BELFAST. June 2026. Burnt out homes. Terrified families fleeing in the night. We’ve been here before. A knife attack by Hadi Alodid, a Sudanese asylum seeker in Nationalist North Belfast, triggered anti-immigration riots by Union Jack clad mobs. Loyalist-led pogroms are not new, but their target is. Catholic Irish have been replaced by people of colour.

I AWAITED the publication of this book with great anticipation as my mother’s people hail from the mountainous region of Sliabh Beagh, near where the three counties of Monaghan, Fermanagh and Tyrone meet.