Derry, Northern Ireland, 1966

Partitioned from Ireland since 1921 and dominated by Protestants, the Catholic minority has grown weary of the casual discrimination against it and begun a push for equal rights. One- man-one-vote. Decent housing. Good jobs. The most basic of requests. Yet these are still too much to accept, for those in power. Protests, confrontations and demonstrations erupt, growing more and more dangerous and violent.

Caught in the middle of it all is Brendan Kinsella, a Catholic boy who is thought of as ... odd. The third of six children, he is quiet and observant, with an innate wariness and skepticism, and prefers to go his own way, even though that leads him into trouble, on occasion.

The story begins with the murder of his father just days after Brendan's tenth birthday. He is not sorry the man is dead; he was a vicious drunk who kept the family in extreme poverty. However, the man was killed by a pair of Protestants, which made him a martyr to Ireland and set Brendan's mother, Bernadette, on an expanding path to Irish Nationalism. And she is dragging his older brother, Eamonn, with her.

Brendan, however, is reluctant to fall in line. So Bernadette constantly berates him as simple-minded, despite his knack for repairing just about anything, and seems unwilling to accept he just wants to live his own life.

Despite his efforts to remain apart from the growing turmoil, Brendan gets caught up in the countless civil rights demonstrations in Derry; the Battle of Bogside, where Catholics forced the Protestant Police Force out of their neighborhood; the arrival of British troops to separate the warring factions; internment without trial; and Bloody Sunday, when Paratroopers massacred Catholic marchers.

Mingled into this is Brendan's budding relationship with Joanna, a Protestant girl from a well-off family. A relationship that must be kept secret to prevent any reprisals. She is pretty, fun to be around, has a life of relative ease, and is certain she is bound for university. She helps him see there is more to this world than hate and distrust, that his hopes, wishes and dreams could become reality, and they might still find a place of safety, even as their world careens into chaos.

Spécifications