"The priests at the school are hollering bigots, telling the children that every Protestant is an evil enemy, despite one of the kids being the son of a Catholic father and Protestant mother. Cushla takes an interest in the boy, who tends to arrive at school without a coat, and his elder brother, who shows signs of secretly sharing Cushla's love of reading."
"She gives them lifts back to their house on a flag-strewn Protestant estate, at the risk of her car being pelted with bricks, and redoubles her support for the family when the dad has his legs and skull broken by vengeful neighbours. In the pub, meanwhile, the British soldiers who drink there make every evening a tense ordeal, fraught with the possibility of it ending in violence that Cushla and her brother would be powerless to stop."
Set in a small town outside Belfast in 1975, Cushla is a Catholic primary-school teacher who works shifts in her brother's pub. Sectarian rancour, suspicion and grief intrude on daily life as bigoted priests teach children that Protestants are enemies. Cushla helps a mixed-family boy and his brother, risking her safety to give them lifts to a flag-strewn Protestant estate and supporting the family after the father is brutally attacked. Evenings in the pub are tense because British soldiers drink there, creating a constant threat of violence. Cushla returns to a widowed mother numbed by loneliness and gin. The arrival of Protestant barrister Michael Agnew intensifies emotional stakes and foreshadows a catastrophic blast at the pub.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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