A story about Irish land ownership, politics and forbidden love in 1843, two years before the famine.
Robert Mountbellew, an English nobleman, returns to his Irish estate in the west of Ireland in the summer of 1843 to spend a summer hunting and gain closure to a dysfunctional relationship with his now deceased father. Mountbellew feels displaced, neither belonging to the upper or lower classes.
Robert should be choosing a wife, but the life of an upper class English gent seems stifling and unrewarding to him. Robert's desire to belong leads him into Irish politics of the 1800's, and a love affair that his own class disapproves of. The summer of 1843 would liberate and confine Robert Mountbellew.
The conditions prior to the failure of the potato crop in Ireland contributed greatly to the effects of the famine. The political climate, land ownership, and economy of Ireland did not profit the Irish people.
In The Foundling we meet a kindly land lord who disregards the division of class, religion and politics to learn more about his Irish tenants and their desire to have Irish politicians rule Ireland at home, not in England. On the way, our kindly land lord, Robert Mountbellew finds the love of two women.
The Foundling is the first book in a series.