deirdre madden one by one in the darkness

The children remembered the grief and anger of their parents six months earlier, when thirteen people had been shot dead in Derry. This is a war, and in a war these things happen, but he was again howled down by his brothers, neither of whom would make any direct connection between this and certain other things which had happened in the past. You have to see it in context, Brian replied. √nd if it had been one of your family killed, if it had been Lucy, or Declan, are you telling me you would still be talking the way you are? Peter said.

∝ont you even begin to try to explain or justify what happened, Charlie said, but Brian pressed on, loudly saying it was the fault of the British army, for having deliberately not passed on all the warnings in time. Six of the people who died had been taking shelter in a bus station, having been warned away from a place near by. Apart from the bombs, the IRA had made many hoax warnings that day, so that the city had been thrown into complete confusion, and people tried desperately to escape, only to find their way blocked every way they turned. Nine people were killed, although at first it had been thought that the toll was eleven: the dead had been so badly dismembered that the emergency services had had difficulty in knowing how many bodies they had actually found. That Friday, twenty-two bombs had exploded in the city centre in the space of an hour and a quarter. ∟or Christs sake, it was a massacre!Įven before he said this the children had guessed what the adults were arguing about even when they had been down by the shore they knew that their parents would be talking about the bombings in Belfast, because for the past two days, no one had spoken about anything else.

Im not trying to make out it wasnt a bad business, Brian was saying, for it was. On going into the kitchen, they found all three brothers locked in dispute.

On one such day together with their cousins, they went out for a walk by the shore of the lough, and when they came back, they could hear voices raised in anger as they approached the house. THEY STILL went over to see Brians and Lucys family every Sunday afternoon.

Deirdre madden one by one in the darkness