Book Review: The Troubles in Ballybogoin: Memory and Identity in Northern Ireland by William F. Kelleher, Jr.

The Troubles in Ballybogoin (a pseudonym) is predominantly a study of identity among nationalists in a town in the southwestern part of Northern Ireland, not far from the border with the Republic of Ireland. Based on fieldwork carried out mainly in the mid-1980s, the author explains that he “developed ties with both communities but had the opportunity to engage Catholics to a far greater extent” (p.x). Whether or not this was an inevitable consequence of the divisions between the communities he does not make clear, though “much of the fieldwork…was done in moments of extreme violence and danger” (p.215)