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eleven, when the public houses closed and the horse-drawn omnibuses no longer ran, the streets would usually fall into an eerie silence. As he skirted the streets where the policemen walked Leahy thankfully acknowledged that the Fenians knew where the police would be. Each constable carried a book that instructed him what route his particular beat should take. There were enough patriots in the force to pass on such information.
    Within the half-hour he was alone in a room in one of the slum houses. Each room he had passed along the corridor was no bigger than ten feet wide and twelve feet long yet gave shelter to half a dozen people, adults and children sharing the tenement in rank squalor. The sour stench of boiled cabbage and potatoes mingled with the sickening odour from the vacant room that everyone used as a toilet. Leahy sat at a ramshackle table dipping a crust of rock-hard bread into watery gruel. Within reach was a stolen British Army Webley .45 revolver. Despite the fact that the frugal meal was his only one that day he hurried it down and tossed the tin plate on to the floor. There were more pressing things to do than eat. Lying next to the revolver were half a dozen sticks of dynamite. Leahy retrieved the stub of a hand-rolled cigarette, lit it and let it smoulder in his lips. There was nothing else on the table except what dregs remained in the half-bottle of Irish whiskey.
    A footfall on the stairs made him snatch the revolver and thumb back its hammer. The door opened, and another man halted, a hand quickly raised to shield himself. ‘Jesus, Cavan!’ the man – Pat Malone – said. Heavy-set, he loomed over the frail-looking Leahy.
    Leahy lowered the gun as Malone thumped down a coil of detonation fuse.
    ‘Stupid bastard. Ya scared the shit outa me,’ said Malone. ‘I thought you wasn’t here till later. Is this the stuff you wanted?’
    The dynamiter grinned at Malone, snatching at the gift. He quickly cut a piece and touched the end of the damp cigarette to it, tossing the short piece of fuse on to the floor. It burned rapidly. He nodded in satisfaction. Fast-burning detonation fuse was exactly what he had asked for.
    Malone drained the bottle as Leahy watched him. He swallowed the liquor and dragged a cuff across his mouth. It would have made no difference had it been a full bottle; it would still not have been enough to quell his fear. There hadn’t been a serious and sustained attack by the Irish Republican Brotherhood for thirty years. Time to make amends. He lowered his voice. ‘Regimental officers and a company to guard the garrison. Replacement battalion’s not off the boats yet. The fog’s settling in and will stay for the next couple of days. We’ll have ’em like rats in a sack. It’s now or never. Tomorrow night. The others are ready.’
    ‘You’re certain we can reach the armoury? Your informer can be trusted?’ Leahy asked.
    ‘Aye. Like the Bank of England.’
    *
    The brothel consisted of the two floors above the small music hall. It was a place where the common soldier was banned. Men who traded on the black market and dealt with cash mingled with junior officers and those who aspired to positions of power in government. For many British rule was profitable and although their hearts were passionate for self-governance, business went on as normal and the music hall and whorehouse was a good place to conduct it. Thirty-odd years earlier Nellie Clifden had seduced the Prince of Wales when he served with the Grenadier Guards at Curragh Camp. Young officers and prostitutes. What was new in the world?
    To the muted thumping of girls stamping their boots on the small wooden stage, accompanied by a fiddle player and a piano, Sheenagh O’Connor clattered her way down the bare wooden stairs from her draughty attic room. Like many of the other prostitutes she had been a country girl who had fallen on hard times and was left with no choice but to strike out for Dublin and earn whatever she