Farley is an elderly Irishman, frail in body but sharp as a tack. Waking in the middle of the night, he finds himself lying paralysed on the cold bathroom floor and so his mind begins to move back into his past. Decade by decade, Farley unravels the warp and weft of his life, recalling loves, losses and betrayals with the darkly comic wit of a true Dubliner. For this is also Dublin’s story, the city Farley has seen through poverty and prosperity, boom and bust - each the other’s constant companion throughout his seventy-five years.

Epic in scope, rich in detail, and shot through with black humour, The Cold Eye of Heaven is a bitter-sweet paean to Dublin and a unique meditation on the life of one of its citizens.