Northern Ireland

Derry writer Tony Doherty's new book recalls prison years and struggle for Bloody Sunday inquiry

The Skelper and Me recalls Tony Doherty's imprisonment and the struggle for a new inquiry into Bloody Sunday
The Skelper and Me recalls Tony Doherty's imprisonment and the struggle for a new inquiry into Bloody Sunday The Skelper and Me recalls Tony Doherty's imprisonment and the struggle for a new inquiry into Bloody Sunday

THE years he served in prison and the campaign for a new Bloody Sunday inquiry are the focus of the final instalment of Derry writer Tony Doherty’s memoirs.

The Skelper and Me: A Memoir of Making History in Derry will be published next month.

Mr Doherty’s father Patrick was shot dead on Bloody Sunday as he crawled for cover and he now acts as chairman of the Bloody Sunday Trust.

The first book in his trilogy of memoirs, This Man’s Wee Boy, covered his childhood up until his father’s funeral.

The Dead Beside Us then recalled his teenage years to the point where he started a prison sentence in the 1980s for his part in IRA activity.

The final instalment covers his release from prison and the campaign for a new inquiry into Bloody Sunday.

A spokesman for Mercier Press said Mr Doherty had lived in the shadow of his father’s killing.

“The Skelper and Me is no ordinary memoir. It is a triumph of working class resolve and resilience over the last bastion of empire.

"Epitomising the old adage that ‘if you didn’t laugh you’d cry’', it sallies forth as a fascinating and compelling story of prison life, making a willing inmate of the reader, weaving a tapestry of the lives of his young cellmates, who never deserved such a life, but whose very existence played out, often hilariously, sometimes painfully, and at close quarter behind the steel door of Cell 5, Crumlin Road.”

On his return from prison, the spokesman said Mr Doherty's family saw qualities in him that he hadn’t realised he had.

“At his father’s cross on Creggan Hill (Derry city cemetery), he promised to make right out of wrong. The epic struggle that followed changed the course of history."

The Skelper and Me will have its official launch in Derry on November 7.