The mill for grinding old people young

On Christmas Day in 1897, Gilbert Rice, 85 years old and in failing health, recounts his life-changing love affair as a young man in Belfast. Gilbert, a young man with prospects, begins work at the Belfast Port in the 18.30s as industrialisation is transforming the city. But in the course of his days and nights exploring the town, Gilbert becomes aware of tensions, old and new. When he meets Maria, a Polish exile from Russian persecution, he is drawn into a love affair that will drive him to an act that could alter his life, and the town’s, for ever.

‘A mesmerising novel. Told in wondrous prose, it gives the reader a picture of the city and the people who inhabited it.’ Sue Leonard, Irish Examiner