HarperElement An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published by HarperElement 2015 FIRST EDITION © Gordon Lewis and Andrew Crofts 2015 Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Ableimages/Alamy (boy, posed by model); Hugh Doran/Irish Architectural Archive (Dublin background) Gordon Lewis and Andrew Crofts assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at Source ISBN: 9780008127336 Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780008127299 Version: 2015-03-16 Contents
Chapter Two: Divine Intervention
Chapter Five: Back to the Beginning
Chapter Eleven: Happy Families
Chapter Thirteen: A Real Education
Chapter Fourteen: A Hard Day’s Night
Chapter Sixteen: The Story of My Mother and Father
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Chapter One The flight was delayed but none of the passengers milling around the lounge seemed to mind too much. There was something of a party atmosphere at that end of the terminal at JFK that day, which added to my own sense of excitement at my impending adventure. I felt strangely nervous considering how many times I had boarded flights before. This trip, however, was going to be different to the usual round of international business meetings and holidays. This was literally a trip into the unknown, back into a past filled with dark secrets. It seemed like the whole flight was going to be packed with Irish Americans heading home for the St Patrick’s Day celebrations, many of them wearing something green for the occasion, and some of them already cheered by a couple of pints of Guinness, taken to pass the time. I deliberately avoided eye contact with everyone, wanting to keep myself to myself, protecting my thoughts, preparing myself for whatever might be awaiting me at the other end of the transatlantic flight. The last thing I wanted was to fall into a conversation where someone started asking me questions about my plans for the next few days. To give myself something to do I pulled the small envelope out of my jacket pocket and stared for the hundredth time at the modest collection of black-and-white photographs it contained. I had stared at them so long and so hard over the previous few months I knew every faded detail by heart. It was like looking into a different world; one that should have been joined to mine by memories and stories shared by previous generations, but was in fact quite alien. I might as well have been looking at pictures of strangers, and those pictures on their own were never going to give up their secrets, however many times I studied them. ‘American Airlines flight to Dublin, Ireland is ready for boarding.’ The announcement made me jump and raised a jovial cheer from some of the revellers at the bar. ‘Will First and Business Class 
