Welcome To The Club
Title: Welcome To The Club
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Northern Ireland (Connor Finn O'Donnell-Kirkland), Republic of Ireland (Brigid Erin Aien O'Donnell), and England (Arthur Kirkland); mentions of Scotland (Douglas Allaway) and Wales (Llewellyn Ashe)
Summary: The year is 1941, in the middle of The Blitz, and Connor's capital of Belfast is a perfect target for the German pilots. This is a story of Connor's experience in the Belfast Blitz.
Warnings: Some language, written using true historical events from the Belfast Blitz, OCs, and possible bad accents.
~*~
It was late in the night after watching a football match at Windsor Park that Connor had been walking home after spending a few extra hours at a bar afterward when it all started. The air raid sirens went off in Belfast and he stopped in his tracks, turning his head up to the sky. Just the week before, he had experienced a small blow which had more or less healed, but he still had a little scar over his heart from the raid. As he stood, rooted to the spot while scanning the skies for any danger, his heart urged him to run. The sound of planes followed by a number of bright lights falling from the sky as the Germans dropped flares on his dear city.
For the first time in a while, fear and panic started to set in. And he ran. He ran through the streets as the first explosions hit the waterworks. An ache jolted through his heart but he kept sprinting to where he knew a bomb shelter was. His blood ran cold as he heard more planes flying overhead and what little protection in anti-aircraft the city had was firing up into the night sky, lit up no longer by stars, but by the burning buildings, now growing in number as more explosives, landmines and incendiaries were dropped from above.
A few blocks from the bomb shelter, Connor could hear another bomber plane approaching. The hum of its propellers sounded like some giant deadly wasp, ready to lay a burning sting of death and destruction on his land. Even as his legs kept going, he turned his head. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. Unconsciously, his pace slowed marginally and he regretted looking back, as the sight only brought horror to his eyes. Half a dozen firebomb canisters and another dozen incendiary bombs were tumbling to the streets not far behind him. Facing front again, he pushed himself to run faster than he had ever done in his life.
But it wasn’t enough. He could feel pain ripping through his chest as the bombs hit and detonated. The impact sent him flying several yards forward. His pants and shirt took most of the damage, but his head hit the road and he swore he heard something crack on impact. The heat was quickly hitting levels of sweltering and his head was throbbing horribly as the Nazi plane flew elsewhere over his city to spread chaos and disaster.
“Bastard Germans… They’ll p-AGH!”
It felt as if his heart was being wrenched from his chest and shred to pieces as more explosions and quakes rocked Belfast. Screams filled the air, someone was yelling out for Arthur in the distance. Was it him? He wasn’t positive. The same voice called for more people: Douglas… and Llewellyn… and Brigid. It definitely was him, he was sure of it now. But why call out for the sister he had forsaken almost twenty years ago? His surroundings of burning homes and rubble quickly blurred into nothingness and he lost consciousness.
He slipped in and out of consciousness for the next two days. Soft, murmuring voices blended together so he couldn’t understand a word that was being said. He could feel a gentle presence at his side every time he woke up, but he was never awake long enough to identify who. On the third day, he woke up again, but felt more rested and struggled to sit up.
“Don’t be pushing yourself,” a familiar voice scolded gently. “You’ve been hurt very badly and out cold for a few days. ‘Tis rest you need.”
Connor’s vision was blurry until he reached up a weary hand to rub at his eyes. When his sight returned, a pale and anxious Brigid was confirmed to be sitting at his bedside.
“I’m fine, I just need to sit up.”
His hand waved a bit weakly before he set it and his other hand down on either side of his body to push himself up. However, a sharp pain shot through his heart and he bit back a cry of pain and grabbed at his chest. He was unable to protest when Brigid gently pushed him back down.
“All night long you had bombs falling on you! ‘Tis far from “fine” you are!”
Connor grumbled and crossed his arms over his aching chest, only then realizing the thin tube leading between a taped-down needle in his arm and a fluid bag hanging next to his bed. He frowned and pushed down the white sheet covering him to discover that most of his upper body was wrapped in bandages. He made to pull down the top few, but Brigid’s hand caught one of his.
“Do you want to risk an infection?” she said, a frown appearing. “When they change the gauze in a few hours, you can see.”
“Damn it, Brigid, I haven’t even been awake ten minutes and already you’re treating me like a kid again. For God’s sake-”
“Don’t be swearing, Conchobhar. You know-”
“Stop telling me what to do! You’re not me mother and I don’t even live with you anymore! Just… go back home to Dublin where you belong.”
An awkward silence fell over them for several minutes as Connor pulled the sheet back over himself. It went on longer until a nurse came in.
“Mr. O’Donnell-” she started.
“It’s O’Donnell-Kirkland,” he grumbled.
“My apologies, Mr. O’Donnell-Kirkland. There’s a message from your brother, Arthur. He sent a telegram to say he’d be arriving soon to visit you.”
“Thanks.”
Once the nurse left, he turned his head to find Brigid rising from her seat, not looking at him.
“I should be going,” she said, an icy tone creeping in on her voice. “You take care of yourself. I’ll be back in a few days to make sure ‘tis fine you’re doing.”
He said nothing as she crossed the room and shut the door behind her with a snap. Almost an hour later the nurse returned and brought him a tray with a bowl of broth and glass of water. She helped him sit up carefully without putting him in too much pain and folded the sheet down onto his lap. Connor took a few sips of the broth before pulling a face and setting it aside in favor of the water. The nurse frowned.
“The broth’s good for you and you need to get your strength back up,” she said, nudging the bowl back in front of him.
“Have you tried it? It tastes disgusting and watered down.”
“Yes, I have, and in case you’ve forgotten, we’re also forced to ration our food supplies as well because of the war.”
He scowled at his bowl and forced himself to take one more sip of the broth before pushing it away again. He was distracted by a throat being cleared from the door where he found his older brother standing, still in uniform.
“I… er… tried calling, but I suppose all the phone lines into Belfast were damaged.”
“Hey, Arthur.”
“Connor,” Arthur said, coming into the room and taking the seat Brigid had occupied earlier. “Are you doing any better?”
“A little, I suppose. I was out for a few days and my body still hurts something awful.”
Arthur paled a little.
“I had heard Belfast had been bombed, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“Over 900 people were killed, sir,” the nurse told him, raising an eyebrow. “Tens of thousands more are injured or homeless. All because we weren’t prepared or protected properly. It’s been all over the newspapers.”
For the second time that day, a long awkward silence fell.
“I’ve… been away for a while,” Arthur explained finally, shifting uncomfortably. “Er… listen, Connor, I really do need to be going back now. But I promise you, those lousy Germans won’t get away with doing this to you. Just stay here and get better, and I’ll see about getting you some more help in case this happens again, alright?”
“Thanks, Arthur.”
“If something else happens, send a message to Douglas or Llewellyn and they’ll call me. Just until you get your phone lines restored, alright?”
“Alright.”
“Be good and finish eating, you hear me?”
“Arthur, have you even tried this shite?!”
“Connor, don’t swear for God’s sake. You should know by now that everyone has to ration food. Besides, the less you eat, the longer they’ll keep you here for.”
A hint of amusement crept onto his face as Connor stopped himself from arguing back, lifted the bowl up to his mouth and attempted to drink it all down. Some of it leaked out and dripped down his chin and then down onto his bandages. Once the empty bowl was back on the tray, the nurse took it away and whispered her thanks to him on her way out. When she was gone, Arthur stood up.
“I’ll see you later,” he said.
“You promise about those reinforcements for Belfast?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Without another word, Arthur strolled out.
Days passed and Connor hadn’t heard any news on whether or not Arthur had managed to get the extra armaments he had asked for. To make matters worse, the nurses wouldn’t get him any whiskey and Douglas’ attempt to sneak him in some ended in failure. As promised, Brigid visited him every few days when she could get away and the doctors and nurses got used to their quibbling after several visits.
Before long, it was May and Connor was still confined to his hospital room. The burn on his back and the gash on his head were both healing but the injuries to his chest still needed time to mend. On May 4th, Connor’s condition took a slight turn for the worse. Several of the wounds had become badly infected, and he was told he would be held longer than originally anticipated. The next day, Brigid was back at his bedside and remained with him for nearly a week with a report that the Germans had bombed Belfast again. Any time he attempted to mention Arthur, her hands shook with a fury that didn’t reach her face. In that time, Douglas and Llewellyn paid him a visit at different times, and the latter reported that Arthur was too busy with other matters but sent his condolences. Connor accepted them but Brigid snorted bitterly. The following day, they had one of their larger rows and Connor ordered her out and back to Dublin. She did leave, but she didn’t look mad. Just… sad. He did his best to ignore the throbbing pain in his chest that he attributed to the infection.
Much to his great irritation, he wasn’t released until the middle of June. His infection had cleared up a week before, but they held him longer to ensure that it didn’t come back. Much to his and the medical staff’s relief, it stayed gone and he was discharged after his admission two months before. The hair the doctors had to cut off to get at the gash on his head was still growing in again. The burn scar on his back was still an angry shade between red and purple, but they had assured him it would continue healing fine as long as he took proper care of it. The scars on his chest were a different matter. They had perplexed the hospital staff and they weren’t sure if they would heal or not, but Connor knew they wouldn’t. He had seen various scars on his brothers and sister that still hadn’t healed.
Now he was more like them. He was a member of the club.
~*~
Footnotes:
Overall, this takes place in and near Belfast between April and June of 1941 to cover two of the three raids the cover the Belfast Blitz of World War II. The first, on April 7th, was mentioned briefly, the second, on April 15th took place at the start of the fic, and the third and final air raid took place on May 4th, and was briefed toward the end.
In truth, there was indeed a football match at Windsor Park that day and a single German recon plane flew over the stadium. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a place to put that in. So we can just say that Connor was otherwise preoccupied or else very unobservant. :’D
That night, at 10:40, the German planes had already left northern France and were spotted approaching Belfast. So that’s when the air raid siren went off. From then, flares were dropped to light up the city and the city’s waterworks were attacked first, also having been the target of the April 7th raid. Until 5am, a total of 203 metric tons of high explosive bombs, 80 landmines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. (Thank you Wikipedia for those numbers.)
There were only 7 anti-aircraft batteries to defend Belfast but they stopped firing in the mistaken belief that they’d damage RAF support… but none had even come. So essentially, the city was a sitting duck. :|b
In total, 900+ people were killed in Belfast, 1,500 had varying degrees of injuries, and 100,000 were left homeless with more than half of the city’s houses damaged. Other casualties included 15 deaths in Derry, courtesy of a stray bomber, and another killed five more in Bangor. These were represented by Connor’s injuries and the severity of them. The head injury represented Derry in the northwest, fairly bad, but still healed faster than his other wounds. The burn on his back was representative of the Bangor bombing, but as it’s so close to Belfast, I had the main injury (over his heart) and the mini semi-coma, which represented the bombing of Belfast, also be present in the burn, hence why it hadn’t been fully healed after two months. The tiny scar mentioned in the beginning was a result from the April 7th raid (which I believe I mentioned), and the infection of his injuries over his heart were for the May 4th raid as he wouldn’t have been released by that time.
Through some research, I found that Northern Ireland’s government had been pretty lax and kinda… do-nothing leading up to the raid. The Prime Minister at the time was new as of that year since the first one (who had been in office for 19 years, since the Ulster split) died in November 1940. He was senile anyway, so he wasn’t exactly fit to deal with the situation. His successor may not have been senile, but he was still fairly old and still incompetent to handle everything going on. To be perfectly honest… most of his government wasn’t in the best of shape. The cabinet secretary was drunk off his ass most of the day, every day. The Minister of Agriculture, Sir Basil Brooke, seemed to be the only fully active minister. However, the Minister of Public Security, John Clarke MacDermott, was the one who sent a telegram (all phone lines were downed at 1:45am) to Taoiseach Éamon de Valera (equivalent of a Prime Minister) in the Republic of Ireland, seeking assistance of their fire brigades. They arrived that morning and sent away three days later by the Northern Ireland government when fire brigades from Great Britain finally arrived.
As for the Connor correcting the nurse about his long and hyphenated last name… it’s a bit of a long story. Back in 1921, Northern Ireland decided to break off from the newly formed Republic of Ireland and stayed with the United Kingdom. (I say stayed because he and Brigid had been with him after the Act of Union was passed in 1801… but that’s another story altogether...) So I have it that Connor O’Donnell added on Kirkland to his last name to show his new full alignment with Arthur.
If you haven’t read Stars’ fics you wouldn’t know who any of the characters save Arthur/England. So. Connor = Northern Ireland (as played by me), Brigid = Ireland (as played by starsandauras), Douglas Cockburn = Scotland (as played by eats_typos), Llewellyn = Wales (as played by kyahryorin). All of these characters have been used on levels between lovingly stolen and graciously lent, but I love them all and thank them for not breaking my fingers for borrowing them. 8D;;;
Extra thanks to starsandauras and manga_ghost for editing/beta help~!
Source materials: Wikipedia, BBC site featuring a time line of all the attacks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Northern Ireland (Connor Finn O'Donnell-Kirkland), Republic of Ireland (Brigid Erin Aien O'Donnell), and England (Arthur Kirkland); mentions of Scotland (Douglas Allaway) and Wales (Llewellyn Ashe)
Summary: The year is 1941, in the middle of The Blitz, and Connor's capital of Belfast is a perfect target for the German pilots. This is a story of Connor's experience in the Belfast Blitz.
Warnings: Some language, written using true historical events from the Belfast Blitz, OCs, and possible bad accents.
~*~
It was late in the night after watching a football match at Windsor Park that Connor had been walking home after spending a few extra hours at a bar afterward when it all started. The air raid sirens went off in Belfast and he stopped in his tracks, turning his head up to the sky. Just the week before, he had experienced a small blow which had more or less healed, but he still had a little scar over his heart from the raid. As he stood, rooted to the spot while scanning the skies for any danger, his heart urged him to run. The sound of planes followed by a number of bright lights falling from the sky as the Germans dropped flares on his dear city.
For the first time in a while, fear and panic started to set in. And he ran. He ran through the streets as the first explosions hit the waterworks. An ache jolted through his heart but he kept sprinting to where he knew a bomb shelter was. His blood ran cold as he heard more planes flying overhead and what little protection in anti-aircraft the city had was firing up into the night sky, lit up no longer by stars, but by the burning buildings, now growing in number as more explosives, landmines and incendiaries were dropped from above.
A few blocks from the bomb shelter, Connor could hear another bomber plane approaching. The hum of its propellers sounded like some giant deadly wasp, ready to lay a burning sting of death and destruction on his land. Even as his legs kept going, he turned his head. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. Unconsciously, his pace slowed marginally and he regretted looking back, as the sight only brought horror to his eyes. Half a dozen firebomb canisters and another dozen incendiary bombs were tumbling to the streets not far behind him. Facing front again, he pushed himself to run faster than he had ever done in his life.
But it wasn’t enough. He could feel pain ripping through his chest as the bombs hit and detonated. The impact sent him flying several yards forward. His pants and shirt took most of the damage, but his head hit the road and he swore he heard something crack on impact. The heat was quickly hitting levels of sweltering and his head was throbbing horribly as the Nazi plane flew elsewhere over his city to spread chaos and disaster.
“Bastard Germans… They’ll p-AGH!”
It felt as if his heart was being wrenched from his chest and shred to pieces as more explosions and quakes rocked Belfast. Screams filled the air, someone was yelling out for Arthur in the distance. Was it him? He wasn’t positive. The same voice called for more people: Douglas… and Llewellyn… and Brigid. It definitely was him, he was sure of it now. But why call out for the sister he had forsaken almost twenty years ago? His surroundings of burning homes and rubble quickly blurred into nothingness and he lost consciousness.
He slipped in and out of consciousness for the next two days. Soft, murmuring voices blended together so he couldn’t understand a word that was being said. He could feel a gentle presence at his side every time he woke up, but he was never awake long enough to identify who. On the third day, he woke up again, but felt more rested and struggled to sit up.
“Don’t be pushing yourself,” a familiar voice scolded gently. “You’ve been hurt very badly and out cold for a few days. ‘Tis rest you need.”
Connor’s vision was blurry until he reached up a weary hand to rub at his eyes. When his sight returned, a pale and anxious Brigid was confirmed to be sitting at his bedside.
“I’m fine, I just need to sit up.”
His hand waved a bit weakly before he set it and his other hand down on either side of his body to push himself up. However, a sharp pain shot through his heart and he bit back a cry of pain and grabbed at his chest. He was unable to protest when Brigid gently pushed him back down.
“All night long you had bombs falling on you! ‘Tis far from “fine” you are!”
Connor grumbled and crossed his arms over his aching chest, only then realizing the thin tube leading between a taped-down needle in his arm and a fluid bag hanging next to his bed. He frowned and pushed down the white sheet covering him to discover that most of his upper body was wrapped in bandages. He made to pull down the top few, but Brigid’s hand caught one of his.
“Do you want to risk an infection?” she said, a frown appearing. “When they change the gauze in a few hours, you can see.”
“Damn it, Brigid, I haven’t even been awake ten minutes and already you’re treating me like a kid again. For God’s sake-”
“Don’t be swearing, Conchobhar. You know-”
“Stop telling me what to do! You’re not me mother and I don’t even live with you anymore! Just… go back home to Dublin where you belong.”
An awkward silence fell over them for several minutes as Connor pulled the sheet back over himself. It went on longer until a nurse came in.
“Mr. O’Donnell-” she started.
“It’s O’Donnell-Kirkland,” he grumbled.
“My apologies, Mr. O’Donnell-Kirkland. There’s a message from your brother, Arthur. He sent a telegram to say he’d be arriving soon to visit you.”
“Thanks.”
Once the nurse left, he turned his head to find Brigid rising from her seat, not looking at him.
“I should be going,” she said, an icy tone creeping in on her voice. “You take care of yourself. I’ll be back in a few days to make sure ‘tis fine you’re doing.”
He said nothing as she crossed the room and shut the door behind her with a snap. Almost an hour later the nurse returned and brought him a tray with a bowl of broth and glass of water. She helped him sit up carefully without putting him in too much pain and folded the sheet down onto his lap. Connor took a few sips of the broth before pulling a face and setting it aside in favor of the water. The nurse frowned.
“The broth’s good for you and you need to get your strength back up,” she said, nudging the bowl back in front of him.
“Have you tried it? It tastes disgusting and watered down.”
“Yes, I have, and in case you’ve forgotten, we’re also forced to ration our food supplies as well because of the war.”
He scowled at his bowl and forced himself to take one more sip of the broth before pushing it away again. He was distracted by a throat being cleared from the door where he found his older brother standing, still in uniform.
“I… er… tried calling, but I suppose all the phone lines into Belfast were damaged.”
“Hey, Arthur.”
“Connor,” Arthur said, coming into the room and taking the seat Brigid had occupied earlier. “Are you doing any better?”
“A little, I suppose. I was out for a few days and my body still hurts something awful.”
Arthur paled a little.
“I had heard Belfast had been bombed, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“Over 900 people were killed, sir,” the nurse told him, raising an eyebrow. “Tens of thousands more are injured or homeless. All because we weren’t prepared or protected properly. It’s been all over the newspapers.”
For the second time that day, a long awkward silence fell.
“I’ve… been away for a while,” Arthur explained finally, shifting uncomfortably. “Er… listen, Connor, I really do need to be going back now. But I promise you, those lousy Germans won’t get away with doing this to you. Just stay here and get better, and I’ll see about getting you some more help in case this happens again, alright?”
“Thanks, Arthur.”
“If something else happens, send a message to Douglas or Llewellyn and they’ll call me. Just until you get your phone lines restored, alright?”
“Alright.”
“Be good and finish eating, you hear me?”
“Arthur, have you even tried this shite?!”
“Connor, don’t swear for God’s sake. You should know by now that everyone has to ration food. Besides, the less you eat, the longer they’ll keep you here for.”
A hint of amusement crept onto his face as Connor stopped himself from arguing back, lifted the bowl up to his mouth and attempted to drink it all down. Some of it leaked out and dripped down his chin and then down onto his bandages. Once the empty bowl was back on the tray, the nurse took it away and whispered her thanks to him on her way out. When she was gone, Arthur stood up.
“I’ll see you later,” he said.
“You promise about those reinforcements for Belfast?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Without another word, Arthur strolled out.
Days passed and Connor hadn’t heard any news on whether or not Arthur had managed to get the extra armaments he had asked for. To make matters worse, the nurses wouldn’t get him any whiskey and Douglas’ attempt to sneak him in some ended in failure. As promised, Brigid visited him every few days when she could get away and the doctors and nurses got used to their quibbling after several visits.
Before long, it was May and Connor was still confined to his hospital room. The burn on his back and the gash on his head were both healing but the injuries to his chest still needed time to mend. On May 4th, Connor’s condition took a slight turn for the worse. Several of the wounds had become badly infected, and he was told he would be held longer than originally anticipated. The next day, Brigid was back at his bedside and remained with him for nearly a week with a report that the Germans had bombed Belfast again. Any time he attempted to mention Arthur, her hands shook with a fury that didn’t reach her face. In that time, Douglas and Llewellyn paid him a visit at different times, and the latter reported that Arthur was too busy with other matters but sent his condolences. Connor accepted them but Brigid snorted bitterly. The following day, they had one of their larger rows and Connor ordered her out and back to Dublin. She did leave, but she didn’t look mad. Just… sad. He did his best to ignore the throbbing pain in his chest that he attributed to the infection.
Much to his great irritation, he wasn’t released until the middle of June. His infection had cleared up a week before, but they held him longer to ensure that it didn’t come back. Much to his and the medical staff’s relief, it stayed gone and he was discharged after his admission two months before. The hair the doctors had to cut off to get at the gash on his head was still growing in again. The burn scar on his back was still an angry shade between red and purple, but they had assured him it would continue healing fine as long as he took proper care of it. The scars on his chest were a different matter. They had perplexed the hospital staff and they weren’t sure if they would heal or not, but Connor knew they wouldn’t. He had seen various scars on his brothers and sister that still hadn’t healed.
Now he was more like them. He was a member of the club.
~*~
Footnotes:
Overall, this takes place in and near Belfast between April and June of 1941 to cover two of the three raids the cover the Belfast Blitz of World War II. The first, on April 7th, was mentioned briefly, the second, on April 15th took place at the start of the fic, and the third and final air raid took place on May 4th, and was briefed toward the end.
In truth, there was indeed a football match at Windsor Park that day and a single German recon plane flew over the stadium. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a place to put that in. So we can just say that Connor was otherwise preoccupied or else very unobservant. :’D
That night, at 10:40, the German planes had already left northern France and were spotted approaching Belfast. So that’s when the air raid siren went off. From then, flares were dropped to light up the city and the city’s waterworks were attacked first, also having been the target of the April 7th raid. Until 5am, a total of 203 metric tons of high explosive bombs, 80 landmines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. (Thank you Wikipedia for those numbers.)
There were only 7 anti-aircraft batteries to defend Belfast but they stopped firing in the mistaken belief that they’d damage RAF support… but none had even come. So essentially, the city was a sitting duck. :|b
In total, 900+ people were killed in Belfast, 1,500 had varying degrees of injuries, and 100,000 were left homeless with more than half of the city’s houses damaged. Other casualties included 15 deaths in Derry, courtesy of a stray bomber, and another killed five more in Bangor. These were represented by Connor’s injuries and the severity of them. The head injury represented Derry in the northwest, fairly bad, but still healed faster than his other wounds. The burn on his back was representative of the Bangor bombing, but as it’s so close to Belfast, I had the main injury (over his heart) and the mini semi-coma, which represented the bombing of Belfast, also be present in the burn, hence why it hadn’t been fully healed after two months. The tiny scar mentioned in the beginning was a result from the April 7th raid (which I believe I mentioned), and the infection of his injuries over his heart were for the May 4th raid as he wouldn’t have been released by that time.
Through some research, I found that Northern Ireland’s government had been pretty lax and kinda… do-nothing leading up to the raid. The Prime Minister at the time was new as of that year since the first one (who had been in office for 19 years, since the Ulster split) died in November 1940. He was senile anyway, so he wasn’t exactly fit to deal with the situation. His successor may not have been senile, but he was still fairly old and still incompetent to handle everything going on. To be perfectly honest… most of his government wasn’t in the best of shape. The cabinet secretary was drunk off his ass most of the day, every day. The Minister of Agriculture, Sir Basil Brooke, seemed to be the only fully active minister. However, the Minister of Public Security, John Clarke MacDermott, was the one who sent a telegram (all phone lines were downed at 1:45am) to Taoiseach Éamon de Valera (equivalent of a Prime Minister) in the Republic of Ireland, seeking assistance of their fire brigades. They arrived that morning and sent away three days later by the Northern Ireland government when fire brigades from Great Britain finally arrived.
As for the Connor correcting the nurse about his long and hyphenated last name… it’s a bit of a long story. Back in 1921, Northern Ireland decided to break off from the newly formed Republic of Ireland and stayed with the United Kingdom. (I say stayed because he and Brigid had been with him after the Act of Union was passed in 1801… but that’s another story altogether...) So I have it that Connor O’Donnell added on Kirkland to his last name to show his new full alignment with Arthur.
If you haven’t read Stars’ fics you wouldn’t know who any of the characters save Arthur/England. So. Connor = Northern Ireland (as played by me), Brigid = Ireland (as played by starsandauras), Douglas Cockburn = Scotland (as played by eats_typos), Llewellyn = Wales (as played by kyahryorin). All of these characters have been used on levels between lovingly stolen and graciously lent, but I love them all and thank them for not breaking my fingers for borrowing them. 8D;;;
Extra thanks to starsandauras and manga_ghost for editing/beta help~!
Source materials: Wikipedia, BBC site featuring a time line of all the attacks