Cashelmara III

Howatch gives a good portrayal of the West of Ireland in the days of Parnell and the Land War. She writes of the terrible poverty of most of the farming folk -... and how the Famine drove millions out of Ireland to England or America. But Patrick is not well off. When his tenants start a rent strike, he loses most of his income. But he is far richer than the tenants. Sarah becomes somewhat embittered, as her upper class neighbours shun her because of her affair with Drummond. Patrick returns to Ireland, and asks to see his children. She becomes frightened that he might secure custody of them or have them taken from her, because of her affair. She goes to see Patrick but soon afterwards he dies. Ned has married Kelly Gallagher, an Irish American girl whose father paid Drummond a lot of money in the US, to get her an upper class husband. Kerry is in love with him but they are both very young to get married being only in their teens. Ned however did not want to wait any longer to marry her, nor to take a mistress until he was older. He realises that he is going to have to grow up fast, and to take on Drummond who is causing scandal with his mother and using his position as bailiff to help himself to his, Ned's money. Then, in conversation with his younger sisters, he learns that while he had believed that Drummond poisoned a drunken Patrick, it is much more likely that it was Sarah who gave him the rat poison in a bottle of whiskey. He and Kerry have their first child a son, and Ned decides that he has to make his move against Drummond now, to protect his mother and his son's inheritance.