Reissue of valuable record of Anglo Irish attitudes to Irish independence
The novel is set in the troubled years between 1920 and 1930, and written from the viewpoint of an extended Anglo-Irish family. It opens dramatically with the burning by the IRA of Butler’s Hill, a substantial country house. The event is seen from the viewpoint of nine-year-old Caroline who is staying with her uncle and aunt at the time.
Safely back in Dublin, heading for her Fitzwilliam Square home in a cab, she questions her aunt persistently about the IRA’s motives, prompting the first of several historical summaries that make this novel such a valuable record of Anglo-Irish attitudes to Irish independence. When Aunt Moira explains that years of conquest, war and oppression have made the IRA hate the English, Caroline replies ‘Yes, but we aren’t English: why did they have to come and burn Butler’s Hill?’
