Old God's Time

Old God’s Time (2023) is a novel by Sebastian Barry, who was the Laureate for Irish Fiction from 2018 to 2021. He has won numerous awards for his large body of work, which includes plays, novels, and poetry. Old God’s Time was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Booker Prize. The novel follows Tom Kettle, a retired police detective living a quiet seaside town in Ireland, who is forced to confront his own difficult past when he becomes involved in an ongoing investigation in the present. The narrative weaves through Tom’s memories, exploring themes of trauma, violence, and the passage of time.

This guide uses the 2024 Faber & Faber paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of physical and sexual violence against minors. It also depicts suicide, drug abuse, acts of terrorism, violence, and murder.

Plot Summary

Tom Kettle, a retired police officer, rents an apartment annexed to his wealthy landlord’s house. His neighbor plays the cello at odd hours and shoots seabirds from his balcony. Sometimes, Tom’s beloved daughter Winnie visits; his son Joe is a doctor in the United States. One day, two officers from his old police division, Wilson and O’Casey, unexpectedly visit Tom, seeking his help. They say the case they are working on relates to priests, panicking Tom. He doesn’t even look at the documentation or commit to help.

The next day, Tom cries as he wonders why he can’t acknowledge that Winnie, Joe, and his wife June are all dead, or why he couldn’t explain his reason for not wanting to look at the case files to Wilson and O’Casey. He fashions a noose out of a rope, but before he can hang himself, the doorbell rings. It’s his old police superintendent, Fleming. As they talk, Tom remembers his life in the police force and his happy times with June. He privately resolves to help with the case.

When Tom is out shopping, he thinks about how forensics make old, violent methods of investigation obsolete. He recalls the unwritten police code of non-interference with church-run organizations and in domestic abuse cases. That night, Tom sleeps fitfully. He remembers meeting June while on a case with his colleague, Billy, who was since killed while trying to stop a robbery. Tom recalls the happiness of their first date and the first time they had sex. It took Tom and June a long while to share the stories of their terrible childhoods in church-run orphanages.

Winnie visits one sunny morning. When Tom is confused about where she lives now, she tells him she’s in the cemetery. After she leaves, Tom remembers his honeymoon with June, when she told him that throughout her childhood she was repeatedly raped by a priest, Father Thaddeus.

Tom goes to Dublin to meet Fleming, like he promised he would. Fleming asks him about an old case he worked on with Billy to investigate two priests: Father Byrne and Father Matthews. Byrne had been taking explicit photographs of young boys. The chief commissioner handed the evidence to the archbishop to deal with internally; nothing was done about it. Wilson and O’Casey are investigating fresh accusations of assault against Byrne. Fleming asks about Matthews; Tom says he was the same as Byrne, but he says he doesn’t know much else. Fleming reminds him that he investigated Matthews’s murder; Tom is shocked to remember this.

Back home, Tom speaks with his neighbor, Miss McNulty. She says she and her son Jesse ran away from her husband, who had sexually abused her young daughter. The girl had died from her injuries, but the authorities took her husband’s word that he was innocent. She asks Tom to look out for her and Jesse, afraid that her husband will find them.

Tom remembers Joe. He struggled to understand his sexuality, associating it with the shame and violence of his abuse by the brothers as a child, but he nevertheless tried. Tom then recalls June’s breakdown when he mentioned Father Matthews in association with the Byrne case. She realized he was Thaddeus Matthews, her abuser.

In the present, Fleming visits Tom and reveals that Byrne claims he saw Tom near the scene of Matthews’s death in the mountains. Tom says Byrne is lying to distract from the terrible things he’s done. Later, Tom remembers his time as a sniper in the British Army in Malaya; his job was to shoot locals who were suspected of being rebels, and he killed 57 of them.

Tom’s neighbor, the cellist, invites Tom over. They discuss his gun, and they both see a little girl playing in the garden, who the cellist thinks is the ghost of an ancient child. He plays “Kol Nidrei” on his cello, a song that refers to atonement. Lost in the music, Tom remembers his joyous life with June.

Afterward, Tom goes home and thinks that the truth seems impossible. He and June followed the priests when they hiked up a mountain. June turned into a rat-like creature and lay on Tom’s back; he carried her up and they caught up with Matthews. June stabbed him repeatedly with their kitchen bread knife.

Wilson and O’Casey visit, and they tell Tom they will have to pursue Byrne’s accusations in seeking to convict him of Matthews’s murder. Tom encourages them to do so. Tom then remembers June’s death by suicide when the children were of school-leaving age, after years of domestic happiness. She set herself on fire in her nice summer dress. After, Winnie tenaciously continued her legal training, but she struggled with addiction. Tom helped her go to rehab, but a relapse killed her. Joe was murdered in the United States by the angry father of one of his young patients who died. Tom feels free, having faced his story.

One day, Miss McNulty’s husband arrives and kidnaps Jesse. The man steals a speedboat and sets off toward the island with Jesse. Tom runs into the cellist’s flat and shoots the man with the cellist’s gun. He sees help arrive for Jesse and expects that the police will come for him soon.

That night, he swims out far into the currents, using the strength of his love for his family. He is ready as the water drags him under. He wakes in his bed. The cellist is playing “Kol Nidrei” next door. June is sitting by him, and Tom reaches out to her.