1916

Fifteen-year-old Ned Halloran survives the sinking of the Titanic but loses both parents, returning to Ireland with little certainty about his future. At Saint Enda’s school in Dublin he comes under the influence of headmaster Patrick Pearse and enters a circle in which language, education and cultural revival are becoming inseparable from demands for political independence.

Against the background of the First World War, Ned is drawn into the preparations for the Easter Rising and the fighting that erupts across Dublin in April 1916. His experience places an ordinary young man among poets, teachers, organisers and volunteers who challenge the British Empire, revealing both the idealism that sustains the rebellion and the human cost of its defeat.