The blight has gone on for too long. Many have starved and more are revolting. Ireland is still home to me however, my family is one of the oldest in Ireland. I hear a call from the other room. “Art! Come quick! We need to tell you something!” It’s my mother, better follow her orders.
“Yes mother, what is it?” I say as I enter the room.
She says in a calm but saddened tone “I know you’ve lived your entire life here, I mean we all have but, we’re going to have to leave.”
Rudely interrupting her I spouted “Leaving!? But where is there to go? The Scandinavians don’t think too highly of us and I doubt anywhere else in Europe would do the same.”
“We don’t know, your father and I have signed us onto an expedition to find a new home.”
“But what about all that we have here, our family?”
“Your uncle's side of the family will be coming too, it won’t just be you and Cian. There isn’t anything here for us anymore, we’re running out of food and the people revolt in the north. It’s only a matter of time until others get the same idea.”
“If you say so mother.” The disappointment is obvious in my voice as I shrink away from my mother and return to my bed. Leaving? How could we? Abandoning our island seems like an extreme measure and we’re dropping everything we know for… uncertainty. What if there isn’t anything out there or what we do find is lackluster at best.
As I ponder further on the idea, I understand that she’s right. As much as I hate to say it, the kingdom has seen better days. I love Ireland, and I’m sure my parents do too, I just don’t want to accept the fact that it’s no longer safe for us. As a relatively wealthy family I’m sure the revolters will take the chance to rob us dry if they rise up here. I hear footsteps come to my room, recognizing the sounds of the heavy footed walk as my father’s feet. He enters my room, with a light smile, trying to show a sign of comfort.
“Hey lad, your mother told me that you weren’t dealing with the news well, anything you wanna talk about?”
“Father, I understand why we’re doing this but I can’t bring myself to feel comfortable with the change.”
“Well, we’re all going to be going through this change too, your mother and I took some time deciding if we should leave or not. However we believe that no matter what we’ll be able to make it through together as a family.”
“I might just go to bed now, father, but I'll think about this more.”
“Alright son, we can talk more tomorrow, goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
As he leaves the room, I look out the window on my bedside to the open world. Would I really be leaving this land behind? I decide that I’m going to go on a walk, I routinely go on midnight walks when I'm bored or just need more thought or something. It’s as nice a night as any but I can't just walk out the front door as I'm not allowed out after nightfall. I open the window and climb down the moss that runs up the side of my house. It’s never an easy trip, but it’s convenient enough for me to get down without making noise. I have this one path that I travel, going around the outskirts and passing by many houses, just taking in the night sights as I walk. But something intrigues me tonight.
As I walk past a house, I can see that there is light coming from it. Usually at this time of night people no longer waste time with fires to conserve fuel but oddly these people didn’t. As I approach the window I can hear their mumbled conversation. And as I look inside I see a multitude of men in the house. The house seems to have hosted a small family, but I can only recognize the father of the household amongst the men inside. The father begins the conversation, gathering the attention of the men and beginning his speech. The first words I can hear from his mouth are sharp and violent.
“We have suffered for too long! This blight has ruined our lives and many of us have lost family. I know personally how this feels. To lose a loved one, after giving it everything you had to make sure they were put first, they still all go in the end.”
“We all have experienced this, and yes it is saddening, but let us talk about the plan no?”
A plan? I’m immediately entranced by this notion. If it was going where I thought it was, I would need to hear every detail.
“Fine, in the morrow we will rise up! But not just us, other groups across the kingdom will rise with us! We will show the king and his lackeys that the Irish people don’t tolerate tyrants and oppressors! We will create a new Ireland, not one ruled by a king, but one ruled by the public, with elections and senates. The year 1526 will go down as the year the Irish people are freed!”
As he finished his speech, the other men cheered with him. Deep down all I could muster was a feeling of dread. This same idea was being implemented in the north, all it did was drain food and supply. When the King’s guard went north, it was supposedly a disaster, the revolts continued but so many died. Now it’s going to start here, my town will become a desolate wasteland from battle. With this new information I ran home, and attempted to climb back up the walls to my room.
When I confronted my parents about what I had heard, they refused to believe me. They believed the town had always been a land of peace and good will, no one would even dream of overthrowing the local authority, even in the darkest of times. I stumbled back to my room, still shocked and scared about what seemingly every man from the outer town planned to do. Though that night was restless at first, I eventually succumbed to my drowsiness and collapsed into the bed.
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