Blood-Dark Track: A Family History

Blood-Dark Track: A Family History by O'Neill, Joseph. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781862072886.

Joseph ONeills grandfathers - one Irish, one Turkish - were both imprisoned during the Second World War. The Irish grandfather, a handsome rogue from a family of small farmers, was an active member of the IRA, and was interned with hundreds of his comrades by de Valeras government. ONeills other grandfather, a debonair hotelier from the tiny and threatened Turkish Christian minority, was imprisoned by the British in Palestine, where he was travelling to buy lemons, on suspicion of being an Axis spy. Joseph ONeill set out to investigate these imprisonments of Jospeh Dukad and Jim ONeill, which were veiled by family silences, and found himself having to come to terms with memories of violence; with a legacy of fierce commitment and political blindness; with the enchanting power of nationalism and the fear and complicity of the bystander. He was changed by what he found, and he has written a remarkable book about the ties and limits of kinship. With great tact, he sets the stories of individuals against the history of the last centurys most inhuman events.