When Kevin Barry Artt was born, his mother had to give birth to him in a convent in a small town, out of sight of people who would be scandalized that a baby had a Protestant dad and a Catholic mother. If he'd died some years ago, he might have been buried in a cemetery in Ballymurphy that is said to have an underground wall, invisible from the surface, that divides Catholic dead from Protestant dead. The bigotry and absurdity of it seem … [Read more...]
Gallery | ABOVE THE GROUND: A True Story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland by Dan Lawton
Dan Lawton's ABOVE THE GROUND: A True Story of The Troubles in Northern Ireland delves into the gripping realm of true crime, Irish history, prison escape, and the remarkable redemption of an unjustly accused man entangled in the complexities of an IRA murder. This photo gallery complements the absorbing account. … [Read more...]
Meet Author Dan Lawton
I'm a writer and lawyer. My short fiction and columns have appeared in The Recorder, Los Angeles Daily Journal, The Pensive Quill, The Daily Transcript, and Sheepshead Review. ABOVE THE GROUND: A True Story of The Troubles in Northern Ireland is my first work of narrative nonfiction. I was born in Los Angeles and raised in Fullerton, California, along with my three younger brothers. I earned my undergraduate degree … [Read more...]
ABOVE THE GROUND: A True Story of The Troubles in Northern Ireland—a tale of courage, injustice, and redemption by Dan Lawton
In 1978, the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, reached a boiling point. Hundreds of members of the Irish Republican Army determined to drive the hated British out of the province-killing soldiers and police, detonating bombs, while arming themselves with firearms and explosives-were arrested and incarcerated in a notorious British prison known as the Maze. Sunday, November 26, 1978, two IRA gunmen kicked in the … [Read more...]