Pat's stepfather Barnabas Drumm is another of Millie's admirers. Years before, his passion for Millie had led to his leaving the seminary where he was training for the priesthood. His marriage to Kathleen proving unhappy, he reconnected with Millie and became a frequent visitor at her house, where he has the status of a tolerated relation. When Millie goes to Christopher's house to tell him she will accept his marriage proposal, their conversation is overheard by Barnabas. Millie has allowed her cellar to be used as an arms depository by the Irish Volunteers. Pat Dumay, an officer in the organization, has been informed that an armed insurrection is planned for Easter Sunday, and comes to inspect the weapons. He encounters Millie, who informs him that she is in love with him and invites him to Rathblane, her country house in the Wicklow Mountains. Shocked, he runs away. Andrew asks Frances to marry him, and is surprised and devastated when she refuses. Later he goes to Rathblane and confides in Millie that he is not engaged to Frances and that he is a virgin. Millie kisses him and offers to initiate him sexually, but he refuses her offer and leaves. Pat and Cathal are bitterly disappointed on Saturday, when the insurrection in cancelled. In despair, Pat goes to Rathblane on Saturday night, and finds that Millie is already in bed with Andrew. He rushes out of the house, just as Christopher is arriving unexpectedly. Millie tells Christopher that she will not marry him after all, and that she has seduced Andrew and is in love with Pat. On Monday morning Andrew goes to Pat's house, unaware of the rising rescheduled for that day. Pat takes him prisoner and leaves him handcuffed to Cathal in order to keep Cathal out of the fighting. They are freed just as the insurrection is starting and the novel ends with Andrew and Cathal observing the beginning of the rising in front of the General Post Office. An epilogue set in 1938 briefly describes the later lives and deaths of several of the protagonists. Major themes The Red and the Green is the only historical novel by Iris Murdoch. Murdoch, though born in Dublin to Protestant parents, left Ireland as an infant and spent her life in England. She undertook extensive research into Irish history in preparation for writing the novel. There is considerable debate and