Tales of the R.i.c.
1921

Set amid the burning tensions of the Irish War of Independence, this collection of narratives pulls no punches in depicting the brutal reality of a society torn apart. At its heart stands Patsey Mulligan, a poor Cloonalla farmer's son who flees to England seeking work, only to find himself conscripted into the British army as World War I erupts. He returns home on compassionate leave after his mother's death, bound by a sacred promise to stay and care for his family rather than return to the Front. But fate has other plans: the struggle for Irish independence claims him, and Patsey rises to become a captain in the Sinn Fein Volunteers. Now he must confront the ghost of his former life: Anthony Blake, once his officer in the army, now serving as a District Inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary sent to suppress the very rebellion Patsey now leads. The result is a gripping exploration of loyalty fractured by history, of neighbors become informants, and of the impossible choices facing ordinary people in extraordinary times.
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“One moment the world is as it is. The next, it is something entirely different. Something it has never been before.””
— Unknown
“Oh to have you with me, to have you here, not to be alone, but to be with you, my beauty, you of all souls! You.””
— Unknown
“And then it was, that grief and pain made themselves known to me as never before. Note this, because I knew the full absurdity of Fate and Fortune and Nature more truly than a human can bear to know it. And perhaps the description of this, brief as it is, may give consolation to another. The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass. The truth is, you cannot prepare anyone for this, nor convey an understanding of it through language. It must be known. And this I would wish on no one in the world.””
— Unknown
“The finest thing under the sun and moon is the human soul. I marvel at the small miracles of kindness that pass between humans, I marvel at the growth of conscience, at the persistence of reason in the face of all superstition or despair. I marvel at human endurance.””
— Unknown
“You have made me ashamed of the wasted years. You have made me acknowledge that no darkness has ever been deep enough to extinguish my personal knowledge of love. And all around me in this world I see evidence of love. I see love. I see it in the human struggle. I see its undeniable penetration in all that humans have accomplished in their poetry, their painting, their music, their love of one another and refusal to accept suffering as their lot.””
— Unknown
“I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste.””
— Unknown
“I didn’t look to the shore much after this first long and memorable glimpse. I looked up at Heaven and her court of mythical creatures fixed forever in the all powerful and inscrutable stars. Ink black was the night beyond them, and they so like jewels that old poetry came back to me, the sound even of hymns sung only by men.””
— Unknown
“What is written beneath this heavy handsome book cover will count, so sayeth this cover…””
— Unknown
“It was over now, and the meaningless world was tolerable and need not be explained. And never would it be, and how foolish I had ever been to think so.””
— Unknown
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Unknown. Tales of the R.i.c.. Lex, lex-books.com/book/tales-of-the-r-i-c-68b59934-11e4-410f-8a13-1e8a8b3bc396.Unknown (1921). Tales of the R.i.c.. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/tales-of-the-r-i-c-68b59934-11e4-410f-8a13-1e8a8b3bc396Unknown. Tales of the R.i.c.. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/tales-of-the-r-i-c-68b59934-11e4-410f-8a13-1e8a8b3bc396.




