Brigid Boland, The Wild Geese

Catherine Smith (Other)

Ed. by Anne Markey, Dublin City University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Paul Delaney (Trinity College Dublin), Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1938

Places

United Kingdom (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Bridget Boland’s first novel, The Wild Geese (1938), is an epistolary historical fiction, which relates the fortunes of the Kinross family and their estate of Rossmore in Co. Kerry at the time of the Penal Laws (the first letter is dated 1733 and the last 1746). The Penal Laws were imposed in an attempt to oblige Catholics and Protestant dissenters to conform to the practices of the Established Church, that is, the Anglican Church of Ireland. Under the penal legislation, the Catholic Kinrosses cannot be the legal owners of their land, and so it is held for them by their cousins, the Ahearnes, who have recently converted to Anglicanism. Rossmore is run by the level-headed, efficient Brandan Kinross, who lives there with …

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1189 words

Citation: Smith, Catherine . "The Wild Geese". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 June 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34999, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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