AN off the books IRA kidnapping of a leading Dublin barrister goes horribly wrong with leading operative JJ Hynes ferried away to Holland in its aftermath. One IRA man is dead and another arrested. Hynes tries to work out what went wrong or if there was an informer in their ranks.
And he’s plenty of time to think about it in the Dutch lowlands in a quiet village where he is taken in by Erik, an old veteran of the Dutch Resistance. If JJ thought that time had the power to heal and bind wounds at the end of war, he can think again. Fifty years on from World War II and the scars of that bitter conflict are still visible just below the surface, if only one cared to scratch the dirt.
Longlines by Caoilte Breatnach is a gripping thriller but it is also a thoughtful novel. It takes place during the mid-1990s amid the uncertainty of the embryonic peace process. At various stages the British government, Dublin and loyalism are keen to frustrate and slow any appearances of progress. The IRA ceasefire is in danger of collapse and warnings are being ignored. In Holland JJ receives only flashes of life from back home through newspaper reports as the fall-out from the kidnapping sees him cast adrift, but it gives him time to ponder his own life having spent 25 years in the Movement, from a teenager on the streets in Derry, to years incarcerated in Long Kesh, to the inevitable broken marriage.
Longlines is a story of a man trying to rebuild his life after the war is over. But how can he do that when so much of his past is no longer there.
And it is to Clare-Galway that JJ is tasked to return to help sell the peace process to sceptical local republicans; a process which he himself is not entirely sure about. Here he renews his friendship with Aishling and her older sister Nora.
Intertwined into this story is Ashling, a student who JJ shared digs with from his time in Dublin before he had to drop all for Holland. Like JJ she is also on the move, returning home to County Clare where she reluctantly resettles, stirring up old ghosts in the process. It's a far cry from the city life she yearned for and has now left behind. Here the narrative changes and we’re brought back to a world where the countryside is heavy with history and folklore, the beaches are windswept but village life claustrophobic. And it is to Clare-Galway that JJ is tasked to return to help sell the peace process to sceptical local republicans; a process which he himself is not entirely sure about. Here he renews his friendship with Aishling and her older sister Nora.
Caoilte Breatnach’s clever use of language – and the relationship and juxtaposition between it and landscape – gives the reader an immediate sense of someone who is familiar with the people and locations in the book, both in the Netherlands and County Clare. His family have been involved in various shades of republican and socialist causes over the years and his research and his own experience has given him a deep insight of the period in question – his sister Lucilita represented Sinn Féin in negotiations leading up to the Good Friday Agreement.
Many of us will be heading off on holiday over the coming weeks with a new clutch of paperbacks stuffed in our belongings. Longlines, which is published by Greenisland Press, is the perfect accompaniment for your summer travels.
Greenisland Press book are available from An Fhuiseog, Falls Road, Belfast.
