Part 1, 1940-1945, Chapter 3 Summary

Elizabeth and Eileen's first letters to the Whites dwell on having Elizabeth excused from catechism classes and whether unbaptized kittens go to limbo. Violet wonders about the religious obsession and worries about Elizabeth's lack of homesickness. The two Seans irritate one another constantly, but when the younger fails his Leaving Certificate examination, his father puts his son in the store at regular wage and hours. Eileen is relieved that after hot baths and gin remove worry about another pregnancy.

Maureen O'Connor wants to be a nurse, while her friend Berna Lynch wants to be a secretary. Young Sean wants to enlist in the army, emphasizing the value of training for post-war employment with his father, who wants reparations from England for eight hundred years of humiliation before allowing him to fight. The girls are stuck between social levels in...