The Visit

by Neil Tully

AN IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER

'Brilliant and intriguing' - Colm Tóibín

'An accomplished and atmospheric debut' - Irish Examiner

'Outstanding' - Irish Times

'Perhaps the strongest Irish debut novel of the year' - RTÉ Book of the Week

'An amazing novel' - Oliver Callan

"The lad is a bit like a stray dog. I keep an eye on him and throw him a few scraps. There are plenty of people in this town who'd just as soon drop him off in the wilderness and hope there's no scent to follow home. The problem is that Patrick could find his way out of any wilderness and they wouldn't like whatever starved thing came back."

Sergeant Jim Field feels a guilty paternalism for Patrick Hatten, a young man struggling to find a job, a life and a purpose in a small-town Wexford community. Both are used to being on the fringes but while Jim is a romantic with bad health and regret, Patrick is full of anger and action, and his actions could have devastating effects.

Genres: Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature

Audible Audio

First published March 26, 2026

Reviews

[Stephen the Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You need to remember that people don't care what's true, Patrick. Just whatever story suits them best."

The Visit is the debut novel by Neil Tully and it is a winner- powerful, raw, visceral and ultimately incredibly moving; this is the story of two men searching for peace and fairness.

A small Irish community in 1963 where the currency of gossip and judgement runs high; young Patrick Hatten lives alone on the family farm- both parents have died and his brother lives in England- he struggles but gets by. The locals view him as strange and somebody who should be placed in a local mental institution of the time. Patrick's equilibrium is rocked when a local landowner has eyes on the family home and his brother as heir agrees to sell. Revenge is his goal.

Local policeman, Sergeant Jim Field, is aware of Patrick's challenges and recognises the local "religious' community has no compassion for the young man and 'treat him like a leper since he was a boy." He also recognises that Patrick is being pushed to do something drastic and wants to help him.

Set against the backdrop of Kennedy's 1960's visit to nearby Dunganstown, locals are enthralled by the imminent international arrival and the echelons of a community are exposed as the wealthy want to attend. What will Patrick do and can Jim Field prevent tragedy ?

This is a story that pulls apart a period of history when people judged through the hearsay and the belief that the rich were placed on pedestals- a time before mental health was acknowledged or even physical ailments were recognised and you should just pull yourself together ( alcohol being a medicinal currency for many)

The characters of Jim and Patrick are beautiful creations; each fighting inner turmoil and battling against a society that seems not to care. The chapters alternate between the two voices and it works superbly. Full of details of rural life and tautly controlled.

Gripping from start to finish - highly recommended. A debut novel that deserves attention Neil Tully joins the list of esteemed Irish writers.

Of course, by the end of the book, the realisation that the currency of judging and hiding behind words and selecting your own narrative is now in the domain of social media and even more widespread!

Thank you to Eriu/Bonner publishers and Netgalley for the advance copy

[Dem · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant debut novel, Sharp, subtle, and unexpectedly moving—The Visit lingers long after the final page, with Neill Tully writing like he’s been doing this brilliantly for decades.

Set in 1963 in the run up to John F Kennedy’s visit to his ancestral home in New Ross in Ireland. Sergeant Jim Field feels a guilty paternalism for Patrick Hatten, a young man struggling to find a job, a life and a purpose in a small town. A community that is torn between progress and the past and where rumours can circulate and keep a person from moving forward.
Both men are used to being on the fringes but while Jim is a romantic with bad health and regret, Patrick is full of anger and action, and his actions could have devastating effects.

The story itself is compelling following a cast of unique yet deeply relatable characters as they navigate personal challenges, relationships and moments of unexpected growth.
What stands out most is how effortlessly Tully brings his characters to life, each one feels authentic with voices and experiences that resonate with the reader long after the story ends.
His writing balances warmth, humor and emotional depth, making the novel both entertaining and thought provoking.

A perfect read for bookclubs.

A truly memorable novel, highly recommended for anyone who appreciates fresh storytelling and characters that feel real and authentic.

One of the finest Irish debut novels to hit the shelves in a long time and an author that I will be following to see what he produces next.

I had the pleasure of listening and reading a hard copy of this and both were excellent.


Bookclub read that’s going to make for great discussion. 📚📚📚

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neil Tully's debut novel uses the historic visit of John F Kennedy to New Ross, Co Wexford in June 1963 only months before his assassination, as its backdrop.

As the residents of the town prepare there, Sergeant Field is trying to deal with his own health problems whilst ensuring that Patrick Hatten, a young man who he feels responsive for, isn't persecuted by local landowner, Peter Casey.

As the pressure ramps up Field is forced to take more difficult decisions which will set him at odds with the rich and powerful in the community.

Tully's debut novel reflects life in a small town that becomes the focus of the world's attention for a moment in time. Whilst the actual visit is important and plays into the building tension, it is the townspeople who take the starring roles.

I was positive I had guessed how the story would play out. I was completely off the mark. Wonderful prose, sympathetic protagonists and a great story. I look forward to whatever Neil Tully writes next.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Bonnier Books UK for the digital review copy.

[Tina Callaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and a story with great heart. Highly recommended.

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my best book if the year.

I’d highly recommend as a book for bookclubs.

Full of atmosphere, brilliant characterisation ( I love when you love a couple of people in a book - I’m so much more invested!!)

Fantastic sense of place and time - I remember my mum talking about Kennedy’s visit so fondly.

A great feeling of anticipation throughout the novel.

Can’t wait for Neil Tully’s next book.

[Jamad · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Visit, the complexities of community, belonging and personal history are explored with care. A small Irish town is rendered as a place shaped by economic strain and social tension, and the central figures — Sergeant Jim Field and the troubled Patrick Hatten — are portrayed in a manner that encourages sympathy without sentimentality. Much of the emotional weight is carried by their interactions, through which themes of responsibility and regret are introduced.

A restrained but evocative prose style is employed, allowing moments of longing and disillusionment to emerge quietly rather than through overt drama. The town itself is presented as a character of sorts, its supportiveness and suffocation held in delicate balance. Through this lens, the pressures of expectation and the desire for escape are placed in sharp relief.

The pacing is kept deliberate, encouraging reflection while maintaining narrative momentum. Subplots are allowed to rise and fall naturally, even if not all are brought to complete resolution. The sense of place and character is nevertheless sustained throughout, and the novel’s emotional impact is achieved through understatement rather than spectacle.

The Visit is an absorbing and thoughtful debut. Its nuance and clarity are likely to be appreciated by readers of character-driven literary fiction. This deserves to do well.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

When he walks by in Dunganstown, it will take all my strength to keep my hands by my side and not offer one to him. It takes vision to see the possibilities of space. And vision is only half the battle. Having the guts to follow through is the other, when so many will tell him it’s a fine way to waste money better spent for what’s needed here on Earth. I’ve heard fellas saying that the visit is nothing but a politician’s move, to shore up Irish votes or to charm us into NATO. I’m not one of them. I’m among the countless others, unashamedly under the spell of the suits and sunglasses and speeches. The eyes that stared down the Soviets and didn’t blink. I look at Kennedy – a man born only a few years before the Free State – and see Ireland’s full potential, some version of the future that we’d be better off hurrying up and arriving at.

 
 
This novel is set in Wexford, Ireland in late June 1963 as the country prepares for the epochal visit of JK Kennedy (which came directly after his Berlin trip) and in particular for those in the novel, his flight be helicopter to New Ross and then drive to his home town of Dunganstown.
 
The novel opens – shortly before it ends – with a brief italicsed scene of a man Patrick waiting in a tree and contemplating a “terrible immortality”, as through the scope of a rifle he views a passing car and the waving man in it “who had stepped from television screens and newspaper pages” – a scene (appropriately for a novel which explicitly seeks to balance the present between an impactful past and a daunting future) with two resonances – one forward of course less than 5 months to a motorcade in Dallas, and more subtly (but more impactful to me) back some 2000 years given that Patrick is hidden in a Sycamore tree (and is we find out later shunned by his neighbours – albeit not for swindling/collaboration but more for eccentricity and family traits).
 
And from there it switches to alternating chapters (occasionally showing two sides of the same scene) between the first party viewpoint of Jim Field and the third party viewpoint of Patrick (Hatten) from the introduction.
 
Jim is the jug-eared local Garda Sergeant and married to Siobhan (something of a local beauty when younger – their courtship being marked by a period when Siobhan left him) with their only child a young daughter Catriona.  At work Jim is something of a honest cop – straight and no nonsense – but at home he is obsessed with space (which increases his interest in the visit of Kennedy for which he is due a ringside security seat) – even collecting and building models from a children’s magazine. Siobhan is increasingly frustrated by the confines of her housewife/mother life – but also frustrated by Jim’s current distraction due to the Kennedy visit, some burgeoning ill-health (about which he is in denial) and his obsession with Patrick.
 
Patrick is an orphan – his extrovert mother having died more recently, his farmer father some years before (in a mental asylum) and his brother (like so many locals) having emigrated (in his case to England).  Gradually piecing his life together he is determined to come off the dole and both get a job in a local shop and start to work what remains of the family smallholding (mostly sold off to the nearby landowner Casey who is developing a stud farm founded around a superstar horse with a Gold Cup winning sire).  But as far as most of the locals are concerned he is loner – somewhere on the spectrum of eccentric to actually dangerous as he wanders around oddly dressed and hunting wildlife.  Jim’s interest in Patrick’s welfare is guilt driven for his own role as a young policeman in driving Patrick’s father to the asylum.
 
Other than the Kennedy visit the main narrative drive is of Casey contacting Patrick’s brother (who is the legal heir to the land) and offering to buy and demolish the family property (which sits in the middle of his planned stud) – with Patrick’s homelessness being less collateral damage than a bonus (Casey unhappy about his relationship with Casey’s 16 year old daughter) – and this drives the already on-the-edge Patrick into an angry and vengeful fugitive armed with a hunting gun – a danger to which only the increasingly panicky Jim seems attuned as the days and hours tick down to Kennedy’s visit.
 
The prose at times, when in the voice of Jim in particular has a striking melancholic beauty
 

I thought of busy work days that slip away, days that don’t seem to have enough hours and how we have no control over time at all. How it passes through us. How we’re just oxygen for it, telling its old stories and predicting its future. How it uses us up and when it’s finished with us and we’re gone, with all our love and hurt and memories gone with us, time will be there still, breathing through every soul, the only thing that knows no end.

 
If I had a criticism, then perhaps the novel relies a little too much on a build-up/convergence which would not be entirely out of place in a thriller movie but seems a little at odd with the quiet beauty of much of the novel.  I also thought Jim was a more worked out, complex and nuanced character than Patrick – who shades a little too much into near-psycho territory again in a way which seemed a little at odds with the book’s main much more nuanced thrust.
 
Overall though I thought this was a solid debut novel – one which captures really well a pivotal time in Irish 20th Century culture and an epochal event which in many ways marked a period of transition, but told through two protagonists experiencing their own individual transition to the future while being joined by a shared traumatic past.
 
My thanks to Bonnier Books for an ARC via NetGalley

[Chris L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neil Tully’s debut novel, ‘The Visit’ centres around the town of New Ross in 1963 as they prepare for American president John F. Kennedy’s visit. The story involves Garda Jim Fields and his desire to protect Patrick Hatten. Patrick is more of a social outcast, and Patrick’s reaction to his treatment may lead to consequences for Jim.

Tully’s novel examines an Ireland struggling with its past and the quest for a new Ireland. Certainly, JFK represented that for Americans and many Irish also saw so much promise in the Kennedy rise to power and prestige. However, Patrick is still treated as an other, and he resents his treatment. Jim shows understanding while many in the community do not. Tully’s novel alternates between these two stories, so we know that their stories will converge at a crucial point.

The novel is delicately written and there’s a humanity to the story and prose that we don’t often get in novels. Too often, the focus is on the plot, but Tully spends time with the characters so we understand their motivations and their place in the community (or lack of place). Tully gives us an Ireland of possibilities and beauty even when terrible things happen. I found ‘The Visit’ so incredibly moving and beautiful. I hope to see more novels from Neil Tully.

[DMc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, lyrical storytelling. Field and Patrick are compelling, complicated characters struggling against a rapidly changing country. There is a cast of fully formed secondary characters, this is a deeply moving book that is underpinned by menace and tension that propels the story. arc review.

[Sharon Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neil Tully’s debit novel is a compelling and convincing tableau of a time and place in which the roots of modern Ireland are starting to become visible. Although 1963 might seem in some ways like a more benign era, the book shudders with a contemporary feeling of social injustice and loneliness, tempered by the gorgeously drawn and deeply tender love affair between Jim Field and his wife Siobhán.

As with all the best fictional characters, gentle giant Jim is deeply flawed. His big ears and hapless demeanor hide a secret guilt over his violent treatment of Sean Hatten, whom he was instrumental in incarcerating in Senans, the local mental hospital, an an edifice which dominated the town of New Ross. This incident, the man’s subsequent death, the death of his widow and orphaning of his sons has left Patrick feeling disproportionately responsible for Patrick Hatten, the youngest son who is not ‘the full shilling’.

There’s a sense of foreboding from the start. Fundamentally honest Jim lies to his wife about financially supporting Patrick, is hyper alert to every mention of the young man and the reader feels this is for good reason. Patrick has a gun. His predilection for hunting is not limited to animals and indeed when his neighbour Casey colludes with his own brother to take his land, we fear no man is safe. Not even visiting President Kennedy.

Skillfully handled tension and character driven plot make this a truly stunning debut and a writer to watch.

[Hayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

With thanks to Bonnier Books UK and NetGalley for an early Kindle copy of The Visit.

An interesting and emotional read written from two perspectives. Sgt Jim Field, a family man holding onto guilt for an event in his days as a young policeman, and Patrick, the son of the man who suffered as a result of Jim's actions.

The story is set around the visit of JFK to their small town and the surrounding area, pulling in characters from the town, good and bad. The visit did happen in real life, so it was interesting to look that up after reading the book.

I enjoyed the book, but there were a couple of sideline storylines that should either have been given more page space or not included at all.

7/10 would be a fair score for me.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨(3.5) The Visit by Neil Tully

This novel reminds me of a tree with many branches: the people in the small-town community of New Ross, Co. Wexford, in how they affect Patrick Hatton's life, as the trunk. He is a lonely, broke man with no job or prospects trying to hold on to his family home. He is viewed as mad as his father and all agree he should also be sent to the madhouse.

One of the branches is Peter Casey, a local landowner and businessman trying to buy Patrick’s land and to remove him from the town and from having anything to do with his daughter, Rose.

Colm, Patrick’s brother, has come home from his life in England to sell the family house because he needs the money but also because his memories are of a very different childhood from Patrick’s.

Another main character is Garda Jim Field who still regrets today the day he dragged Patrick’s father Sean to the madhouse many years ago and is now trying to make up for it by looking out for his son. He is dealing with an unknown health issue and with so many other things to deal with he is starting to suffer.

This is all set in the 1960’s against the backdrop of the upcoming visit from Kennedy which will be aired around the world so the pressure is on to put on a good show. Hence Field is worried about Patrick, whom he feels is a ticking time bomb with revenge bubbling around inside him.

The pace of this book was a little slow for me but I felt it picked up a little as the story moved on. I had a lot of sympathy for Patrick in his treatment by the locals and his brother and being let down by the woman he thought he loved. He had so much determination to make his homeplace flourish again but with no money, opportunities, support or even some luck he never stood a chance.

[Sinead Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Visit* by Neil Tully is a debut set in 1963 Wexford. The town of New Ross is eagerly anticipating the visit of JFK and local sergeant Jim Field is trying to balance the expectations of this auspicious occasion alongside family pressures and the wellbeing of a local young man, Patrick.

Pressure increases as the day draws near and Field finds himself caught up in a mutual vendetta between Patrick, a veritable outcast, and local businessman Casey. As Casey turns the screws on Patrick, trying to run him out of town, Patrick sets about retaliating in the most explosive of fashions.

This is a small town story with a small town pace. The writing felt languorous and almost dreamlike and it never fully gripped me. I didn't overly care for the characters, or feel invested in the politics of the town, but it was a unique time period to backdrop a story against.

[Mary Pilkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Local policeman, or guard as we call them in Ireland, should have enough on his plate making sure all goes well for the visit of JFK to the small town of New Ross in 1965. However he is also conscious of protecting a vulnerable young man living alone and a target for the local big landowner and big shot. His own health and family also prey on his mind.
A poignant and tender look at a society where who you know is crucial to your standard of living. It is full of well developed characters and indeed I would look forward to a follow up with Jim’s wife at the centre. Fans of Donal Ryan and Niall Williams will enjoy this book.
This is a well crafted, thoughtful debut novel, touching on a lot of 1960s societal issues without any of them dominating. A thorough recommendation.

Thanks to NetGalley.co.uk and the publishers for this ARC