M. J. Molloy

Land ownership, poverty, lack of opportunity and old-fashioned marriage customs threaten to drive the younger generation away from their native Connaught.

The action takes place in the household of the choleric, cantankerous and tyrannical old farmer Lordeen; who, desperate for a wife, engages the services of the mercenary matchmaker William Duffy.

Lordeen's other labourer, the cobbler and self-styled intellectual Luke Sweeney, is the target for the affections of the caustic, ‘black’ widow, Mrs Callaghan.

Merrigan and Mrs Callaghan collude to ensure that Lordeen finds out that Myles has been trading agricultural goods to make up the shortfall in his pay.

Lordeen, in a fit of Rage, calls for the Sergeant who decides not to press charges, torn between his duty to the law and what he feels to be his own Christian moral code.