Among Communists

Northern Ireland is on fire. But rather than attending to the conflict raging around her, the young Sinéad Morrissey is obsessed with the Cold War, East Germany and the utopia of the USSR. Set against the distinctive cultural milieu of Belfast Communism – its smoky meeting rooms, protests, marches, sports days, holidays, discos and Party bazaars – Among Communists tells a history of the Troubles unlike any other whilst simultaneously charting a young writer’s journey into poetry. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, surprising everyone – Western Communists most of all – Morrissey’s family followed suit and fell apart. This memoir charts those personal and political earthquakes, weaving together a lyrical exploration of familial love, belief, contrariness and loss, and of the galvanising power of sudden endings to make and re-make the past.