McCart-Martin (formerly Martin), [William] David (1937-1996), novelist. Born in Belfast, he became an apprentice electrician, and served in the RN Fleet Air Arm, 1955-62, before attending Keele University, after which he joined the Ulster Polytechnic (later UUJ). The Task (1975) was the first of four novels investigating the roots of violent conflict in Northern Ireland. The Ceremony of Innocence (1977) confronts the psychological aftermath of Ulster's sectarian divisions in an episodic narrative. The Road to Ballyshannon (1981) moves back in time to the period of the Civil War to chronicle the escape of two Republicans from a prison ship in Belfast Lough. Dream (1986) moves the focus further back to embrace a period extending from the end of the Land League agitations to the Second World War.