The Ballad of Michael Sam
1918 British occupied Ireland. 14 year old Michael Sam, witnesses a cowardly assault on a 12 year old girl by British soldiers. Sam procures a folder from a British army truck as the assault is taking place. The soldiers depart. The young girl is unhurt. Sam now has the official looking folder.
What follows is the story of the aftermath of this event. Some is fictitious and some is factual.
Sam emerges from the ditch with the folder in his hands that he has stolen from the truck. He brings the folder to his father, a staunch Irish Republican, and a fisherman colleague and comrade who are on the shore nearby repairing nets.
Sam’s father reads through the folder, learns that the truck is here to arrest a local IRA man, and says that they must free him from the prison at the local barracks.
Sam, as the smallest and lightest of them, climbs a drainpipe to gain access to the prison. Whilst on the roof he overhears a conversation between the British commander and an informer; The Rooker, wherein it is revealed that the British will raid the village and take every man to the prison for interrogation.
Sam sneaks through the prison and frees the imprisoned IRA man and carries the information of the impending British raid back to his father.
His father decides that they must blow the bridge leading to their village. The bridge is heavily defended and Sam’s father will need help from more than his Fisherman colleague. Sam’s father additionally recruits a precision marksman, a gentleman traveller who is a bareknuckle fighter champion and has the strength of ten men, a blacksmith who's hammer is as deadly as his guns but far more silent, a Litvak Jew who fought the Russians before fleeing to Ireland and joining the Irish cause, and Teddy; a wealthy protestant man who is an expert in explosives.Seven magnificent and multi skilled recruits!
At a meeting between the seven in the local pub which The Rooker has informed the military about there is a bloody gunfight in which one of the seven IRA members is killed when the military ambush them inside.This death means that Sam must now join them on the bridge attack as a lookout and runner.
To procure the explosives Sam, his father, the sharpshooter, the gentleman traveller and Teddy the Protestant explosives expert raid a lighthouse using a Galway hooker.The remaining members are getting three currachs ready for the attack on the bridge.
The seven members of the bridge blowing party travel upriver in three currachs. Upon arriving at the bridge they realise that the military raid is happening hours earlier than planned but they still manage to blast the bridge sky high and escape in the nick of time.
