Set against the backdrop of growing tensions in Ireland in 1919, a touching, often very funny and yet ultimately rather sad story, which will capture the listener's heart and excite their interest with its themes of Irish politics and love, played out in an unlikely and fragile sanctuary.
The listener is taken back to July 1919, when the 'Major' is visiting the Hotel Majestic in County Cork, Ireland to reunite with his fiancée Angela, the Protestant proprietor Edward Spencer's daughter. The lovers met in Brighton during the War and have since only corresponded long-distance. The welcome he receives is not quite what he expected. He quickly becomes sucked into the political and sociological ethos of the hotel and its inhabitants, and the story builds tantalizingly until its inevitable dramatic conclusion.