And, however gruff he may be, his wife and daughters are devoted to him. He even takes her out for the day, an unprecedented gesture for him. When he does put Rose down on a couple of occasions, he makes a half-hearted attempt at an apology. He misses Luke and even tries to make some feeble attempt at reconciliation. However, beneath that gruff exterior, there is a sort of heart. He expects obedience and loyalty and he expects things to be done his way and his daughters and wife usually conform. He is gruff, demanding, religious and a hard-working farmer. Rose takes her place in the household, looking after the children and adapting to her husband’s whims. She meets Moran at the post office (where they go every day to collect their mail) and they start talking and, eventually, marry.

Rose is a single woman who has been working in Glasgow but returns home to look after her sick father and then is slow in returning to Glasgow, after her father dies. She marries Sean and they have three children in quick succession. Sheila, the oldest and smartest, had wanted to go to university and had even won a scholarship but her father refused to assist in any way and she reluctantly became a civil servant in Dublin. The other two girls go off to Dublin to work. She too goes off to London (though with her father’s blessing) to become a nurse and marries a man who is more or less tolerated by his father-in-law. She is the one who initially runs the household after their mother’s death. As the title explains, Moran seems to be better with women but, even then, he does it as much by his stern ways, of which his daughters are frightened, though they do remain loyal and devoted to him. The youngest brother also clashes with his father and when threatened with corporal punishment leaves the family home and he too goes off to London. He clearly clashed with his father and refuses to come back, despite persuasion from his brother and sisters, though he does meet his father at his sister’s wedding in Dublin. Luke, the eldest, has left the family home in Ireland and now lives in London. In one particular incident, he and his men killed an English colonel and several of their men, when the colonel was arriving at a local station. Michael Moran was active in the Irish Republican Army during the 1920s/1930s and killed quite a few English soldiers. Home » Ireland » John McGahern » Amongst Women John McGahern: Amongst Women

Amongst women book