An immersive history of a pivotal stretch of water
'Fascinating, spellbinding, erudite and great fun.' Roddy Doyle
The Turning Tide is a hymn to a sea passage of world-historical
importance. Combining social and cultural history, nature-writing,
travelogue and politics, Jon Gower charts a sea which has carried both
Vikings and saints, invasion forces and furtive gun-runners, writers,
musicians and fishermen.
The divided but interconnected waters of the Irish Sea - from the narrow
North Channel through St George's Channel to where the Celtic sea opens
out into wide Atlantic - have a turbulent history to match the violence
of its storms. Jon Gower is a sympathetic and interested pilot, taking
the reader to the great shipyards of Belfast and through the mass exodus
of the starving during the Irish Famine in coffin boats bound for
America. He follows the migrations of working men and women looking for
work in England and tells the tales of more casual travellers: sometimes
seasick, often homesick too.
The Irish Sea is also a place with an abundant natural history. The
rarest sea bird in Europe visits its coasts in summer while the rarest
goose wings in during winter. Jon Gower navigates waters teeming with
life, filled with seals and salt-tanged stories and surveyed by
seabirds.
At a time when Irish affairs feel like they are building towards an
historic crescendo, he tells the story of the people who have crossed
these waters, and who live on their shores. Lyrically written and deeply
considered, this is a remarkable and far-reaching book.
