A sweep through the past 4 centuries of Irish history, woven around a family saga. Very readable and credible accounts of the historical events, although some of the fictional characters are a bit far fetched at the end of the tale, to round up the whole thing. It answers a lot of questions about the complexity of "THE IRISH QUESTION", and you can see modern day parallels to recent post-colonial efforts by other countries. A long book but a good read.