“All I wanted was some peace. I just wanted to sleep.” – Gerry Fegan
Set in Belfast in the aftermath of Northern Ireland’s Troubles*, The Ghosts of Belfast introduces us to ex-con Gerry Fegan. Treated by the locals as a hero for his activities as a “hard man” during the Troubles, activities that got him sent to prison for twelve years, Fegan just wants to leave his past in the past and live out his life in peace. That, unfortunately, isn’t going to happen.
The guilt of his own conscience weighs heavily enough upon him, but that is not the only burden Fegan has to bear. Shortly before his release from prison Fegan began getting visits. Not from friends or family, but from the ghosts of the twelve people he killed during the Troubles. Sometimes only one or two at a time, other times all twelve at once, when we meet Fegan it has been seven long years since his “followers,” as he calls them, first came calling.
Tormented to the very edge of sanity, Fegan barely manages to do more each day than wander down to the pub, get drunk, go home and pass out, then get up and do it all over again. One night a friend Fegan used to run with before his time in prison comes to visit him in the pub. Now a smooth talking politician, Fegan’s friend, McKenna, was once one of the men Fegan took orders from during the Troubles. Orders that led to deaths, including one of Fegan’s followers, the one he calls “The Boy.” (more…)
