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On April 7, 1941 Hitler's Luftwaffe crossed Allied airspace to bomb Belfast in Northern Ireland. Eight days later they returned to finish off the city in the Easter Raid. No one thought the Nazis would dare travel so far from mainland Europe, but the shipyards of Belfast were manufacturing the war ships for Britain, and Hitler wanted them destroyed. Luftwaffe reconnaissance believed that Belfast was the "most poorly defended city in the UK." As part of the United Kingdom, Belfast participated in air raid blackouts just as mainland England did, but no one thought they would ever be attacked. Meanwhile, much to Winston Churchill’s chagrin, Ireland stayed stubbornly neutral during the war.There are those who believe that the IRA colluded with the Nazis to help them navigate their way north for the air raids by lighting bonfires along the coast of the Republic. If this is so, the flame of hatred was actually lit centuries before and fanned during the Easter Rising of 1916, when young men with no prospects and less money had little to lose, and were easily manipulated into a fervor of irrational action. So it was that in the spring of 1916, with the passion and bloodlust that regularly plagued his gender, Seán Killane found himself easily caught up in the frenzy that accompanies rebellion and war. Yet in the midst of this tumult, lovers still courted, babies were born, the old ones still moved on to the afterlife, and Seán loved Ann.*Please note that historical research is still being done which could change dates/timings/locations as needed.…