Give Them Stones

Follows Martha Murtagh's life in Belfast during the Troubles

Give Them Stones follows Martha Murtagh's life in Belfast during the Troubles. A working-class Catholic wife and mother, Martha struggles to find work and safe shelter for her children amid growing civil strife. Having renounced an education in order to financially support her family and living in one of the most precarious parts of the city, Martha discovers her passion for home-baking. Her bread provides sustenance and community for her neighbors, and for Martha herself it brings economic independence and spiritual communion.

Mary Beckett's novel is a skillfully written, moving narrative of one woman's coming of age amid violence. It won the Sunday Tribune Arts Award in 1987 then fell out of print by the end of the century, while male writers of the Troubles rose to prominence. This restored edition brings Give Them Stones to a new readership, for whom Martha's struggle for financial and personal independence remains an acutely relevant meditation on the burdens carried by women during war and the redemptive power of simple things.