In the little Irish town of Shancarrig, the young people carve their initials-and those of their loves-into the copper beech tree in front of the schoolhouse. ut not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows moat of what goes on behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all the rest, realize that not everything in the placid village is what it seems.