Book Launch - Iapetus '81

The novel focuses on the summer of 1981, in a horseracing stable on the Curragh.

Inspired by real occurrences, peopled by imagined characters, the work hinges on two major betting coups, one of which causes the bookies to strike. The RUC riot squad from the Maze prison is called to the racecourse to quell the disturbance. It’s the only occasion in horseracing’s long and chequered history that bookies/turf accountants went on strike. The ‘stroke’ made national and international news. This work is layered with the lives of the characters working in the yard, during the summer.

It is an era of hunger strikes, the Stardust disco disaster, and of a flux of young people living in digs in the Curragh racecourse’s satellite towns, adjusting to working lives that hold false promise for many.

Iapetus,‘81 also explores the transient nature of life in general. Three months in which every life in the yard is changed, with hope preserved or hope gained or hope lost.

Owl Fellas' Press