by Tony Bradman
HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS
The Great Plague was one of the worst disasters ever to strike London, so a lot was written about it at the time. Records such as the Bills of Mortality have been very useful to historians in building up a picture of how the plague developed and what happened. But there were plenty of personal records, too. Samuel Pepys was a man who worked for the government and he wrote a great deal about the plague in his famous diaries. Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, a novel about a man shipwrecked on an island, was only a child during the Great Plague, but years later he wrote a book called A Journal of the Plague Year, which tells us a lot about what happened in 1665. In this story, the character Samuel Burgess is partly based on a real physician of the time called Nathaniel Hodges, who also wrote about the plague in his journals.
TIMELINE
1534
King Henry VIII breaks with the Roman Catholic Church.
1558
Henry VIII’s daughter becomes Queen Elizabeth I.
1603
Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by a distant cousin, James VI of Scotland, who becomes James I of England.
1605
The Gunpowder Plot. Guy Fawkes attempts to blow up Parliament and James I. He fails and is executed.
1625
James’s son Charles I becomes king.
1633
Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) the famous diarist is born.
1642
The Civil War begins. Oliver Cromwell forms the New Model Army. Charles I is defeated.
1649
Charles I is tried and beheaded and the Commonwealth is set up.
1653
Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England.
1658
Oliver Cromwell dies.
1660
The monarchy is restored. Charles I’s son Charles II becomes king.
1665
The year of the Great Plague in London.
1666
The Great Fire of London (2nd–5th September)
PROLOGUE
21 NOVEMBER 1920 CROKE PARK, DUBLIN
We made our way in through the turnstiles, and headed for Hill 60, a grassy hill that had been built at the railway end of Croke Park to give spectators a chance to get a better view. We found ourselves a spot about halfway up the hill.
More and more spectators poured in through the turnstiles, climbing the hill and filling up the terraces. By the time the match was ready to begin, it looked like there were at least five thousand people inside Croke Park. A huge crowd.
After the usual announcements and introductions, the two teams came out onto the pitch to be met with a huge roar – the Dubs in their sky-blue shirts and Tipp in their white jerseys with a green diagonal sash.
“Dubs! Dubs!” and “Jackeens!” we shouted, which were the Dublin rallying cries. The Tipperary supporters responded with a chorus of, “Tipp! Tipp!”
For the first time since meeting Michael Collins and the other IRA members, I was able to think about something other than what I’d heard. I stopped thinking about anything other than the match. This was going to be a clash of giants, the two best football teams in Ireland!
The game started brilliantly, the players showing their skills as they kicked, caught and passed at a speed that made your heart stop. The game had only been going on for a few minutes when we heard a shot ring out. The sound of it cut through the noise of the crowd and everyone fell silent.
The players stopped, bewildered and unsure of what was happening. Then suddenly we saw a force of Tans rush in from the turnstiles end, rifles levelled, firing into the crowd and at the players.
There was panic. The crowd yelling and rushing to try and get away.
“Make for the wall!” shouted Sean, pointing to the wall that bordered the canal end. I could see that the people nearest to the wall were already climbing it to get out, but as they reached the top we heard gunfire from outside the stadium and they fell back down. They were being shot at!
“The Tans are outside, on the canal bridge!” shouted Con. “There’s no way out that way!”
Bullets were thudding around us.
“Get down!” shouted Sean. He grabbed me and threw me on the ground. “Crawl towards the main gate!”
I started to crawl. As I did, I glanced towards the pitch. Some of the players had managed to run towards the terraces, but others were lying on the grass. Some moved, some didn’t. Con and Rory were crawling alongside us. Con got to his feet.
“For goodness sake, there are women and children here!” he shouted at the Tans.
The next second, I saw him stumble back and then fall. Blood was spreading out over his white shirt from beneath his jacket.
“Da!” screamed Rory.
Uncle Sean dived for his brother, getting to Con just before Rory.
“He’s alive,” Sean shouted at Rory. “He’s just wounded.”
He looked pretty badly wounded to me. He was unconscious, his eyes closed and his mouth open. His face was deathly white.
“Liam, get Rory to safety,” said Sean. “I’ll look after Con.”
“But—” I began, feeling helpless. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Just go!” shouted Sean. “Keep Rory with you. Make for home. I’ll see you back there.”
Rory was crying, his body heaving with great sobs as he looked at his father lying on the ground.
“Come on, Rory,” I said. I took him by the arm, but he shook me off.
“I’m staying with my da!” he burst out.
“No, you’re not,” Sean shouted at him. “Your da will be all right. Go! Go with Liam and do what he tells you. Go now!”
CHAPTER
1
“Pay attention, Liam! You’ll drop that bag if you’re not careful, and there’s eggs in it!”
“Sorry, Aunt Mary,” I said.
I was supposed to be helping my aunt carry the shopping, but all I could think of was the big match the next day. Tomorrow, Sunday, was the day of the Gaelic Athletic Association, the GAA, football final between Dublin and Tipperary at Croke Park. I couldn’t wait because I had tickets for it, along with my uncles Sean and Con, and Con’s son, my younger cousin, Rory.
My name’s Liam Donnelly. I’m eleven years old and I live in Kilmainham in Dublin with my Uncle Sean and my Aunt Mary. On Saturday mornings Aunt Mary ropes me into helping her with the shopping, which means I end up carrying the heaviest bags. I don’t mind because Aunt Mary lets me choose a sweet from McGinty’s Toffee Shop as payment, so it’s a fair deal.
My da, Patrick Donnelly, was killed in the Easter Rising of 1916, and my ma, Katharine, died in the flu epidemic of 1918 that followed the Great War. Uncle Sean and Aunt Mary’s own daughters, my little cousins Maeve and Nuala, died during the same flu epidemic. They were just three years old. Over fifty million people around the world died in that flu epidemic of 1918, a quarter of a million in Ireland and Britain alone, but the death of my ma was what I remembered. Uncle Sean and Aunt Mary kept a shrine to Maeve and Nuala in their bedroom. I kept a shrine for my ma in my heart.
It was after my ma and my little cousins died that Uncle Sean and Aunt Mary took me in and gave me a home. They’ve been as good as any parent could ever be to me, but I still think about my poor ma and da and wonder what life would be like for me if they hadn’t died.
Anyway, this Saturday morning we’d nearly finished our shopping. We were just coming out of Derry’s, the butchers, when we were stopped by two Tans, who pointed their rifles at us.
“What you got in your bag?” demanded one with a scowl.
Black and Tans was the name we’d given to the thugs from England who’d been sent to join with the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The first Tans arrived in Ireland just last year, when the British realized they were losing the war against the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and they needed more men. Most of these thugs had been soldiers in the British army during the Great War, though some were m
en who’d been let out of British jails if they signed up to join the Tans. They still act like they’re soldiers or criminals, even though they’re supposed to be part of the RIC.
They’re known as the Black and Tans because of the uniforms they wear. The RIC didn’t have enough proper uniforms for them when they first arrived, so they wear British army khaki trousers and RIC bottle-green tunics, which are almost black, although Uncle Sean says the “Black” comes from the colour of their hearts, because they are the nastiest and most violent creatures who ever walked God’s earth.
When our war started in 1919, it was Irishmen fighting for freedom from British rule. Irish volunteers in everyday clothes, using whatever weapons they could find, often old rifles that had been used to shoot rabbits on farms. On the British side was the Royal Irish Constabulary; mostly Irishmen themselves, but paid by the British Government, who believed that Ireland should still be part of the British Empire. Backing the RIC was the British army – one of the most powerful armies in the world. The British army had just won a war against Germany. The Irish volunteers wanted us to have the freedom to rule ourselves. They wanted a government of Irish people, voted for by Irish people, to make the decisions on how Ireland should be run, instead of all the decisions being made in the British Parliament in London.
My Uncle Sean says the British thought that, with their better weapons and their military training, they could put down the Irish volunteers quickly, just as they had in the uprising of 1916 when my da was killed.
But the Irish volunteers weren’t put down. Instead they got better organized and became an actual army – the Irish Republican Army. In the countryside, they ambushed the British soldiers and the RIC, then stole away. In the towns and cities, they shot at the British soldiers and then vanished into the streets. Their success was mostly thanks to Michael Collins. He’s the military commander of the IRA. Collins is a genius and a hero. He’s always coming up with ways to defeat the British by any means. One of his best tactics is arming small groups with pistols and directing them to make surprise attacks and escape quickly before the enemy can go after them. The IRA are our own people; they know the country and the streets of where we live like the backs of their hands, so they can disappear fast.
Because the British think that Michael Collins is so dangerous, they’re offering a reward of ten thousand pounds to anyone who can capture him, dead or alive. Ten thousand pounds! That’s more money than most people will see in their lifetime! Or in lots of lifetimes around here. But the Irish people are loyal to Collins and no one has ever even thought of betraying him. My Uncle Sean says freedom is worth more than any amount of money. And if anyone did betray Michael Collins, that traitor would be killed before he was able to collect the reward.
Most Irish people would rather get into real trouble with the Black and Tans than hand in one of our own. Of all the British forces fighting us, soldiers and police, the Black and Tans are the worst. Everyone I know thinks they are evil and get their fun from bullying women and children. Like they were doing now, with Aunt Mary and me.
When Aunt Mary didn’t answer, just glared back at them, the Tan repeated his question in a nastier tone of voice.
“I said: what you got in your bag?” he growled.
“Shopping,” replied Aunt Mary, looking at the pair of them coldly.
“Open it!” he snarled, and he poked the end of his rifle hard into Aunt Mary’s shopping bag, making her stumble backwards.
“Leave her alone!” I shouted at him.
The other one swung his free hand, hitting me round the head with such a clout that I saw stars and tears came to my eyes.
“He’s lying!” snarled the one who’d hit me. “Shoot the boy!”
While this book is based on real characters and actual historical events, some situations and people are fictional, created by the author.
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First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2017
This electronic edition published 2017
Text © Tony Bradman
Cover artwork © Two Dots
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eISBN 978 1407 18417 3
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