A sprawling, richly detailed story of a Irish woman whose life and love are hemmed in on all sides by social prejudice and religious intolerance. Born to an already too-large family, Mary O'Neill is disliked and then hated by her father. As she grows up, she clashes again and again with her family and church: for release from a marriage gone bad, for a chance at marrying the man she does love, for the legitimacy of the child she has with him. At last she finds some terms of peace, and whether they mark defeat or triumph is in the eye of the beholder (Google Books).
Mary O'Neil is an Irish woman whose life and love are hemmed in on all sides by social prejudice and religious intolerance. She repeatedly clashes with her family and church in her attempts to get a release from a marriage gone bad, to marry the man she does love, and to legitimise the child she has with him.
In an interview with a journalist from Adelaide's Advertiser, John Cosgrove indicates that he had removed some of the more contentious incidents from Hall Caine's controversial novel. He also records that his play offers a happy ending rather leaving Mary O'Neil's fate open-ended.
