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first Dáil Éireann; supported the Treaty; became minister for economic affairs, then minister for home affairs; largely responsible for the establishment of the Garda Síochána as an unarmed force; vice president of the Executive Council and minister for justice and external affairs in the Cosgrave administration.

    O’Kelly, Seán T. (1882–1966): Born in Dublin. Member of the Gaelic League; member of the IRB; founder member of Sinn Féin; aide-de-camp to Pádraic Pearse during the Rising; envoy to Paris Peace Conference. First elected to the Dáil in 1918; opposed the Treaty; founding member of Fianna Fáil in 1926. When Fianna Fáil came into power in 1932 he became vice president of the Executive Council; later minister for local government and public health, then minister for finance. Second president of Ireland 1945–59.

    Pearse, Pádraic (1879–1916): Born in Dublin of an English father and Irish mother. Educationalist; poet; barrister; member of the Gaelic League; founder of Saint Enda’s School in Rathfarnham; chief author and signatory of the Proclamation of the Republic; president of the provisional government of the Irish Republic; commander in chief of the Republican forces in 1916; executed by the British.

    Plunkett, Grace Gifford (1888–1955): Widow of Joseph Mary Plunkett.

    Plunkett, Joseph Mary (1887–1916): Poet and revolutionary; one of the signatories of the Proclamation of the Republic; executed by the British.

    Pius XI (1857–1939): Original name Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti. Elected to the papacy in 1922.

    Pius XII (1876–1958): Original name Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli. Elected to the papacy upon the death of Pius XI in 1939.

    Rommel, Erwin (1891–1944): German field marshal known as the Desert Fox; commander of the Afrika Korps in World War II.

    Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882–1945): Thirty-second president of the United States. As a young New York lawyer in 1919, Roosevelt had once been employed by Eamon de Valera to circumvent laws that could stop the Irish from selling Dáil bonds in the United States.

    Russell, George “AE” (1867–1935): Born in County Armagh. Author, editor, and poet.

    Ryan, Frank (1902–1944): Born in County Limerick. Fought on the Republican side in the Civil War; editor of An Phoblacht ; founder member of Saor Éire; a Republican pressure group; took a party of 200 Volunteers to Spain to fight on the Republican side in the civil war; was captured and sentenced to death, a sentence later commuted to thirty years’ imprisonment.

    Shaw, George Bernard (1856–1950): Born in Dublin. Comic dramatist, literary critic, and socialist; winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925.

    Skeffington, Hanna (Johanna) Sheehy (1877–1946): Born in County Cork into a Fenian family. Married Francis Skeffington in 1903.

    Stalin, Joseph (1879–1953): Secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; became premier of the Soviet Union in 1941 and ruled as dictator until his death.

    Steinbeck, John (1902–1968): American novelist; won the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath .

    Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972): Thirty-third president of the United States.

    von Hindenburg, Paul (1847–1934): The son of an aristocratic Prussian officer, he commanded German land forces during the Great War; elected as the second president of the Weimar Republic in 1925. Under duress by the National Socialists he appointed Hitler as chancellor in 1933.

    Wells, H. G. (Herbert George) (1866–1946): English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian.

    Wilson, Katie Gifford: a sister of Grace Gifford Plunkett.

    Wilson, Thomas Woodrow (1856–1924): Twenty-eighth president of the United States.

Chapter One
    Flaming in the western sky were the banners of a salmon and gold sunset. Birds sang themselves to sleep in the hedgerows; shadows flowed like