Aidan Kelly

Having signed up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and ultimately, the Civil War. Having fled terrible hardships they find these days to be vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both see.

When Mahony returns to Mulderrig, on Ireland's west coast, he brings only a photograph of his long-lost mother, and a determination to do battle with the village's lies. No one though, living or dead, will be able to guess what happened to the teenage mother who abandoned him as a baby.

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. However, it proves to be the defining decision of his life when, having witnessed the murder of a fellow RIC policeman, he is wrongly accused of identifying the executioners. With a sentence of death passed over him he is forced to flee Sligo, leaving behind his friends, family and beloved girl, Viv.