Vägen mot ett enat Irland

Book talk: Vägen mot ett enat Irland A journey into Ireland’s open wounds – and Europe’s

More than a hundred years after the partition of Ireland, the conflict lives on, no longer as open violence but in language, music, memories and identity. And it is once again a current issue. At the end of September, hundreds of demonstrators blocked Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Northern Ireland, when the Orange Order was given permission to march there for the first time since 1998. There are growing fears that power-sharing at Stormont could collapse.

Join Bokförlaget Atlas publishing director Nina Wadensjö and journalist and author Martin Röshammar for a conversation about his new book, Vägen mot ett enat Irland. Röshammar travels through Ireland and Northern Ireland, inviting politicians, writers, researchers and musicians to answer the question: is there a peaceful path to a united Ireland? We get a picture of a country shaped by conflicts of loyalty, a brutal 20th century and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which silenced the guns but never fully healed the divisions.

We talk about what happens to a society when a conflict is officially over but lives on in everyday life, what Drumcree says about the situation today, and how the conflict is reflected in Europe.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Vägen mot ett enat Irland

A personal and in-depth travelogue, literary reportage in which personal encounters are the key to everything. The book is available for purchase.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Martin Röshammar is a journalist, author and editor with extensive experience in reportage and personal profiles. He has written for, among others, Fokus, Faktum and Biblioteksbladet, and has published several books about sport, culture and society. His latest projects range from the art of interviewing to stories about music, football and people’s life stories.