Another thing I went to, in the meantime, was Ireland. More specifically, I made a three week round trip of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, both of which I'd never visited before. And while I was there, I realised I didn't really know anything about these countries, despite reading loads of novels and stories set there in the past year. Suddenly throwaway comments about 'a Sligo accent' or 'the Irish boom' made much more sense. I'm considering rereading everything I've read with this new knowledge in mind.
One thing I thought I knew about were the Troubles. I read Milkman in 2019 and it blew me away. And then I read some more novels set in the aftermath, and I thought that was that. But being there, walking around Belfast and Derry seeing the memorials and reading the stories, but more importantly seeing the walls and the murals still up, still separating people, still condemning the other side, that brought it home. I've seen pieces of the Berlin Wall, remnants of what once was, but here these walls are still in use, with gates that close at night. The Derry city walls have only recently been opened to the public again, after years of serving as a lookout for the military to still any unrest. Living in such a world, growing up in such a world, is so very much different from my own experience that it made me realise how much I must have missed reading these books. Subtext, amosphere, small references.
Now Trespasses is set in the seventies in and near Belfast, so at the heart of it all. And the protagonist Cushla is a Catholic living in Northern Ireland, which tells you more than you think. The story centers around both her wish to save and protect the Catholic children she teaches and the love affair she has with a much older man (both Protestant and married). In and of itself the plot wasn't the best, and the way everything ties together in the end, with all these characters that don't know each other influencing each other's lives... That wasn't really for me. But the whole atmosphere came to life as I read it.
At some point, Cushla is in Dublin, and she is amazed to see people going out, enjoying themselves out on the streets. She realises how impossible this has been in her neighbourhood for years now. It's just a small reference, but it hits home when you know what that means. When the Northern Irish characters meet up, it is always at someone's home, and the guests always have to pass through checkpoints to get there. These characters joke about this, as it is a simple fact of life for them, but the weight of these things is there in the background. This, combined with a factual writing style and very real characters, is what made this novel stay in my mind weeks after I'd finished it.
Now I will hopefully never experience what it was like to live during the Troubles and I don't think any novel or museum or movie can make us experience it fully. But books like these capture a time and a place that not many people know too much about. I am happy to have found this spot.
