Their piercing screams woke her. The sound was unmistakeable; the violent shrieking of her father’s precious hawks. In her half-asleep state, her mind’s eye saw them struggling ferociously, talons pulling desperately at hemp tethers holding them firm to their birch-stick berths. Her brown eyes quickly followed suit, attuning to a monstrous lightshow that dazzled the room, the reflection of a thousand giant candles flickering outside. Both light and noise blinding her senses save that of fear, her brain began to filter through the clamour of banging, uproar, of shouting men. A giant lurch to the window revealed a scene of hurried chaos. A great fire burned, the timber settlement around her stronghold stone tower home in flames. The Sasanach had broken the gate to Killenea Castle itself, bringing fire with them as they gleefully looted the loops which held weapons along each wall.

Confident in its burn, her home would soon reduce to smithereens. White fingers grasped to the solid stone sill under her window frame, she dared to watch barefoot children writhe under swords. The tall, bearded, hardy men of her father’s, unprepared for attack with only woollen jackets for protection had barely time to arm themselves with swords and knives. Stalwart of her father, old man Laochra, ran screaming across the castle grounds. Holding out the ancient ring-hilt sword and shield usually kept for posterity on the shelf of the grianán, he was to face certain death. He would die a hero’s death; or perhaps that of a fool. The helmets of the Cromwellian soldiers glowed in the light of flames; it was a gleam of death for those in combat and a flicker of uncertainty for those like her in the wings, the living, for she did not know if it was better to die here in Cleristown, her own home, with her own people, or go into the future; a future that would be foreign, an unfamiliar place where new rulers would make everything different to the way things were before.

She thought of the beautiful tapestries downstairs, stories not only of swords, shields and muskets, the barony of Forth and Bargy, but entire histories alight. Spotted by a gleaming helmet, she lurched sideways as cannon hit the wall of her room making the tower that had seemed so invincible in her childhood shudder at the impact. How would she escape? The tunnel under her stairs led to the western corner of the lower cliffside walls, where Lady’s Steps led down to the high bank of the stream. Grabbing a dagger, her mother’s ancient hair comb and fleeing down the winding stone staircase one last time, a brief glance outside the now holed wall of the castle showed her younger brother Eoin surprising two soldiers. As both retreated under a burning rafter, she watched him slice their heads open one by one, the flaming timbers engulfing their shielded skirts.

But a boy, she felt terrified for his safety, but she relished the sight of them ablaze.

Before scurrying into the tunnel behind the other women and children, she looked up to the friendless sky and saw that the flames had finally severed their hemp tethers and the hawks were now soaring gracefully to a new freedom; a freedom they had never known before. These hawks would not grace the English courts as had their ancestors.

The next day the retiring smoke revealed yet another stripe of parliamentarian gleaming helmets stretched out on the hills. They would not venture to walk down Lady’s Steps for another two days. When they did they watched the hawks in the distance, circling freely around the smoking ruins of their old home. She imagined them scrounging for scraps from the soldiers who roasted wild boar from her people’s forests. Ironically, it was in the face of the Englishman that they had finally found their freedom.

Each year, since a­part, I split an ap­ple in half for my miss­ing lov­er Neach­tain. Mak­ing nee­dles from the wood of the bram­ble, I put one through the eye of the sec­ond and then to­geth­er be­tween the split fruit, clamp­ing it firm­ly back to­geth­er with a tight knot.

I hang the ap­ple back on the tree.

‘M’fhíor­ghrá Mo chéad­searc, tabhair arais dom.’

‘My true love, my first true love, re­turn to me.’

It is said that he was killed in the Wars of Re­bel­lion. In spite of this, I hope that this would one day bring my dark-haired lov­er back to me, if on­ly in the form of a black­bird.

‘Look af­ter him, won’t you, he is fif­teen, a child, too young for war. Please, do not go!’ I crawled on my hands and knees beg­ging Neach­tain to look af­ter Eoin as they read­ied the hors­es for the way to Dro­ghe­da.

‘What choic­es do we have, Mithim? Those diab­hail in West­min­ster have ap­point­ed that mon­ster Crom­well to lead this lat­est in­va­sion of Ire­land. Even chil­dren must play their part against what seems this nev­er-end­ing Eng­lish on­slaught.’

On­ly nine­teen, and al­ready tired of war.