Escaping Shadows

There were five brothers in the family, aloof to a man, four of whom became formidable soldiers: of these two were awarded the highest decorations for bravery which the British Commonwealth can bestow, the Victoria and George Crosses, and were the only two brothers to achieve this distinction. Their actions are accurately described and closely drawn from real life, yet despite such bravery this story recounts how the family experienced real suffering which impacted on the next generation, such as the posthumous nature of these awards. However, these two brothers are not merely memories or ghosts to the survivors of this war torn era but were colourful and charismatic warriors. Nevertheless, Winston Churchill suggested ' a medal glitters but it also casts a shadow.' The book examines the glitter of their heroically brave actions and then the extent of the shadows these actions cast. For example the medals arouse envy and bring unpleasant responses on the next generation, all three of whom go on colourful mental journeys in response. The main character, John, young, handsome and intelligent, rebels from the expectation of following a military career and seeks a more creative path. His falling in love with a beautiful Celt, Mary, from the West of Ireland is part of this journey, a touch of the exotic, on which he is confronted with hostile experiences, such as the sniper's bullet in Northern Ireland. However as he comes to terms with his background and matures he recognizes the irony that his rebellion has equipped him to play a constructive role in his military work place, and so support the very background from which he has rebelled. From a republican background, in the beautiful West of Ireland, to her final rejection of the advances of a persistent and unpleasant admirer, Mary travels a long mental journey to become the centre and unlikely heroine of this very British family, made famous by the war heroics of the previous generation, one of whose ghosts amicably meets John when the latter visits his graveside at the end. Both he and Mary succeed in transcending the cultural differences, of their Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon backgrounds, which lie between them, and the bitterness engendered between their two communities by the civil war in Northern Ireland, which raged from the 1970s untl the late 1990s, and build a partnership which formed a solid base on which their family propered.