The protagonist and first person narrator is Martin Somers, 'Englishman and Adjutant of Women' (or surgeon) in Manus O'Cahan's Regiment, who is accompanied by his foster-brother Tadg Mor O'Kavanagh.

Walsh worked in Scotland for many years; his local knowledge is put to good use, while his descriptions of the battles and events leading up to them are historically accurate, although he understates the reality of the campaign.

[2] Estimates of deaths vary from 50 to 170; referring to the later claim Irish troops forced people to remove their clothes before killing them, Somers records only that he 'never saw any stripped and dirked bodies.'

While remembered today primarily for the film made from his short story 'The Quiet Man', in the 1930s and 1940s, Walsh was perhaps Ireland's best selling popular author whose admirers allegedly included Ernest Hemingway.

Walsh was writing in the aftermath of the 1922-1923 Civil War that followed the establishment of the Free State, fought with particular bitterness in his home county of Kerry.