Through the Gate of Ivory

Trinity student Charles Stanihurst, the son of a Dublin merchant and a Roscommon chambermaid, flees his native city after assaulting an English officer and heads for the West of Ireland, where he encounters a culture virtually unknown within the pale. Beyond the Shannon much of the old Gaelic way of life is still intact, though under growing threat from the political power and land greed of the ‘foreigners’. Charles is forced to confront divisions between his Anglo-Irish and Gaelic loyalties, while seeking his spiritual father, Bishop William Bedell, who is translating the Old Testament into Irish. Set in post-Flight of the Earls, pre-Cromwellian Ireland of 1641, this novel tells the gripping story of a struggle between two opposing cultures that set the scene for the rebellion sealing the fate of Gaelic Ireland.

Set in 1641 pre-Cromwellian Ireland, Devaney's intricately plotted debut is rich in period detail. Charles Stanihurst is a Trinity College student whose father is Anglo-Irish and Protestant and whose Irish mother is Catholicâ€"a religion under increasing threat of persecution by the growing English population. After a drunken mishap involving an English officer, Charles must flee for his safety. He heads for western Ireland, the land of his mother's family, and along the way he meets leaders and warriors from both the Protestant and Catholic sides who challenge his preconceptions about each. He also falls in love with Frances, a fresh-faced Catholic girl, and comes to the brink of renouncing his Protestantism in order to secure her hand in marriage. All the while, Charles is striving to meet his spiritual idol, Dr. William Bedell, whose Protestantism is gentler than Cromwell's: Bedell believes in respecting the history and language of the native Irish and is translating the Bible into Gaelic. To add to Charles's troubles, he must also fight jealous stable boys and chief stewards, try to play both sides without betraying his new Irish friends, and evade the English authorities looking to punish him for his Dublin assault. In its evocations of the charms and harshness of old Gaelic life, Devaney's book is utterly absorbing. But he presumes much knowledge of Irish history on the part of his readers, and ancillary historical stories sometimes hobble plot and pacing. But for students of Irish history and readers curious about a vanished world, the book provides a meticulously rendered glimpse into a turbulent time.
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