The Rebels of Ireland

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Authors: Edward Rutherfurd
glittering softly in the sun.
    To their right, the strand stretched away in a pale swath towards the Ben of Howth, whose hump rose high out of the waters. In front of it, the little island of Ireland’s Eye rested like a ship at anchor. Far away in the other direction, hazily visible in the northern horizon, the blue Mountains of Morne, guardians of Ulster, seemed asleep.
    Orlando glanced up at his father. Martin Walsh was staring out to sea, apparently lost in thought. Orlando looked down at the litter of broken seashells at his feet. A cloud gently cut out the sun, and the sparkle left the sea.
    â€œThe end of an age, Orlando.” His father’s voice was no more than a murmur. Then he felt his father’s hand gently squeeze his shoulder. “Remember your promise.”

    It was a wet, wintry day in Bordeaux, early the following year, when Anne Walsh received the letter from her father.
    My dearest Daughter,
    You must prepare yourself, for I have news of great sadness to impart. Two weeks ago, Patrick Smith embarked from the port of Cork on a merchant ship, on which he had arrived the week before. Themorning they left, the weather was calm. But that same day, towards evening, a great storm arose, and having swept the ship back towards the Irish coast, overwhelmed it and dashed it against the rocks. In this wreck, it is my grief to tell you, all that were aboard were lost.
    I know, my dearest Anne, how sorrowful these tidings must be to you, and can do no more than mourn with you and tell you that you are never out of my thoughts.
    Your loving Father.
    It was over, then. Her love had departed and was lost forever, without hope of recall. She burst into tears and wept, without ceasing, for over an hour.
    After the first spasm of grief, however, came rage. Not at her father—he had not done this—but at Lawrence. It was he, she thought bitterly—Lawrence with his interference and his conniving, self-righteous Lawrence with his sneaking ways—who had killed Patrick. Had it not been for Lawrence, he’d never have gone away, never have been in Cork, not have been drowned. And leaving off her tears, in a paroxysm of hurt and fury, she cursed her brother and wished him dead in Patrick’s place.
    Then she gazed out, as the rain outside pattered and ran down the windowpanes, pointlessly, and stared at the greyness, and felt a great desolation. She scarcely cared what happened to her now.
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    1614
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    Tadhg O’Byrne was ahead of them all. He knew because he had been watching. “There’s been drinking at this wake,” he told his wife, “But I’m ahead of them. I am at the front. I have such a head on me—like a rock.”
    â€œYou have,” she said. “So.”
    â€œI am a mountain,” he proclaimed, although in stature, and in strength of body, he was somewhat less than most other men.
    Tadhg, or Tadc as it was often written: a common name. The English often made it Teague, although it was usually pronounced like the first syllable of Tiger. “There have been some great Tadhg O’Byrnes,” he would say, “powerful chiefs.” And indeed there had. The problem for Tadhg was that he himself was not. And, in his eyes at least, he should have been.
    And not Brian O’Byrne.
    Sixty years had passed since Sean O’Byrne of Rathconan had died and been succeeded by his son Seamus. When it had come to choosing a successor to Seamus, however, his eldest son, by the universal agreement of his own family and every significant person in the area, was deemed worthless. The choice of the clan had fallen upon the third of Seamus’s four sons, a splendid fellow, who under Irish law and custom had therefore come into Rathconan and the somewhat shadowy chieftainship which it represented. Brian O’Byrne was the grandson of the splendid fellow. Tadhg O’Byrne was the grandson of the worthless one.
    The wake was for Brian’s

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