Divis Towers

Divis Towers is presented as a high-rise residential landmark whose concrete setting is linked to family housing, military surveillance and the exhaustion of local schoolchildren. Rather than depicting a visit, the novel introduces the towers through an image and Cushla’s account of having taught nearby, joining a distant view of the buildings to the effects of life around them.

Appearance and Setting

While reading a newspaper, Michael sees a photograph of a woman pushing a pram, with one of the Divis towers rising behind her. The image places ordinary family life against the scale of the tower blocks. Michael’s response turns from the photograph to the design of the housing: he objects to families being housed along concrete corridors. The towers thus appear not simply as a skyline feature but as part of a built environment that shapes domestic life.

Cushla’s Local Knowledge

Cushla connects the image to her own teaching practice in the area around the towers. She recalls that children arrived at school tired because army helicopters shone beams into the flats during the night. Her recollection gives the setting a daily human consequence: military activity reaches into homes after dark and carries over into children’s lives at school. The passage does not describe a particular raid or identify the children, but it makes the effects of surveillance on residents legible through their fatigue.

Narrative Significance

The towers enter the scene through two kinds of knowledge: a newspaper photograph and Cushla’s experience of teaching nearby. The photograph offers a compact visual impression of family life beneath the high-rise blocks; her account supplies the less visible pressure of military attention on the flats. Michael’s objection to the housing and his condemnation of the helicopter beams bring the built environment and political presence into the same conversation. Divis Towers consequently serves as a specific urban setting through which the novel registers how conflict presses on ordinary domestic and school life.