This is a vivid and memorable novel set in Dublin, 1916, during the Easter Rebellion and the bitter years which followed. Through the diverging lives of two young brothers the agony of Ireland during these harrowing times is witnessed.
It is the time of the Sinn Fein, of the dreaded Tans, of terrible deeds and of loyalties strained to breaking-point and beyond. The third book in the acclaimed Irish trilogy Walter Macken was born in Galway in 1915. He was a writer of short stories, novels and plays. Originally an actor, principally with the Taibhdhearc in Galway, and The Abbey Theatre, he played lead roles on Broadway in M. J. Molloy's The King of Friday's Men and his own play Home Is the Hero. He also acted in films, notably in Arthur Dreifuss' adaptation of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow. He is perhaps best known for his trilogy of Irish historical novels Seek the Fair Land, The Silent People and The Scorching Wind. He passed away in 1967. "Told with pity and poetry and an impartiality almost unnatural in an Irishman writing of those seven desperate years" -Catholic Herald
"The long tale of terror and bravery, the arrests, the burnings, the ambushes, the reprisals is told with the deftness of a professional storyteller" -Irish Press
