One of the only nice things about being sick last weekend was it gave me a bit more time to read. I finished Adrian McCinty’s, “The Cold Cold Ground”. I loved getting lost in his world. The novel is a police procedural set in 1981 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This was at the height of the violence between the IRA (Irish Republican Army), the Ulster paramilitary groups, and the UK government. McCinty is from Belfast and his goal was to put a murder investigation story in the backdrop of a crazy time in the history of the city.
I liked the main character, Sean Duffy, a Catholic policeman trying to make a difference. McCinty is a good writer and his prose reads easily which separates him from a lot of thriller or detective story writers. I learned a lot of British/Irish slang, “bangers and mash” (sausage with onion gravy), “bairn” (a child), “banjax” (to ruin or destroy).
You don’t hear much any more about the conflict between Irish Catholics and UK Protestants. It sounds like from my reading that the two sides (Irish nationalists and UK loyalists) still don’t like each other, but they are not using violence against each other. It will be interesting to see what happens now that the UK has left the EU. There is not a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which is a compromise from the UK government. It is being questioned and still not quite set yet. From an outsider’s perspective, I think the island of Ireland should be one country, and the UK Protestants in Belfast and the region should be protected as a minority within Ireland. I find it not natural when islands are split like Cyprus. I am glad that both sides are working on the relationship peacefully, but I always think this will hold back the region from fully realizing its potential. I still see a lot of separate lives being lived between Irish Catholics and British Protestants.
It seems like a dreary place to live with the amount of rain Northern Ireland receives. It did feature in the Game of Thrones and the coastal castles are picturesque. Like all the islands in the UK, the land is overpopulated and stripped of its forests and wildlife generations ago. I might read another McCinty novel in the future.
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