Abandoned by her parents when they resettle in Meath, Mary O Conaill faces the task of raising her younger siblings alone.Padraig is disappeared, Seán joins the Christian Brothers, Bridget escapes and her brother Seamus inherits the farm.Maeve is sent to serve a family of shopkeepers in the local town.Later, pregnant and unwed, she is placed in a Magdalene Laundry where her twins are forcibly removed.Spanning the 1930s to the 70s, this sweeping multi-generational family saga follows the psychic and physical displacement of a society in freefall after independence.Wit, poetic nuance, vitality and authenticity inhabit this remarkable novel.The Cruelty Men tells an unsentimental tale of survival in a country proclaimed as independent but subjugated by silence