A review of The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry.

An ancient woman who has retained her faculties is locked up in an Irish mental health institution. However, after health reforms, and the need to make way for a new building, Roseanne McNulty is told she can return to the community. Instead of embracing freedom, the thought terrifies her, and inspires her to record a personal history as a way of holding onto something solid.

Dr Grene, who is responsible for releasing her, begins an investigation of the reasons for her original internment, and becomes engrossed in the mystery of uncovering her identity and background.

Through Roseanne's eccentric memoirs, and Dr Grene's painstaking investigations, a personal insight into Ireland's troubled history is brought to light.

The intention is to find the "the heart and the thread of her story… her true history". In a way that search is also for the truth of Ireland's history.

What is revealed is a black history, the murky morals of civil war, Catholic Christian against Protestant Christian, the lack of freedom for women, the misuse of state powers, so much violence…

However, Barry is a poet and playwright, as well as a novelist, and his writing shines with lyricism, never allowing the black facts to become too dark. For example, he describes the devil as tragic because he is "author of nothing and architect of empty spaces".

Yet we know that God creates something out of nothing, and empty spaces can be filled. So mercy triumphs over judgment, grace over violence, and peace over suffering. It is possible to "make reparation and undo hurts".

Barry uses names to reveal something about his characters; so Roseanne's real surname is "Clear" and she has a clarity about her past and purpose; and Dr Grene is a healer, able to green the parched lives he tends; and there is a priest, Father Gaunt, so bound by rules and an unacknowledged fear of female sexuality that he becomes thinner as he sucks the life out of those he comes into contact with.

Reading this book was a rich experience. There is deep insight into history, and humanity, and into theological paradigms. It richly deserved its shortlisting for the Man Booker.

The Secret Scripture demonstrates that a search for truth does have unexpected rewards.