In 1957, Sheila Cloney, Protestant wife of a Catholic farmer, fled from her home near the Wexford village of Fethard-on-Sea with her young daughters after refusing to bow to the demands of the local Catholic clergy to educate them as Catholics. In response, the priests launched a boycott of Fethard's Protestant shopkeepers and farmers. Tim Fanning tells the story of one of the ugliest sectarian episodes to occur in the Republic and examines how the Catholic Church's Ne Temere decree on mixed marriages resulted in one small rural community tearing itself apart.

Dubliner Tim Fanning studied history in University College Dublin. He has worked as a journalist in Ireland and Spain, and has written on Irish history and politics for the regional and national press. As a young boy, he spent his summer holidays in Fethard-on-Sea where he first learnt about the boycott and got to know the Cloney family.