AfterlivesBy July 1981 four republican hunger strikers had already died in Long Kesh Prison. A fifth, Joe McDonnell, was clinging to life. To outsiders, Margaret Thatcher appeared unbending; yet, far from the prying eyes of the press, her government was making a substantial offer to the prisoners. On 5 July this offer was given to Gerry Adams in Belfast, and relayed to the prison leadership. In this important sequel to the bestseller Blanketmen, ORawe documents

as rehearsals take place for a staging of Hamlet

a once-feted journalist/author with writer’s block

‘No one alive has waded through more collections of correspondence

Their intertwined lives reach a symmetry seldom found in the haphazard progression of events

It will take its place as a classic of the genre while illuminating unknown corners of Ireland's cultural landscape

Losing his friends and mistress

Son of a Supreme Court judge

as is obligatory with an insect play

The O’Brien play

the first Irish-born Superior Generalof the Society of Jesus

the author fights his way to a kind of rest

and the Troubles in Northern Ireland with a combination of resilience and business acumen