In a London pub in the 1950s, editor William Maginn is intrigued by a mention of the strange - and reputedly shameful - demise of a mountain village in County Kerry, where he was born. Maginn returns to Kerry and uncovers an astonishing tale: both the account of the destruction of a place and the way of life which once preserved Ireland’s ancient traditions and the tragedy of an isolated village where all the women mysteriously die - leaving the priest, Father McGreevy, to cope with insoluble problems.