MEMOIR: He hasn't gone away, you know. Despite the fact that some people, especially but not exclusively unionists, profoundly wish Danny Morrison would retreat into silence, he keeps turning out books, writesDeaglán de Bréadún.
All The Dead Voices. By Danny Morrison. Mercier Press, 207pp. €12.95
Still regarded with distaste in such quarters because of his past as a republican activist, including several spells as an involuntary guest of her majesty, Morrison has been gaining acceptance elsewhere, thanks to his industry and a different "take" on the world.
He is not the first rebel to take the literary road. After a previous phase of conflict there emerged Sean O'Faoláin, Frank O'Connor and Liam O'Flaherty, to name but three. Not that Morrison would be considered on a par with these; he still has to earn his spurs. He has published three novels and a prison diary, Then the Walls Came Down.
This latest production is a memoir of life in nationalist and republican west Belfast as the Troubles began to take hold. The author was very young indeed when most of the episodes recounted were taking place.
Most of us would be too shy or embarrassed to write about the joys and agonies of first love, the first person we kissed and the turmoil of seeing our beloved on the arm of somebody else. Morrison doesn't hold back. His sharper critics may be surprised that such a "monster" could have ordinary human experiences and normal everyday feelings. There are accounts of his father, mother, siblings and friends. There is a strong sense of a community that could have developed like any other in these islands but was overwhelmed by a great tragedy, with many lives lost or blighted in the storm.
Not everyone will share his admiration for a militant republican uncle who had a tendency to get involved in incidents in which members of the Garda Síochána ended up dead. As he describes an incident where this relative was allegedly told by another family member, "You've got blood on your hands", Morrison comments: "Whenever I think about those words, a shiver runs down my spine, as if their truth were being addressed to me".
It is a rare hint of the self-doubt which may have lurked behind the brash façade of the young republican propagandist who crystallised the new strategy of the 1980s with his famous phrase about "the Armalite and the ballot-box". Morrison's activist days are over now, though he still lives in fear of being lynched - or even worse - by a gang of loyalists. He confesses: "I realise that for many in the opposite camp my part in the struggle is unforgivable".
There is a sense that, in this book, Morrison is clearing his throat for a tale that could have us all hanging on every word. It's too early yet, the peace process is not bedded down, the time is not ripe to reveal the many dark and dangerous secrets the author must have accumulated in the frontline of a vicious conflict. But it is already clear that when the time comes for Danny Morrison to tell the story of his adult life, nothing will be left out.
Deaglán de Bréadún's The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland is published by Collins Press. He is the Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times