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By Root 693 0

and malevolent farewells. Mr. Pollock slid into the backseat beside him just as a rotten tomato exploded stingingly against the side of his face.

“How did you like that, sor?” called a familiar voice.

Pollock wiped the mess from his face and glared at the faces that crowded in around the police car. Smalley Mullen stood there staring defiantly at him with another tomato at the ready.

“Imeacht gan teacht ort, sor! May you go and never return, ye louse!” grinned Smalley. Before Pollock could pull the door closed, the boy mashed the second tomato into the teacher’s face, then walked away.

The crowd moved forward to read the notice that one of the Brannigan Brothers men hung on the railings:

We, Fionn and Patrick Sweeney, hereby make known our intention to build on this site (Lot # 867-3D/9A, Folio 4287 of the Register of Freeholds) a storage and warehouse facility in compliance with City Ordinances 44-J, 22-B5, and 221-F. Approval of Planning Permission granted—docket 112-4K-12-28. Plans will be available for viewing at 18 Danegild Street between the hours of 10:00 and 10:55 on weekdays or by appointment. Construction will begin on August 18 at 9 a.m. sharp.

Acknowledgments

As my personal experience was only a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg, for the larger cultural context that informed this fiction I am indebted to the extraordinary Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan, and to Church and State in Modern Ireland, 1923–79 by J.H. Whyte. Whenever my energy waned, I needed only the briefest look at the findings of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, available online at http://www.childabusecommission.ie/.

I thank my brothers Peter and John for their irreverence and stories, my dear friends Paul McDermott and Brian Brady whose company and resilient humor made the actual process of secondary education bearable and who encouraged the writing of this story. I thank Tom Cayler, the late Beverly Jensen, Jenifer Levin, Tim Ledwith, Paul Power, and Frank Spain, who have generously read and offered suggestions on parts and versions of this over the years.

Thanks to Claudio Berghenti, Paddy Breathnach, Randy Finch, Henry Dunn, Bethany Fiore, Jason Fogelson, Ruth Gallagher, Ed Kadysewski, Merle Lefkoff, Karin McCully, John McDermott, Peter McDermott, Kieran McEvoy, Liz Morrissey, Éanna Ó Lochlainn, Rob Walpole, and Feargal Whelan for their seemingly inexhaustible support, advice, and goodwill, and to Joseph O’Connor for his years of unflagging guidance, help, and encouragement.

At Akashic I thank Johanna Ingalls, Ibrahim Ahmad, Zach Pace, and of course Johnny Temple for his courtesy, editorial care, thoroughness, and risk-taking.

Underlying and yet above all, special thanks to my mother and late father who stood up for us, and to my beloved wife and most painstaking reader Lisa Diamond and our son Leo without whose patience, support, and love this book would never have come to completion.