Martin Doyle - Dirty Linen UK Launch

‘This is the finest memoir of the conflict I’ve ever read.’ - Fergal Keane

‘Brilliantly written, fully human, hard to read and harder to put down – everyone should read this book.’

– Anne Enright

‘Doyle offers us a personal history of the Troubles that is as exacting as it is humane. An elegant, haunting book.’

- Patrick Radden Keefe

Dirty Linen is a personal and profound exploration of the impact of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish in County Down,Tullylish – part of both the Linen Triangle, heartland of the North’s defining industry, and the Murder Triangle, an area devastated by paramilitary violence. Martin Doyle, who grew up there, lifts the veil of silence drawn
over the horrors of the past, recording in heartrending detail the toll the conflict took and the long tail of trauma it has left behind.

PUB DATE: 12TH OCT HRDBACK 368pp €24.99/£22.99 ISBN: 9781785374609

– Fergal Keane

Doyle skilfully weaves together the two strands of history, with the decline of the local linen industry serving as a metaphor for the descent into communal violence, but also for the solidarity that transcended the sectarian divide. Neighbours and classmates who lost loved ones in the conflict, survivors maimed in bomb attacks and victims of sectarianism, both Catholic and Protestant, entrust him with their poignant stories. This unforgettable chorus of victims’ voices tells a terrible truth, but the survivors’ stories of endurance and love will also inspire and restore one’s faith in humanity.

About the Author
MARTIN DOYLE is Books Editor of The Irish Times, which he joined in 2007.He started his career in London
in 1990 with The Irish World, joined The Irish Post in 1992 and became Editor before moving in 2001 to The Times. He edited A History of The Irish Post, which was published in 2000 to mark the newspaper’s thirtieth anniversary. A native of Banbridge, County Down, he is a graduate of the University of
St Andrews, where he studied French and German. He contributed an essay to The 32: An Anthology
of Irish Working- Class Voices (Unbound, 2021) and to The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace (forthcoming)