A/N: So this is a semi-Easter-ish piece that I felt like writing, about Tom and what exactly happened before, during, and after the Easter Rising of 1916, and maybe a brief examination of his political life.
Disclaimer: I do not own Downton Abbey, nor am I very well-read on the Easter Rising of 1916. I am doing what I can, so feel free to correct me.
Tom had never known what to make of Easter.
When he was a child, Easter meant a service that lasted for two hours, during which he and his brother and sister were expected to sit still and listen to the priest give the same sermon he had given since he was ordained, all about Christ's persecution, crucifixion, and resurrection.
It became one of the things Time never changed, the same way no amount of time seemed to change the fact that Ireland was not yet independent, despite the endless promises from politicians on all levels that it would. The story of Ireland was like the story of Easter- Ireland had faced prosecution during the Protestant Ascendency, had been crucified in the Famine, and now awaited her resurrection.
The resurrection of Ireland was coming soon, Tom would hear people say, those people consisting largely of his friends and cousins who saw this coming, they said, as they went about their jobs as journalists and assistants to village and city councilmen. Most of them had joined up with the likes of James Connolly and James Larkin, and declared themselves soldiers of the Irish Citizen Army, and there was talk of some of his female friends, most of them still unmarried, joining a group of women willing to fight for the liberation of Ireland from English control, headed by the fiery Countess Markievicz.
It was here that Tom found himself at the crossroads.
At the time, he'd just entered service as a chauffeur for a wealthy Anglo-Irish family whose three strapping sons had no doubt jumped at the chance to go and serve on the Western Front. He'd been young, and as spirited as he'd ever be, but he'd come to learn that not all English were bad, only the ones who thought Ireland's place was beneath the soles of English boots, and that everything coming from Ireland belonged to England.
But the family he worked for was kind, and they, surprisingly enough, weren't opposed to the idea of Home Rule, as the Crawleys seemed to be later on.
It's because they don't know, Tom told himself one evening as he drove himself home from Mass in Ripon. They haven't seen the land as she is, so of course they don't know what Ireland needs.
His political convictions took the backseat, so to speak, when the war broke out, because Ireland was giving up her children too, and he respected that. What he didn't respect was that the British Parliament had put Home Rule on hold until the war was over, because a free Ireland would willingly (he thought) help England if England obliged first.
His cousin wrote to him, telling him how there was to be a rising, or at least that was what the boys at the pubs said in hushed Gaelic, when all the English officers were too drunk to even know they were speaking at all, and Tom wrote back, telling him to wait. He would come when he had enough money, Tom told his cousin, and they could fight this war together.
Next Easter was what Tom and his cousin had agreed on, deciding that both of them would have enough money to dedicate themselves heart and soul to the cause, and see it through in their ways- Tom as a journalist, spreading the word, and his cousin on the front lines, as bold and brave as the warriors of old.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this, and thank you for reading!