Less than a mile from where Thomas Flanagan arrived as a convict slave and 110 years later, in the short time between the publication of The Voice of the Dolphins and the detonation of Tsar Bomba, I was born on a misty winter’s morning. My mother, already dealing with four children, her demanding mother and her sick husband, wept on learning she was pregnant with me, while my father dreamt of watching from inside his coffin the streets of Longford and its staring people pass by him.
