When The Boys Came Out To Play by John Mackel

I went to plenty of great sessions when I was in Belfast. One of the best was during Belfast Tradfest, out at The Hatfield with Bríd Harper, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, and Michael Rooney. I ended up sitting next a lovely local fiddler named John. I saw him again the next day when I was at Ulster University for my workshop. He had a stand there, selling a new book of tunes that he had published. It’s called Pass It On. I couldn’t resist buying a copy. Then he mentioned that he also had a few copies of his brand new debut novel. Now I was really intrigued. I told him to give me the elevator pitch and he said it was a semi-autobiographical work about growing up in Belfast druing The Troubles and finding solace in traditional Irish music. There aren’t that many books about traditional Irish music, and certainly not many novels. “I’ll take one!” I said. He handed me a fresh copy of When The Boys Came Out To Play. I started reading it when I got back to Brighton. To be honest, my expectations…