SYNOPSIS:

At the crucible of the 1798 Irish uprising, Catholic servant SAOIRSE O’NEIL’s life goes from a quiet existence to a constant state of persecution when a drunken British noble attacks her. Fighting back in blind hysteria, she unintentionally kills him and flees for her life. With a price on her head, she’s the target of CAPTAIN DAVID TREDWELL, a sadistic British officer, implacable as he is cruel. In his quest to annihilate “The Irish slattern” he remains hot on her heels and out for blood. He massacres her sleeping family in retribution and continues his hunt across the country to find her. Denied sanctuary by her terrified parish priest, she is now forced to escape on foot through dangerous loyalist Orange strongholds — meeting rejection and betrayal by suspicious Protestants encountered on her way to Ulster. After experiencing more horrors inflicted on Ireland by the British, her anger fuels into rage. When she stumbles into a clandestine meeting led by Wolfe Tone, she discovers a path of revenge, and her true calling when she joins his “Society of United Irishmen”, and becomes a spy, warrior, leader of rebel teens, and the protagonist of her own story. As a fierce and feral combatant, what she lacks in combat skills and strength, she makes-up with determination — fueled by the vow she made to God when rejected by her priest. "Tell the devil he cannot take me until I finish what they started. He will have to wait. I can only go to hell once and I plan on making it well worth my trouble." She leads her group of teens to the bay to retrieve an arms shipment by Napoleon forces, unaware that an informant has betrayed them. Captain Tredwell and his men wait in ambush. It is a fierce fight — but, although vulnerable — Saoirse is not weak. When Wolfe Tone goes to France to gather Napoleon’s support, Saoirse's left to deal alone with Tredwell’s constant onslaught and the increasing violence of The Peep O'Day Boys, a group of Protestants burning the homes of Belfast’s Catholics. DONALD CAMPBELL, a Scottish immigrant who shelters and falls in love with Saoirse, dies saving her from a raging fire set by them. His death — and her guilt consumes her — nearly breaks her — but her vow keeps her going. She leads other Catholic exiles fleeing Ulster. They pass through the Protestant stronghold of Armagh, but when a defiant teen exile waves a green ribbon at the jeering townspeople, a symbol of Irish resistance, the enraged crowd and soldiers attack them. The battle is bloody and fierce. She saves a child orphaned in the battle, and flees with her to the coast, in hopes of getting her safely aboard a ship bound for America. Making her way across the crowded harbor, she and Tredwell come face-to-face. Justice is at hand when the two sworn enemies engage in a brutal fight to the death. Although victorious, the battle doesn’t just stand for Saoirse finally confronting the man who represents the misery brought upon her country by an Empire, it has completed her vow. But, she cannot let go. Although her victory over her nemesis is over, it is only the beginning. She fights through the raging battle between soldiers, harbor workers and passengers, to get the child aboard the ship, but frantic sailors hurriedly pull away the plank and it pulls away from the harbor. She grips the child, leap across a few feet of water and grabs onto the netting on the side of the hull. She pulls and pushes the traumatized girl up the netting into the arms of a man leaning under the railing. He pulls her onto the deck, but before he can grab Saoirse, a musket blast rips apart the last of the netting — and she plummets into the black water — disappearing — until — She breaks through the water, bloody and battered, beside a dock piling, and watches the ship crest the horizon. Satisfied the child is now safe, she heads back into the battle to deal with even more Tredwells. Embarrassed at the arrogance of the Irish rebels, King George III sends tens of thousands of reinforcements to crush the rebellion. Although thousands are killed, Saoirse survives the purge, scarred, but unbroken. When Wolfe Tone is captured on his return from France with General Hubert, the British sentence him to be drawn, quartered and hanged in the public square as a warning to other dreamers. The torch is handed to Saoirse.   In a codex, she continues the fight, winning many battles, including the fight for the Castlebar Barracks. Overlooking Killala Bay fifty years later, Saoirse tells her story to her granddaughter, and passes her the torch of hope and resistance — which she accepts. Saoirse O’Neil emerges transformed: a compliant servant who refuses to kneel, a mother avenged, a widow honored, and a warrior of Ireland — proving freedom is not won without sacrifice — and that some legends are born in fire, fury, and unyielding determination. Saoirse may be lost to history, but she and others sowed seeds of rebellion that would centuries later take root with Michael Collins, the IRA and the Easter Uprising, culminating in the independence of Ireland in the 1970s. What the British did to her was inhumane. What she did to them — Legend.

WINGS OF THE GAEL