Where Are You Really From?
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Review
An amazing story - astonishing and distrubing. --Alexei Sayle
Product Description
Born into a white, devoutly Catholic Belfast family, Peggy Brannigan was shattered when she became pregnant as a result of an extra-marital affair with a black medical student. Unwilling to have an abortion or to have the baby adopted, but aware that having a black baby would cause a scandal, Peggy came up with an audacious plan to keep her child. When baby Tim was born hospital staff smuggled him into St Joseph s Baby Home and told the rest of the Brannigan family that the baby had been stillborn. One year later, Peggy adopted Tim and brought him to live with her husband and their three sons in the Falls Road Area of Belfast. It was 1966. Told here for the first time, Where Are You Really From? is Tim s extrordinary story of growing up black in Belfast and as part of a republican family living at the centre of a vicious and prolonged bloody conflict. It s a story of racial prejudice, sectarian tensions and family secrets, and describes in vivid detail Tim s childhood during the turbulent 1970s and 80s, his seven-year stint as a republican prisoner in Crumlin Road Jail and the H-blocks, his coming to terms with his mother s revelation of the true circumstances surrounding his birth, and his desperate attempts to trace the father who abandoned him.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an authentic story of Tim's relationship with his mother. She is an amazing woman who went to great lengths to keep her son and a family secret. It is set against a backdrop of the "Troubles" in west Belfast. This is an easy read and seems as though the author is having a conversation with you. There were parts that gave me goosebumps, some parts shocked me, saddened me and some just made me smile. It is deeply personal and very emotional. This is an excellent piece of work which I seriously could not put down until I had finished. If you read nothing else this year, read this. You will not be disappointed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As an adoptee myself this book really appealed to me. This story could be fiction because it is full of twists and turns. It is well written and very interesting from the first page to the last. Tim's mother is an inspirational figure considering his 'adoption' took place in the 1960s. Absolutely amazing tale. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Don't want to spoil the tale by revealing any details but you will not regret buying this book. It is a autobiography you will want to read time and time again.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a weird and wonderful tale! Born as a result of an affair between a white republican Belfast woman and a black doctor from Ghana, Tim Brannigan is initially reared in a baby home as the scandal for his mother and her existing family would have been insurmountable. This entire memoir is told in a very matter fact way which perhaps reveals Tim's present day talents as a journalist.
"I was born on Tuesday 10 May 1966. I died the same day...My mother had managed to create not so much a phantom pregnancy but rather a phantom death".
Such lack of mawkishness sets the tone for the reader as we witness a series of almost soaplike moments which permeate Brannigan's life. Incredibly, when he turns one year old, his mother Peggy decides to adopt him but keeps the secret of his parentage to herself, for now... Brought up in a close knit Nationalist family in West Belfast, he is in limbo - suffering racial abuse from both republicans and the British Army. Such confusion of identity is exacerbated by the unpredictability of his relationship with his mother and her decision not to tell him the truth about his parentage until he is 20 years old.
I found this memoir fascinating for many reasons, firstly it has no sense of misery or angst - Tim tells it as it is, without resorting to typical misery-memoir schmaltz. Also, it opens a window on events during the height of the Troubles when I, myself was a similar age to the author - the difference being that I was sequestered in a tiny village, far removed from the reality of daily violence. It certainly gives greater insight into what it must have been like to live at the "frontline".
Brannigan ends up serving a 5 year prison sentence in H Block as a Republican prisoner even though he wasn't actually a member of the IRA and was a victim of circumstances. Again he doesn't indulge in self pity when he relates events during his time in prison and his portrayal of the tightly organised structure and routine imposed by IRA Commanding Officers on each wing is frankly fascinating. Of course, one cannot expect complete objectivity - hence the ever so slightly patronising attitude towards the Loyalist prisoners with emphasis on their lack of organisation and lack of academic prowess when compared with the Nationalist inmates - one almost hears the author tittering in the background - however such tongue in cheek moments are relatively rare and it's soon back to the business in hand and the quest for self awareness.
This is a book primarily about Tim and his search for his roots, his father being the missing link. Their "reunion", like other landmark events in this memoir, is starkly presented. Where are you Really From? was a pleasant surprise for me as I usually shy away from "local" books and anything referring to the Troubles but his story transcends the parochial limits of Northern Ireland and is a testament to Tim's stoicism and the strength of his bond with his Mum. Don't shy away from it, categorising it as political diatribe when it has more in common with human endurance.
"I was born on Tuesday 10 May 1966. I died the same day...My mother had managed to create not so much a phantom pregnancy but rather a phantom death".
Such lack of mawkishness sets the tone for the reader as we witness a series of almost soaplike moments which permeate Brannigan's life. Incredibly, when he turns one year old, his mother Peggy decides to adopt him but keeps the secret of his parentage to herself, for now... Brought up in a close knit Nationalist family in West Belfast, he is in limbo - suffering racial abuse from both republicans and the British Army. Such confusion of identity is exacerbated by the unpredictability of his relationship with his mother and her decision not to tell him the truth about his parentage until he is 20 years old.
I found this memoir fascinating for many reasons, firstly it has no sense of misery or angst - Tim tells it as it is, without resorting to typical misery-memoir schmaltz. Also, it opens a window on events during the height of the Troubles when I, myself was a similar age to the author - the difference being that I was sequestered in a tiny village, far removed from the reality of daily violence. It certainly gives greater insight into what it must have been like to live at the "frontline".
Brannigan ends up serving a 5 year prison sentence in H Block as a Republican prisoner even though he wasn't actually a member of the IRA and was a victim of circumstances. Again he doesn't indulge in self pity when he relates events during his time in prison and his portrayal of the tightly organised structure and routine imposed by IRA Commanding Officers on each wing is frankly fascinating. Of course, one cannot expect complete objectivity - hence the ever so slightly patronising attitude towards the Loyalist prisoners with emphasis on their lack of organisation and lack of academic prowess when compared with the Nationalist inmates - one almost hears the author tittering in the background - however such tongue in cheek moments are relatively rare and it's soon back to the business in hand and the quest for self awareness.
This is a book primarily about Tim and his search for his roots, his father being the missing link. Their "reunion", like other landmark events in this memoir, is starkly presented. Where are you Really From? was a pleasant surprise for me as I usually shy away from "local" books and anything referring to the Troubles but his story transcends the parochial limits of Northern Ireland and is a testament to Tim's stoicism and the strength of his bond with his Mum. Don't shy away from it, categorising it as political diatribe when it has more in common with human endurance.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Where are you really from
I thought this would be a great read, but for me there is too much of "the troubles" in Ireland in this book and would have preferred more of the personal family stuff
Published 15 months ago by lizzie
not juicy enough
i really liked the idea of this book.a normal belfast lady hiding a huge secret...but i was let down!
started off so good but then went flat and fizzled out. Read more
started off so good but then went flat and fizzled out. Read more
Published 15 months ago by morgan1
so sad
Excellent read, very moving story indeed.
The nationalist people had a really difficult time during the troubles.
Sad, funny and harrowing at times.
The nationalist people had a really difficult time during the troubles.
Sad, funny and harrowing at times.
Published 22 months ago by Benjybhoy
Retail Therapist
Good book, had heard it being reviewed on a radio article and found it to be as good if not better than it sounded from the radio, a thoroughly good holiday read.
Published 23 months ago by Retail Therapist
A GOOD READ
A CANDID STORY WITH A BIT OF EVERYTHING, SADNESS, HUMOUR, GRIEF - THE TRUE STORY OF A LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD TO ADULTHOOD. Read more
Published 23 months ago by T. M. Murphy
trevs review
Not as good as i thought it would be too much time spent talking about the I R A .
Published 23 months ago by TREV
where are you really from
An inspirational biography of how one man overcomes adversity despite physical and emotional incarceration. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Catherine U. O. Connor
What a remarkable story....
I really enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it. This is truly a remarkable narrative and well told. I couldn't put it down.
Published on 13 May 2010 by Cormac Brennan
Where Are You Really From?: A Story of Race, Family and Politics
This book is must read, once l picked it up l couldn't put it down
Published on 7 May 2010 by Mr. R. B. Patterson
An insight of history that the English missed
A remarkable family story of course. Tim Brannigan gives an insight of history in Northern Ireland which, if you were not there, you will have missed. Read more
Published on 24 April 2010 by J. C. Darley
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