8. Blessing

Maggie returns to Great Meadow, anxious to receive her father’s blessing to marry labourer Mark O’Donoghue.

Michael Moran’s life was forever transformed by his days of glory in the War of Independence. Now, a farmer in the Irish countryside, Moran is still fighting - with his family, his friends, even himself - in a poignant struggle to come to terms with the past.

However, as he grows older, his wife and daughters must confront how their own lives have been irrevocably shaped by this complicated and contradictory man.

An intimate story of a family living on the Irish border, under the thumb of a former soldier turned tyrant in his own home.

Written and abridged by John McGahern.

Read by Lloyd Hutchinson.

Producer: Celia de Wolff

A BBC Northern Ireland production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2020.