“Shadows gathered as they had done for eons, beneath the moon and the twinkling of a million stars, like a gathering of forgotten deities.”

“Another brave new world beckoned, but Dublin was dubious – too often hope had been trampled down by foreign armies or strangled in dark alleys by the shadows of avarice and graft.”

“His voice evoked the ghosts of those who had paid that price and died horribly. They hovered in the shadows muttering vengeance, but he didn't appear to be affected as he walked and talked. He was at home with the living and the dead.”

“Words that had looked so strong on the page, which ran through his mind like music, now shriveled in the air around him.”

“Women didn't like to face reality, especially his.”

“She knew where they were going. She had visited Kilmainham Gaol before, wrapped in its brooding walls lest the ghosts it housed should break free and point accusing fingers at those who used the reins of power to drive the horses of personal ambition. It was a sad place where the residue of human suffering lingered – it had no place else to go.”

“We have had a spot of bother. I am afraid that I shot the Bard in the bottom. Good thing that I was over fifty paces away.”