William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
WilliamCollinsBooks.com
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017
Copyright © Fergal Keane 2017
Cover image shows the Clonmult IRA unit, reproduced courtesy of Cork City and County Archives
Fergal Keane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Maps by Martin Brown
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008189273
Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008189266
Version: 2018-07-30
For Dan and Holly, children of peace
Contents
Prologue: We Killed All Mankind
1. The Night Sweats with Terror
2. The Ground Beneath Their Feet
Prologue
His manner was that the heads of all those (of what sort so ever they were) which were killed in the day, should be cut off from their bodies, and brought to the place where he encamped at night: and should there be laid on the ground, by each side of the way leading into his own tent: so that none could come into his tent for any cause, but commonly he must pass through a lane of heads … and yet did it bring great terror to the people when they saw the heads of their dead fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolk, and friends lie on the ground before their faces, as they came to speak with the said Colonel.
Thomas Churchyard, A Generall Rehearsall of Warres, 1579
I
This is the story of my grandmother Hannah Purtill, who was a rebel, and her brother Mick and