It was four o'clock on the afternoon of December twenty-fourth, 1841, in the village of Ballynockanor, County of Galway, Province of Connaught, Ireland. It was after mass on the first day of Advent that the old woman, Mad Molly Fahey, had told Father O'Bannon (as well as every farmer, farmer's wife, and child) that a great miracle was coming to visit the poor of Ballynockanor.
The village is in sore need of a miracle. Struggling under grinding poverty and a greedy landlord, Ballynockanor is the story of a thousand Irish villages where an English usurper is despised by his Irish tenants.
When a stranger crosses the river and enters the village on Christmas Eve, Molly proclaims that he is the herald of freedom and change. Is this quiet man the spark that will stroke the fires of Irish nationalism and bring freedom in a troubled time? Or will he bring the destruction of an entire way of life?
