Introduction

Construction of Identity in Northern Irish Novels 265
tion of her death is very detailed and matter-of-fact and breaks with the airy atmosphere
created before.
The largest part of one of the glass display cases blasted in her direction.
Though fragmented before it reached her, the pieces of shrapnel and glass
were still large enough to kill her instantly. Her left arm was torn off by
sheeted glass and most of her head and face destroyed by the twisted mass
of a metal tray. The rim of the display case, which was in three large sections,
sliced through or embedded in her recently praised hips and some
heavy glass jars impacted on her chest and stomach, pulverizing her major
organs. Indeed, one substantial chunk of glass whipped through her midriff,
taking her inner stuff half-way through the large hole in her back (ibid.
222).
Martin O’Hare, Kevin McCafferty, Natalie Crawford, her sister Liz and their
mother Margaret plus further twelve people die in the bomb attack, and many
more are injured severely (ibid. 225). A number of times the narrator stresses that
they all had stories (ibid. 223, 224, 231). By giving the victims’ names and short
introductions into their lives McLiam Wilson manages to create an understanding
in the reader that those people who died during the Troubles were really quite
normal people with quite normal lives and that none of them deserved to die.
This disturbing scene is contrasted with Jake’s statement from the beginning
of the novel in which he emphasises the routine of bomb explosions in the city:
“As Belfast bombs go, it went. […] It was dull stuff. Nobody really noticed. What
had happened to us here? Since when had detonations in the neighbourhood
barely raised a grumble” (McLiam Wilson 15)? Farquharson rightly points out that
the things Jake is talking about are “made more important than Jake seems to
suggest; as McLiam Wilson shows, we are meant to be horrified” (ibid. 72). This is
achieved by Jake’s “sarcastic, critical and cynical” language (ibid. 71). Indeed Jake
cares a lot what is happening around him, especially when Roche, a twelve-yearold
kid he has met in the streets, is injured in a riot. Jake loses control screaming
at the reporters around and saying mean things to Aoirghe who has always been a
supporter of nationalist views (McLiam Wilson 363ff).
As the figures mentioned at the beginning of this chapter undoubtedly show,
most deaths were caused by paramilitary groups, the republican IRA and the loyalist
UDA and UVF being the most prominent ones. Among scholars the question
has been raised how to deal with these paramilitary groups. Are they politically
legitimate or merely criminals (Aughey and Morrow 159)? Alain Bairner emphasises
the fact that these paramilitary groups in the 25 years of conflict “had the
weaponry, the organization and the will to continue their violent activities for an
unlimited period of time.” He continues by noting that at first few people believed
the ceasefires called in 1994 to last very long (ibid. 159). Jake for example is one of
those people who eyes the ceasefires skeptically when his friend Slat tells him