A/N: Thank you all for your support of this fic.
If you were not previously aware, 2016 will be the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, which is in part why I am choosing to write and publish this fic when I am.
That said, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you!
Disclaimer: I do not own Downton Abbey.
Two weeks later saw Tom happily settled in Dublin and content with his job at the Irish Independent, where he'd made a few friends since his arrival.
There was, of course, Seán O'Toole, who made it a habit to walk or take the tram to work with Tom, something that the older man didn't mind at all. Rather, Tom enjoyed Seán's company, and he enjoyed listening to the seemingly endless stream of stories that the boy picked up from around the Independent's offices. Sometimes, Seán would talk about his sweetheart, a young seamstress at the Abbey Theater, and once, he asked Tom if he had a sweetheart, at which Tom shook his head.
Back in England, Tom had courted a number of young women, all lovely, clever creatures who didn't seem to mind his poor salary or his evident disdain of young men who ran off to fight in the war.
"I just don't see why they're so quick to throw away their lives like that," he'd say if the girl he was with asked why he expressed such disdain for England's brave boys. "There's nothing heroic about it."
Indeed, there wasn't. Two years into the war, and everyone in Britain was convinced that it could end any day now; they wanted to end, before the body count rose any higher. The number of injured soldiers returning from the Western Front, missing arms and legs, blind, or with damaged lungs from gas, was climbing every day; the numbers of those dead or missing in action were even higher.
Tom couldn't see how, after seeing or reading about these horrors, young men with promising lives ahead of them, with sweethearts or young wives, could leave that safety and go join the British Army.
"For King and country," was the reason touted by many young men of twenty, many of whom lived with their fathers' civilized retelling of war, where wars were fought with rifles and spies.
This war was no different, though there were a few new elements at play this time around, the most frightening of all being the trenches.
It was difficult for Tom to wrap his head around the idea of miles-long trenches dug across the French countryside, through farmers' fields and villages, fortified with wood and sandbags, and protected by miles of barbed wire. When customers remarked to Tom's brother Kieran of the conditions that their loved ones wrote home about, especially in the wintertime, Tom couldn't help but be horrified.
"You won't find me out there," he told his brother one evening, once they'd closed up for the day, to which Kieran cracked a wry and smile and replied:
"Of course not, Tommy boy. You've too much sense, and you'd rather be fightin' for Ireland, wouldn't you?"
As he walked up Abbey Street each morning with young Seán O'Toole, Tom couldn't help but think that his brother might be right.
According to his cousin Eoin, the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteer Army (those who hadn't followed John Redmond to France, that is), were waiting for the British to enforce conscription in Ireland. Such a movement by Parliament could happen any day now, the way the war was going on the Continent, and when it did, Eoin said the people of Ireland—Protestants and Catholics alike—would rise to the occasion and help to procure Ireland's freedom. Lloyd George had already postponed Home Rule at the start of the war, and many—Eoin included—were skeptical that the Prime Minister would consider it after the war was over, no matter how many Irish men gave their service (and lives) to King and country during the war.
"It just won't happen," Eoin remarked when he met Tom for a drink at the Oval Bar, not far from the offices of the Irish Independent, a week after Tom's return to Ireland. "They said we'd be out by Christmastime in '14, but we aren't, are we, and we won't be for some time."
"I know," Tom replied, taking another sip from his pint of stout—oh, how he'd missed stout in Liverpool, as Kieran detested the stuff and only kept whiskey in the cupboard in their apartment above the garage! "But you don't know that, hm?"
"Careful now Tom—y'sound like them, you do," his cousin warned, grinning—as he always did—to assure Tom that he meant the jab in good faith. "Four years in England hasn't changed you that much, I hope?"
"Come on Eoin, you know it takes more than that to change me."
"You're an old man set in your ways, I know." Eoin scoffed and finished off his pint—his second—with a grin. "Tell me, how are you finding Dublin?"
"Well I suppose," Tom answered, shrugging. "How's Isibéal?"
"I'm not lettin' you off easy now." Eoin made a swipe at Tom's shoulder. "Found a sweetheart to chase after?"
"Och," Tom muttered, and returned Eoin's blow with one of his own.
What ensued was the playful, affectionate fighting of young men. When they were younger, Kieran and their other male cousins would join in too, and roughhouse until Tom's mother told the boys to clean themselves up for dinner. It would happen out of the blue when they were younger—boys being boys and all—but as they got closer to being men, these playful tussles seemed to coincide with the proximity of the local girls, though they outgrew this phase as well. Now the play-fights were kept to the presence of family members or close friends at the pub.
"Come on Tom—you've always had a way with women. You said so yourself, you had a few birds in England. Any lucky girls in Dublin yet?"
Tom rubbed his shoulder, which was beginning to smart from Eoin's playful jabs, and shook his head. "Not yet," he told his cousin. "I've been here a week, haven't I? And isn't there about to be a rising, or is that all copy boy gossip?"
"Oh there's going to be a rising all right, no question of it," Eoin said, settling down, sobering up (in manner if not in earnest). "Why, are you interested in joining the Volunteer Army? I thought you weren't a fighter now."
"Not for England's wars I'm not," Tom answered. "But I grew up listening to Uncle Liam's stories the same as you did Eoin, about the men of '67 and '98 and the United Irishmen and their lot."
"Go way, Tom Branson, y'hear? The Volunteer Army's no place for romantics such as yourself."
Tom finished the last of his stout in a single gulp. "Then what're Pearse and Plunkett, Eoin?" he challenged, his eye glimmering with a tricky light. "Poets. Scholars. Romantics. And from what you've told me and what I've read, they're running this show."
"There's more to it than that."
"Really?" Tom grinned. He could see that his cousin was getting the slightest bit flustered—something that happened rarely enough when they were boys, even less so now that they were grown, and Eoin almost three years older—and he reveled in his brief victory. "I've been meaning to interview Mr. Pearse about his lovely school—Scoil Éanna, am I right?—for a bit in the Independent I'm working on about secondary education in Ireland. Maybe I'll be able to get in a word with him about the Volunteers."
"Tom, you can't be serious."
"At least I'm not asking John Redmond when the next boat for France is, cousin," Tom said, putting a crown piece by his glass before collecting his hat and coat. "It's my shout, but I've an early morning tomorrow. Good night to you, Eoin. Stay out of trouble now."
A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
For those of you who might be wondering where our darling Miss Sybil Crawley is, never fear! We'll be seeing more of her in a couple chapters, and then she'll become a more regular occurrence (much to Eoin's dismay at times) in the narrative.
If you have any questions, comments, concerts, praise, or criticisms on how I am writing this chapter in Ireland's history, or just want to pop in and say "hi" and leave your thoughts on the piece as it comes along, feel free to do so!