A Star Called Henry

Henry is only 14 years old in 1916 during the Easter Uprising, but since he is already six-foot-two, he becomes a member of the rebel army, wearing “a uniform he’d bought bit by bit with money he’d robbed and squeezed” (90). Henry’s experiences on the streets have better prepared him for the army than people three years his senior.

When real-life hero James Connolly shows Henry the Proclamation of Independence, Henry insists there should be protections for the rights of children. Henry and his comrades tear down signs that invite Irishmen to join the military ranks of the British in World War I and replace them with copies of the Proclamation of Independence. They run into the wives and widows of fighting soldiers, who are furious with them because they think that the rebels will take away the money that the British government owes them. One girl who thinks she’s been widowed, Annie, takes a shine to Henry.

The rebels fight the British, who have greatly underestimated them; as Henry explains, “We had occupied a solid block of Wicklow granite and they’d sent a few toy soldiers on horses to get us out” (106). The rebels grow “giddy” with the sense that “the Empire was collapsing in front of us” (106).