Mind the Gap: Borders, Limits and Frontiers: Collected Essays and Cahir Healy’s Memoirs from a ‘northern Ireland’ Prison Ship

How do borders define political, cultural and social realms, influencing identity and community? Mind the Gap: Borders, Limits and Frontiers explores such questions and comprises two parts; the first section compiles interdisciplinary essays from leading scholars to critique borders in our global yet divided world. Topics include national borders, such as the Northern Irish border, as well as conceptual and ontological borders more generally. Border issues are similarly key to the second part of the book, which publishes for the first time the imprisonment memoir of Irish politician Cahir Healy (1877–1970), who was a leading figure in the protest against the Partition of Ireland. His memoir offers a first-hand account of the conditions faced by Healy and other border objectors who were illegally imprisoned for two years on board the Argenta ship in Belfast Lough (c.1922–1924). This book therefore goes beyond mapping border theory; it addresses the real-life impact of borders on those who confront them daily and is a vital read for those interested in border studies.

Aisling Reid, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland; Valentina Surace, University of Messina, Italy.