It was an ordinary day, and I was sewing in my ordinary stone cottage in our ordinary mountain village. Nothing suggested what was going to happen to our village.

Suddenly, there was a knock on my door. I had no idea who it could be. I don't get visitors very often. Even when I do get visitors, I'm never prepared to welcome them. Today was the same.

Opening the front door, it was an unfamiliar face, and they had an unsettling smug expression.

"Miss Murphy ?"

"Yes. Why are you here?" Their smirk was really worrying me now.

"Does this cottage belong to you?"

"Yes, as well as the garden behind it," I explained. Well, you could barely call it a garden, it's just a scruffy patch of grass on my land.

"Do you have proof that this land belongs to you?"

"Well, yes, I inherited it when my parents passed away, and, um..." I started to realise that I didn't have any solid proof.

"Well then, if you can't prove it, then your land belongs to me now." Their face now had a triumphant expression.

"You can't do that! Who do you think you are, marching into my house and claiming it's yours?"

"Oh, did I forget to introduce myself? I'm Mr Smith, the new owner of this cottage." He held out his hand for me to shake it.

"Where are you from, and why are you here? You have a lot of explaining to do, Mr High-and-Mighty Smith!" I fumed.

"I'm an English planter. I'll spare you the details, but the entire village and all the land around it belongs to the English, and it's now a plantation. Now please leave, you're trespassing on my new property," he said, as casually as asking for my name.

I stormed out of the cottage - my rightful cottage - and encountered chaos in the village. It wasn't just me that was thrown out of their home, the entire community had been banished as well.

After joining the crowd, we all walked for a couple of hours to the nearest forest, and I was shocked to find other Irish people already there, in ragged clothes and in varied states of health.

John, the village leader, called an impromptu meeting.

"Attention! We have all been unfairly driven out of our homes and village, and we are now outcasts, known to the English as woodkern." There were shouts of protest from many.

Holding his hand up for silence, John waited until the shouts stopped, and he continued.

"We will plan our revenge, and I already have something in mind. We go back to the village with wood on fire, and terrorise them!"

We all cheered, and enthusiastically stared collecting wood and kindling fires.

The English had no idea what was coming for them, and that put a smile on my face.

There's nothing like planning your revenge.