The present, near the shore of Loch Arbhach in County Sligo, Éire
Mary shuddered. The moonlight from the blood moon overhead highlighted the massive stone giant covered in moss who was fighting against a well-built, grey-skinned man in emerald green armour hitting away at it with a long shafted war hammer.
Standing nearby in the epicentre of the stone circle was a bare-chested man with a large black gem embedded in his chest, which burnt with a smouldering black fire. His long, unkempt black hair hung over his blazing eyes. Had he somehow used the kris blade in his hand to summon the stone giant forth from one of the ancient stone menhirs that were scattered round the ancient stone circle and given it life?
Mary could feel that there was definitely a powerful energy signal coming from within the circle, though was it from him or from something else?
The big guy with the hammer had turned up only a few seconds before, about the same time as Mary had arrived on the scene and had immediately started attacking the rocky golem as it morphed into being from one of the standing stones.
Mary had been staying in a nearby hotel when the call had come in over the Trouble Alert channel asking if Banshee was willing to respond to a possible Gamma level threat nearby. She could never resist a challenge and had immediately agreed to Dispatch’s request. Dispatch had identified a massive unidentified energy spike close by. They needed someone to investigate and Banshee was closest.
The Aontacht Éire were currently in the south of the island dealing with a large group of inhuman rogue Metas carrying out a series of attacks along the coast in and around Blackwater Bay. Mary had offered to assist but their strike leader Ulster had instantly rejected her offer despite young Mary’s suggestion that she could be useful.
So instead, she had headed to Loch Arbhach in search of information about the other Banshee, the one she’d ‘replaced’ in this world when she’d found herself transported to this parallel universe a couple of years before.
That Mary had been living in a now demolished cottage nearby prior to being hired by Sir Damien and moving to London. Mary had followed her para-twin’s life from her family home near Dublin to here and it was while living here that she’d apparently first obtained her harp and had elected to reveal her powers. So why had she not revealed any mystical abilities other than her inhuman longevity before arriving at Loch Arbhach?
Admittedly, there were a number of important historical sites located in the area around the loch. Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery was located in the shadow of the Bricklieve Mountains above the lake’s western side. It was one of the most extensive and best-preserved complexes of the Irish Passage Tomb tradition. Located on the eastern side of the lake, were a number of standing stones including this Neolithic stone circle, which supposedly marked the site of the mythological battle of Cath Maighe Tuireadh; was that why they were there, grave robbing?
Suddenly Banshee realised that the bare-chested man had spotted her approach and seemed to have decided to attack her.
The armoured grey-skinned figure had also noticed and seemed to recognise her as he shouted out something about “unleashing the Daur da Bláo”; in English that translated from the old tongue as the ‘Oak of Two Blossoms’. What did he mean? The armoured figure fighting the stone golem had also called the man Manteis, a term Banshee knew had once been used to describe Irish diviners and seers.
A few days previously
Mary watched the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ sign flash on and immediately leant over and secured her harp before putting her own belt on and tightening it. She’d elected to pay for a second seat for her instrument rather than risk it being damaged in the hold and somehow it felt wrong to leave it in her pocket dimension while visiting its ‘home’ and anyway, arriving with it wouldn’t result in akward questions later. The plane dipped and she realised that she was no longer keen on flying commercial; she had discovered that she liked the freedom of piloting herself, of being in control. No wonder Adam had been so hesitant about teaching others how to pilot, he’d obviously liked being in control of his own (and their?) destiny. Never mind, it hadn’t felt right to take the Crate just for a personal trip and leave Mace and Akira without some means of responding to ‘shouts’.
It was good to have a break. Although Jimmy the Fish’s restraining orders had shut down the source of the rumours regarding Akira, they were already out there – you can’t stop allegations once they’ve been released into the wild. Thankfully, the public’s attention span was short and other stories had already overtaken the lies.
She looked out the window as the plane circled the landing field and wondered who else young Mary had invited to the Aontacht Éire’s inauguration ceremony? Young Mary was being promoted from being an intern to a full team member as Illustrious (admittedly the fifth such member to carry the name and wear the armour) having earned her permanent place on the team.
It took Mary 20 minutes to collect her luggage and refuse the several offers of help from her fellow passengers who only saw an elderly lady and failed to see the ease in which she carried both it and her harp.
She was still amazed that the whole of Éire was still part of the United Kingdom though with its own Government in this universe, so unlike her own parallel’s turbulent past. The downside was that ‘The Troubles’ were still a major part of life here. After all, it had only been a few years since an Irish terrorist has assassinated Queen Elizabeth II, though that hadn’t stopped King Charles from visiting several times since. In fact he had visited Dublin only a few weeks before to open the Irish Parliament or the Oireachtas as it was known locally.
Young Mary waited outside the departure gates, her hair once more returned to its natural red colour. She smiled and waved enthusiastically at the older Mary. It was nice to be home.
Yesterday
The ceremony had gone well and it had been nice to meet the rest of her pseudo-family. She still had another week in Éire, baring a major disaster occurring that threatened Wessex or the mainland. She had time to visit the tourist sites, kiss the Blarney Stone and possibly find out more about her para-twin’s past. That meant visiting Loch Arbhach in County Sligo where her double had been living prior to moving to London and Mary’s subsequent arrival in this dimension.
Ever since she’d arrived on this world she’d failed to investigate the para-twin she’d either now inhabited, absorbed, replaced or displaced. That was the problem; she didn’t actually know what had happened other than that prior to her arrival in this paraverse there had been another Mary, another Banshee already here, one that she’d replaced somehow. That ‘Banshee’ had similar but not identical powers to her own yet in this universe the other Mary’s family had not died out so how, why, had she possessed sidhe-based powers including extended life? That was the reason her Banshee had merged with her so both could continue to exist. Here, her ‘nephews’, Colm and Shamus, had survived. The family had not been about to become extinct in this reality so why, how, had her other self actually gained her powers?
Perhaps this would be a good time to do some research into her background. If nothing else it might finally explain the weird properties of her double’s harp that she’d ‘inherited’? Perhaps explain what had happened to it when she transformed into Banshee for starters. It disappeared but to where and why? That was definitely not normal yet she’d just sort of accepted it given everything else she’d had to accept.
Now
Three figures were standing in or around the Stone Circle; the stone golem was attacking the armoured figure with grey skin (swinging his war hammer with wild abandon) and then there was the bare-chested man with the smoking black crystal embedded in his chest. His attention was focused on her as he weaved his blade back and forth in a vaguely threatening warning. Then she heard the shout to ‘unleash the Daur da Bláo’.
It took her a few seconds to actually remember what that meant. She’d done her research before arriving and knew that this was supposedly the site of a mythical battle between the demonic Fomorians and the Tuatha Dé Danann, Celtic Gods led by the Dagda, an Odin-like kingly figure who supposedly lost his mystical harp, called the Daur da Bláo, somewhere around here. According to legend, it would not sound until he would call to it. After he called to it, it sprang forth killing nine of the Fomorians, giant underworld dwellers, in its path.
Did the hammer guy think her harp was actually Dagda’s mystical instrument or..?
Regardless she unhooked it from her shoulder and began stroking a soothing, healing tune from it. The other guy nodded as the elemental he’d been fighting stepped back towards the perimeter of the stone circle, then it shuddered and slammed its arms deep into the earth. Seconds later an earthen wall erupted around the circle, several metres high. Ok, not the reactions that she’d been expecting but she was pretty sure that any attempt to go over would be met by hostile force from either the stone giant or its apparent master, both now out of sight. If nothing else, the hostile fellow with the smoking black gem in his chest was someone who definitely had to be confronted about his fashion choices. While their very own “MC Hammer” tried to climb over the barricade Mary turned into Banshee and insubstantialised herself even though she knew it was unlikely to be an effective defence against magical attacks.
Several seconds later, she materialised inside the stone circle on the opposite side of the earthen works, exhausted. The barrier was clearly more than just a massive pile of soil and had a mystical element involved to it. To her surprise, the stone giant was trying to attack the guy with the smoking crystal in his chest but something meant it was unable to get close enough to attack. It let out an unintelligible cry of frustration followed by it unleashing a mini-earthquake, which caused the ground round the altar stone to shake and almost caused Banshee to fall.
The man turned and smirked while he waved the blade in her direction and Banshee felt the mystical energy drain out of her, forcing her to substantialise herself while this time she actually did collapse to her knees. She quickly re-evaluated her situation, perhaps it hadn’t been passing through the barrier that had weakened her, so much but some sort of spell cast by the man with the smirk?
This Manteis person was obviously a powerful magic-user. In her experience that usually meant someone who had a strong will and if that was so, it would be a waste of time for her to attempt to frighten him with a Banshee scream. Instead, she unleashed her mystic senses to try to analyse and identify the power-signal emanating from within the circle. Perhaps it would give her a clue as to what to do next? To her surprise and horror, his personal mystical energy, while powerful, was minuscule in comparison to what lay beneath his feet. Something was forcing its way to the surface through stone and soil and it was immensely powerful beyond belief. It had an alien intelligence all of its own and emanated power, massive dark power that wanted to be free.
Suddenly she felt something like a thousand tingling spiders crawling through her mind even as an orb the size of a football erupted from the ground. The elemental giant tried to totter forward to grab the giant black pearl as it broke free. It failed as some sort of dark energy emanated from the Mage’s chest, freezing it to a shuddering halt.
Above her, she heard a cry as the grey-skinned man finally reached the top of the earthworks. A whisper from Manteis and a dark wave of fear flowed from his lips and smashed into Banshee and the man. He fell backwards under the onslaught and tumbled back down the outside of the barricade. Banshee however was immune to such attacks and she allowed the wave of emotion to wash over her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t shake the creepy feeling that her mind was being invaded by the horde of spiders. She shuddered and tried to focus.
Hanging in the air between her and Manteis was a shining black globe, which glistened like a massive pearl. Then a line of light appeared down its middle and widened like a catlike pupil that somehow gave the impression of intelligence. What the hell was it? Manteis reached for it and immediately screamed as a blast of dark energy emanated out from the globe and burnt his fingers. Whatever it was, it wasn’t his, that was certain.
Behind her, she could hear a constant banging as the Hammer guy gave up on climbing over the barrier and focused on smashing his way through.
Banshee felt her will draining away. The ‘spiders’ were affecting her ability to think. She needed to figure out some way to block it and then stop smirker over there from taking possession of the eye-like orb.
Outside the earthen wall, she could hear the Hammer guy stop trying to break through as he entered into combat with someone, or even multiple someone’s. The shouts were in what sounded like some kind of the Gaelic even as Dispatch passed through a message from young Mary, Illustrious, “Gran’dame its Mary, the attacks that the Aontacht Éire was dispatched to was some form of decoy by some inhuman creatures the others call Fomorians. Following the family motto that ‘there is no such thing as a coincidence’, I decided to make contact, as I feared your call was the genuine attack… Are you ok?”
Banshee murmured into her commdot, “No, to be sure. Get all the force you can over here fast as maybe. If this magicked thing floating before my eyes takes me, it will take a hell of a lot more..”
She barely heard young Mary’s reply, “Unfortunately Blackwater is almost 300 kilometres south of you and it will take our Raptor Transport over half an hour at top speed to reach your location. We’ll do our best but keep safe, please?”
Her thoughts hit rock bottom pretty quickly, but all she could do for the moment was focus on “what happens next”.
She tried to clear her head and concentrate as it was clear to her that the mage has released something he could not currently control, and which didn’t care for him. The only question was whether this Manteis still formed some sort of key to the being or whatever malevolent entity’s ancient imprisonment, whether it can be attacked through him or was now a wholly separate threat.
Not sure that she was thinking straight but desperate, she focused all the power she could into a Shattering Shriek aimed to take out both the man and the sphere. The cry flowed out and reverberated off the earthen walls surrounding the stone circle. Several things happened at once; the scream hit the globe and seemed to cause it to react even as Manteis reached out his left hand once more to grab it. His dagger shattered in two and instantly the feeling that Banshee’s mind was being burrowed into and crawled over vanished. The stone giant stopped and reverted to a massive misshapen stone obelisk now planted off-centre within the circle itself. Manteis let out a sudden scream of pain – a combination of the black crystal in his chest cracking and the venomous ‘black pearl’ letting out a burst of dark energy that filled the stone circle and fried his left arm into a withered stump. There was a burst of dark energy from the crystal embedded in his chest and then he vanished; either disintegrated, turned invisible or teleported to somewhere safe. Who knew?
Banshee had less than a second to turn insubstantial in response and hope that the dark energy could not affect her in that form. She was glad to be proven right as the energy washed through her and disintegrated the interior surface of the earthen wall that surrounded the circle. Then apparently drained, the floating orb collapsed to the ground, its energy spent, for the moment at least. Its shiny black surface turned dull and the iris disappeared from its surface.
Banshee risked resubstantialising herself and picking up the shattered blade of the kris she used it to poke the orb. Nothing, no reaction, it was completely inert. She risked grabbing it, admittedly using the hem of her dress to cover it as she picked it up. She smiled at her own caution, after all if it reactivated and tried to burn her the way it had Manteis the material of her dress wouldn’t really offer much protection.
Mary immediately turned insubstantial again and walked through the earthen barrier, which thankfully had no draining effect on her this time. Outside she could now see the armoured man with his war hammer knocking the penultimate attacker to the ground.
What he was fighting took her breath away. Each was a giant monster with claws or tentacles for arms, a couple of whom had multiples of them rather than the usual two. Their mouths were filled with massive fangs or multiple darting serpent-like tongues that seemed to dominate the whole of their heads. No two were alike though all were vaguely humanoid in overall shape. The last remaining attacker saw Banshee appear from within the circle and roared at her in an attempt to intimidate. Banshee responded in kind with the Banshee’s Wail and with that, it suddenly ran around touching each of its fallen kin in turn; as she did so they vanished, teleported away followed a second later by itself, a sudden absence of being.
The warrior smiled and let out a loud cry into the sky of “CúChulainn imeacht!” She didn’t know what CúChulainn meant but she recognised ‘imeacht’ as the Gaelic for ‘depart’. The cry was followed by a flash of brilliant white light that blinded her completely. When a few seconds later she could see again, admittedly with blurry vision and spots before her eyes, the warrior was gone, replaced by a young six or seven year old girl in pigtails who seemed confused to be outside on her own. Banshee resubstantiated herself and sat down so as to not scare the girl as she explained that others would be here soon and would take her home.
Banshee waited quietly with the girl until the people from the nearby village finally arrived. That’s when she learnt her story; the young girl was Annie and she was new to the village having been fostered by the local Gardaí and her husband after her parents had been killed a couple of months before in a car crash. Annie was the only one to survive the accident. They immediately wrapped Annie’s shaking little figure in a Disney-themed blanket and carried her into one of the nearby cottages. There was no sign beyond the burn marks on the ancient stones and the newly erected earthworks to show that this had recently been the scene of a battle.
It was a further 30 minutes before the Aontacht Éire arrived in their Raptor and a familiar female figure climbed out and ran over to hug her. She was followed out of the ship by three of her teammates; Druidess, Nereid and Ruadàn, seemingly the three members of her team that had some prior knowledge of the Fomorians.
It was only later that young Mary admitted that before her ‘Gran’dame’ had arrived in Éire that she’d spoken to Frankie about how best to keep an eye on her given her ability for getting into trouble. She’d asked if she might have access to the encrypted comm-channels used by the Balance’s commdots. Frankie had refused without Banshee’s express permission however she (it? young Mary was still unsure of what to make of Frankie) had mentioned that there was a secondary tracker fitted into the Balance costumes as part of ‘Android’ Annie’s ‘Bolting the Stable Door’ protocol.
The devices worked by being in physical contact with the wearers’ pre-programmed bio-signature but otherwise remained inert. If removed they automatically initiated, as did using a pre-agreed trigger word to activate them. They were very small and worked by using any nearby mobile masts to send out a GPS signal. Annie had initially assumed that Mary’s would temporarily stop working when she went insubstantial, but wouldn’t accidentally activate. Nothing electronic on her functioned when she was in that state, however there was a split second where she resubstantiated when the tracker registered Mary as either dead or at least no longer present and momentarily activated before resetting. Annie had been working to alleviate the glitch before she left but Frankie hadn’t continued as she thought it might prove useful someday. It looked as though that ‘someday’ had finally arrived.
When Mary had walked through the earthen barrier and then resubstantiated herself the tracker had activated and signalled Frankie. Frankie realising that this might be connected to Dispatch’s earlier request had subsequently notified young Mary and she’d put two and two together. A decoy attack by Fomorians at the same time as Banshee is asked to check out the site of one of their previous battles? “There is no such thing as a coincidence.”
Ruadàn walked across. He was dressed in a green kilt-like tunic; sky-blue cloak with a sort of green, black and gold sleeveless ‘onesie’ underneath, a set of straps crossed his chest held in place by a silver broach. His golden locks flowed to his shoulders. He was beautiful to behold in a rugged, world-weary sort of way, though that quickly became frightening when he waved his silvery ethereal blade around. He came over and sat down on one of the fallen rocks beside Banshee and young Mary.
“So these Fomorians, who or what are they?” Banshee asked him. “They don’t look human or even like Stormers to me.”
Ruadàn explained that she was right, before recorded history a race of shape-changers calling themselves the Baelim had invaded the planet using dimensional doorways to cross from their own dimension to this. They were the source of the tales about demons. This race was able to transfer their consciousness into a multitude of bodies using a technology so advanced it still looks like magic today.
“The Baelim were able to inhabit multiple bodies, swopping from one to another at will. These bodies were stolen or copied from thousands of different races, each placed in stasis in a pocket dimension known as Nullspace. The Baelim were able to transfer their consciousness into any one of these bodies and transfer it to wherever they were; instant transformation into whatever body was best suited to their purpose at the time.
Imagine it, somewhere there is a pocket dimension in which thousands if not millions of bodies, representing every species the Baelim had ever encountered, are floating ready to be inhabited by a Baelim intelligence whenever they want.
To add to the problem, the Baelim host bodies were inter-fertile with other species and all children born to such relations were at least partially Baelim; an invasion by procreation, conquest by offspring – the next generation is ours sort of thing…
Anyway, tribes of humans led by the Gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann and Atlan amongst others opposed them. After a long and bloody war the Baelim were cast back through the dimensions whereupon the father of the Gods, in Celtic mythology it was a figure known as Dagda in Norse legends Odin, sealed the ‘Well of Souls’ the earthly nexus against them, but not before accidentally trapping a war party of Baelim behind.
Legend has it that as this last Baelim war party was teleporting into new host bodies a disaster happened. They ended up physically merged with a group of gods who were in the same location, immortal powered humans, as well as with the various bodies in their body wardrobes, which then slammed shut as the portal to the Nullspace closed to them. This trapped them in a chaotic mix of body types creating the chimeras that attacked today. These creatures are immortal but fixed in body forms not of their choosing, unable to body-hop. There are those that say it drove them completely insane. No longer considered Baelim, they took the name Fomorians and tried to conquer this island, only to be repelled by the Tuatha Dé Danann, some of whom were themselves hybrids, part Tuatha Dé Danann part Fomorian such as Lugh and his son CúChulainn. The Fomorians were eventually forced to flee to another dimension through underground portals linked to the Well of Souls before the Tuatha Dé Danann sealed them. However, over the centuries the gateways sometime reopen and the bloody creatures storm though. We no longer know how to seal the breaches but then they didn’t expect to find that at least some of humanity had gained godlike powers during their time below.
Yes, it’s hardly surprising that the Guardian, the stone guard you met, refused to allow your warrior to enter the circle if he, she? is CúChulainn – According to the legends he was the maternal great grandson of the Fomorian tyrant Balor, whom Lugh killed in the Battle of Mag Tuired, which supposedly happened here. The Guardian was seemingly programmed to prevent anything ‘tainted’ by the Baelim from gaining access to the circle and therefore gaining access to the black sphere apparently.
If that child Annie had some Baelim ancestry in her then it could be that the Observer when it recognised Fomorian presence in the area, activated her body transfer to access CúChulainn’s cloned body from Nullspace in order to protect the object. It could not realise that the Guardian would sense she was of Baelim descent and try and stop her, I mean him. Since neither you or Manteis were tainted, you were apparently allowed access to the site. I can only assume that somehow the young girl must have harvested that body from Nullspace. We’ll need to keep an eye on her as she grows up.
The Baelim wouldn’t have attacked unless they were after something valuable or important. Could it be that now inert football-sized orb is in fact the war chief of the Fomorians, Balor Béimnech’s (Balor the Smiter) infamous, venomous fiery eye? If so, they will try again.
I’m not sure how Manteis Darkstone fits into this but he is a mercenary soul and one given to betrayal so possibly he made a deal with the Fomorians to go where they could not and retrieve the ‘Eye’, fully intending to double-cross them and keep it for himself. When he was hurt and his ability to heal affected when the black crystal embedded in his chest was damaged, he elected to escape.
The orb needs to go somewhere where it can be kept safe and where they can uncover the mystery of its power. Young Mary’s suggested sending it to the Challenger-Wildeman facility, the Artefact Research Centre for safekeeping, would you agree?”
Banshee nodded. Removed away from Ireland and stored in the secure vaults at the ARC in London would be about the safest place for it.
As Banshee transformed back into Mary her harp reappeared. “So, is this also a body transfer? Am I a Baelim descendant too?”
“No, the Sidhe part of you would never have picked you if that had been the case and the Guardian wouldn’t have allowed you entry into the sacred circle if it had sensed that you were. There are tales about a ‘Leanan Sídhe’ named Biróg that served the Tuatha Dé Danann and who might have a connection to a certain mystical harp, sometimes called Uaithne as well.” Ruadàn smiled, “I wondered who’d inherited Uaithne. Have you mastered the three ‘chants’ yet?”
Mary modestly acknowledged having discovered that there were at least three specific chants or spells linked to the harp and had tried to use them “once or twice” but had only really managed to master the healing spell aspect of its power.
Ruadàn stood up suddenly as though intending to depart then thought better of it. He turned and stared down at them. “I wonder if the other spells aren’t part of your power set anyway. The three ‘chants’ of Uaithne are referred to as the sorrow-strain, joy-strain and the sleep strain; sound familiar?”
When Banshee failed to reply, he went on, “Legends are unreliable sources of information. The Uaithne was said to be able to control men’s emotions, change the seasons, could bring happiness or peace and heal or cause them to fall asleep…
Let’s see if I can remember the saga properly… the chants were referred to in the myths as ‘the time the woman was at the bearing of children it had a cry of sorrow with the soreness of the pangs at first: it was smile and joy. it played in the middle for the pleasure of bringing forth the two sons: it was a sleep of soothingness played the last son, on account of the heaviness of the birth, so that it is from him that the third of the music was named’. Might not be exactly as written by the Monks, but should be close enough.”
Mary smiled. They might not be quite as recorded but close enough. Was this the source then of her para-twin’s powers? “And the sidhe you mentioned, I’d like to hear more of the tale of the ‘leanan sídhe’ Biróg. Does it have a particular connection to this place, do you know?”
Ruadàn deep in thought shook his head. “To this place? Not specifically, but it is connected to the death of Balor. It is said that Balor could only be killed by his own grandchild. To prevent that he is said to have locked up his only daughter in an impenetrable tower. According to the myths the chief of mac Cáinte with the aid of the family sidhe, Biróg managed to enter the tower, found Ethnea, Balor’s daughter and impregnated her. Balor then ordered the three children born to her drowned but one survived thanks to the intervention of the people of Lyonesse. That child was said to be Lugh, who killed Balor.” With that, he nodded then headed back to the transport.
The two Mary’s smiled, Clan mac Cáinte, eh? Any relation to the MacCarty clan they wondered to themselves?
Aontacht Éire – Irish Unity.
Éire
Following the Act of Union on the 1st of January 1801, the island of Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. During the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the island’s population of over 8 million fell by 30%. One million Irish died of starvation and/or disease and another 1.5 million emigrated. This set the pattern of emigration for the century to come, resulting in a constant population decline up to the 1960s.
From 1874, the Irish Parliamentary Party attempted to achieve Home Rule, resulted in the United Kingdom granting Ireland limited national autonomy. These led to the “grass-roots” control of national affairs under the Local Government Act 1898. However, the Unionist movement had been growing since 1886 among Irish Protestants after the introduction of the first home rule bill, fearing discrimination and loss of economic and social privileges if Irish Catholics achieved real political power.
Despite this in 1914, the Third Home Rule Act was implemented resulting in Ireland (or Éire in Irish) becoming an independent territory under the British Crown and local politicians made Dublin their capital and established the Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann, there.
There were a number of public conflicts between the Catholic South and Protestant North, which threatened to erupt into a Civil War from 1919 on. However, a combined team of meta-humans from both communities put down the public disorder bloodlessly. They called themselves Aontacht Éire (Irish Unity) and went on to become an Irish government-sponsored superhero team, one that has continued to serve Éire to the present day. Sectarianism in politics and education was banned in 1937 further reuniting the two communities though occasional outbreaks of religious intolerance and terrorism have continued through to the present day.
Many historians believe that the active participation of the Irish in World War II may have had a major influence on bringing both communities together facing a common enemy, reducing the desire for violence and defusing the threat of civil war.
The attempted invasion of Éire in 1941 lead by the Third Reich’s Eugenics Brigade was subsequently defeated by unexpected massive storms in the North Sea, which resulted in 2/3rds of the invading force drowning before they reach landfall (see The Treaty of Lyonesse). Those that made it to shore then had to face the combined efforts of the Aontacht Éire, the Crown Guard and British Commandos on the beaches. The operation resulted in several members of both superhero groups losing their lives and the Irish hero Illustrious subsequently elected to move from Aontacht Éire to serve with the Crown Guard until the end of the war.
The 1946 referendum on whether to retain the country’s Dominion status was passed by a narrow margin and the Country has remained part of the Commonwealth ever since.
There were fears that the assassination of Queen Elizabeth II in 2014 by Irish rebels would result in a political backlash but when King Charles III ascended the throne he made sure to appeal for peace and insisted on a public visit to Éire as his first official role as King.
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 