The Harp in the South is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 (ISBN 0-14-010456-9) by New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 born Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n author Ruth Park

Ruth Park

Ruth Park, AM was a New Zealand-born author, who spent most of her life in Australia. Her best known works are the novels The Harp in the South and Playing Beatie Bow , and the children's radio serial The Muddle-Headed Wombat , which also spawned a book series .-Personal history:Park was born in...

. Published in 1948, it portrays the life of a Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 Irish Australian

Irish Australian

Irish Australians have played a long and enduring part in Australia's history. Many came to Australia in the eighteenth century as settlers or as convicts, and contributed to Australia's development in many different areas....

 family living in the Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 suburb of Surry Hills, which was at that time an inner city slum.

Characters

Hughie Darcy:

Married to Margaret Darcy. Hughie often becomes drunk after work and his best friend is Patrick Diamond, even though Patrick is Protestant and he is Catholic. Father of Rowena and Dolour. Hughie wants to get out of Surry Hills and back to the bush but he has a family to support so is trapped.

Margaret Darcy:

Mother of Rowena and Dolour, Mother-in-law of Charlie Rothe. She is a devout Catholic and although generally accepting, sometimes fights with Patrick Diamond (their lodger) over his religious beliefs.

Rowena "Roie" Darcy:

Married to Charlie Rothe, they have one child, Moira. In her youth, she was courted by Tommy Mendel, but after sleeping with her, he disappeared. Roie secretly worked at two jobs to save enough for an abortion when she discovers she is expecting Tommy's baby but at the last minute cannot go through with it. On her way home, she is attacked and savagely beaten by a group of sailors and loses the baby.

Charlie Rothe:

Charlie is assumed to be part aboriginal although he doesn't know his parents as he was taken away as a baby and put in a home. He is married to Rowena Darcy whom he met when her younger sister, Dolour took part in a radio quiz show, "Junior Information Please". Roie was feeling sick and he helped her outside for air. Charlie knew there was no racial prejudice with Roie but . Margaret did not accept him at first and Dolour was angry with him because he was stealing Roie from her.

Dolour Darcy:

Dolour is the youngest in her family. A very bright girl, she aspires to get a good education and escape from Surry Hills. She is aunty to "Molly" Roie's child and good friends with elderly Chinese greengrocer, Lick Jimmy.

Patrick Diamond:

Protestant. Every St.Patricks day, he will get drunk and abuse (verbally) Mrs.Darcy. When he suffered a stroke, Lick Jimmy performed an emergency 'bleed' by cutting open a vein to ease the pressure. Pat was unaware of this, as he had passed out because Hughie, also drunk, had hit him.

Miss Sheily:

Mother to retarded Johnny Sheily, she constantly abused him. When he was knocked down and killed she seemed relived rather than upset. Later, Roie saw her flagellating herself and crying Johnny's name. She marries a Swedish man named Gunnarson.

Sequel and Prequel

In 1949, Ruth Park published Poor Man's Orange

Poor Man's Orange

Poor Man's Orange is a novel by New Zealand born Australian author Ruth Park. Published in 1949, the book is the sequel to The Harp in the South and continues the story of the Darcy family, living in the Surry Hills area of Sydney....

as a sequel to The Harp in the South. A prequel, Missus, was published in 1985.

Adaptations

The Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange were both adapted into TV miniseries, the former in 1986, the latter in 1987.

Cast

Cast	Role
Anne Phelan Anne Phelan Anne Mary Phelan, OAM , is a much awarded Australian actress, who has appeared prominently in Theatre, Australian television productions and soap operas, including Prisoner where she played the role of 'Top Dog' Myra Desmond and Monica Taylor in Something in the air...	Mumma Darcy
Martyn Sanderson Martyn Sanderson Martyn Sanderson was a New Zealand actor, filmmaker and poet.Sanderson was one of the founders of Downstage Theatre in 1964 in Wellington, with a vision of a small professional company performing challenging works in an intimate venue...	Hughie Darcy
Anna Hruby Anna Hruby Anna Hruby is an Australian actress who has appeared in many Australian television series and theatre productions.Hruby first achieved recognition for her role in Prisoner as Paddy Lawson...	Roie Darcy
Kaarin Fairfax Kaarin Fairfax Kaarin Fairfax is an Australian actress who played the role of 'Dolour Darcy' in two TV miniseries The Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange based on books of the same names by Ruth Park. She has also acted in other Australian television series throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and...	Dolour Darcy
Gwen Plumb Gwen Plumb Gwen Plumb AM BEM was a veteran Australian performer of stage, radio and television.-Biography:Gwendoline Jean Plumb was born in 1912...	Grandma Kilker
Syd Conabere	Pat Diamond
Melissa Jaffer Melissa Jaffer Melissa Jaffer is an Australian actress who has made many appearances in television series, including Kings, Mother and Son, G. P., Brides of Christ, Grass Roots and All Saints...	Miss. Sheily
Shane Connor Shane Connor Shane Connor is an Australian actor, who has had extensive experience in both stage and film productions.-Background:Shane Connor graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in the early 1980s...	Charlie Rothe
Brandon Burke	Tommy Mendel
Ken Radley	Johnny Sheily
Lois Ramsay Lois Ramsay Lois Ramsey is an Australian actress, best known for her performances as eccentric old ladies on television.She was a major cast member of the 1970s soap opera The Box as tea lady Mrs. Hopkins...	Mrs. Campion
Cecil Parkee	Lick Jimmy
Carole Skinner Carole Skinner Carole Skinner is an Australian actress who works mainly in the theatre and is well known to armchair viewers for her roles in many long running soap operas.Skinner played top dog Nola McKenzie in Prisoner...	Delie Stock
Charles Tingwell Charles Tingwell In 1941, aged 18, he volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces were part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942...	Father Cooley