In the future, Ireland is unified under a tyranical Catholic rule. History teacher Nuala Dennehy returns to her homeland and is appalled at the conditions there--no contraception, little education and few rights are allowed to women. She quickly becomes part of, and then a leader of, the revolutionary movement. It's a very awkwardly written book, and Connolly's politics and ideals are laid embarrassingly bare. Regardless, it's always nice to read about teachers leading revolutions. ( )

loved the heroine who is portrayed as being 10x smarter than her adversaries, brutal but inspiring for an impressionable teenager ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/989041.html

I started off expecting this book to be just silly - in a future United Ireland where the Catholic Church has taken over, Nuala Dennehy foments a feminist revolution - but in the end I actually found the author's enthusiasm for her cause and her characters rather endearing. There's a lot for the Irish reader to nit-pick, not least that when the book was published, in 1994, the tide was definitely on the turn and Ireland's lurch into modernity becoming irreversible. But taken as a tale of the general processes of revolt and revolution, it's fair enough; and even if the situation of women in Ireland is unlikely ever again to be as bad as in Connolly's novel, there are enough other parts of the world which are there or heading that way for the specific political message to remain relevant. The narrative falters only at the very end when the fate of Nuala and her closest friends seemed to me to be a bit implausible. I can't say it's great literature, and Irish readers will be annoyed by the errors (eg the crowd gathering in the park opposite Belfast City Hall - so where has City Hall been moved to? Or what block of commercial buildings adjoining Donegall Square has been demolished?), but it was a better read than I expected. ( )

This is actually a well-written book, with an interesting premise and not-bad characters (although the lead smells slightly Mary-Sue-ish) - it would have gotten a higher rating from me if it weren't for its blind adulation of the IRA, the heavy-handedness of the politics, and the tendency for the characters to make speeches rather than engage in dialogue throughout. ( )