Content Warning: This section of the Study Guide discusses police brutality, torture, and violence, including the murders of children.

Eilish Stack is at home with her children when two detectives arrive looking for her husband, Larry, who is at his job as deputy general secretary of the Teacher’s Union of Ireland. The officers leave their phone number at the Garda National Services Bureau (GNSB) with Eilish. Eilish has a bad feeling about the police officers. Larry calls them back and is called into the station. Larry meets with Detective Inspector Stamp and Detective Burke. They inform Larry that he has been formally accused of sedition. As a trade unionist, Larry helps facilitate teacher pay negotiations and public demonstrations. However, Larry’s job is endangered by a new law called the Emergency Powers Act. The detectives want Larry to confess to sedition, but Larry insists he’s only doing his job as a representative for Ireland’s teachers.

One of Larry’s colleagues, Jim Sexton, has been taken by the GNSB without official warrant, arrest, or explanation. In Ireland, this violates the constitution. Eilish’s father Simon advises her to move her family to Canada, where her sister Áine lives.