The Bloodied Field - Croke Park. Sunday 21 November 1920

Prologue SUNDAY, 24 JULY 2016 On a bright, gentle afternoon in Dublin, the tables in the garden of Kathleen Buggle’s house in Blanchardstown are heaving with food and drinks, the air alive with a happy jumble of chats and laughter.

Kathleen’s mother, Nancy Dillon, is singing songs and remembering stories. Everyone is smiling, soaking up every moment.

There are Dillons and Mathews gathered here, Buggles, Lynches, Moores and names from every branch of a broad family tree. For years, the family was clustered around a web of streets in Dublin’s inner city. Then the tenement flats were pulled down and families exiled to different parts of the countryside long since consumed by the city. Some lost touch down the decades. Others have never met before. But now they’re together, remembering old stories and people.

Nancy and Kathleen and Kay Moore, Nancy’s first cousin, can remember the confusion about their surname. Mathews, not Matthews, pronounced ‘Mathis’. Like Johnny. Nancy is ninety-five now, all her memories blended together like one unbroken stream of consciousness.

She remembers being reared at 32 North Cumberland Street.

She remembers her mother working as a fish dealer in the markets on Parnell Street, giving her fish to bring home. There was the old 21