Coming from the Fair

This novel, published in 1937, is a sequel to the 1935 novel Holy Ireland, which introduced the family of Patrick O’Neill, a Dublin cattle dealer. The semi-biographical focus is on her mother’s life. The second book starts with the death of Patrick and then follows the stories of his children and grandchildren, beginning in 1903 and finishing in 1933. Part 6 of the novel begins in 1916 with Patrick’s widow Julia remarking to a priest about the parallel conflicts of 1916:
“Now, Father, you can say what you like, and I don't want to say anything about my son killed in Flanders, and I'm not saying anything about the other Irish boys, killed and waiting to be killed, God help them, but there's one way only to look at this rebellion, and that is as a stab in the back.”

The author, Norah Hoult (born 10 September 1898), was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a free-thinking English father (terming himself a Theosophist in the 1901 census in which Norah is recorded as Eleanor). By the age of 10, both her parents had died and their children moved to England to be cared for by her English relatives. Working as a journalist, her first book, a collection of short stories, was published in 1928 and received critical acclaim. Her first novel appeared in 1930 and she went on to write more than 20 novels and three further collections of short stories. She returned to live in Ireland in 1957.

The central character, Charlie O'Neill, the wayward son of Patrick, gets caught up in the rush to enlist for war service during a cattle-dealing trip to Liverpool.
“Fellows going to enlist. The whole bloody train was packed seemingly with chaps going to enlist, to die for King and country... Mc Carroll was really going to London to enlist and he'd brought him along to do it as well... Charlie closed his eyes trying to recall last night's scene in the Liverpool pub. English chaps jeering them, asking what the Paddies were going to do about the war. Mc Carroll shouting he was off to London in the morning to join up with the London Irish.”
Far from keen, on reaching London, he manages to evade his enthusiastic friends and does not join up.