Hand in the Till

Desperate mother of seven, Fionnuala Flood, thinks her new get-rich-quick scheme will pay all the bills, but instead it threatens to tear the family apart.

The case of bargain bin canned vegetables she bought for the scam contains not spuds but explosives. A wilting branch of the defunct IRA will stop at nothing to get them back. Adding to the Fionnuala woes, her two oldest sons are in prison, her husband's hands are fondling more than frozen fish at the packing plant, and her lesbian daughter has just published a book exposing the family's attempts to get their claws into Auntie Ursula Barnett's lottery winnings the year before. Daughter Dymphna, unwed mother, has just been kicked out of her boyfriend's house, adding two more mouths to feed. And worst of all, daughter Siofra's middle school is hosting a multi-denominational talent contest, Fingers Across the Foyle, which is supposed to build harmony, but will pit the Catholic students against their Protestant rivals. Siofra wants to nab the grand prize, a trip to Belfast to meet her idol Miley Cyrus in concert. Fionnuala is having none of it. Will the Semtex explode or will sanity prevail?

Throw in bottles of hallucinogenic absinthe, Ursula coming back to town for a showdown, and an old VCR that might change the world, and you have Hand In The Till, a darkly comic look at revenge, retribution and, perhaps, reconciliation.