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The signal comes two nights later.
“Fire,” someone shouts awaking us. Quickly, we pull on clothes and stream outside. In the glow of a nearly full moon, flames lick the horizon and smoke scours the moon’s face. There is eagerness in the men’s speech as we mill.
“Let’s go, Donal,” Tom shouts and grabs my sleeve as he hurries out of the barrack’s courtyard and toward the fire.
Other men join in the procession.
“Remember the lost at Vinegar Hill,” shouts Jake in Gaelic. “We shall claim this land as our own.”
“Hail, Hail, King Jake of New Ireland,” another answers then there is a mad rush as the men go for their cache of weapons and on to Constitution Hall.
The guards arrive, having taken the extra time to pull on uniform jackets. They shout and push through the convicts. Raggedy men
