The flags are flying, people are out on the streets, celebrating, fighting, protesting.
The LFC supporter and Red Detective Charlie Connolly and his partner Amina move into an old house, a house with as much history as the city they live in. A weird statue is found in the cellar, and their next-door neighbour is viciously assaulted on the street. So begins a story that explores Williamson’s tunnels under the city, a history of racist groups, and a gang of bank robbers.
A horrible crime in Southport, the burning down of a library, and fighting on the streets threatens to tear the city apart. Lessons from history show the people have always found a way to unite in the face of hardship and division. In the past Liverpool 8’s own self defense group The Greenjackets, and the occupation of Meccano, become keys to understanding the crimes of the present.
2024 was a turning point in the UK, the riots after the terrible killings in Southport, have set the agenda for the last few years. The changes in Prime Ministers, seven in ten years are a symptom of an underlying crisis, a crisis in living standards, expectations, and life experience.
All my family were Irish, and I see myself as part of that history and tradition, but not to the exclusion of the class I belong to, Irish and English workers have always had more in common than the ruling class that exploits them both. Larkin and Connolly showed us that our choice is not between national flags, the choice is siding with millionaires and exploiters, or choosing to stand with our own kind, of whatever colour, creed, or nationality. Irish diaspora trilogy – Liverpool mysteries
I was born in England, my brother died in the British army uniform. I will not cede the right to call myself English, or give the tradition of working class struggle in England over to the racists. The working class in the UK has always been multicoloured and multi national. In the 1800s the Chartists mobilised hundreds of thousands of workers to fight for the vote for working people, Irish and Black leaders were then and have always been at the forefront of the English working class. The Empire not only sent the British army out into the world, it brought the world into the UK. Over one million colonial soldiers fought in the first world war, they died in the same pointless conflict as the ‘lads’ battalions from across the UK.
I was born and raised in Speke, on the edge of Liverpool but in the centre of working class life in the city, two of the Beatles spent major parts of their childhood there. Surrounded by factories, railways, and docks, on a mainly white estate, I know how normalised racism was back in the day. Thankfully it has changed a lot, but not so much we can forget the killing of Anthony Walker or the sectarianism that once and still stalks the city. ‘Scouse not English’ may have been the cry of the last decades, but we should not either romanticise our past, or give up our place in the English working class.
My thanks to Northodox Press for sticking with my writing which is an expression of all the elements above. I hope you enjoy the stories and share them with friends and family as part of our tradition of struggle for humanity and solidarity.
Leave a Reply