"This book is set in the heartland of Ireland. Its story line relates the relationship between two men in a love that dares not speak its name. While that is the story line the theme of conflict between good and evil, runs through the book. Les Hamilton is a young protestant man who came to Munchindun to establish a forest. He meets up with a young unemployed penniless son of a gamekeeper called Pete Donovan and the two men fall in love. Les transforms Pete’s life and the life of the parish. The relationship between the two men is bitterly opposed by a nurse Mary Mc Menamin who was originally the girl friend of Pete. Her hatred of the two men and her involvement in the paramilitary politics of hate secraranism and bigotry drive her to commit the murder of Les. Mary is put on trial for murder and on the testimony of Pete she is sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. IN retaliation against Pete f or giving evidence to a British court the I.R.A. sentence him to death and have him shot. In the wider field the novel is set against a background of violence and unrest in Ireland in the 1970ties. The thrust of the novel has to do not only with a conflict of good and evil between those who do good and those who do evil in a rural parish but this conflict is seen to run through Irish history where the good and the rational are wiped out by those who do evil, are irrational and are sectarian. Michael Gillespie "
advertisement