Description

Kerri n Dochartaigh was born in Derry on the border of the North and South of Ireland at the very height of the Troubles She was brought up on a council estate on the wrong side of townalthough for her family and many others there was no right side One parent was Catholic the other was Protestant In the space of one year they were forced out of two homes When she was eleven a homemade bomb was thrown through her bedroom window Terror was in the very fabric of the city and for families like n Dochartaighs the ones who fell between the cracks of identity it seemed there was no escape

In Thin Places a luminous blend of memoir history and nature writing n Dochartaigh explores how nature kept her sane and helped her heal how violence and poverty are never more than a stones throw from beauty and hope and how we are once again allowing our borders to become hard and terror to creep back in N Dochartaigh asks us to reclaim our landscape through language and study and remember that the land we fight over is much more than lines on a map It will always be ours butat the same timeit never really was