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difference I can see is that Cosgrave’s banned divorce in the Free State rather than continuing to allow it under the British model. But he’s a devout Catholic anyway, so that’s hardly surprising.”
    An elbow in his ribs made him break off abruptly. “Stop editorializing,” Ella rebuked him. “This is supposed to be about Ursula.”
    â€œYou’re right, Cap’n, as always.” With an effort, Henry redirected his thinking. “Little Business, there are some…mmm…some arrangements we’d like to make for you before we go.”
    â€œBefore you go! Go where?”
    â€œAmerica.”
    â€œWhy ever would you want to visit America?”
    â€œWe won’t be visiting. We’re emigrating.”
    â€œYou can’t!” Ursula’s eyes widened in alarm. Henry Mooney had been part of her life for as long as she could remember. Henry and the Hallorans had once lived in the same Dublin rooming house. He had been her papa’s best friend and her mama’s confidante: the person they turned to in times of trouble.
    When the other adults were too busy, Henry had always found time for Ursula. He had read the newspapers with her and answered her ceaseless questions. When he bought a typewriting machine he had showed her how to use it. He had taken her to her first horse-riding lessons, and after she and Ned went to live on the farm in Clare, Henry had even given her Saoirse.
    â€œYou can’t leave Ireland!” she repeated.
    â€œI never expected to,” Henry said. “I thought I would spend my life as a Dublin journalist and that was fine with me. Oh, the pay wasn’t great, and most newspapers had a pro-British policy because they knew which side of their bread was buttered. But I could accept that.
    â€œThen came 1916. When the authorities insisted that public opinion was against the rebellion, Dublin newspapers dutifully reinforced that view. They printed near-hysterical editorials claiming the leaders of the Rising were hoodlums and psychopaths.
    â€œAfter those same leaders were executed, the public learned who and what they really were. Poets, schoolteachers, a leading trade unionist—decent, highly principled men, every one. Men who thought the freedom of this country was worth dying for.”
    Ursula’s eyes blazed. “It is,” she whispered ardently. The memory of those days came pouring over her like a wave; the drama and terror and exhilaration she had only half understood at the time.
    Henry continued, “As you may recall, the mood of the country changed almost overnight. I was one of the few reporters who chronicled the ground-swell for independence. It may be conceited, but I’d like to think the articles I wrote for the Irish Bulletin helped give Ireland the courage to fight on until the battle was won.”
    He was referring to the outlawed Republican newsletter that had been the only paper during two years of government censorship to document, day by day, the full story of the Anglo-Irish war: Ireland’s desperate War of Independence.
    â€œFor a moment we almost had it all,” Henry said. Pain cracked his deep voice like a fissure in oak. “With the people solidly behind them, Michael Collins and the IRA fought the almighty British Empire to a standstill. I was damned proud of them. Sorry about my language, Ella, but I was damned proud of them, damn it!”
    â€œYet when the army split afterward, over the Treaty, you supported Michael Collins against the Republicans like de Valera and Papa,” Ursula reproached him.
    â€œBoth sides wanted the same thing, an independent Ireland,” said Henry. “They just differed on how to get it. Mick Collins believed the twenty-six-county Free State was the best deal we could get at the time. The British government was willing to annihilate the Irish people to avoid giving us total independence.”
    â€œWhy?” Ursula