'Bring Larks and Heroe's is set in a remote British penal colony, late in the 1790s and follows the story of a man, Corporal Phelim Halloran, and of the demands made on him - by his girl, his Irish comrades, his superior officers, and, most often, by his conscience.

Innocent and lover, poet, soldier-by-accident, scholar by the standards of his day, Halloran attempts to make a world unto himself through his pity and love for Ann Rush, his 'secret bride'; but many seem pledged to complicate these simple desires. There is the convict-artist, Thomas Ewers, persecuted and compelled to illustrate the officers' journals. There is Halloran's feckless colleague, Terry Byrne. The convict, Quinn, whose term of imprisonment should have been nearly over. Robert Hearne, political prisoner, government clerk and traitor.

Halloran comes to disbelieve in any other existence except his own and God's, until, shockingly and irrevocably, he is reunited with Ann. (from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1878903.Bring_Larks_And_Heroes).

'Bring Larks and Heroes' won the Miles Franklin Award in 1967.