This has left deep scars, I think, on the Irish psyche. For a long time Ireland was an inward-looking country, repressed and sin-obsessed, with the Church ruling over all aspects of Irish life. William Trevor, Seamus Deane and many others have set works in earlier, pre-Celtic Tiger days. JG Farrell’s Troubles (reviewed in an earlier blog/newsletter) is set in 1921. Roddy Doyle in the Henry trilogy deals with the Easter uprising of 1916 and continues (albeit not always in Ireland) through the 1950s. This is something that I’ve noticed in Irish writers, this raking over the past. Rather it’s a picture of certain forces and histories playing themselves out in a way that many of us - particularly those of us who have lived in Ireland in the ‘50s and ‘60s - will understand all the more clearly because of its telling. And it’s not a book whose characters go through any great changes. It’s not a book with an involved plot - much of what happens is pretty predictable. And much like the experience of traveling those country lanes, he finds himself sometimes closer and sometimes farther from self-understanding. A man capable of charm and warmth when it suits him, he’s also a man who carries a great sadness around with him. And so it is with the picture he paints of Moran. One of the oddities of these boreens is the peculiar way that a distant place seen from one vantage may appear vastly different further down the road. In the author’s memoir, All Will Be Well, he speaks at the very opening of the book about the labyrinthine lanes criss-crossing the town-lands in his place of rearing. The story unfolds slowly and in a very measured way and as it progresses the simple view of Moran as tyrant goes through change and nuance. All the while Moran pontificates about the centrality of family life and the loyalty that he expects from those around him.

The new wife, Rose, keeps the peace as best she can as Moran’s resentments result in the thwarting of his daughters’ ambitions and the alienation of his second son, Michael.

The elder son, Luke, is totally estranged from that family and lives in London. In the case of his sons, this is often a matter of physical violence. A damaged and disappointed man, he takes out his sporadic anger on those around him. Moran is a man bitter and angry that the country for whose freedom he fought is now run by those that he regards as crooks and charlatans. It’s also the story of a time in recent Irish history that is increasingly seen as distant and strange. This is the story of Moran, a widowed, ex-IRA officer, his new wife, his three daughters and two sons.

Amongst women book