What are readers saying?
Watch this space for reviews and/or instances of publicity.
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The first two pages of the newspaper article in The Newtownabbey Times
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belfast, with dinosaurs, 1979, review
by Cormac Hamill
Broadcaster and Chair of Cave Hill Conservation Campaign
Broadcaster and Chair of Cave Hill Conservation Campaign
Martin Connolly's book is set in both modern Belfast and in the Belfast of the 1970s Troubles (whose geography, language and atmosphere he captures so well). He overlays the temporal shifts with a remarkable conceit (the clue is in the title) and weaves all these strands into a disconcerting comedy.
I read the book with great interest. The whole surreality of it appealed to me as did of course the local setting, in particular the hyperlocal setting for me, given the prominence of Cave Hill in the book. I am much impressed by the detail of his memories of 1970s Belfast - far better than my own. The local colour in the book brought back a lot of memories to me.
I read the book with great interest. The whole surreality of it appealed to me as did of course the local setting, in particular the hyperlocal setting for me, given the prominence of Cave Hill in the book. I am much impressed by the detail of his memories of 1970s Belfast - far better than my own. The local colour in the book brought back a lot of memories to me.
Review
by Angela McIvor
Secretary of the Wolfe Tones GAC -Greencastle
Martin Connolly catapults the reader back to a troubled 1979, in a hilarious journey of discovery through the streets and alleys of Belfast and the back of beyond. This is a genius of a book! Punchy, adventurous, witty, tender, and triumphant. There is more to discover than just dinosaurs in these pages. This is a unique and unforgettable book about life in many forms and the resilience of friendship and the human spirit.
The book might be described in Belfast lingo as a ‘quare geg!’ I laughed out loud A LOT!! And looking back at 1979, you tend to wonder how we survived and just ploughed on. We were probably more traumatised by the ordinary growing pains of youth than the bombs and the bullets. It was indeed a way of life, and this book captures beautifully that fighting spirit and the Belfast humour that was our armour. Like the dinosaurs that left us millions of years ago, the tanks and guns have now long gone. But their mark is buried deep in our history. I walk along the Cave Hill and sometimes lie against the stone at McArt’s Fort and feel the bones in the stone and think will this big lazy giant wake up sometime… for an Ulster fry!! This is the kind of effect this book has had on my imagination! Highly recommended.
Article / Interview in Sunday world
by Roisin Gorman, October 16, 2022
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Review / Belfast Telegraph
Belfast, With Dinosaurs, 1979: A Prehysteric Farce, by Martin Connolly Shanway Press, £15
Review by Áine Toner
December 10, 2022
Quirky take on history
'What if the first dinosaur bones were found on the Co Antrim coast – where would that leave Northern Ireland in the history stakes? This question forms the basis for Martin’s novel, a wickedly astute nod to how things are done here and how a reinterpreted message can have disastrous consequences for many. Reimagining Belfast in 1979 in a vibrantly detailed manner, the story follows a journalist who suggests that, at the time of the creatures’ demise — he believes the bones come from two dinosaurs — they’d been fighting. Cue much speculation from the folk on the street to academics, and much linking of one conflict with another one close to everyone’s home. At times funny, at times heart-warming, this is an unusual but affecting read set at a time so many can remember. You’ll take the characters to heart and take away the theme of friendship and overcoming adversity.'
Link to online article: HERE
Belfast, With Dinosaurs, 1979: A Prehysteric Farce, by Martin Connolly Shanway Press, £15
Review by Áine Toner
December 10, 2022
Quirky take on history
'What if the first dinosaur bones were found on the Co Antrim coast – where would that leave Northern Ireland in the history stakes? This question forms the basis for Martin’s novel, a wickedly astute nod to how things are done here and how a reinterpreted message can have disastrous consequences for many. Reimagining Belfast in 1979 in a vibrantly detailed manner, the story follows a journalist who suggests that, at the time of the creatures’ demise — he believes the bones come from two dinosaurs — they’d been fighting. Cue much speculation from the folk on the street to academics, and much linking of one conflict with another one close to everyone’s home. At times funny, at times heart-warming, this is an unusual but affecting read set at a time so many can remember. You’ll take the characters to heart and take away the theme of friendship and overcoming adversity.'
Link to online article: HERE
Review / the table read magazine
'A COMEDIC LITERARY FEAST'
Review by JJ Barnes (excerpts) December 14, 2022
'Belfast, with Dinosaurs,1979 by Martin Connolly is an outrageous and wholly unreliable
re-telling of the discovery of the first dinosaur bones on the County Antrim coast in Ireland....
Martin Connolly’s alternative, light-hearted, and yet bitingly satirical,
look at life in late 1970s Belfast,
is also a tale of growing up in the midst of conflict, and the survival of a friendship
between two boys on the opposite side of the religious divide...
Breaking from the mainstream, and often in the most radical way,
Connolly’s meticulous -and often hilarious- use of language,
combined with a deep awareness of what constitutes literary worth
makes Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979
a modern classic in the making.
Witty, perceptive, satirical, and page-turning,
Martin Connolly’s novel is a serious work of fiction but one loaded
with farce and comedy, and unexpected drama.
It will find instant appeal with readers who seek narratives
that uncover new perspectives on Ireland’s history.'
CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL ARTICLE ONLINE
review
I read other writings by the author Martin Connolly, mostly poetry, which I really enjoyed. This book is very good, also. I enjoyed it for itself and for the fact that it is set in my native city, in the 1970s -not a happy time in Belfast. I thought the research was marvellous and it brought me back in time to places that I knew so well, but which I had long forgotten...places like Enlanders, the jeweller’s shop in the city centre and Anderson and McAuleys’s very prestigious store.
The book gave insight into how people from different religious and cultural backgrounds lived during very troubled years. It is primarily a comedy so the dialogue was amusing in parts and at times I found myself laughing out loud. The reader will encounter a journalist and his friend, a University Lecturer and a few of the younger generation, who all came together in friendship because of their interest in dinosaurs.
I bought this book at the launch in Belfast on 9.8.22
Gertrude Fox.
The book gave insight into how people from different religious and cultural backgrounds lived during very troubled years. It is primarily a comedy so the dialogue was amusing in parts and at times I found myself laughing out loud. The reader will encounter a journalist and his friend, a University Lecturer and a few of the younger generation, who all came together in friendship because of their interest in dinosaurs.
I bought this book at the launch in Belfast on 9.8.22
Gertrude Fox.
Interview, with JJ Barnes
at The Table Read Magazine
Excerpts:
What made you want to write Belfast, With Dinosaurs, 1979?
It’s about Belfast, because I grew up there. I wanted to travel back to that city I grew up in. Writing can provide such a vehicle, which traverses time and distance with no problem. Distance is a great inspiration to write. Yeats wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree when he was in London, as did Ted Hughes when he penned The Thought-Fox.
Did you plot Belfast, With Dinosaurs, 1979 in advance, or fly by the seat of your pants and write freely?
I like to have a strong idea to begin with, but never to plan too much. If the opening is strong and good, then I believe it will lead somewhere. I know the basic ideas or shape of something, but I have no real idea of how I will proceed. It is up to the characters and the handling of those characters to determine the true course of the writing. The characters tell me what to do next. I never tell them. I have a filter when writing: the next part has to be incredibly interesting, in my evaluation, or it ain’t going in.
Click here to see full interview online: HERE
Interview published February 3, 2023
What made you want to write Belfast, With Dinosaurs, 1979?
It’s about Belfast, because I grew up there. I wanted to travel back to that city I grew up in. Writing can provide such a vehicle, which traverses time and distance with no problem. Distance is a great inspiration to write. Yeats wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree when he was in London, as did Ted Hughes when he penned The Thought-Fox.
Did you plot Belfast, With Dinosaurs, 1979 in advance, or fly by the seat of your pants and write freely?
I like to have a strong idea to begin with, but never to plan too much. If the opening is strong and good, then I believe it will lead somewhere. I know the basic ideas or shape of something, but I have no real idea of how I will proceed. It is up to the characters and the handling of those characters to determine the true course of the writing. The characters tell me what to do next. I never tell them. I have a filter when writing: the next part has to be incredibly interesting, in my evaluation, or it ain’t going in.
Click here to see full interview online: HERE
Interview published February 3, 2023
Review in belfast media, feb 9, 2023
"Belfast with Dinosaurs is not so far-fetched"
by Joe McCann
by Joe McCann
Excerpt: "A new novel comically detailing the discovery of the first dinosaur remains in Ireland in the late 1970s weaves comedy, drama and biting Belfast wit as the discovery of the bones, and the reporting on said discovery get wrapped up in the then raging conflict.
Belfast is vividly described and the characters speak with biting sardonic humour with the city described in great detail, featuring many points of interest which won’t escape readers who were around at the time.
Reaction [to the publication, in the novel, of a false story about the discovery of dino bones] is also garnered from ordinary people in Belfast whose wit and humour bring the book to life. ‘Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979’ is also the story of growing up as a young person in the midst of the conflict and a great example of the importance of friendship over artificial division."
See the whole article online at Belfast Media Review of Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979
Belfast is vividly described and the characters speak with biting sardonic humour with the city described in great detail, featuring many points of interest which won’t escape readers who were around at the time.
Reaction [to the publication, in the novel, of a false story about the discovery of dino bones] is also garnered from ordinary people in Belfast whose wit and humour bring the book to life. ‘Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979’ is also the story of growing up as a young person in the midst of the conflict and a great example of the importance of friendship over artificial division."
See the whole article online at Belfast Media Review of Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979
Long review in belfast media,
may 6, 2023
Belfast With Dinosaurs is a farcical metaphor
for the conflict
Chris McLaughlin-Arias
for the conflict
Chris McLaughlin-Arias
Excerpts:
THIS bizarre satirical novel’s opening line – with its local vernacular – promises the reader two things: Firstly, a story concerning the pre-historic beasts that millions of years ago ruled the Earth; and most importantly, a Belfast story. .....
An unexpected societal chain reaction is provoked when eager rookie News Letter journalist Ivan Stacks gets duped by a pair of prankster Queen's University palaeontology students into publishing a bogus story, suggesting that the recently unearthed dinosaurs had died ferociously fighting one another. Word spreads fast in Belfast, and so, almost overnight, Stacks’ 'Duelling Dinos' become a farcical metaphor for the conflict – causing a great deal of chagrin for the renowned German palaeontologist from Heidelberg University in charge of studying the discovery. ...
Connolly’s reliance on this subversive humour serves a dual-purpose: Firstly, it illustrates the people of Belfast’s capacity for resilience via sarky, relentless wit; secondly, it is a lens through which we might re-examine our extremely complicated, painful past.
The unorthodox and unpredictable multi-perspective narrative portrays the myriad standpoints, Catholic and Protestant alike, that characterised the zeitgeist of Troubles-era Belfast – the legacy of which is manifestly felt today.
This vignette-like depiction of the complex linkage that is Belfast, with its host of interconnected characters from all walks of life, is akin to a tapestry, past, present and future, interwoven, not only by the threads of atavistic callousness, but above all, by cherished moments of levity and hope amidst the chaos. ...
It is Connolly’s literary background that is truly worn on his sleeve however. Christopher takes refuge in the worlds envisioned by writers such as H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jonathan Swift – whose Gulliver’s Travels was allegedly inspired by Cavehill’s ‘sleeping giant’-esque shape.
Christopher, much like his creator, a known scholar of James Joyce’s work, is inspired by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Not unlike Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s fictionalised alter-ego who didn’t care for religion, he too finds his vocation in literature. ...
See whole article at: Belfast Media Long Review of Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979
THIS bizarre satirical novel’s opening line – with its local vernacular – promises the reader two things: Firstly, a story concerning the pre-historic beasts that millions of years ago ruled the Earth; and most importantly, a Belfast story. .....
An unexpected societal chain reaction is provoked when eager rookie News Letter journalist Ivan Stacks gets duped by a pair of prankster Queen's University palaeontology students into publishing a bogus story, suggesting that the recently unearthed dinosaurs had died ferociously fighting one another. Word spreads fast in Belfast, and so, almost overnight, Stacks’ 'Duelling Dinos' become a farcical metaphor for the conflict – causing a great deal of chagrin for the renowned German palaeontologist from Heidelberg University in charge of studying the discovery. ...
Connolly’s reliance on this subversive humour serves a dual-purpose: Firstly, it illustrates the people of Belfast’s capacity for resilience via sarky, relentless wit; secondly, it is a lens through which we might re-examine our extremely complicated, painful past.
The unorthodox and unpredictable multi-perspective narrative portrays the myriad standpoints, Catholic and Protestant alike, that characterised the zeitgeist of Troubles-era Belfast – the legacy of which is manifestly felt today.
This vignette-like depiction of the complex linkage that is Belfast, with its host of interconnected characters from all walks of life, is akin to a tapestry, past, present and future, interwoven, not only by the threads of atavistic callousness, but above all, by cherished moments of levity and hope amidst the chaos. ...
It is Connolly’s literary background that is truly worn on his sleeve however. Christopher takes refuge in the worlds envisioned by writers such as H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jonathan Swift – whose Gulliver’s Travels was allegedly inspired by Cavehill’s ‘sleeping giant’-esque shape.
Christopher, much like his creator, a known scholar of James Joyce’s work, is inspired by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Not unlike Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s fictionalised alter-ego who didn’t care for religion, he too finds his vocation in literature. ...
See whole article at: Belfast Media Long Review of Belfast, with Dinosaurs, 1979
Podcast interview
This is the new reissue (January 2023) cover, now globally-available.
