. The work comprises both a portrayal of the socially complex and deeply traditional world of the harbor community and the narrator’s progress within that world from rank beginner to seasoned professional.Within the context of this loose narrative trajectory the author provides a first-hand experience of a unique life − physically demanding, sometimes comic, sometimes crude, often lonely, and, at its core, spiritually compelling.

At the time the author entered the New York harbor scene, the tugboat business was still under the sway of 19th century values and practice. Binding agreements were forged by word of mouth. Skill was assessed within the community at large rather than by governmental process, and individuality − to the point of eccentricity – was easily accepted so long as the over-arching criteria of honesty and skill were met. The harbor was still a place where independence found equal place with self discipline and excellence.In a deeper context still, the Harbor and its people at that time shared an ancestry with the very roots of American literature. The Lower Manhattan shoreline where the narrator’s boat is tied is the same as that trod by Ishmael in the opening paragraphs of Moby Dick, the river in front is the same as in Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”. The looming Brooklyn Bridge and the harbor dawn are the same as beheld by Hart Crane. The narrator walks in the footprints of the creators of “On the Waterfront” and learns many of the same skills and disciplines as did Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi.

George Matteson lives in New York City and on the coast of Maine with his wife, artist Adele Ursone. He worked in and around NY Harbor and the Northeastern US coast and inland waterways from 1971 to 1999, including running his own tugboat, the Spuyten Duyvil, for 13 years. For some of those years, he not only worked, but also lived on the water.

He is the author of Tugboats of New York: An Illustrated History, New York University Press, 2005 and Draggermen: Fishing on George’s Bank, Scholastic/Four Winds Press, 1979, and the co-author of The Christmas Tugboat, a children’s book, Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin, 2012. He is also an accomplished poet, with an anthology, That Miraculous Land & Other Poems, East River Press, 1982. He curated an exhibition, As Tugs Go By: A History of the Towing Industry in New York Harbor, at the John Noble Maritime Collection, Sailors’ Snug Harbor, in Staten Island, New York in March, 2008

Published in November 2018

Are You The F**king Doctor?                                  Medicine/Memoir/Humour

Tales from the bleeding edge of medicine

by Dr Liam  Farrell

Publication date: 13 November 2018

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‘A unique voice that combines insight, humour, and an often
surreal style.’ Richard Smith, BMJ editor-in-chief 1991-2004

‘Razor sharp wit and allure. His personal account of his addiction
is one of the most compelling I have ever read.’

                                                                 Chris Smith, The Naked Scientist

‘General practice is the great unknown. We stand on the cusp of the beyond.
Science takes us only so far, then the maps stop in the grey areas of intuition,
imagination and feelings: here be dragons. Lurching from heart-breaking tragedy
to high farce, we are the Renaissance men and women of medicine; our art is
intangible. Anything can walk through our door…’

Family doctor, Irishman, musician, award-winning author, anarchist and
recovering morphine addict, Liam Farrell became a columnist for the BMJ in 1994.
He went on to write for many major publications, winning a series of prestigious
awards; in 2005, he was the first doctor to win Columnist of the Year in the
Periodical Publishers Association awards.

The book contains a selection of Liam’s best work, from his columns, blogs and short stories.

Brilliantly funny, glittering with literary allusion and darkly wicked humour, this book is much more than a collection of stand-alone anecdotes and whimsical reflections, rather a compelling chronicle of the daily struggles – and personal costs – of a doctor at the coalface.

Published in October 2018

The Glass Door                                  Literary Fiction

by R.M. Clarke

Publication Date:  October 1st, 2018

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‘This is a committed and compassionate work which I read in one sitting-it introduces a fresh new voice and I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending it to readers.I enjoyed it very much.'  Patrick McCabe

The Glass Door is the debut novel of author R.M. Clarke, editor of and contributor to the Dublin UNESCO supported The Broken Spiral anthology in aid of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (2017). Her debut novel, which took seven years to be published, despite winning awards and agent interest, is the story of Rosie, omniscient foetus and solitary child, who recounts her childhood memories under the hypnosis of Dr. Waters, trying to figure out why things have gone so wrong - and how to piece the broken parts of her back together. It is a haunting investigation into the deep, complex and often frightening labyrinth of the human mind, where three generations of Irish women learn to tread the difficult path of reconciling individual identity with social approval. A novel about absence and longing, and a small and fractured family trying to figure things, and each other, out, The Glass Door won the Discovery Award at the Dalkey Book Festival and The Irish Writers Centre Greenbean Novel Fair 2016. 

A haunting investigation into the complex labyrinth of a child's mind

Then the leaves whispered, the branches creaked. Something was up above, watching.

'Hello?'

 She could feel eyes upon her. She knew she was not alone anymore: 'Who’s there?'

 Then a voice came back to her: 'You found me. After all this time.'

Set in the 1970s and 80s between the east coast of Ireland and London, Rosie’s story unfolds as she and her mother Sandra chase her reluctant father across the sea, where he slips through their grasp and disappears, leaving emptiness in Rosie’s hand where a work-roughened palm should be. Mother and daughter are forced by failure and poverty to return home to the bitter embrace of Rosie’s grandmother, Marie, whose love for her daughter and granddaughter is poisoned by her desire for social acceptance. But the strange child Rosie grows increasingly stranger, especially at night, when her unpredictable behaviour becomes both frightening and dangerous. Sandra, coming under growing pressure, both from Marie and the society she lives in, must find a new man to take Rosie’s father’s place. But once she does things only get worse for her and Rosie. After years spent enduring an increasingly disturbed home life, everything comes to a deadly climax. 

The Latch to the Garden                                                        Poetry

Poetry from Edmond Sheehy

Publication Date:  October 1st, 2018

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The first poetry collection from native New York City poet Edmond Sheehy.

Published in July 2018

The Sugar Sugar Cafe                                           Literary Fiction

by Michael Sheehan

Publication Date:  July 23rd, 2018

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In a series of interlinking episodes and intertwining stories, this book looks at the lives, lived out in quiet (or not so quiet) desperation, of a cast of ‘ordinary’ individuals in a small town on the outskirts of Cork city in Ireland in the dark days after the 2008 financial crash. The action centres on The Sugar Sugar Café – a small, ‘greasy spoon’ café in Rathluirc – but encompasses other locations as far flung as Manila and New York city, as the story shifts between past and present, between comedy and tragedy, between fantasy and grim reality.

A bleak yet compelling narrative, told through the alternating perspectives of each of the key characters, hammers home the extent to which, for so many people, daily life is mostly taken up with a gruelling struggle to simply get by, and isolation and frustration are an inevitable part of the everyday routine. This sense of hopelessness is alleviated, however, by many moments of dark humour – and above all, by the rich and often surprising inner lives of these individuals, into which we as readers are given a privileged glimpse.

Dark and yet funny, tragic and yet comic, the ‘nasty, brutish and short’ lives depicted in this compelling novel are rescued from despair by the deep humanity and compassion of the writer who has conceived them.

The Confession of Peadar Gibbons                    Literary Fiction

By Declan Varley

Publication Date  3 July 2018

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Lorna Cuddy was used to getting feature story suggestions from her dad back home. Most centred on five-legged donkeys or the dangers of fairy forts. However, none fascinated the Pulitzer-winning, Irish-born writer, as much as this one. This time, he was part of the story. And so was she. 

Her dad’s childhood friend Peadar Gibbons, had, on his fiftieth birthday, walked into his local Garda police station in a west of Ireland town, saying he had some things to get off his chest. But Peadar was deemed 'harmless’, a man who had lived on the fringes of society; extra-average. Just another solitary life in a small town.

It was a Sunday evening. A quiet one. And tea-time in the police station. Not a time for big confessions. So the officer sent him home with the advice to ‘write it all down.’ After all, Peadar liked writing short stories, and had penned ‘posh poems that didn't rhyme’.

Taking down his Remington typewriter and punching out fifty chapters of a life less ordinary, Peadar would later present the Gardai with what they described as the ‘most elaborate document of admission the force had ever receive.’ Written with a frankness befitting a man who wanted to be unburdened; to be noticed though not stared at; to be talked of, not talked about. 

Struggling to find his way in a changing Ireland; not good enough to deserve a decent chance at home. Not confident enough to try his luck overseas.  Stuck in a life of horror, incidents, and consequences.  

Left with nothing but his confession.

Published in June 2018

Then The Walls Came Down    by Danny Morrison   

Danny Morrison's Classic Prison Diary 

“Remarkable as a human document... The flashes of humour and compassion bear comparison with those in Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy. A must-read for anyone interested in the North - Irish Times

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Danny Morrison came to prominence as an activist in the Republican Movement in the 1970s before he became a recognised writer. He was imprisoned several times and twice charged with IRA membership. In 1981 he acted as spokesperson for the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and later coined the phrase ‘The Armalite and the Ballot Box’ to describe the republican strategy of waging armed struggle and engaging in electoral politics. He was Sinn Féin’s National Director of Publicity for eleven years and edited the party’s newspaper, An Phoblacht. He was also elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. He escaped several attempts on his life by the British Army and loyalist paramilitaries.

Morrison was, in his own words, a ‘reluctant’ but enthusiastic activist, and had always wanted to be a writer. In 1990 he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder, kidnapping and IRA membership.

From prison, in a series of letters, mostly to his partner but also to friends and comrades, Morrison began to reflect on his own life, and the stalemate and impasse in the northern Irish conflict. He also began to develop his own ideas about writing and the creative process. His prison writings have been compared to those of Brendan Behan and his descriptions of the experience of imprisonment on himself, his comrades and their families are candid, sometimes deeply personal, and often very humorous.

Then The Walls Came Down will not only be of interest to students of politics, history, current affairs and media studies, but will also appeal to the general reader in its study of human nature and character.