Amongst Women

Michael Moran is an embittered Irish Republican who detests the "small-minded gangsters" who now run the country for whose independence he fought. Now a soldier without a battle, he transfers his brutality to his own family. He is hard on his daughters: Maggie, a late bloomer who wants to study nursing; Sheila, an assertive spirit whose chance at a university scholarship is thwarted by Moran; and the hardworking Mona, who settles for the civil-service career Moran choose for her. But it is Moran's sons-the errant Luke and the youngest, Michael- who bear the brunt of his malevolence as his struggle with the past comes to an unimagined end.