The story of a young boy growing up in Kerry in the thirties, in the aftermath of the Civil War, 'Gander At The Gate' magically evokes the world of an Irish farm house, the family which inhabits it and the community in which it is set. Full of affectionately sketched, often eccentric characters like Tip Toe the tinker and Coneen the Boy Bawn, it is a document of a rural way of life as seen through the wondering eyes of a child. But dark, political shadows gradually make their presence felt, as the boy's understanding grows, not least in the form of his mother's anxieties about his father, with his links to the Provisionals, for whose life she is in constant fear.
