No way is this a blood and thunder account of the Easter Rising of 1916, nor yet one for the revisionists to cackle over. Rather Bairbre T≤ib∅n's first novel is a muted, even under-played rendering of how that great historical event affected the citizens of her native Enniscorthy in the model county of Wexford
Expertly crafted, her narrative is woven round a relatively small cast of characters. Tenant farmer Michael Carty settles in the town after the death of his Fenian father. There he meets, courts and marries Margaret Dempsey, the daughter of a prosperous merchant family.
Margaret's mother disapproves of the marriage, but the young couple are happy and, as time goes by, three sons are born to them. Michael, like many of his peers, joins the Volunteers and, at the outbreak of war in 1914, is arrested for tearing down recruitment posters.
Then, in Easter week, he is a member of the Volunteer force that takes over the town. When the surrender comes, he is deported to Frongoch camp in Wales, is released the following Christmas Eve and returns to the bosom of his family.
That is the framework of the story, but it is fleshed out with many pleasing touches. The various characters are well-drawn, the locale superbly filled in, the dialogue believable. The snobbishness of small town life is touched on: "Mrs Doctor Power and her sister Miss Laetitia O'Connor walked slowly up past the pulpit and knelt in the very top seat".
Resonances of the past trail into the narrative: the shaping of the butter with wooden bats, the muslin-covered food safe, the musty smell in the parlour, the religious procession on Martyrs' Night; and there is humour too, as for example when the local drunk goes mad when the pubs are closed during the takeover of the town.
The author has obviously done her research well, and she lovingly sketches in the details of her native place as it possibly was during that eventful time. It is part of her achievement that she keeps the violence off-stage - the only blood that appears in the River Slaney is when the slaughtering occurs in Buttles' Bacon Factory. A satisfying read, then, and one that is all the better for its quiet, minimalist view of an event that changed the course of Irish history.
Vincent Banville's latest crime novel, Cannon Law, has just been published by New Island