New Ross, a small town where public institutions are run by the Catholic Church and everyone knows everyone else’s business, is a difficult place to be exceptional. Its residents, who are primarily economically struggling Catholics, can remain safe or even occasionally advance their positions by conforming to the status quo and staying on the right side of the right people. There is a high premium on belonging as a means of social capital. Conversely, being different or “other” can endanger a person’s reputation and livelihood. Furlong struggles with this dynamic as he faces difficult ethical choices and comes to terms with his own background throughout the novel.

Economic independence is one way individuals in the novel can maintain their difference without being defamed or ostracized. Mrs. Wilson, a Protestant widow who lives outside the town in a large, aristocratic house and farms her own land with the assistance of Catholic workers Ned and Sarah, has the economic and social means to liberate herself from the dictates of Catholicism and patriarchy. Ironically, although Mrs. Wilson’s power is aligns with the historical oppression of British colonial rule in Ireland, in the mid-20th century’s conservative Irish Catholic republic, her land is the site of utopian experiments in freedom and generosity.