‘Britain & Ireland: Lives Entwined III’ is a book of essays exploring the complex web of relations that exist between Britain and Ireland. Commissioned and published by the British Council, it follows two successful volumes of the same name published in 2005 and 2006, and the 2004 report Through Irish Eyes exploring changing attitudes towards the UK among young Irish people.

Britain & Ireland: Lives Entwined III develops and expands a number of themes and threads from the first two books. It also invites an eclectic range of both younger and older contributors to consider, in light of recent historic events in Northern Ireland, whether the totality of relationships within and between these islands have entered a new dawn.   Contributors are as follows:

John Hume – Transforming the Union: An evolving dynamic  

Mary Fitzgerald – Drawing on a larger canvas

David Adams – A long way back to the beginning

Olivia O’Leary – Separate but Equal

Richard English – ‘Force Will get Us Nowhere’? Antagonisms and Divisions in Irish and British Politics

Susan McKay - Soldiers

David McWilliams – HiBrits – Irish Blood, English Heart

Fionola Meredith – Springtime in Belfast

Katy Radford – Forty One Sounds Of Green – An Anglo-Irish Soundscape

Naoise Nunn – What Have the Brits Ever Done For Me?

The three volumes open up an intricate web of relations between two sets of people that pushes the adjective ‘entwined’ to its limits – knotted, entangled, inextricably interwoven are other descriptors that spring to mind when attempting to present the rich and complex cultural tapestry that is British-Irish relations. The American and European connections and linkages serve to further illuminate this cultural mosaic.

The Lives Entwined project doesn’t set out to tie up loose ends. There’s nothing neat and tidy about history. The essays pose more questions than they answer. More dilemmas are presented than resolved, more contradictions and ambiguities exposed than arguments won. The only clarity afforded through the various expositions by contributors to these books, is how uniquely complex the tapestry that is British-Irish cultural relations really is.

For more information contact  Liz McBain, North South Projects Manager or Claire Faithorn, Programmes & Partnerships Manager

MORE ABOUT LIVES ENTWINED II

“The spirit of real friendship and partnership that characterises the relationship between our two countries is an inspiring example of what can be salvaged from the ashes of historical enmity and inequality.”  President Mary McAleese, Britain and Ireland: Lives Entwined II

Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern launched ‘Britain & Ireland: Lives Entwined II’ a book of essays that explores the complex relationship between Britain and Ireland. Commissioned by the British Council, Britain and Ireland: Lives Entwined II is a follow up to the previous successful first volume of the same name, and the 2004 report Through Irish Eyes that explored attitudes to the UK among young Irish people.

The new edition of Lives Entwined contains deeply personal essays from an eclectic range of contributors, including:

Former Taoiseach and current EU Ambassador to the USA John Bruton
Writer and journalist Ruth Dudley Edwards
Civil rights campaigner Bernadette McAliskey (née Devlin)
Progressive Democrat TD Liz O’Donnell
Ivana Bacik Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin
Irish Historian John A Murphy
Boston Globe journalist Kevin Cullen
Ed Moloney author of ‘A Secret History of the IRA’
Ray O'Hanlon, editor of The Irish Echo in New York