The Sword and the Dagger

'The Sword and the Dagger' written between the lines of historical fact follows the torrid life of Irish Pirate of the early 1800s Fial McMuirin. Starting from the time he witnessed the Bantry Bay Expedition d'Ireland in December 1796 at the age of 12 with his father an Irish cattle farmer. Fial is infatuated with the sea and they save a French sailor and through Society of United Irishmen return him to France through the Irish port of Cork. Fials father is subsequently murdered by the British army and his mother brutally rapped. He is brought up by a seaman in Cork harbour Donal McGuire who teaches him the art of celestial navigation and ways of the sea with Fial taking the family sir name and becoming Fial McGuire. Donal Mcguire is also killed by the British army and Fial at the age of fifteen stows away on a British war ship ending up in Portsmouth England.