Book excerpt: Winnie and George tells the true and previously untold story of two individuals who lived remarkable lives, both before and after they crossed paths. Enhanced with dramatised dialogue, it is a powerful lesson in how love, once discovered, can be greater than the sum of all our divisions. Maria Winifred Carney, known to her friends as ‘Winnie’, and George McBride came from different backgrounds and lived opposing lives. She was a Roman Catholic. He belonged to the Church of Ireland. She was a republican. He was a unionist. She was a member of Cumann na mBan. He had been in the Young Citizen Volunteers loyalist group. She became James Connolly’s secretary and carried a Webley gun in the GPO during the Easter Rising. He fought for the British Army at the Somme during the Great War. Both shared a passion for fairness and the rights of the working class. Despite living in a Belfast rife with sectarian tension and opposition from both their families a very unlikely yet successful marriage occurred.