Jonathan O’Lochan – an Arab scholar and Irish-American diplomat, we first meet him at the opening of the novel, in Cairo, just after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, on November 4th 1995. Rabin had been shot dead by a right-wing student, Yigal Amir.

The Church rose to power throughout the Middle Ages and obtained a status of temporal power that coincided with its spiritual decline. In the 20th century, we have seen one scandal after another that has resulted in huge declines in church membership in all the traditional Catholic countries, France, Spain, Ireland, Italy and in the Americas. In The Legend of Dagad Trikon, a prominent Irish American Catholic family is torn apart, as the father, a bastion of wealth and privilege, supports the status quo and disowns his eldest son Jonathan, for standing up for truth over practical expediency.