A Twisted Root

A beautifully written Irish memoir about an extraordinary family. From the authors great-grandmother Katherine Rose, who made her way from Stratford-upon-Avon to Lisburn as part of the Plantation of Ulster, and her forebear William Blacker, who founded the Orange Order, to her great-uncles Frank, Matt, Gerry and Jimmy Tipping, who were all active in nationalism in the 1920s, this astonishing cast of characters brings Irish history to life. My direct and indirect forebears are a wonderfully heterogeneous lot down and up the social scale (mostly down), in and out of church and chapel, Lurgan Papes and Wexford Prods, hanged and hangmen, street-brawlers and scholars, full-blown Orangemen and republican activists.