I have never had tears while reading a book but the ending of this story had me with tears in my eyes. The book covers a period of 60 years in an Irish Protestant family. Willie Quinton is an 8 y.o. child when the book opens, an old man at the end. The Quinton parents sympathize with the Irish Catholics and the fight for home rule. This leads to a horrible night of revenge taken against them by the Black and Tans. Willie and his mother survive the brutal attack. When his mother drinks herself to death several years later Willie seeks revenge against the soldier who led the attack on his family.

But before that happens Willie falls in love with his English cousin Marianne who visits one summer from Ireland. When Marianne and her mother return for his mother's funeral a child is conceived. Marianne doesn't learn of her pregnancy until Willie has gone into exile after murdering the Black and Tan soldier.

Marianne returns to Ireland, determined to stay and wait for Willie, no matter how long she must wait. She lives with his aunts and a defrocked priest in the part of the family estate that survived the burning by the Black and Tans. Their daughter Imelda is haunted by the stories of the attack on Willie's family and begins having flashbacks to the terrible night. In time she becomes irrevocably insane.

Willie does return, he is an old man and Marianne is an old woman, and their daughter is middle aged and insane.