Characters / For Love Nor Money

Characters in the series For Love Nor Money.

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The Lees Family

Eamonn Lees

Normal appearance

^{Battle appearance}

A young boy from the backstreets of Dublin who, after murdering his uncle out of revenge, starts down a dark path of violence and crime after he emigrates to the United States to escape justice.

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• 10-Minute Retirement: Eamonn takes a short break from killing after being critically injured during a vicious battle with Frank McGregor of the Belfast mob.
• The Ace: Is highly competent at what he does, killing people quickly, discreetly and without fuss.
• Adorable Abomination: If you met Eamonn, as a 13-year-old-boy, you would never imagine that behind his fluffy brown hair and piercing green eyes, he is an extremely violent and mentally unhinged killer.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Completely inverted. Eamonn, even at his young age, is already corrupted by the influence his uncle has on his life. He is cold, barely showing any emotions, and there is very little to indicate what's going on inside his head. Aside from Darragh, he is emotionally distant from all those around him, even his own mother.
• Affably Evil: Eamonn is evil, as despite the best intentions he may have believed he was enacting when murdering his uncle, no amount of justification could condone what he did. However, if you approach him on a personal level, he is still a charming and polite young man regardless of his inner demons and cold-blooded calculatedness.
• Almighty Janitor: Eamonn is an incredibly talented, physically fit and mentally precise young man, proficient in superb levels of athleticism and an ability to quickly think his way around obstacles. However, in the grand scheme of things, he's simply an errand boy for far more powerful men such as Seán Hennessey, who uses him as his personal assassin.
• Always a Bigger Fish: No matter how skilled as a fighter and killer Eamonn is, he is still merely at the end of a very short leash held by Seán Hennessey.
• Ancestral Weapon: Eamonn's weapon of choice, and M1911 sidearm, was used by his late father during the Irish Civil War, and is the only relic of his dad he has in his possession.
• Anti-Hero: Eamonn starts off as a morally sound young man only trying to do what's right, but with the rape of his mother and the death of his half sister by John Lees, he is pushed off the rails and into a world of murderous intent.
• Arch-Enemy: He has several of these:
  • John Lees: The powerful though highly corrupt uncle to Eamonn, John Lees had set about a life of greed and hedonism funded through his place in political power and from strict rents collected from his tenants in the poorer districts of Dublin. At the same time, the envy he holds for his deceased brother, and Eamonn's father, meant he sought the pleasure of sexually exploiting his widow, Aoife, since Eamonn's infancy, leading to the latter's growing hatred and resulting in the mistaken birth of his half-sister, Heather. Eventually, after confronting his uncle over his vile ways, Eamonn was forced to watch as John Lees raped his mother and cut off his payments that would provide Heather with medicine for her Whooping Cough, leading to her untimely death in Eamonn's arms. This pushes the young boy completely over the edge, and in a fit of blind-rage, he sought to exact revenge on his villainous uncle, and so he killed him.
  • Seán Hennessey: Brother to his best friend, Darragh, Seán, as a long revered part of both their lives, was hoped to be the one who would set the two boys up in the United States after Eamonn had murdered his uncle and the pair were forced to flee in order to escape justice. As it is, Seán had become the leader of a vicious crime syndicate that ruled large parts of Baltimore with an iron fist, and it is through the threat of revealing Eamonn's location to the authorities, which would ultimately see him hanged for the murder of John Lees, he is drafted into the ranks of the Hennessey mob as Seán's private assassin. While there are moments where the duo share a tender and amiable moment, with Seán himself even growing to respect his new lackey, Eamonn holds his distrust of Seán close, knowing well he could be dropped at any moment with no defence.
  • None of these people, however, hold a candle to Eamonn's own worst enemy; himself. He knows full well that he is the villain of this story, a murderer who had single-handedly, and in a fit of pride-fuelled rage, sought out and murdered his uncle, John Lees, for the injustices he had enacted on his life, but in so doing had ruined his chances to find a peaceful existence and grow up to be a normal man like those around him. Instead, he now finds himself as the vicious servant of death to Seán Hennessey, pushing him further and further into the realms of the irredeemable, while also seeing him become more and more detached from his moral compass, leaving him a broken, sociopathic husk with a cold, self-loathing demeanour.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: At the beginning of the series, Eamonn, while filled with nothing but hate for his uncle, has no interest in potentially murdering him for the wrongs he has done to his family. Then he raped his mother and caused the death of his half sister...
• Awesome by Analysis: Eamonn has a keen eye for observation, seeing simple solutions to problems others would consider complicated, and using the most basic of items to circumvent obstacles. Examples include how he was able to devise a scheme to both sneak onto and sneak off the RMS Olympic while escaping to America.
• Ax-Crazy: Downplayed. While Eamonn is a largely rational and caring person, beneath his youthful exterior lies a boy tormented by years of abuse and pain that has once already pushed him over the edge of sanity and into murderous territory, making him even more unpredictable and dangerous than a regular sociopath. This side of him is fueled further by the fact that he has now been employed by Seán Hennessey to be his assassin.
• Badass Adorable: Eamonn, from initial impressions, is a somewhat cute boy with unkempt brown hair and piercing green eyes - a typical 13-year-old boy who could generally be considered cute by the standards of the time. Behind his eyes, though, there's a different story, a disturbed young man who has been mentally damaged beyond repair, and has now cemented himself as a capable and calculating murderer.
• Badass Bookworm: While having no formal education, having spent his young life working the nightshift at a local glassworks in order to make more money and sleeping during the day, he is by no means unintelligent.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: In Book 6, Darragh takes Eamonn to be fitted with a new suit, the result being an all over black outfit with a red tie.
• Bastard Understudy: Without guidance, Eamonn would not put his skills at athletics and his disregard for human life to any work. Instead, under the control of Seán Hennessey, and with the teaching of his head of security, Arthur Mulvaney, they craft the young boy into an efficient and unflinching instrument of death, one who they exploit in order to gain more and more power across the crime-ridden northeast United States.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Eamonn, in Book 1, was motivated to challenge his uncle after witnessing two of his heavies shove a tenant into a furnace for non-payment of debts, only for the subsequent rape of his mother and death of his half-sister at the hands of John Lees to result in him becoming the very thing he swore to oppose, a hired gun now under the power of the equally unscrupulous Seán Hennessey.
• Been There, Shaped History: Under the command of Seán Hennessey, Eamonn is tasked with quietly killing members of the rival Belfast mob in order to frame it in such a way that it would result in a civil war breaking out within the Belfast factions, thus seeing a large portion of its members either killed or arrested, and allowing Hennessey to rise to power as the largest criminal organisation in Baltimore.
• Being Good Sucks: Is the case for Eamonn in Chapter 1. When he confronts his uncle over the cruelty he displays to his tenants, John responds by raping his mother and cutting of his supply of payments to their family, ultimately leading to his baby sister, Heather, dying of Whooping Cough when they run out of medicine.
• Being Evil Sucks: Now that he's the private assassin and general pawn of Seán Hennessey, Eamonn has no life of his own, simply being allowed to live on the say-so of his master, while at the same time being employed as an instrument of death against anyone who threatens the Hennessey mob.
• Berserk Button: Eamonn is a generally calm and moral boy, but morality quickly dies the death after his uncle's abuses towards his family push him too far.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When he's not murdering people, Eamonn is a friendly though emotionally distant young man.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Eamonn, out of all the characters in the series, does the least talking among the main cast, probably because he's sizing up how he's going to put his victim into a coffin.
• Beyond Redemption: While Eamonn was able to successfully escape justice in Ireland after murdering his uncle, his intention when reaching America was to simply lie low, find work in his own way, and collect his own piece of the American Dream in whatever legitimate way he could. Instead, he is a boy who cannot be saved, as once Seán Hennessey catches wind of his crimes, and sets him off as his private assassin so as to maintain control of the criminal underclasses of the northeast United States, there is very little chance that Eamonn could ever be saved from this dark and terrible path, not without being either killed in battle or hanged by the authorities.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: The big guy to Darragh's little guy.
• Blessed with Suck: While Eamonn, through his association with Darragh, is thrust into a live of opulent wealth and lavish luxury by Seán Hennessey, once his reasons are revealed as to why he chose to drag him out of the gutter, the beauty of his surroundings and his sudden rise up the social ladder rapidly lose their sparkle, knowing that once again he is merely the abused pawn of another rich and influential man.
• Blood-Splattered Warrior: After single-handedly fighting and killing Frank McGregor and his entourage, Eamonn returns to his tenement dripping in blood from an injury sustained as the battle descended into close-quarter gunfire between himself and Frank.
• Boom, Headshot!: His modus operandi as a murderer.
• Break the Cutie: Eamonn begins the series as an idealistic and friendly though downtrodden young man living in a working class environment, and had circumstances not turned out the way they did, he would have likely remained on an innocent and just path, even if it ended up being largely unfulfilling. This is not how things turn out, though, as with the rape of his mother and the death of his half-sister at the hands of John Lees, what remains of Eamonn's innocence is swept away, replaced by a blackened heart filled with violence and murderous intent.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Eamonn kills at random and carries out the orders of his masters without question, but beneath his fighting abilities and cold demeanor, he always reserves a soft-spot for his best friend, Darragh.
• The Brute: Becomes this after being taken on by Seán Hennessey as his personal assassin, killing to order and with brutal efficiency.
• Byronic Hero: Eamonn, while being a polite and charming young boy to those he knows personally, is dark and brooding, emotionally sensitive and conflicted and moody, even bipolar, intensely self-critical of himself, introspective, cynical, world-weary, and jaded, yet extremely passionate, with strong personal beliefs and an almost fanatical sense of pride which even overrules common sense in some instances.
• Character Development: Starting out as a moral but unhappy young boy in the back streets of Dublin, Eamonn's experiences gradually whether down what little optimism he had for a successful life and instead turns him into a jade, emotionally distant boy who has become so detached that he is largely ambivalent to the crimes he commits, simply seeing it as a part of his job.
• Chronic Villainy: Having murdered his uncle out of revenge for the rape of his mother and death of his half-sister, Eamonn had hoped that, despite remaining impoverished, he would be able to put this behind him upon arriving into the United States. Sadly, that all changes when Seán Hennessey employs him as his personal hitman.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Eamonn Lees is not cut out for the life of crime he had chosen. Starting as a 13-year-old boy, he is driven to murder after John Lees, his abusive uncle, caused the death of his half-sister, Heather, and though his motivation was entirely based on his strong sense of pride and honour, where it leads him is down a road of crime and lawlessness which will never allow him true peace.
• Cold Sniper: After being taught the use of a sniper rifle, Eamonn enlists an M1903 Winchester rifle with telescopic sights as his long-range weapon of assassination, but also proves to be proficient with it even at close range.
• Combat Pragmatist: Is able to think quickly and devise schemes on the fly in order to defeat opponents - combined perfectly with his incredible climbing abilities.
• Consummate Professional: He never lets personal matters affect his job, keeping his emotions to himself regardless of how opposed he is to what he does.
• Cool Mask: When out working for Seán Hennessey, Eamonn dons a black ski-mask, not only to protect his identity, but also to strike fear into the hearts of those he confronts as only his piercing stare can be seen.
• Corruption of a Minor: The actions and influence of his wealthy but despicably immoral uncle, John Lees, is reflected in Eamonn's own moral code being severely skewed, leading to him seeing the option of murder as a justifiable solution following the rape of his mother and the death of his half-sister at his uncle's hands.
  • Taken further with Seán Hennessey, who employs Eamonn as a hitman within the ranks of his criminal empire.
• Corrupt the Cutie: At the start of the series, Eamonn is a warm hearted, caring but frustrated young boy pinned beneath the whim of his abusive uncle, only to be dragged into a world of villainy and murder.
  • And just as he's getting used to a new though impoverished life in America, Seán Hennessey employs him as his personal hitman.
• Creepy Child: Eamonn's piercing stare is unsettling and makes it difficult to tell what he's truly thinking.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Eamonn's battle with Frank McGregor in Book 10. The young boy may have the advantage when it comes to a stealthy first blood, but once the fight devolves into an intense, close-quarter gun battle on the streets of Baltimore, the young boy is soon overwhelmed by his foe with a shotgun round to the shoulder, and is just barely able to escape the brutish McGregor thanks to his small size allowing him to sneak behind his foe and gun him down. Even then, Eamonn nearly dies himself of blood-loss, and is only saved by Colm and the work of Dr. Fletcher.
• Cute Bruiser: He's a 13-year-old-boy with fluffy brown hair and a killing streak.
• Cute and Psycho: Eamonn looks cute, but behind his eyes he is a boy tortured mentally to the point of coming completely off the rails, seeing murder as his only option for vengeance regardless of the fact that it will forever make him an outlaw.
• Cute Is Evil: Eamonn is undeniably cute for his youthful age, but is by no means a hero, seen in society's eyes as a violent killer who murdered his uncle and now faces the gallows if he's ever caught.
• The Cynic: For his age, and in direct contrast to the more optimistic Darragh, he has a sardonic, world-weary edge.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Two events serve as the motivating factors in changing Eamonn from being a principled though emotionally distant boy into a violent killer. The first is the rape of his mother by his uncle, John Lees, in retaliation for standing up to him over his innate corruption and abuse of power over his tenants. The second is when John Lees cuts off his payments to Eamonn's family and thus meaning that they could no longer afford Whooping Cough medicine for the extremely ill Heather, the subsequent death of which tips Eamonn over the edge. The bright eyed boy who started the series was very much dead by the end of the first book, and what was left was a remorseless, emotionless and mentally unstable young man driven entirely by his unquenched thirst for revenge.
• Dark Is Evil: From Book 6, Eamonn wears a tailored black suit with a red tie as part of his getup when employed by Seán Hennessey as his private assassin, although in is heart he is fundamentally not an evil person.
  • When undertaking his duties as an assassin, Eamonn wears a much more practical all-black costume, while using a towel dipped in black ink wrapped around his head to hide his identity.
• Darker and Edgier: Unlike the characters from the series, When Heaven Spits You Out, where Ryan Hanson, and even Eamonn's future son, Peter, are impoverished and emotionally worn but still highly optimistic characters which are largely in keeping for their age group, Eamonn is an emotionally cold, morally distant boy whose personality borders on sociopathic, pushed into a life he didn't want after his pride got the better of him. Essentially it forms an interesting juxtaposition of how the world for children growing up in the United States had differed dramatically over the forty year span between the 1930s and 1970s, Eamonn having to fight, and in some cases even kill, just to survive his circumstances, while Ryan and Peter, while not having easy or pleasant lives themselves, find that day-to-day survival is something that is largely taken for granted.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Eamonn's life has been nothing but tragedy even from before he was born. Prior to his birth, his father had been killed during the Irish Civil War, meaning that in order to make ends meet, his mother, Aoife, had to put herself into the power of his jealous and perverse uncle, John, a move for which Eamonn resented her for while also resulting in her accidental impregnation with what would become his half-sister, Heather. From here, things just get worse and worse.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: The story of Eamonn basically pulls apart how a professional hitman is developed, illustrating how his mixture of circumstances, combined with his generally cold and unempathetic personality, led to him first killing his uncle out of revenge, which thus led to his spiralling future in a world of crime working as Seán Hennessey's private assassin.
• Despair Event Horizon: When Heather dies in his arms.
• The Dragon: From Book 6, he becomes Seán Hennessey's private assassin, working to undertake anonymous hits that cannot be directly linked back to Hennessey himself or his firm.
• The Dreaded: Though short in stature due to his age, Eamonn, clad in black with only his eyes showing, and physically capable of climbing anywhere he needs to go, makes him a fearsome character.
• Dirty Business: The fact that Eamonn, as a 13-year-old boy, is employed and is proficient at mass-murder is in and of itself a terribly perverse situation.
• The Dutiful Son: At the start, Eamonn essentially plays the role of both father and older brother to his baby half-sister, Heather, while his mother busies herself looking after the house.
• Elite Agents Above the Law: Within the ranks of Seán Hennessey's crime syndicate, Eamonn operates with a level of priority that exceeds his other associates, many of whom don't even know he exists, or what dark purpose he is meant to perform in Seán's service.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: While Eamonn is a cold-blooded murderer, he still harbours a little love for his mother, even if emotionally he isn't particularly well attached to her.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Played with. Despite the fact that he is a cold-blooded murderer, Eamonn's best friend, Darragh, chooses to stand by him as they attempt the seemingly impossible task of escaping Ireland so that he can avoid the death sentence.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Aoife; while Eamonn has a very distant relationship with his mother, he does still love her, although, as he admits in his parting letter to her, he was far too proud to ever say so, a trait he feels he picked up from his father. It is her rape at the hands of John Lees as punishment for standing up to him that is one of the motivating factors that pushes Eamonn off the rails of sanity and into a savage murderer.
  • Heather; despite the fact that she is technically the child of the man he hates more than anyone else, John Lees, Eamonn still adores his infant half-sister, doing whatever he can in order to help her through her Whooping Cough with ultimately futile results. It is her death that is one of the main factors that drive him over the edge into murderous territory.
  • Darragh; Eamonn's best friend with whom he grew up on the same street. While the two aren't related, Eamonn holds a far closer sentimental bond with him than he does with his own mother, often confessing his true feelings and often sharing intimate moments with him such as bathing.
• Even Evil Has Standards: After shooting the pimp, Connor Fitzpatrick, as part of his first mission, Eamonn is confronted by the blood-splattered and terrified prostitute he was with at the time, and while it would make sense for him to shoot the girl so as to remove a witness, he chooses to leave her unharmed and make his escape.
• Evil Wears Black: From Book 6, Eamonn is clad in a black suit with a red tie, matching the darkness that has now consumed his life.
• Evil Versus Evil: Given Eamonn's Villain Protagonist status, he's often involved in these kinds of conflicts:
  • Eamonn's murder of his uncle, John Lees, in Book 2 of the series, which, while not done for evil purposes, ultimately makes him evil as through this act he has flouted the law and is now to be hunted by the authorities.
  • As part of Seán Hennessey's elaborate plan to set factions of the rival Belfast mob against one another so as to claim power for himself once they've destroyed themselves, Eamonn is enlisted to murder associates from both sides so as to instigate this conflict, these men being gangsters with criminal records.
  • His first target, a pimp named Connor Fitzpatrick, his a vile flesh-peddler who strips women, who have little to no means of surviving, of their humanity - exacerbated by the fact that he 'samples' each of his contenders before putting them to work.
  • Eamonn is sent out to hunt Frank McGregor, an extremely violent mob enforcer for the Belfast gang that is known for beating women into unconsciousness and is generally a vicious piece of work.
• The Exile: For murdering his uncle, Eamonn has to go on the run and escape from his Irish home to America, taking his best friend, Darragh, along with him.
• Extreme Doormat: Eamonn's life appears to be paved entirely by the shadow of abusive, dominant men who control his destiny, starting with the suffering he endured under his uncle, John Lees, before ending up in the employ of Seán Hennessey as a private assassin.
• Face–Heel Turn: He goes from being a principled and moral young boy to a cold-blooded and remorseless killer.
• The Faceless: In battle dress, Eamonn hides his face behind a black ski-mast to both protect his identity and to strike fear into those he confronts.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Eamonn starts the series as a 13-year-old with brown fluffy hair and the face of a choirboy, which is exactly how people take him when they meet him. Little do they know that he is a highly motivated, murderous sociopath with a silent ability to kill anyone he comes into contact with - and his body count is continuing to rise regardless of his youth.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. As often stated by both himself and his mother, Eamonn has inherited from his late father a pride that often blinds him to reason, and with his deteriorating mental state, pushes him beyond the threshold of madness and leads to the start of his murderous intent.
• Fate Worse than Death: While Eamonn has avoided the noose for his uncle's murder, his half-sister is dead, he's been forced to abandon his mother and his homeland, and has now been employed as the personal assassin of Seán Hennessey, essentially turning him into the very thing he swore he'd never be, the enforcer of a vicious and powerful man.
• Fighting Irish: Eamonn is from Dublin, and it is now his primary function in life to go out and kill people at the whim of Seán Hennessey.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Having put up with his uncle's abuse for long enough, Eamonn is driven from an impoverished teenage urchin working nights at a Dublin glassworks to a ruthless murderer who starts his criminal career by shooting John Lees.
• Genius Bruiser: Eamonn may be young, but he demonstrates an incredible level of intelligence, even in spite of him never having had a formal education. He can concoct plans at the drop of a hat and enact them with an almost scientific precision, even accounting for factors which would otherwise scupper or drag down the result. This, applied to his new-found violent tendencies, make him a skilled fighter and calculating murderer.
• The Gunslinger: While Eamonn is not proud of the fact that he's now a gun-toting murderer, he apparently is quick to warm to the idea that simply being in possession of his father's old handgun helps him to win every argument he encounters, such as threatening the driver of the Bentley he and Darragh hide in so as to enter the USA, and even considers using it to blast their way out of the pawn broker's shop if things went south with Darragh's attempt to hawk a candlestick holder he stole.
• Heartbroken Badass: His motivations as to being a murderer were fuelled entirely by the death of his infant half-sister, perhaps the only person in the world he truly loved.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Eamonn and Darragh. They are apparently quite intimate with each other as friends, even bathing naked with each other and confessing their personal thoughts and feelings with each other in a manner they never would with their own parents. Eamonn even lampshades this by pointing out that the reason his mother hates Darragh so much is because he could find a friend in the latter more than the former. Their connection is so deep that Darragh is even willing to emigrate to the USA with Eamonn despite the hardships they must endure.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: In Book 6, when Eamonn is brought before Seán, Darragh has him taken to a bathhouse in order to be thoroughly cleaned before being presented with underpants and a tailored suit, turning him from a paint-covered, dirt ridden urchin into a sophisticated looking young man.
• He Who Fights Monsters:
  • Eamonn makes it more than evident that he despises everything about his uncle and the perversion he reaps on those around him, especially his mother, and when he chooses to challenge him directly, John Lees opts to rape his mother and leave his half-sister to die of Whooping Cough. To kill the perceived monster of his life, Eamonn resolves to murder his uncle out of revenge and honour, even though this in turn makes a monster out of him.
  • He eventually comes full circle as the very thing he swore to destroy when, due to his record as a murderer, Seán Hennessey takes him on as his own personal assassin, thus making him, as he's quick to point out, no better than the pair of thugs that his own uncle had used to terrorise his workmates down at the glassworks in Dublin.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Eamonn, even before he starts down his dark path, clearly harbours a deep-seated self-loathing, centred around his poor position in society, the exploitation of his malicious uncle, the practically non-existent relationship he holds with his mother, and the fact that he is unable to do something meaningful about it. After his murder of John Lees, these are amplified ten-fold, as he his now perfectly conscious that he is the villain of this particular story, and in so doing has ruined any chance he may have of living a normal life.
• Hitman with a Heart: While Eamonn now works as Seán Hennessey's personal assassin, he still has a lot of sentiment and care for Darragh, perhaps the only person in the world he has any connection to.
• Hot-Blooded: Eamonn is fuelled by his pride and an underlying temper, but masks it with stoicism and Tranquil Fury.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Plays with this trope when he admits to Colm what he does for Seán Hennessey in Book 8, knowing that if he doesn't he'd be handed over the the authorities and put to death before he knew what hit him if he doesn't comply.
• Implacable Man: If you're not expecting his arrival, it's almost impossible to beat him.
• In the Back: This is how he killed Frank McGregor.
• Invincible Villain: His invulnerability comes from his ability to sneak up to targets and dispose of them without them even knowning what's hit them, or by the time they realise he's there, it's far too late to effect an escape. Fighting Eamonn in hand-to-hand combat is less about defeating him and more about 'surviving' him.
• Irony: Eamonn once abhorred John Lees for sending heavies to violently demand rent payments from his tenants, now he has essentially filled that very role as Seán Hennessey's personal assassin - a point even lampshaded by Eamonn himself.
• It's Personal: The killing of John Lees: in revenge for raping his mother and causing the death of his half-sister.
• I've Come Too Far: The only reason he doesn't just leave Seán Hennessey's service is the fact that Hennessey knows of his crimes and is quite willing to share them with the authorities if he finds Eamonn is becoming unruly or unreliable in his work. However, as time progresses, he starts to warm to Hennessey and loses his guilt over the people he's murdered, meaning that he is now beyond redemption both in the eyes of the law but also in his own eyes.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Eamonn starts the series being somewhat optimistic though already world-weary due to his uncle's abuse. After his dive into a criminal world, he becomes more and more emotionally unattached from his surroundings, and his once youthful and prominent smile begins to fade to a near permanent scowl.
• The Juggernaut: Is able to easily slay Frank McGregor and his entourage, only finding difficulty with McGregor himself.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: His fall into madness is relatively quick, as he goes from an optimistic but downtrodden young boy to a determined, cold-blooded killer at almost the drop of a hat. However, it is very clear that due to the abuse he has suffered at the hands of his uncle, John Lees, he was already borderline sociopathic, and the rape of his mother and death of his half-sister were merely the catalysts that gave him that one final push.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: The little impoverished boy of Ireland grows up to become a murderous psychopath with a killing streak a mile long.
• The Kingslayer: In Book 2, he single-handeldy murders John Lees, a high ranking member of the Irish parliament and a corrupt overseer of impoverished families in the cramped Dublin streets - not even all his heavies and lackeys could stop the boy from putting a bullet between his eyes.
• Knight of Cerebus: Unless he's among friends, when Eamonn shows up, all levity ends and death begins.
• Knight in Sour Armour: While the protagonist of the series, Eamonn is very much a villain in the eyes of society, and he knows this full well. Therefore, he takes a cynical view of the employment Seán Hennessey lines up for him as his personal assassin.
• Le Parkour: Eamonn is demonstrated to be a superb climber, using his dexterity and skill not only in his civilian capacities, but also when carrying out his more criminal activities.
  • At the start of the series, he's shown to put his climbing skills to use in the glassworks, clambering high up into the factory's extensive pipework to fix some machinery.
  • In Book 2, he uses his skills to scale up the drainpipe and climb into the window of John Lees' bedroom in order to murder him.
  • In Book 3, he scales the anchor chain of the RMS Olympic and up the side of its hull in order to escape Ireland with Darragh after murdering his uncle.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: He's evil and he's killed many people, and he absolutely hates his boss Seán Hennessey for keeping him in the terrible employ of his own private assassin, but despite this, his motivations for doing what he does are far less evil than those of his master, Hennessey, who assigns Eamonn to his murderous duties as part of his desire to acquire power and control in as many places as he can, even if his ambition will embrace a rival or two.
• Living on Borrowed Time: Eamonn knows that Seán Hennessey has him trapped, and could dispose of him at any time once he has outlived his usefulness. Until then, he simply has to prolong this as much as he can by being a loyal and dedicated servant, regardless of the suffering he inflicts.
• Love Redeems: The only thing stopping him from falling completely off the deep end is his love for Darragh.
• MacGyvering: Eamonn has an innate ability to craft a plan out of just about anything, so long as he has a little time to think through how he's going to make it work.
• Malevolent Masked Man: In battle mode, he dons a black ski-mask that helps to not only hide his identity, but also strikes fear and intimidation into both his targets but also any witnesses.
• Married to the Job: For each kill, Seán Hennessey gives him a generous reward that makes him perhaps the richest person under the age of 20 in the city. But despite this, Eamonn does not enjoy much comfort or luxuries, and instead spends more of his time dedicated to his job rather than relaxing. His only moments of levity are in the presence of Darragh, who rekindles in him a childhood innocence that would otherwise be lost.
• Meaningful Name: The name 'Eamonn' is of Irish descent, and means wealthy protector. Given his impoverished place in life, the choice of this moniker could be considered somewhat ironic. It could also be a reference to Éamon de Valera, a leading figure in the anti-treaty Irish forces of the Civil War, which was the side on which Eamonn Lees' father fought and died.
• Momma's Boy: Inverted. He has a very cold and emotionless connection with his mother due to the perceived shame of her being the whore of his uncle, John Lees. In reality, he understands why she took this path and secretly forgave her a long time ago, his pride being the only barrier that kept him from telling her himself.
• Mouth of Sauron: Serves as the displeased voice of Seán Hennessey, his displeasure being expressed usually through a bullet, an explosion, or a knife to the gut.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: For Eamonn, murder is the 'only' solution.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After murdering his uncle, John Lees, Eamonn is visibly shaken by what he's done when he goes to meet Darragh in order to make their escape.
  • He has another brief instance of this when he sees what has become of his life now that he's reached America, shedding his family home and all he knew for a claustrophobic tenement filled with strangers.
  • It becomes less of a problem for him though as the series progresses - he kills without mercy, but the impact is far less profound on him than before.
• Naïve Newcomer: When first reunited with Seán Hennessey, despite the fact that he knows he was a petty criminal in his previous life back in Ireland, Eamonn is quick to be enamoured by the luxury life his best friend's brother has garnered for himself, not questioning how such luxuries were acquired in the mere timespan of only six years without there being some chicanery. It's only after Seán enlists him under duress as his personal assassin that he realises how deep he has inadverantly let himself into a wealthy but immoral criminal life.
• Never Bareheaded: Early in the series, Eamonn spends a majority of his time wearing a dusty great flatcap.
• Noble Top Enforcer: Eamonn is Seán Hennessey's personal assassin, and therefore holds a rank higher than most of the heavies who help to maintain his mob's control over the city of Baltimore. However, unlike those around him, who give way to acts of hedonism and debauchery as rewards for their work, Eamonn lives quietly and stoically reflects on the mistakes of his life.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: His first instinct when dealing with any opponent is to go in as fast and brutally as possible, using the element of surprise as his greatest weapon when overcoming his victims.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: John Lees likely believed that because Eamonn was merely a boy, anything he did to harm his family would not come with any repercussions. As is, Eamonn, driven by an almost insane sense of pride, plans and executes an almost professional hit on him, and from there things just get worse and worse.
• Not So Stoic: When he's around Darragh, a childhood innocence and vulnerability long thought lost is rekindled, and the pair engage in the same foolish antics each of them used to do back home in Dublin - a fleeting glimpse into the boy that once occupied the empty soul that is now Eamonn Lees.
• Obviously Evil: He wears a black suit and has a piercing stare that makes those around him squemish.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: People fail to take Eamonn seriously because of his age, especially his uncle, who believes that him simply being a boy means he has no ability to fight back. Not-So-Harmless Villain ensues.
• One-Man Army: Demonstrated early on when he single-handedly fights and kills Frank McGregor and his cronies with only a sniper rifle and a side-arm while they have shotguns and pistols, Eamonn escaping with a shoulder-wound.
• The Penance: A part of Eamonn feels that becoming Seán Hennessey's personal assassin is what he deserves for destroying everything he cared about.
• Perpetual Frowner: While there are times when Eamonn smiles, in most cases he spends his days with a frown of deep thought and regret. Then again, considering his position, he has little to smile about.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: The entire series centres around Eamonn going from an idealistic though prideful young boy in a working class Dublin slum to a violent, emotionally cold and mentally unhinged killer who struggles to hold on to his humanity.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Eamonn and Darragh are incredibly close to one another as friends, often sharing intimate moments with one another in a manner that many of even the closest of friends wouldn't do. This includes sleeping together, bathing together, and their willingness to put themselves through personal hardship in order to help their friend through tough situations, even if it means making a terrible sacrifice.
• Punchclock Villain: There's nothing to indicate that Eamonn particularly enjoys killing people, he just sees it as a necessary part of his job in order to stay one step ahead of the law.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Eamonn manages to evade the law and escape Ireland with his best friend to try and find a new, more prosperous life in America. However, this comes at the cost of murdering his uncle and abandoning his mother. Plus he seems to be concious of the fact that he truly is the bad guy in all this, but he can't get away from it.
• The Quiet One: Eamonn is a character who does very little talking when he's not around Darragh, carrying out both his legitimate work and his criminal activities in cold and calculating silence.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: He wears a black suit with a red tie when he's not in his battle costume.
• Revenge Before Reason: Eamonn's desire to avenge himself upon John Lees is ultimately what destroys his place in society and leads him into the power of Seán Hennessey.
• Run or Die: Unless you know he is coming, Eamonn has likely already killed you by the time you find out he's on your tail. However, as is shown with Frank McGregor, while he was able to dodge the first salvo from Eamonn, he can only run for his life when a hail of bullets gradually pick-off his lackeys one-by-one until he's the only survivor, leaving him no choice but to stand and fight.
• Sadist: Eamonn is usually not this, instead preferring to handle things pragmatically and as quickly as he can.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Knowing he'd definitely hang for it, Eamonn chooses to avenge himself upon John Lees for the rape of his mother and the death of his half-sister, sending him spiralling into a world of crime from which he can never escape.
• Secret Identity: Aside from Seán Hennessey, his second in command, Arthur Mulvaney, Darragh and Colm, no one knows that Eamonn, who poses simply as a companion for Darragh in the Hennessey household, is his personal assassin.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Eamonn starts the series as an impoverished but well-meaning young boy working nights at a Dublin glassworks in order to support his desperately ill sister and widowed mother. However, after his corrupt uncle, John Lees, rapes his mother and cuts off his payments to keep his sister alive, Eamonn jumps the rails morally and claims his revenge through brutal, cold-blooded murder, starting a spiral throughout the series with increasingly dire consequences.
• The Sociopath: Subverted; Eamonn isn't a violent or sadistic person at heart, but because he's been pressed once too often, to the point that his sanity jumped the rails into murderous territory, he had no qualms about shooting his uncle out of revenge.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Eamonn barely ever speaks, and when he does his tone is clearly subdued.
• Son of a Whore: In order to keep her family financially buoyant, Aoife is forced to have sex with John Lees, her brother-in-law, so as to get access to his money, something that doesn't sit well with her son, Eamonn.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Eamonn gives an aggressive exterior and does vicious things, but inside he is a broken and beaten person who knows he has destroyed his life and any chance he had of a future.
• Start of Darkness: With the rape of his mother and the death of his half-sister, thanks directly to his uncle, John Lees, Eamonn starts down a dark path that will consume his life.
• The Stoic: While his emotions give away his true feels, Eamonn is a boy who never vocalises his anger or frustrations through yelling or wanton violence, when he kills, he kills methodically, devising a plan to get him in and out without being caught or killed himself.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Eamonn is an emotionally disturbed boy even when we meet him in Book 1. While he shows a great amount of affection and caring for his best friend, Darragh, and his half-sister, Heather, these are the only times we see any genuine enjoyment or happiness in his life - these two characters being a form of escapism for him against the misery of his working-class surroundings. Otherwise, when alone, he is an incredibly quiet and stone-faced young man who never truly shows any real emotion, and following him murdering his uncle, John Lees, he continues to be come more and more emotionally detached to the point that he almost turns into a robot.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Subverted. While the murder of John Lees, for the rape of his mother and causing the death of his half-sister, could be considered justified, his actions become increasingly morally questionable as the series progresses.
• Taught by Experience: Having murdered his uncle, been employed as a personal assassin to a fanatically ambitious mob boss, who also happens to be his best friend's brother, murdering dozens of people and even taking a shotgun round to the arm during an especially brutal street fight with a violent enforcer, Eamonn has learned many lessons on how to measure himself and his abilities.
• Teens Are Monsters: Eamonn starts the series as a 13-year-old boy, and by the end of the second book has already claimed his first victim.
• Took a Level in Badass: From the night-working assistant at a glassworks, Eamonn has graduated far beyond his meagre origins, not only murdering his uncle out of revenge, but also brutally assassinating multiple people with a variety of weapons and even going toe-to-toe against four heavily armed men in a brutal gunfight on the streets of Baltimore.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Over the course of the series, he goes from being an impoverished through bright-eyed young boy with dreams of finding fortune and prosperity to a disillusioned, beaten and pessimistic man with a healthy self-loathing and no hope for any future beyond the miserable prison he has created for himself.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Eamonn's desire to kill John Lees spurred from his often overwhelming sense of pride, demanding revenge for the rape of his mother and death of his half-sister at his hands. This, however, blinded him to the fact that this ruined his life forever, and now he is to remain a criminal, always on the run and protected solely by the employment of his dubious master, Seán Hennessey.
• Tragic Villain: Eamonn's only motivation to start out is to avenge the death of his half-sister and the rape of his mother, pushing him to murder his corrupt and abusive uncle.
• Tranquil Fury: Eamonn becomes this himself, when after John Lees had raped his mother and caused the death of his sister, he turns into a cold and calculating murderer in order to exact his revenge, never raising his voice or giving big, elaborate speeches, just pulling the trigger without emotion.
• Troubled Teen: When we're introduced to Eamonn, he's a boy with basically no emotional connection to his mother due to the year's she's spent being the whore of his uncle, an unfortunate but unavoidable situation his pride cannot comprehend. While he finds an escape through his best friend, Darragh, the abusiveness of his uncle and the death of his father before he was born are mental shackles that lead him closer to his inevitable breakdown, leading ultimately to his plunge into murderous intent following the rape of his mother and the death of his half-sister thanks to John Lees.
• True Companions: With Darragh.
• Trying Not to Cry: At Heather's funeral.
• Undying Loyalty: Eamonn and Darragh, two friends devoted to one another even through the toughest moments.
• Unskilled, but Strong: At the start, Eamonn clumsily stumbles his way into a life of crime by impulsively murdering his uncle, John Lees, with his father's old side-arm. Through training with Arthur Mulvaney, though, he soon learns the use of additional weapons and is able to proficiently administer death upon the enemies of Seán Hennessey.
• Unwitting Pawn: Eamonn is largely unaware of Seán Hennessey's master plan for rearranging the face of Baltimore's crime scene by destroying the competition. At first it appears that all the killings he is performing are random, but as the story progresses it is revealed that Seán's overarching scheme was to kill members of the rival Belfast Mob and frame the murders on opposing factions within this crime syndicate, leading to a bloody gang war that would see the high-ranking leaders of the mob either killed or arrested, making the Hennessey the primary crime syndicate of the northeast United States.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: In Book 1, we get a glimpse of what Eamonn was like in his generally 'true' form, a loving and compassionate, though prideful and headstrong, young man who cared deeply about his best friend, Darragh, and infant half-sister, Heather - although he was emotionally distant from his mother. After his mother's rape and half-sister's death at the hands of John Lees, though, his compassion disappears and he becomes a motivated killer, blinded by his pride and unquenched thirst for revenge that it ultimately leads him onto a dark road of crime.
• Villain Protagonist: No matter what way you look at it, Eamonn Lees is a cold-blooded murderer, even though his choice to take this violent path was done with arguably the best intentions.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His reasons for murdering John Lees and thereby forcing his escape from Ireland were done in order to seek justice for the death of his half-sister, Heather, and the many abuses caused by him against both Eamonn and his mother.
• When He Smiles: Given his ultra-serious situation, he rarely smiles. When he does though, it's very welcome.
• Working-Class Hero: Eamonn's origins are from the tightly packed terraced houses of Dublin, working the night-shift at a nearby glassworks.
• Young Gun: A 13-year-old Eamonn once he takes possession of his father's old handgun and uses it to murder his uncle, leading him down a road of crime and lawlessness.

Aoife and Heather Lees

Eamonn's long-suffering mother who and infant sister. Aoife, as a widow, is unable to work in the strict society of contemporary Ireland, and thus is forced to be the sexual plaything of her brother-in-law, John Lees, for his money. Heather, meanwhile, is the infant half-sister of Eamonn who was conceived accidentally through the sexual exploitation of John Lees with Aoife.

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• Adorably Precocious Child: Heather, as a baby, is not only adorable with her big eyes and innocent expressions, but is completely devoid of sin, unlike the violent, corrupted and general despicable people that surround her.
• A Mistake Is Born: Heather Lees. She was conceived through the sexual arrangement between John Lees and his sister-in-law, Aoife, but although she is John's daughter, a man her half-brother, Eamonn, despises, he still showers her with love as if she were fully his sister.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Even in the last few minutes of her life, Heather is still a beautiful little baby to Eamonn as he holds her close.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Lees Family. Eamonn's father had died long-ago during the Irish civil war, and his mother is forced to have sex with his uncle in order to pay their way, even resulting in the accidental birth of his half-sister, Heather.
• Child by Rape: Heather, who was conceived accidentally through John Lees' sexual exploitation of his sister-in-law.
• Incurable Cough of Death: For Heather, it is a literal example as she is suffering from Whooping Cough, which, in 1933, was a widespread killer, especially among infants. She ultimately succumbs to the illness by the end of Chapter 1.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Due to John Lees cutting off their money out of spite, Aoife outlives her seriously ill infant daughter, Heather..
• Parental Issues: Eamonn has a very distant relationship with his mother due to her not liking his friendship with Darragh, and for being his uncle's whore in order to pay for their basic needs.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Aoife, much like her son, has a very divisive personality when it comes to her emotional attachment to people. On the one hand, she can be very affectionate to Eamonn and console him when he's in his darkest moments, but on the other hand doesn't ever seem to have that much to say to him, their conversations usually ending before they've even begun. It's likely that her years of torment at the hands of her brother-in-law have dulled her emotional state to the point that she barely exhibits any genuine love for anyone, and when she does it's very skin-deep.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Heather Lees lives and dies within the first chapter without saying a word, with most of her backstory told by Eamonn and Aoife. Then again, she is only a baby.

John Lees

Eamonn's uncle, John Lees is a corrupt and sadistic politician who revels in the exploitation of those around him using Eamonn's mother as his own personal sex toy, and being the father of his half-sister, Heather.

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• 0% Approval Rating: John Lees is a man reviled by pretty much everyone he encounters due to his manipulation and aggressive abuse of power, least of all by his immediate relatives Eamonn, and his sister-in-law, Aoife, who he sexually exploits for his own gratification. Needless to say, after Eamonn had murdered him, few are truly sad to see him dead and gone.
• Affably Evil: If you encountered John Lees when he wasn't in the middle of brutally assaulting his tenants or raping his sister-in-law, he would come across as a soft-spoken, cultured and charismatic man wearing expensive suits and riding around in Rolls-Royces, a typical politician for the era, but one hiding extremely dark pleasures and pass-times.
• All Abusers Are Male: John Lees, Eamonn's uncle, is a man who sexually exploits his mother, Aoife, in exchange for payments. He is also an unforgiving landlord to his tenants, sending his heavies in a violent response to anyone who fails to pay their rent on time.
• All Men Are Perverts: John Lees makes no qualms about his sexual abuse of Eamonn's mother, Aoife, but whether this is due to his own perversion, or a chance to have dominance over something that once belonged to his late, superior brother, is its own mystery.
• Arch-Enemy: To Eamonn. As illustrated through flashbacks, John Lees' abuse of Eamonn's family has existed since he was a very young child, building up a vicious resentment in the boy which not only drives him away from his mother, Aoife, but also creates within him a vicious pride which eventually spills over into murder.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: John Lees forms part of the established gentry through his position in the Irish parliament, and abuses it no end to satisfy his pleasures.
• Asshole Victim: John Lees. For his prolonged abuse of his family, the rape of his mother and causing the death of his half-sister, he is punished for his crimes by a bullet to the face, courtesy of his nephew, Eamonn.
• Bad Boss: While he treats some of his subordinates fairly, in general, John Lees has no respect for anyone. Even though Michael, his loyal chauffeur, doesn't appear to be treated harshly, he is forced to restrain Eamonn and make him watch as Lees rapes his mother.
• Big Bad: John Lees is this of Eamonn's story, being responsible for much of the misery in his life by sexually abusing his mother constantly before cutting off his payments to his family out of naught but spite, resulting in his baby half-sister's death.
• Big Fancy House: John Lees' manor in Dublin, a two-storey monstrosity with many lavish rooms.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: John Lees is an imposing man who towers over his nephew, Eamonn, a visual metaphor as to his position over the young and impoverished boy.
• Brains Evil, Brawn Good: While Eamonn is strong, athletic and good, John Lees is clever and evil with a vicious streak.
• The Bully: John Lees likes to use his money and political power to intimidate those he considers beneath him, be they his tenants or even his own relatives.
• The Caligula: While he's not exactly the ruler of Dublin per se, being only a high ranking member of the Irish parliament, he uses his position to abuse and intimidate those beneath him, primarily through the harsh rents on his tenants which, if left unpaid, are severely punished. He also sexually exploits his sister-in-law as a means of finding gratification over his late brother.
• Classic Villain: John Lees is a Pride/Lust villain. He is a politician that is fully convinced of his superiority by way of his position, and enforces it with an iron will through his harsh system of rents, while his sexual control of Aoife is done to gratify himself in the fact that he possesses something that once belonged to his far superior brother.
• Corrupt Politician: John Lees states that he has a seat on the Dail, or parliament of the Irish Republic, hence his extreme wealth and influence. However, he frequently uses his power to manipulate and intimidate those beneath him, including violent ramifications for his tenants if they fail to pay their rents on time, and sexually abusing his sister-in-law.
• Dark Is Evil: Wears black succession of black or dark grey suits and is a thoroughly despicable individual.
• Evil Is Bigger: John Lees is notably taller than those he interacts with.
• Evil Is Petty: John Lees, who is already a powerful and unequivocally cruel man, does not take kindly to criticism. When Eamonn confronts him as to his vicious nature, rather than simply brushing this off, he chooses to punish Eamonn by raping his mother and cutting off his payments to his family, leading to the untimely death of Eamonn's half-sister, Heather, from Whooping Cough.
• Evil Wears Black: He is evil and all the suits and clothes he wears are black.
• Faux Affably Evil: John Lees, despite his inherent cruelty, is a charismatic and calculating man, never raising his voice and speaking in a generally polite manner, even after he's just raped Eamonn's mother.
• Green-Eyed Monster: As stated by Eamonn, the reason as to John Lees' abuse and sexual exploitation of his sister-in-law is rooted in his envy against his far superior but deceased older brother, now gratifying himself in the fact that he possesses something that once belonged to his sibling.
• Hate Sink: John Lees is a corrupt and sadistic human being who revels in his abilities to intimidate and persecute his lessors, including the tenants who pay rents to him, and his own relations.
• Heel Realization: For a second, right at the very end, when he realises he has pushed his nephew once too often, the silent fear on his face seems to illustrate that, despite all his wealth and power, it can't protect him from a boy with nothing left to lose, and his late-brother's gun pointed right at his head.
• Hypocrite: For all his talk in the Irish parliament about the dreadful situation of poverty in the country following the 1929 Wall Street Crash, he's quite willing to exploit and revel in the misfortunes of the poor by charging them extortionate rents on their properties and sexually abusing his sister-in-law due to her own impoverished state.
• Incest-ant Admirer: John Lees towards Eamon's mother Aoife.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: On the surface, John Lees appears to be simply an arrogant, priggish politician, but delve into his heart and you find a petty man consumed by envy for his superior older brother who did everything he could and climbed over anyone he needed to in order to reach the top, having no care or value for anyone except himself, and working simply to exploit the fruits of his position by abusing those beneath him.
• Karmic Death: For his crimes against Eamonn Lees and his family, John Lees meets a sticky end at the hands of his nephew.
• Lack of Empathy: If sexually exploiting his sister-in-law and abusing his tenants are bad enough, for the simple crime of standing up to him, he chooses to punish Eamonn by cutting off the payments he made to his family, knowing full well they could no longer afford the Whooping Cough medicine needed to keep the seriously ill infant Heather alive. What's worse is that Heather is in fact John Lees' accidental daughter, conceived through his sexual relationship with Aoife.
• Large and in Charge: For the scenes set in Ireland, he is both the tallest character in the series and the highest authority.
• Loan Shark: John Lees, despite being a member of the Irish parliament, is shown to be a landlord on the side, one who has no reservations to using extreme violence in order to make sure his tenants pay.
• Lust: A major defining trait of John Lees' character is his lust, a sign of the decadance of his life, reaching a position where he can sexually abuse women of a lower standing or in an unfortunate situation for his own gratification.
• Moustache Twirling Villain: John Lees is a despicable and corrupt character, whose upper lip is complimented by a suave moustache.
• Offstage Villainy: As described by Eamonn, during the Irish Civil War, during which Eamonn's father was killed fighting for the future of his country, John Lees chose to flog weapons to both sides for profit, making him the rich and influential man he ended up as at the start of the series.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Type C. He's competent and cunning enough, but there are also times where he just comes off as petulant, as is the case where, for a minor rebuke from Eamonn, he chooses to respond by raping his mother.
• Sadist: Everything evil he does he does so with a smile, including raping his sister-in-law and leaving his own daughter to die of Whooping Cough.
• Seven Deadly Sins: He has the dubious honour of not only committing all Sins, but doing them with a smile:
  • Pride: He strongly believes in his own superiority, considering that any actions he undertakes and how they harm others are simply a means to an end.
  • Lust: Enjoys sexually exploiting his sister-in-law as a means of gratifying himself and possessing something that once belonged to his superior brother.
  • Greed: As revealed by Eamonn, during the Irish Civil War he flogged guns to both sides for profit, and has since expanded his fiscal situation through harsh rents being placed on his tenants. His sexual abuse of Aoife is also a means of possessing his brother's widow and taking what was once his for himself.
  • Envy: The very basis of his sadistic characteristics are due to a deep-seated envy of his older brother.
  • Wrath: Enacted more subtly than most and in various ways, ranging from the use of his heavies, who will violently punish anyone who fails to pay their rents to him on time, to directly dishing out retribution as per raping his sister-in-law and leaving his own daughter to die of Whooping Cough.
  • Sloth: Never takes responsibility for his own greed and sadism, blaming Aoife for not having raised her son properly, thus resulting in him raping her as a means of punishing Eamonn for standing up to him.
  • Gluttony: If done by one of the alternative interpretations, namely selfishness.
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Being devout Catholics, the idea of extramarital sex is considered a sin within its teachings. However, this does not faze John Lees, who enjoys his sexual exploitation of his sister-in-law to satisfy his greed and desire to possess something that once belonged to his far superior brother.
• Smug Snake: John Lees, who is abusive, sadistic, cruel and manipulative, but through it all maintains an unflinching smile of superiority.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Only appears in Books 1 and 2, and in a flashback during Book 4, but it's his actions and presence which decides the entirety of Eamonn's future.
• Snarky Villain, Earnest Hero: He is a smug and sarcastic man who revels in other people's misfortunes, while Eamonn is a gentle and earnest soul pushed to the point of madness by the former's abuse of his family.
• The Sociopath: He is profoundly narcissistic due to his bloated sense of self-importance, while his deep-seated envy demands that he climb over anyone and everyone to reach his goals, regardless of how much harm he inflicts in the process.
• Tranquil Fury: When Eamonn confronts John Lees, and insults him to his face that he could never match his deceased older brother, the latter is clearly offended, but rather than raising his voice, he calmly calls for his butler and has his servant bring round the Rolls-Royce, saving his fury for the rape of Eamonn's mother he intends later.
• Too Dumb to Live: While he likely believed that, with the rape of his mother and the death of is half-sister, Eamonn would simply do nothing in response, apparently not registering the fact that Eamonn has already had the courage to confront him once, and wears his sense of pride on his sleeve. It therefore should have seemed natural that he would want to exact his revenge, and the only way of doing so would be a life for a life.
• Vague Age: His exact age is unknown, but judging by his looks and his involvement in the Irish Civil War 13 years prior to the start of the series, he could be anywhere between 40 and 50.
• Villain Has a Point: Depending on your view of fighting in war and dying with honour, John Lees makes the point that, rather than directly involving himself in the combat side of the Irish Civil War, he opted instead to flog guns to both sides for profit, the result being that his older brother, and Eamonn's father, was killed in battle and buried in an unmarked grave out in the Irish countryside, while John made a fortune and found a seat of influence in Irish society.
• Visionary Villain: When he's not raping his in-laws, John Lees has a vision to turn Ireland into a tax haven for large international corporations in order to rectify the nation's spiralling poverty, even though he himself exploits this poverty by charging extortionate rents and punishing his tenants for non-payment.
• Wicked Cultured: Given the manner of his dress and the style of his stately manor, John Lees, despite his inherent cruelty and sadism, is a highly cultured individual, though this does not subtract from his hideous acts.
• Would Hit a Girl: Solely to teach Eamonn a lesson in respect, John Lees chooses to rape his mother before his very eyes.
• Would Hurt a Child: While he doesn't directly hurt him, in order to punish Eamonn, he not only rapes his mother before his eyes, he also cuts off his payments and leaves their family without Whooping Cough medicine, causing the death of his infant half-sister, Heather..

The Hennessey Family

Darragh Hennessey

Eamonn's loyal best friend and brother to Seán Hennessey who emigrates to America with Eamonn to start a new life.

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• Adorably Precocious Child: Darragh, unlike Eamonn, still retains much of the innocence that should be expected for a child of his age, although he does possess a more devious side such as being something of a petty criminal, a trait carried over from his brother.
• Affectionate Nickname: 'Me Brother' by Eamonn.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Compared to Eamonn, a cold-blooded murder, and Seán, a ruthless mob boss, Darragh is the closest any of the main cast come to having a shred of innocence left.
• Cheerful Child: Compared to the abject misery of Eamonn's life, Darragh is shown to enjoy most things he encounters in life and often has a smile on his face.
• The Cutie: Is shorter than Eamonn, has fluffy blonde hair, and is able to retain his childish innocence more than Eamonn.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: While Darragh isn't foolish per se, when compared to Seán he is somewhat naïve, clumsy, and retains a bit too much of his childish innocence that makes him either afraid or uncertain of what he needs to do, relying on Eamonn to come up with the ideas in order to help the pair get by.
• Forbidden Friendship: While not forbidden, Aoife has a very low opinion of Eamonn's friendship with Darragh due to his family's apparent history of being ne'er-do-wells.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Darragh possesses something of a dirty blonde head of hair, but is full of dedication and a knowledge of right and wrong, willing to help support his best friend, Eamonn, whatever the game.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Eamonn and Darragh. They are apparently quite intimate with each other as friends, even bathing naked with each other and confessing their personal thoughts and feelings with each other in a manner they never would with their own parents. Eamonn even lampshades this by pointing out that the reason his mother hates Darragh so much is because he could find a friend in the latter more than the former. Their connection is so deep that Darragh is even willing to emigrate to the USA with Eamonn despite the hardships they must endure.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: It's implied that Darragh wishes he had the bravery and aethletic abilities of Eamonn, rather than being The Load which is dragged around by him across their various adventures.
• Like Brother and Sister: He and Eamonn are as close as siblings.
• The Load: Darragh becomes this in places when he and Eamonn are trying to escape Ireland. Due to him lacking the bravery, athletic abilities and quick thinking of his friend, Eamonn has to do a lot of the work when trying to get them out of the country by stowing aboard the RMS Olympic and then sneaking off again when they get to New York.
• Morality Pet: To everyone else, Eamonn is cold, emotionally distance and, in some cases, out for their blood. To Darragh, however, Eamonn treats him as though he were his brother.
• Nervous Wreck: Darragh plays a confident face in situations that he can control, but when pressed to far he collapses into a quivering wreck of tears.
• Nice Guy: In comparison to the other characters of the series, including Eamonn and his brother Seán, Darragh is actually a very sweet and caring boy who acts as the emotional rock for his best friend.
• Only Friend: Darragh to Eamonn.
• Prone to Tears: When put into a situation that exceeds either his physical abilities or his bravery.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Definitely the Blue Oni to Seán's Red Oni. Darragh is a kind, gentle and understated boy, while Seán has given up all his empathy to his criminal desires and wealth.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: To Eamonn. Darragh is very open about his emotions and is far more well-adjusted to social situations than Eamonn, who, while being incredible brave and exceedingly athletic, is emotionally cold and carries with him very dark undertones.
• Sticky Fingers: Darragh seems to take a leaf out of his older brother's book by stealing items in order to pawn them off for cash, his first caper being the theft of a candlestick holder from the RMS Olympic in order to provide them with enough cash to buy passage to Baltimore, and also take a quick trip to the top of the Empire State Building.
• Undying Loyalty: Eamonn and Darragh, two friends devoted to one another even through the toughest moments.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Has incredibly bright-eyed notions as to a possible life he and Eamonn could enjoy together in America, regardless of the fact they have no money or means of getting there.

Seán Hennessey

The much-debated older brother of Darragh, who ran away to the United States 6 years prior to the beginning of the story. A petty criminal back in Dublin, Seán now indulges in his new home of the United States to become an incredibly wealthy crime boss, and tramples under foot anyone who comes between him and his vision.

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• The Ace: Heavily implied to be this. Darragh's initial postcard from him describes his success at running a business where he helps find Irish migrants in America new jobs. This is revealed to be a front for his criminal empire, as he is in fact leader of an Irish crime syndicate that controls Baltimore with ruthless efficiency.
• Ambition Is Evil: As explained by Seán, when he first arrived in America, he ended up in the gang of a small-time bootlegger called Carnahan, but soon realised that, based on his boss's lower aspirations, the Carnahan mob could be far more than it was, subject to a change of management.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: While Seán is the leader of a highly corrupt and extremely violent mob, at a personal level he is quite a friendly and welcoming man who treats both Eamonn and Darragh with respect, even if he had recruited the former to be his personal assassin. He treats them to all manner of luxuries and even takes them to play golf.
• Aloof Big Brother: Until Book 5, Seán is only ever mentioned, either through his postcards or from the various stories Darragh has to tell of him.
• Anti-Villain: Seán is a crook, whose specialities include extortion, murder, prostitution and generally corrupting the political and social fabric of Baltimore. But at the same time, unlike other villains of his class, he's not a complete madman bent on violence in order to secure power. He invests in legitimate businesses that will help to get Irish immigrants jobs, and will only use violence as a last resort, which, even then, he orchestrates in a manner that won't reflect on either himself or his organisation.
• Arch-Enemy: Through his manipulation, Seán is able to coerce Eamonn into being his private assassin, turning what was once his best friend's brother that he admired into another figure in his life there to abuse and oppress him.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Seán has an apparently extensive wardrobe of lavish suits, a clear demonstration of his wealth, while also being the cold leader of a sizable crime empire.
• Bad Boss: He employs Eamonn as a hitman even though he's only 13-years-old.
• Benevolent Boss: It's clear that, while Seán holds incredible power, he still has a certain degree of respect for those who work under him, as is demonstrated by the amiable manner with which he addresses the likes of Arthur and Charlie.
• Bait the Dog: When first met fully, Seán comes across as amiable and friendly, treating Eamonn to a fancy dinner and buying him a fancy new suit. It's only when he reveals that he knows what Eamonn has done thanks to a letter sent by his mother that we truly find out his intentions for Eamonn.
• Big Bad: It's quickly shown that, much like John Lees, Seán simply wants to use and abuse Eamonn again in order to seek his own goals, this time as his own personal assassin.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Darragh, who idolises Seán.
• Broken Pedestal: To Eamonn and Darragh. Prior to his reveal, his petty criminal antics in Dublin were seen more as something of jovial folklore which were fondly remembered by the two boys. Once it's shown how far up the ladder of crime he's ascended, Eamonn's romantic notions of him are quickly swept aside, and he finds himself quickly in his manipulative grip.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: Freely admits that he is a high-ranking criminal, and is happy to use Eamonn, who's only 13-years-old, as a tool to solve special problems.
• Characterization Marches On: Prior to Book 6, Seán has something of a legendary status among Eamonn and Darragh, his criminal antics in Dublin being reflected on fondly as simply his means of getting ahead in an impoverished world. Once he's fully revealed, however, the magnitude of his criminal activities is plainly seen through his lavish cars, palatial home, and incredible wardrobe. The only problem is that now he's become a manipulator of the highest degree, showing no warm sentiment towards Eamonn and instead seeing him as simply a tool to be used in order to achieve his own villainous ends.
• The Chessmaster: Seán is driven by an undying ambition to be better than what he currently is, and is a talented manipulator in this regard, using any tactic necessary to advance himself while not caring about the consequences it incurs onto others.
• Consummate Professional: Seán doesn't just see his organisation as a bit of flash that shows off his new-found power, but as his baby that he wants to keep running smoothly and with a clean image, even though beneath the surface it is a den of crime and vice. To this end, he makes his moves with incredible calculation and will only resort to violence if completely unavoidable.
• Cool Big Bro: Due to his success in America, Darragh idolises Seán and hopes to one day join him in his amazingly wealthy life in America.
• Cool Car: Name one, he has plenty. Be it the Rolls-Royce Drophead coupe, the Rolls-Royce touring sedan, the Alfa Romeo, the Lincoln cabriolet, the Hooper-bodied Rolls-Royce Boattail coupe, or the Cadillac sedan.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Seán uses his influence over the Irish community to get new migrants entering the United States jobs with American businesses, one of which is the shipbuilding industry which plays a major role in Baltimore's economy. However, his guise as a mediator is merely a front for his own criminal empire of bootlegging and prostitution, and he is able to sway his enormous power and money over said businesses to support his own devious ends.
• Crazy-Prepared: While Seán could easily have his own heavies going around knocking off those who he perceives as rivals, he is perfectly conscious of the fact that the fewer ties that lead back to either himself or his firm, the better it is for business, hence why he hires Eamonn as his own private assassin who works in complete anonymity, killing his enemies but without leaving any ties to himself.
• Commonality Connection: Despite having hired Eamonn to be his personal assassin, regardless of his young age, he does appear to take a strong liking to him because of the ambitions they both share to better their situations in life, though the manner in which each achieves this is highly amoral.
• Determinator: Seán wants only one thing in his life, to advance his position and acquire more power at whatever cost, and it is this determination that not only sees him drag Eamonn out of the gutter he had been deposited into, but also employ him as a hired gun that will dispose of his enemies in an anonymous manner.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: When he's revealed, he's shown to be less the lovable petty criminal Eamonn and Darragh remember him as, and instead a cold and calculating crime boss with an agenda that budges for no one whatever the game.
• The Don: While not of the Italian mafia, the lifestyle he leads definitely has a passing resemblance.
• Establishing Character Moment: Seán is seen for the first time in Book 5 when Darragh and Eamonn arrive at his nightclub, and although he is only visible through a crack in his office door for one panel, the many traits that make up his character can be seen fully on display.
  • Rather than being overjoyed to see Darragh, he is shown still writing at his desk with a look of silent concentration on his face.
  • He also shows little care for Eamonn by not allowing him to join them in the office despite him having brought Darragh across the ocean to him, and repays the young boy by dumping him in a grotty tenement with his former best friend, Colm.
  • His absolute wealth is plain to see as he sits in a lavish wood-panel office atop his own personal nightclub called 'The Blarney Stone', with at least one subordinate helping to run his organisation.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Despite being the leader of a vast criminal empire, Seán still keeps in touch with his mother back home in Ireland. It is through this connection he finds out that Eamonn has the death sentence in Dublin for murdering his uncle, thus giving him the leverage to manipulate the boy to his own twisted will.
• Evil All Along: Prior to his full reveal in Book 6, Seán was believed to be just a petty criminal who had migrated to America and turned his life around. When he's finally met though, not only has he become the head of a criminal empire and is obscenely rich, he has no qualms about employing Eamonn as a hitman once he finds out that he'd murdered his uncle back in Ireland.
• Evil Genius: Seán manipulates and contorts the world around him to better suit his needs, his crowning achievement being to use Eamonn to instigate a civil war within the rival Belfast mob by giving the impression that each of the individual bosses of that firm are turning against one another, then feeding the police incriminating evidence that leads to the arrest of Mungo Kelly, the Belfast mob's overarching leader, and thereby allowing him to become the most powerful crime lord in the northeast United States.
• Evil Mentor: Considering how much Darragh is in awe of his older brother, Seán has already begun to groom his younger brother into the lifestyle of ill-gotten gains he himself is accustomed to.
• Expy: He has a lot in common with Vito Corleone. Like The Godfather, Seán is a ruthless, yet polite, friendly mob boss who's very loyal to the protagonist.
• A Father to His Men: Treats everybody that works for him with sincere respect. In return, his subordinates, some of the most feared and dangerous criminals around, would die for him and worship him.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Compared to Darragh, Seán is confident, strong-willed, determined and fully believes in what he's doing as the leader of a criminal syndicate.
• Foreshadowing: There are a lot of reasons why Seán shouldn't be trusted, and nearly all of them were flagged early in the series by Eamonn's mother and other characters who knew him personally such as Darragh and Colm.
  • Eamonn's mother describes how, in his youth, Seán would constantly be in trouble with the law and thus require her to babysit Darragh while his own mother went down to the police station to get him out of jail.
  • Darragh's adoring stories of Seán don't paint a particularly moral picture, even recalling a time he robbed a rich house in Dublin of all its fine bone china in order to flog it for a profit.
  • Colm knows him best of all, though, as they were best friends back in Ireland - that was until Seán abandoned him and left him to a life of poverty while he cruised into a world of criminal wealth.
• Friend to All Children: Yes, while he did employ Eamonn as his personal assassin, the manner in which he treats his new subordinate, as well as his younger brother Darragh, appears to show a genuine cordiality.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: In the first five books, Seán's legacy back in Dublin is one of being merely a petty criminal trying to get ahead in an impoverished world. When we finally get a good look at him in Book 6, however, he's the head of a vast and extremely dangerous criminal organisation that wields incredible power.
• The Ghost: Until Book 5, he never appears on-screen and is only mentioned.
• Greater-Scope Villain: In the first five books of the series, the extent of Seán's villainy is, at most, a petty thief looking to get ahead in life in an impoverished world. When we finally meet him fully, though, he has graduated far beyond his previous criminal life, now the head of a syndicate which includes, at the very least, prostitution and bootlegging, while assassinations are used to destroy enemies and maintain control but without drawing attention to himself.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: He's never seen, and the only things that we know about him are the stories of those who once knew him personally, until he finally shows up in Book 5.
• An Immigrant's Tale: Seán, like Eamonn and Darragh, left Ireland six years prior to the start of the series in order to pursue a better life in the United States, pooling his money with his then-best friend Colm so as to buy passage to Baltimore.
• Informed Attribute: Until Book 5, Seán's achievements and character traits are only ever mentioned.
• Insufferable Genius: People often comment that Seán is too smart for his own good, mostly Arthur, who prefers the barn-door approach of simply going out and killing whatever's causing he firm grief, in direct contradiction to Seán's grander scheme.
• The Irish Mob: In Book 6, its revealed that Seán is the leader of a vast Irish crime syndicate which essentially controls Baltimore.
• Jerkass: Though he is initially friendly and welcoming to Eamonn, the real reason as to why he decided to drag him out of the gutter after abandoning him there four weeks earlier was simply to employ him as an assassin within the ranks of his crime syndicate, having found out about Eamonn's past through a letter from his mother.
• Lack of Empathy: Seán, rather than taking sympathy with Eamonn's reasons as to why he murdered his uncle, instead sees the boy as an opportunity to employ a new young gun into his ranks, completely disinterested in him as a person, and more as an asset to be used.
• Like a Son to Me: Essentially the way in which he treats Darragh, and to an extent Eamonn, introducing them to all manner of luxuries and striking a cordial relationship with the pair in the same way a doting father would their own sons.
• Manipulative Bastard: A passed master. Using Eamonn's murder of John Lees, and his sentencing to death in absentia back in Ireland, as leverage, he employs the young boy as his own personal assassin under threat of letting the authorities know where he is.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: His sense of style helps with him image.
• The Mentor: To Darragh.
• Non-Action Guy: Having risen to a position of extreme power and influence, Seán delegates the duties of day-to-day protection to his many heavy hands. However, for matters which require there not to be a direct connection back to either himself or his firm, he hires Eamonn to work as his own private assassin.
• Parental Substitute: To Darragh. After Eamonn brings his younger brother to him, Seán appears to show genuine care for his sibling by letting him stay at his gigantic mansion and presenting him with the finest clothes and food money can buy, essentially taking the role of the father neither boy appears to have had.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Despite his working-class upbringing, with no formal education to his name, Seán is an incredibly shrewd and calculating mob boss who only acts with violence when he knows it will serve a genuine purpose and not be a fatuous display of power to try and intimidate but at the expense of drawing unwanted attention:
  • In Book 7, he outlines his reasons as to why he employed the 13-year-old Eamonn as his personal assassin when questioned as to his motivations by Arthur, pointing out that his age is ideal for dissuading suspicion, while at the same time he already has a taste for blood, and that if he does fail and is captured/killed, there's no record of him being connected to either Seán's mob, as he entered the country illegally and no one knows he's there.
  • In Book 8, Arthur suggests that Baltimore Police Detective, Forrestal, be killed off because he fears he's getting too close, a move that Seán denies as he requires his use later, and is likely conscious of the fact that murdering a detective would bring all manner of trouble down on him.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Seán sometimes wears a pink shirt to match his dark red suit.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Seán, despite being a mob boss, is known for his fairness and cool head.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Definitely the Red Oni to Darragh's Blue Oni. Darragh is a kind, gentle and understated boy, while Seán has given up all his empathy to his criminal desires and wealth.
• Self-Made Man: Between his departure from Ireland six years prior to the start of the series, and his full reappearance in Book 6, Seán has gone from being a petty thief on the backstreets of Dublin to the leader of a crime empire that basically runs the entire city of Baltimore.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Seán's strength as a crime boss comes from the fact that he doesn't resort to violence in order to secure power, instead manipulating his enemies to destroy each other, and then moving in to take control once they've finished tearing each other to pieces.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Is never seen without a succession of lavishly woven suits in multiple matching colours.
• Shrouded in Myth: Not much is known about him aside from his previous criminal endeavours in Dublin.
• The Smart Guy: Despite having no formal education, Seán is shown to be a man of incomprehensible intelligence and manipulation when it comes to running his business and seeking power, requiring very little of his own legwork in order to destroy the rival gangs and ultimately take control as the biggest criminal organisation in the northeast United States.
• Smug Snake: He knows he has Eamonn cornered, and he loves it.
• Sophisticated as Hell: He's wise and well-spoken, but is also morally perculiar.
• Street Smart: Despite the fact that he was someone who lived in Perpetual Poverty back in Dublin, and later created a vast criminal enterprise with limited resources, he managed to be incredibly smart, cunning, compelling, and very good at reading and dealing with people.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Seán looks like an older version of Darragh, even down to his hairstyle, the only difference being his hair colour being dark brown rather than Darragh's dirty blonde.
• Unseen No More: Before Book 5, he's only ever mentioned.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Seán believes that his actions, and the tasks he sets Eamonn to do in murdering members of rival gangs, is the best course when it comes to creating his own little empire in the northeast United States, creating a utopia of vice and debauchery that happily caters to the innermost greed of the disenfranchised working classes after years under the thumb of prohibition - essentially a Robin Hood figure who styles himself as the working man's friend, when in reality he's using their meagre pleasures to line his own pockets.
• Walking Spoiler: Considering how he never showed up in the series.
• Wicked Cultured: His house is decorated with only the finest furniture, and he wears only the finest tailored suits, traits which he has extended to his employees.

Mrs Hennessey

Mother of Seán and Darragh who is seldom seen and appears to have little acknowledgement of her boys or what they get up to.

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• Anti-Role Model: Seems to take little to no interest in her son's lives, being oblivious to their actions in a majority of cases. When she doesn't take Seán to task for his criminal ways, this leads to Darragh exhibiting his own undesirable traits such as petty theft and missing church.
• Dysfunctional Family: Seán is a boy who is constantly on the wrong side of the law, and was even able to migrate to America without his mother noticing for some time, while at the same time keeping Darragh at arm's length, such as allowing him not going to church and not knowing exactly what he does.
• The Ghost: Is never seen throughout the series, but mentioned frequently. Her letter to Seán is also the deciding factor that gets Eamonn involved as his own personal assassin after she informs her son that the young boy had received the death sentence in absentia for murdering John Lees.
• Parental Neglect: Barely has any acknowledgement of her sons, and apparently didn't realise Seán had migrated to the United States for several weeks.
• Parental Obliviousness: Seems to be complete oblivious to both her son's less favourable actions, including Seán's criminal ways and the role model this makes for Darragh. Her obliviousness is of such magnitude that she didn't even know Seán had migrated to the United States for several weeks.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By simply writing to ask Seán if Darragh and Eamonn had gone to stay with him in America, she also adds that Eamonn had received the death sentence in absentia for murdering John Lees, thus ensuring the perfect leverage for Seán to force Eamonn into his ranks as a personal assassin.

The Hennessey Mob

Arthur Mulvaney

Seán's right-hand man and head of security, he oversees the general operation and protection of the mob and is assigned to assist Eamonn as he takes his place among his slew of violent enforcers.

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• Ax-Crazy: Arthur often sees violence as the only means of removing a potential threat to Seán's organisation, not considering any wider schemes that his friend and employer has in store.
• Affably Evil: While a bit more blunt than Seán, Arthur is also a touch more laddish and likes to enjoy his newfound wealth.
• Beard of Evil: Among a slew of fellow comrades with clean faces, Arthur has a notably bushy beard.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Unlike Seán, Arthur is very much in touch with the vice and violence that comes with their line of work, but Seán puts up with his somewhat banal antics as he's a good enforcer and a longstanding friend.
• The Casanova / Handsome Lech: Though not as abhorrent or obnoxious as most examples.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Arthur is the embodiment of a gangster who's met success, with flash cars, flash suits, fast women and a sense that nothing is beyond his grasp.
• Deadpan Snarker: In his interactions with Seán.
• The Dragon: Acts as this for Seán, handling his security and a lot of his other dirty work.
• Dumb Muscle: Unlike Seán, Arthur has a barn-door approach to how to deal with enemy factions, usually involving fists and small-arms fire. This, however, doesn't fit in with Seán's wider plans for reaching power through alternate means.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His massive ego. He holds a strong belief that, just because he helped Seán overrun Carnahan to become the head of the Catholic crime family in Baltimore, this immediately makes him a genius on par with his friend, either ignorant or unwilling to accept the fact that Seán's routes to success are rooted more in subtlety and a good public image rather than guns and violence.
  • There's also his complete lack of pragmatism. He simply cannot understand that violent, low thugs like him are unhealthy for Seán's wider scheme of taking over by having his enemies destroy themselves through clever manipulation.
• Lean and Mean: Unlike Seán, Arthur is both taller and thinner than his boss.
• Number Two: The second-highest ranking man in Seán's organization.
• Psycho for Hire: Arthur, unlike Seán, is clearly more prone to violence and other sociopathic options than his boss, feeling that the only way to run the organisation is through the threat of death and destruction - this doesn't sit comfortably with Seán and his own agenda as to how the business should assert itself.
• The Sociopath: Never shows sign of remorse for any of his victims. He's aware and partakes in the murder of rival factions but at no point ever questions his motiviations.

Charlie Doyle

Seán's accountant and the head of the financial operation of his organisation.

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• Consummate Professional: Even after work hours, he's constantly trying to continue his job and even bring in Seán to do the work with him.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While he works for a violent criminal empire, he is a devoted husband and father who, despite invitations to go out on what Arthur calls 'beagling' would much rather go home to his family.
• Non-Action Guy: Unlike Arthur and the other enforcers of Seán's organisation, Charlie prefers the company of his books and uses them as his own weapons to keep the firm one step ahead of the law.
• Only Sane Man: To a point. Charlie, unlike Arthur and even Seán, is not nearly as bloodthirsty or sees the need to use violence as a means to maintain the firm, but at the same time doesn't do much to oppose these actions.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Charlie's a very serious guy at heart, but he can be surprisingly warm-hearted towards friends and family.
• Undying Loyalty: To Seán.

The Tenement Gang

Colm McCarthy

Once best friend to Seán Hennessey, even pooling their money together to buy passage to America, Colm has now been abandoned to a life of poverty as his former countryman opted for a life of profitable but morally bankrupt criminality, taking Eamonn under his wing when he sees that the young boy has too been abandoned by the Hennesseys.

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• The Ace: Based on his interactions with the others of the tenement, he appears to be the leader and moral compass of its residents, being fair-minded, hard-working, loyal, reasonable, and just all-around a nice guy, even though, in his heart of hearts, he is very pessimistic due to the way life has treated him.
• Butt-Monkey: Once Seán Hennessey had finished with him, he abandoned Colm to a life of poverty in the slums of Baltimore while he pursued a more profitable life of crime. With little to no money to call his own, Colm's American Dream has, in his words, hit the buffers in the decrepit tenement he now calls home.
• The Caretaker: Despite having Eamonn dumped on him by former friend, Seán Hennessey, he immediately chooses to take care of the young boy in his time of distress in a new country, giving him a room and helping to organise a job for him.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: He's always working to keep the peace within the tenement, a task made more difficult with volatile personalities like Little Mick.
• The Eeyore: While he has a few moments of levity, Colm is gloomy and pessimistic as a result of being dumped in the Baltimore slums with no possibility of finding the American Dream he and his former friend, Seán Hennessey, had once sought.
• Good Is Not Soft: At heart, Colm is a genuinely nice man who takes Eamonn under his wing as a lost waif who's far from home, but is willing to talk back to Little Mick despite his violent temper.
• Nice Guy: Colm is perhaps the nicest character, apart from Darragh, that Eamonn has encountered on his journeys, taking on a fatherly role for the young boy and taking care of him after he accidentally incurs the wrath of Little Mick.
• Parental Substitute: Colm takes on an almost fatherly figure for Eamonn, to which the latter seems to warm to immediately, having never had a father of his own.
• The Reliable One: Enough to where Eamonn is able to confide with him of the truth of why he's really in America and why he carries around his father's gun.
• We Used to Be Friends: Colm explains that, back in Dublin, he used to be best friends with Seán Hennessey, Darragh's older brother who ran away to America 6 years prior to the events of the story, pooling their money together to buy passage aboard a tramp steamer to Baltimore. However, upon reaching the United States, Colm became surplus to Seán's ambitions, and while he disappeared off to become a wealthy criminal, Colm was left to languish penniless in the slums.

Little Mick

A diminutive man with a fiery temper who shares the Baltimore tenement with Eamonn.

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• The Bully: Due to his ferocious temper and propensity to violence, Little Mick has something of a sour reputation among his fellow roommates who like to poke fun at him.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: As described by Colm, Little Mick, like the rest of them, is a man who's had very few luxuries in life, and is therefore jealous to an almost insane degree of anyone who values something more affluent than his own meagre social position.
  • Eamonn finds this out the hard way when he asks about having a bath, only for Little Mick to take a bucket of water and throw it all over him.
• Establishing Character Moment: Literally the moment he walks in he's cussing and swearing about someone who's crossed him.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: While they are friends, Little Mick has little respect within the tenement due to his fiery temper, short stature and tendency for violence.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Little Mick, as someone who's had very few luxuries or privileges in life, is incredibly jealous of those either better than him or aspire to be better than him, possibly exacerbated by his short frame.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It doesn't take much to rile Little Mick up into a brawl, which, coupled to his almost fanatical jealousy, means crossing him is no hard task.
• Jerkass: He's envious, belligerent, and arrogant and his personality (and antics) gets on everyone's nerves.
• Kick the Dog: He regularly taunts and bullies anyone weaker than himself.
• The Napoleon: He's small in stature, and willing to fight almost anyone at the drop of a hat.
• Thin-Skinned Bully: It takes very little to upset Little Mick, his arrogance and tendency for violence fuelled by his insatiable envy of those who he perceives as better or aspiring to be better than him, not helped by the fact that he's shorter that those around him.

Big Mick

A tall man with a stylish cowboy hat and a sexual appetite that is beyond compare.

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• The Casanova: While he appears to have settled down with Millie for now, he can't help but brag about his back catalogue of previous sexual partners.
• Chivalrous Pervert: While he's obviously angry that his coitus with Millie has been interrupted by Colm, he is caring enough that, when he hears that Eamonn's been shot, he rushes to see for himself before having Millie get in contact with her father to help mend Eamonn's wounds.
• Extreme Libido: Played with in that nearly every scene he appears in, he's usually having sex with his girlfriend, Millie.
• The Hedonist: Sex is the only thing he'll spend his meagre salary on.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Loves his sex, but is also very charming and caring when he's not in the sack.
• Really Gets Around: It's shown, and discussed, that Big Mick has had a slew of sexual partners in the past, one of whom he accidentally impregnated until he had his latest girlfriend's dad undertake an abortion.

Other Characters

Detective Luther Forrestal

A Detective in the ranks of the Baltimore Police Department who has made it his life's goal to see Seán Hennessey put behind bars.

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• Action Dad: Is father to his young children and partakes in raids and other violent confrontations with Baltimore's criminal underclasses.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Luther is always seen wearing a nice suit that is befitting of his station, though this doesn't hold him back from getting down in the muck when he needs to in his battle against crime.
• Being Good Sucks: Luther comments on this when he finds himself working long hours during the civil war between the factions of the Belfast mob.
• By-the-Book Cop: While Luther is quite happy to visit Hennessey face-to-face and threaten him with jail time or worse, he's a Detective who wouldn't break the law himself in order to catch the bad guy.
• Good Is Not Soft: Luther is a family man who just wants to do his job and serve the people, but at the same time he can be rough and hard-edged when directly confronting the darker aspects of Baltimore's seedy underbelly.
• Happily Married: He mentions that he has a wife, and since he'd been spending much of his time working late to solve the civil war breaking out between the factions of the Belfast mob, he mentions that if he's a good boy he might be able to go home and see her and their children again.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: While Seán Hennessey, short of killing his adversaries, likes to bring them on board with bribes and corruption, Luther is not so easily swayed.

Frank McGregor

Enforcer for the Northern Irish Belfast mob, he is an exceptionally violent ex-boxer with a predilection towards hurting people, and is soon seen as a target by Seán Hennessey as part of his own wider plan to overthrow the Baltimore crime scene.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Frank is an exceptionally violent gangster with a reputation for causing harm to anyone and everyone he meets, thus meeting his sticky end at the hands of Eamonn after a brutal gunfight seems like an appropriate way for him to meet his end.
• Asshole Victim: He was a violent gangster and thoroughly hateful man, thus his death was certainly no great loss to the world.
• Ax-Crazy: Is proficient with firearms in close quarter battle, and has a reputation for beating prostitutes into unconsciousness to satisfy his lust for violence.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Like most of the gangsters in the city, he dresses up tight, although he has no qualms about his violence towards those around him.
• Berserk Button: After having his comrades gunned down one-by-one at the hands of Eamonn, he grabs a shotgun and goes into full killer mode, shouting taunts and curse words at his young opponent during a brutal gunfight in the streets of Baltimore.
• Blood Knight: He's a violent nut and he loves it, as expressed by his desire to beat prostitutes into unconsciousness.
• Character Death: Nearly gets the drop on Eamonn during a vicious street gunfight, but while he tries to finish off his seemingly downed opponent, the diminutive young boy slips beneath the car he was hiding behind and guns down Frank from the other side.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Likes to beat down on prostitutes, which serves to satisfy his lust for violence and hurting people.
• The Dreaded: Is such a formidable character, that even Seán Hennessey warns Eamonn as to getting into close-quarter combat with him, as he knows full well the young boy wouldn't stand a chance. Even Eamonn has to mentally prepare himself prior to the battle. Despite this, Eamonn, even after being shot himself, ultimately overcomes the towering Frank McGregor.
• Fatal Flaw: His violent mannerisms and his pride, both of which ultimately see him fall victim to Eamonn.
• For the Evulz: The way he abuses hookers is nothing but sadistic delight.
• Hate Sink: Easily one of the vilest gangsters in Baltimore, as his reputation would have you believe.
• Oh, Crap!: When he is about to finish off Eamonn, believing he is behind the car, only to find he has disappeared - only to be popped off by his opponent who had slipped quietly beneath the car to the other side.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Beats down on women and treats everyone around him, aside from his comrades, with vicious suffering.
• Psycho for Hire: Essentially nothing more than a vicious underling of Mungo Kelly.
• Reckless Gun Usage: When in combat with Eamonn, launches volley after volley of sidearm and shotgun rounds in all directions without even seeing a target.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Devolves into nothing but curse words by the end as he thinks he's got the drop on Eamonn.
• The Sociopath: As described by Seán Hennessey, he's an ex-boxer who's taken a few too many hits to the head, and now simply derives nothing but pleasure from hurting others and watching them suffer.
• Stupid Evil: Rather than fortifying his position or finding a better cover than the car, Frank chooses instead to fight Eamonn out in the open, and then approach his target for the finishing blow thinking that he's down. Such foolhardiness thus leads to his inevitable demise.
• Too Dumb to Live: Thinks that he has the drop on Eamonn without checking, and instead approaches his opponent up close to finish the job, not realising that the young boy is far from beaten.

Connor Fitzpatrick

A Northern Irish pimp of the protestant Belfast Mob, a gang in Baltimore which rivals Seán's own organisation, thereby making him an ideal target as Eamonn's first victim.

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• Asshole Victim: Connor is an intimidating and uncaring pimp who personally 'inducts' misfortunate women into the ranks of his working girls, as was the case with Lillian. Needless to say, his own loss at the hands of Eamonn isn't much of a loss to the world as a whole.
• Bald Head of Toughness: Connor has his head shaved, and is the uncaring and vicious leader of a prostitution racket that preys upon unfortunate girls with nowhere else to turn.
• Bald of Authority: Connor is the head of a prostitution racket and even employs a pair of bodyguards.
• Bald of Evil: He's a pimp whose priorities are to exploit women with nowhere else to go.
• Human Traffickers: Connor is a sleazy pimp who profiteers off of prostitution.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When 'judging' Lillian, he breaks down the fact that she takes too much time to get her clothes off, and would make most client's 'bored' waiting for her to undress.