A translation by Breandan O hEithir (1930-1990), author and social commentator, of his best-selling original novel Lig Sinn i gCathu, first published in 1976, and the only Irish-language novel to top Ireland's bestseller list. The book is set in a university town, a thinly disguised Galway City, in 1948, the year Ireland declared itself a republic and withdrew from the Commonwealth. But Martin Melody, a pub-crawling university student, and his disreputable friends are too busy drinking and lusting after girls to pay much attention to this significant political development.