Dublin, Easter Monday, 1916

We sat with our rifles over our shoulders against the wall, Da and I. The sun was rising. Da pulled his cap off and stared up at it. It made the sea glitter orange. It was still cloudy, but the great burning ball hovered just above the horizon.

“This is it then, Liam,” he said, and I could’ve sworn there were tears in his eyes. They were blue, like my own. People used to say I looked just like my da; the same eyes and nose, the same thick brown hair, only where his face was weather-beaten, mine was nothing but a mess of freckles.

“This is what, Da?” I asked.

“This is the day, son. This is the day it all changes.”

I snorted. “Sure, didn’t you say that yesterday as well? Till you saw the papers that is.” Da had woken early on Easter Day, ready for anything. Until Ma, who had been against the Rising since the beginning, had put The Independent on the table. Da had sat and stared at that advert for an hour straight. Ma had set about getting my sisters dressed up for Easter Mass, fixing the last flowers on her bonnet. Words that could have meant so little, but meant so much: All Operations Cancelled. Da just stared. He had been planning for so long and I along with him.

Then the whispers travelled along the streets. We won’t win, they said. We can’t win. But we can damn well try.

“It’ll be different today,” Da promised.

I flicked at a pebble “Yeah, ‘cause something’ll actually happen today. Question is, is it the right thing?”

Da snorted. “’Course it’s the right thing, Liam. It’s putting an end to all of this.”

“All of what, Da?”

“Being their slaves.”

“The English?”

“No, the Aussies. Of course the feckin’ English!”

“But we’re not slaves. They’ve agreed to give us Home Rule.”

“Two years ago, nothing’s been done.”

“But they’re fighting their own war now, and ninety thousand Irishmen with them,” I said, looking across the sea. I thought if I squinted I might see Wales.

“Traitors, the lot of them,” Da muttered. He rubbed his hands together. The bright April morning was cold. There was a breeze blowing in, bringing the scent of sea salt, a fresh smell in the half-light.

“Ah, Da, you can’t say that. What about Ernie McConnell gone to fight? And Bessie Ryan down the road?”

“And isn’t she half-Irish?”

“And more than half-decent, Da. Those English, they’re the same as you or me.”

“No they’re not,” he laughed bitterly. “They’re more different to us than salt is to sand.”

“And how did you work that one out?” I asked. “There’s few Irish families that don’t have some Fitzwilliam or such blood in them.”

“Fitzwilliam’s French, isn’t it?” Da said, frowning.

“In any case, it all comes down to the same. They’re human, same as us.”

Da looked at me hard. “You think too much for a lad your age. Perhaps we should’ve pulled you out of school earlier.”

I shook my head. I wanted to stay in school for the last two years, then I wanted to go to Trinity. I wanted to be a lawyer and fight for what was right.

I looked at my Da and realised that was exactly what he was doing; he was fighting for what he, and Padraig Pearse and James Connolly and the others thought was right. He was fighting for freedom. All of a sudden, I was proud to be a part of it all.

But the nagging voice in my head whispered a name to me. “Markievicz,” I said simply. “We all have some foreign connection Da. She’s more Irish than the whole of the rest of Co. Sligo put together I’d say.”

“We’ve no quibble with the Poles,” he said. “They’ve never done anything to us.” He looked at me again. “Why all the second thoughts now?”

“I’ve had them all along,” I said. “I’m only saying them now.”

Da paused. “You don’t want to fight?” he asked quietly.

“Nah, I want to fight,” I said grinning. “But it’s not like what Fergus is doing in France. It’s against people who we’ve lived by for centuries, who are nearly us in all but name.”

Da shook his head again. “You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me Da. What does a schoolteacher from Rathfarnham understand that I don’t? What does Pearse understand?”

Da chewed on the inside of his cheek and answered slowly. “He understands what it is to be Irish.”

“Then what is it to be Irish, Da? To fight in a post office? To beg Germans for weapons while they fight their own war? To be impatient while the whole world’s on tenterhooks?”

He paused again.

“It’s to dance at the crossroads,” he said slowly. “It’s to know how to brew the water of life. It’s to sing of love and death. It’s to be afraid to cut a hawthorn tree down in case the faeries come after you. It’s to be all alone on a bog with nothing but the ocean around you.”

“That’s not much to fight for,” I said. “We can do all that and still be ruled by the English.”

“It’s to know the High Kings. It’s to weave St. Brigid’s Crosses. It’s to have no snakes in your garden. It’s to know how to cook a potato.”

“Which isn’t even Irish.”

“It’s like you say, Liam,” Da said. “We’re not all island. We’re bits of everything.”

“Then what makes us Irish? What makes us want to fight?”

Da stood up and threw his arms out. “This!” he cried. “All of this! To live between the mountains and the sea! To speak a language with far too many ‘h’s! To know that it might only be a rock in the middle of the Atlantic, but it’s your rock.”

I stood up. He turned and grasped my shoulder, his grip tight on my jacket.

“It’s to know all of that, and be proud, son.”

I looked out to where the tide was ebbing slowly back and forth. Da was right. It wasn’t much, but it was ours. It belonged to the Irish. I was suddenly filled with a burning pride, the desire to fight away every enemy, to hold off attack from every side. To defend what little we had, because it was ours.

I nodded, just once, to Da. He understood.

“One day, Liam,” he said. “One day you’ll see. You’ll know what it is. You’ll look up at the never-ending rain-clouds, you’ll see nothing but bog-land ahead of you and you’ll know what it is. Just wait, Liam. One day, you’ll know.”

I smiled and put my own hand on his shoulder. “This is the day, Da.”