At Swim, Two Boys

A Novel

Paperback, 576 pages

English language

Published Feb. 25, 2003 by Scribner.

ISBN:
9780743222952

View on OpenLibrary

5 stars (1 review)

Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O’Neill.

Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son—revolutionary and blasphemous—of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. All the while Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains …

3 editions

Subjects

  • Modern fiction
  • Literary
  • English Historical Fiction
  • Fiction - General
  • Fiction
  • Fiction / General
  • Easter Rising, 1916
  • History
  • Ireland