They said all manner of things about Batt O'Sheedy. They said he came from nothing in a tiny town in Leitrim. That he'd made a fortune investing in Dublin hotels, or cryptocurrencies, or was it airlines, or else that he was about to go bankrupt - no-one knew. That he was a monk, pure in his habits, or that he was a hopeless alcoholic. That he was gay or straight or maybe both. That his three children would each inherit ten million, or that they'd barely be able to pay for his funeral.

This is the story of Batt O'Sheedy, of his family, of the Dublin town house - Victorian, magnificent, right by the sea - which represents the family's success, and its eventual tragedy.

A cross between Succession, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Dickens' Bleak House, this is a big, compulsive story about the decline and fall of one family - inextricably bound up with the story of Ireland from the 1950s to today.