Dr. Noel Browne was elected to the Irish Parliament in the general election of 1948. Handsome, intense, arrogant, and unpredictable, he was only 33 years of age, with few political skills but a burning ambition to rid Ireland of the scourge of tuberculosis which had wiped out most of his family. Upon the introduction of his “Mother & Child Scheme”—a plan to provide free postnatal care to women and children under the age of 16—he quickly found himself at odds with the “Man of Destiny,” party leader and ex-Irish Republican Army chief, Sean McBride, and the ruthless, obsessive tactician, Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Charles McQuaid.

Larry Kirwan’s Rebel in the Soul closely examines the maneuvering of these three charismatic people and the ensuing crisis that brought down the government and changed Irish life forever.