Patsy O¿Kelly¿s life is framed by the Irish war of Independence and The Troubles spilling down from the North some five decades later. Leaving her childhood home in the countryside, she grows up in The Liberties, an impoverished working-class area of Dublin. There her life becomes dominated by a damaged and embittered father, a former IRA Volunteer, and by her unquestioning devotion to her faith. They prove a cruel combination which haunts her throughout her life. Patsy enters into a marriage of convenience with one of the many characters she meets as she gets immersed in the colour and craic of the city. And as the