Green Dawn at St Enda's

When 12 year-old William Devoy's Irish father sends him from New York to a new Dublin boarding school, St Enda's, William imagines having an adventure.

It is 1911; the next five years will bring William, and Ireland, turmoil and opportunity. While William is learning Irish, playing hurling and losing himself in the legend of Cúchulainn, the issue of Irish Home Rule grows increasingly contentious. Sick of British oppression and empowered by the reawakening of Irish national consciousness, one group decide to fight for independence. Among them is Patrick Pearse.

Committed to championing the cause of all things Gaelic, Pearse is a poet and a dreamer, an idealist and an activist. And William's headmaster. Alongside comrades and school friends, and as soldiers of the Army of the Irish Republic, William and Pearse will march on the Dublin General Post Office and into history. Green Dawn at St Enda's commemorates the boys of St Enda's, their teachers and comrades at the centenary of the Easter Rising and tells the story one boy's journey into adulthood as a nation struggles for freedom.

Tracey Iceton set out to write "a novel based on real events so potent they overwhelmed me." Meticulously researched, the boys at the school are nonetheless fictionalized, using the power of the novel to take readers on an impossible journey, losing themselves in another world, befriending people they would never otherwise meet. In this ambitious novel, the first of a trilogy, and marking the Easter Rising, the voices of those silenced by firing squad or hanging ring out clearly, none more so than that of Patrick Pearse, teacher and author.

Haunted by a visit to Kilmainham goal in Dublin, Iceton has written a bold, meticulously researched and partisan novel about events leading up to the 1916 Dublin Easter Rising. In it she creates some memorable characters, not least of which, Finn, lingers long in the mind.

—Kitty Fitzgerald, author, shortlisted for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award

Breath-taking, daring and highly original: the 1916 leadership made flesh. Tracey Iceton's writing has both depth and beauty. This is a remarkable, insightful and thrilling reimagining of the Rising passionately seen through the eyes of Finn Devoy, an Irish American schooled and politicised by Pearse in St Enda's and who matures into a young freedom fighter coping with the freight of history, moral responsibility, and the challenge of the next stage of the "unfinished business"…

—Danny Morrison, author, former National Director of Publicity for Sinn Féin and Irish Republican.

The first part in the gripping Celtic Colours Trilogy. The other books in the sequence are Herself Alone in Orange Rain and White Leaves of Peace.

Tracey Iceton is an author and creative writing tutor from Teesside with a PhD in creative writing from Northumbria University. A qualified English teacher, experienced in delivering creating writing courses and workshops, Tracey won the 2013 HISSAC short story prize for 'Butterfly Wings', was runner up in the 2013 and 2014 Cinnamon Press short story competitions with 'Slag' and 'As the world (re)turns', which appeared in the anthologies Journey Planner and Patria. She also won the 2011 Writers Block NE Home Tomorrow Short Story Competition and has been shortlisted for the 2012 Bristol Short Story Competition with 'Apple Shot' and the 2015 Mslexia Women's Short Story Competition for 'Ask Not'. Green Dawn at St Enda's was Tracey's debut novel and part one of her Celtic Colours Trilogy, published by Cinnamon Press in 2016. Part two, Herself Alone in Orange Rain, came out in 2017. This final part of the trilogy, White Leaves of Peace, was published in 2019.
Tracey's stunning rock biography of forgotten legend Mickey Hunter is also available from Cinnamon Press. The Rock God Complex page features rare album covers and the launch, complete with covers of some of their finest hits.
Tracey regularly reads her work at literary events. Her stories have appeared in; Prole, Litro, Neon, Tears in the Fence, The Momaya Annual Review, The Yellow Room and Writer's Muse.