The Tithe-Proctor: The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two
1849
The year is 1840s Ireland, and the tithe proctor is coming. Matthew Purcel collects the most hated tax in the country, money owed to a church most Irish people don't even follow. When the Boland family is destroyed for resisting, the fragile peace of Esker Dearg shatters. Now the Purcel family, once part of the community, faces the same fury. Carleton writes with unflinching precision about a society where economic oppression and religious injustice finally ignite into bloodshed. Buck English watches from the sidelines, cunning and dangerous. The chapel that once united the parish now witnesses its dissolution. This is not romantic Ireland; this is a story about what happens when ordinary people are trapped between authority and their desperate, angry neighbors. Carleton, writing from deep knowledge of peasant life, gives voice to a people who had been silent in English literature for centuries.
