Synopsis
Geoffrey Beattie grew up in the notorious "murder triangle" in North Belfast, where during 30 years of the Troubles more than 600 people were killed. Many of his childhood friends ended up dead or in prison, while Beattie himself moved to England, at first to study and eventually to build a highly successful career as a psychologist. On a visit home to see his ailing mother, Beattie began to explore his Ulster Protestant ancestry and to reflect on the unfashionable and little understood Protestant community. His search takes him to the trenches of the Somme, to the Plantation villages of Ulster, and to Drumcree for the Orange march. And it also takes him deeper into his mother's character—at the heart of the book is an extraordinarily vivid portrait of this opinionated, witty, exasperating Ulsterwoman. Protestant Boy is an honest, beautifully written book about the stories that families and cultures tell themselves, and about the silences that they leave behind.