DRAMATISPERSONAE

Mrs Kathleen (Kitty) Donavan: widowed dressmaker. Himself: Mrs Donavan’s husband, believed to be drowned. Flora Donavan: Mrs Donavan’s daughter. Eileen Murphy: Mrs Donavan’s adopted niece, member of Cumann na mBan. Mr Bloom: Mrs Donavan’s Landlord. Annabella: The Big House, where Mr Bloom lives. Mr Barry Sullivan: a solicitor, Flora’s employer. Mrs Hayes: Eileen Murphy’s aunt, proprietor of Hayes’s Hotel, Dublin Miss Babe Cronin: former stenographer, live-in guest at Hayes’s Hotel Captain Galway: one of two thousand auxiliarymilitarypolice officers drafted into Ireland in 1920 to put down the rebellion – also known as auxies, theywere ex-armyofficers. Tans: the Black & Tans, another division of militarypolice, ex-private soldiers also drafted in to suppress the rebels. Their uniform was a mixture of black police tunics & armykhaki. 17th Lancers: soldiers stationed at MallowGarrison since 1732. Shinners: the military’s nickname for the IRA. Cumann Na mBan: women’s division of the IRA.

Note: All the main characters are fictional, but the story in Part 1 is loosely based on real events which took place in Mallow, County Cork on 28 September 1920. Military reprisals were taken against the town following the shooting of Sergeant Gibbs of the 17th Lancers by the IRA during an arms raid on Mallow Barracks.