Trespasses

The sophisticated Michael Agnew fights for justice and wrestles with inner conflict. When Cushla meets him in Chapter 1, he’s in his fifties and is described as “[d]ark-eyed, faintly jowly. He was wearing a black suit [...] His hair was flat to the ears then wavy at the nape of his neck, as if it had been sweating under a hat. Or a wig” (6). The observation about his hair offers a clue as to his career. As a barrister, he is deeply committed to justice. He openly condemns the juryless Diplock court system, which he argues “would not be tolerated anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Or in any civilized country for that matter” (118). In addition, Michael understands that many of the people he defends are innocent or committed crimes due to the systemic oppression they face. Despite the strong sense of ethics Michael exhibits in his professional life, Cushla is his fourth mistress. Michael struggles with guilt and shame due to his complicated circumstances. He loves Cushla and insists that their relationship is not an affair. However, he can’t explain to her satisfaction how it’s “different” (118). Michael’s sophistication helps him win Cushla’s heart. He eloquently rebukes the soldier who harasses Cushla in Chapter 1: “Humor is most effective when it’s mutual” (9). During their affair, Michael invites Cushla into a world of luxury utterly unlike her day-to-day existence. For example, they go to a fine dining restaurant once visited by Stanley Kubrick during their weekend in Dublin. Michael’s sophistication and commitment to justice enamor Cushla, but he experiences inner conflict due to their relationship.

Michael’s role as Cushla’s love interest helps to establish the novel’s genre and develop its themes. He helps explicate the Troubles because he and Cushla are on opposite sides of the bitter rift between Protestants and Catholics. The lovers are also divided by age and socioeconomic status, developing the theme of The Complexities of Relationships in a Divided Society. In addition, Michael advances the theme of Navigating Ethical Dilemmas in both his personal and professional lives. Although he’s had multiple affairs, he still feels some pangs of conscience when Cushla meets his wife. The Diplock court system is “not what [he] signed up for” when he became a barrister (55), but he perseveres and tries to help young men accused of being resistance fighters. Michael’s work brings him face to face with The Pervasiveness of Violence. When Cushla looks through his file on a police brutality case, she asks herself, “How could anyone deal with this every day?” (189). Michael’s death is foreshadowed from the Prologue, and violence pursues him until he is murdered. His death gives the romance a tragic ending, and drives the devastation of the Troubles home.

Gina Lavery is Cushla’s melancholy, proud, and occasionally nurturing mother. She experiences depression and alcohol addiction due to her grief over her husband, who died about two years before the main story begins. Because of this, she often relies on her daughter’s assistance with everyday tasks, such as eating and bathing. In Chapter 5, Cushla looks at her mother and observes that she is “[s]till pretty, with her wrinkles blurred by cigarette smoke, her skin softened by the low light” (45). Gina is proud of her beauty, a trait that the text sometimes employs for tragicomic effect, such as when she leaves a smoldering cigarette in a girdle: “Gina said she only wore one the odd time, as if the offense was in needing support underwear and not in almost burning the house down” (49). Gina’s pride serves as a defense mechanism because she comes from an impoverished background, unlike her late husband. Additionally, her ego contributes to the Laverys’ familial tensions because she sometimes feels snubbed by her son and daughter-in-law. Despite her tendencies to wallow in pride and melancholy, Gina can be surprisingly nurturing. For example, she brings food to the McGeown children the day that Seamie is attacked. Similarly, after Michael’s death, Gina tends to her grieving daughter. This reversal of their usual caretaking arrangement prompts the following observation: “They were like a tag team, taking turns to fall apart” (277). Gina rises to the occasion and looks after other characters when an emergency strikes.

Gina’s alcohol addiction is a large factor in the stress and loneliness that characterizes Cushla’s day-to-day life: “Cushla normally played down Gina’s drinking [...] out of a sense of failure; she was supposed to be looking after Gina yet was unable to keep her sober” (28). Cushla’s difficult home life increases her desire to be with Michael, and she even dreams of breaking away from her family entirely. This connects to the theme of Navigating Ethical Dilemmas because Cushla feels guilty when she leaves Gina alone so that she can spend time with Michael. Gina’s alcohol addiction influences Cushla by adding to her stress and guilt.

The cautious, demanding, and selectively loving Eamonn Lavery is Cushla’s older brother. In most of the scenes in which he appears, Eamonn is working at the pub, which he considers his primary responsibility. He is deeply concerned about the family business and tries to avoid drawing attention to the religious differences between the Laverys and the majority of their customers. His abundance of caution also shows in his failure to intervene when the soldier harasses Cushla in Chapter 1. As the novel continues, his caution and the demands he places upon Cushla intensify. In Chapter 26, he orders her not to cry at Michael’s funeral, physically pulls her away from Michael’s friends, and pushes her into the car because he is afraid of anyone discovering his sister’s affair with the murdered man. Eamonn understands that his family’s economic survival and physical safety are tied to their social respectability. Although he behaves harshly toward his sister and neglects his mother, his efforts to protect them and keep the family business afloat show a sort of love. He is more openly caring toward his wife and two daughters. Eamonn dotes on his children, and a surprised Cushla wonders in Chapter 22, “When had her brother become a man who gave his wife pedicures?” (213). While Eamonn cares about his family, his cautious and demanding personality sometimes obscures this.

Eamonn develops Cushla’s characterization and the novel’s themes. He contributes to her isolation through his emphatic refusal to help look after Gina. In addition, he develops the theme of Navigating Ethical Dilemmas. After Cushla shelters the McGeowns, Eamonn serves as the brutal voice of logic that opposes Cushla’s conscience: “Eamonn swung round at her, his hand open, as if he was going to hit her a slap. Gina’s hand flew up and caught it. They leave now, he said, looming into Cushla’s face” (261). While his actions are vicious, his concerns are vindicated by the fallout of Cushla’s association with the McGeowns: She loses her position at St. Dallan’s, and the pub is bombed. At the end of the story, Eamonn makes the decision to relocate the Lavery family away from their hometown, thus giving Cushla an opportunity for a new start. Eamonn’s choices progress the plot and contrast him to his more empathetic sister.

The isolated, precocious, and eager-to-please Davy McGeown is Cushla’s favorite student. When he and Cushla reunite in 2015, he is described as “pushing fifty, with steel-gray hair that’s greased back, small glasses, and a soft wool jacket” (1). She doesn’t recognize him initially because Davy is seven years old during the main events of the story. The young boy faces discrimination from other children as well as adults because his father is Catholic and his mother is Protestant. Cushla seats him at the front of her classroom “not because he was naughty but because the others tormented him” (17). She also feels inclined to take Davy under her wing because of the academic promise he shows. For example, she praises the precocious boy’s poetry as “brilliant” in Chapter 2. The fondness between them is mutual, and Davy tries to please Cushla with his humorous observations.

Davy contributes to the setting, the plot, and Cushla’s character development. Davy’s parents are from different religious backgrounds. This is a grave taboo in the town’s eyes, and the McGeowns face poverty and persecution as a result. Davy’s circumstances help demonstrate how seriously the divide between Protestants and Catholics is taken during the Troubles and the ramifications that people risk by crossing that line. Despite the difficulties Davy faces, his innocence, kindness, and humor bring light to Cushla’s lonely days. When they part in Chapter 26, she tells him, “You’re such a great boy, Davy McGeown. It’s been the joy of my life getting to know you” (263). Cushla’s efforts to help Davy and his family give the novel a subplot, which is then woven into the main plot when Davy’s older brother, Tommy, murders Michael. In a recklessly kind act, Davy goes back into his burning home to retrieve his father’s medicine. This gives Cushla an opportunity to demonstrate heroic courage when she rescues him. Davy is a dynamic character, and the middle-aged man Cushla encounters in the Epilogue is naturally different from the seven-year-old boy she knew. He’s lived, made mistakes, and has a child of his own. This Davy is more reserved and less concerned about pleasing his old teacher.

Cushla blames herself for the series of events that led to him being separated from his family, and she carries the guilt decades later: “He sees her anguish, lets it take. For a moment she is afraid he will turn on her, but he squeezes her hand. She doesn’t know whether to apologize or thank him” (288). Davy gives the novel a bittersweet but hopeful ending as he offers Cushla a chance for healing and reconciliation.

The bright, impressionable, and embittered Tommy McGeown is Michael’s killer. Chapter 2 offers the first look at the 18-year-old: “A boy was approaching from the opposite direction, in the black blazer of the Catholic grammar school on the outskirts of Belfast. He was neat in himself, hair brushed, shoes polished” (25). Tommy is an intelligent young man who writes poetry, loves classical literature, and takes A levels in English. Although he “has brains to burn” (176), Tommy drops out of school to become his family’s breadwinner after Seamie is injured. The brutal attack on his father is only the latest and most violent example of the oppression Tommy and his blended Catholic and Protestant family face. The young man is embittered, and he directs his anger toward his peers’ cruelty at Cushla when they first meet, although he later apologies: “I just wanted to say sorry. About earlier. I get angry. Like I could kill them” (96). Tommy is also highly impressionable. He wants to be taken seriously and treated like a grown-up. In a bitter twist, this happens when he is tried as an adult for Michael’s murder. In Chapter 29, Cushla ponders how the combination of Tommy’s anger and youthful impressionability led him to the IRA: “Tommy McGeown with all his rage. Desperate to belong. The thrill he must have felt when he was handed a gun and told to go back and kill him” (281). The bright, impressionable Tommy gradually becomes embittered by the injustice of his circumstances until he is willing to kill a man in cold blood.

Tommy plays a vital role in the plot and themes by murdering Michael. He is perhaps the most dynamic character in the novel. Over the course of a few months, he goes from a bullied boy looking after his younger siblings to a killer sentenced to life in prison. Tommy develops the setting of the Troubles and the theme of The Pervasiveness of Violence. His character arc shows the senselessness and self-perpetuation of violent behavior. He is radicalized by the attack on his father, joins the IRA, and kills a Protestant as a form of vengeance for his family. Tommy represents more than just himself. Michael, who as a barrister sees many defendants who are themselves the victims of injustice, observes, “There are Tommy McGeowns appearing in front of me every day of the week” (134). Ironically, Tommy killed the person who would have been his best hope of a defense. Through Tommy, the novel examines the circumstances that led young men to become combatants and killers during the Troubles.