This is a historical novel about William Kean, a journalist and rebel in the 1790s, and of his newspaper, the Northern Star, which for a few short years outraged the gentry and propagated revolt throughout Ireland. Willie Kean is a real person.

He was caught up in an extraordinary drama of intrigue, violence and betrayal, as the mainly Presbyterian population of Belfast and the adjacent counties simmered with revolutionary fervour, inspired by events in France and America. He tells the story himself in this imagined account of his turbulent life and loves during the years leading up to the rebellion of 1798. His tale is interwoven with the historical figures of the day, including United Irishmen Wolfe Tone, Henry Joy McCracken and Thomas Russell, their oppressors, Castlereagh, Camden and the Crown forces, and many noted bit players, from the heroine Betsy Gray to the notorious portrait painter Edward Newell and the infamous prostitute Belle Martin.

Willie Kean, along with many thousands of his kinfolk, fought British Crown forces for liberty and equality, for all the people of Ireland, only to be undone by treachery and superior arms in 1798. Thousands were slaughtered and hundreds executed.

How Willie Kean himself evaded the rope is in itself one of the great escape dramas of the times.

More Information
ISBN/EAN 9780992736460
Author Conor O’Clery
Publisher Somerville Press
Publication date 8 Sep 2016
Format Paperback with flaps
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The Star Man

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