Long After I’m Gone
Screenplay
adapted from the novel The Fisher Child
Rights available
photo credit: Mike Schinkel Creative Commons license: some rights reserved. Long After I’m Gone Synopsis
In a minor battle of the 1798 Rebellion in Wexford, HUGH Byrne kills the black drummer of the Ancient Briton regiment. Sickened by the carnage, he leaves it and his belovéd CATHLEEN behind, but is captured, ending up as an indentured labourer or white slave in the Irish-dominated island of Montserrat, in the Caribbean. He falls in love with a black slave, AMA, and when he is freed he brings her with him to farm impoverished land rented from the plantation. They have two children, a black girl, BRIDIE, and a white boy, MUNGO, the apple of his mother’s eye. After the tragedy that befalls Ama and Bridie, Hugh is left alone with his son, and twelve years later returns to Wexford with him to face his old love.
