The Troubles with Us: A warm and funny memoir captures Belfast and its many eccentricities

Hilarious and chilling by turns, Alix O’Neill’s memoir of growing up in 1990s Belfast is an enlightening read

Alix O’Neill's tales from her home town shine in a manner not dissimilar to the laugh-out-loud comedy of Channel 4’s Derry Girls. Picture: Jonny Cochrane

MEMOIR

The Troubles with Us

By Alix O’Neill

4th Estate, €17.55

Journalist Alix O’Neill was born in west Belfast and brought up around the Falls Road in the 1990s, and The Troubles with Us is her sharp and very funny memoir about coming of age during the sectarian conflict that rocked the North for almost three decades.

While acknowledging the violence that was an almost everyday occurrence, however, her story is also that of a ...