The Story Behind The Boy From Dublin by Bronwyn Brennan

In my childhood home, at the very back of the garden, there used to be an oak tree that towered taller than all the other trees in its company. At the base of this oak tree, there was a small hollow, maybe the size of a child’s hand. And every summer, as the cicadas would hum and while the mourning doves cooed, I’d pick handfuls of daisies and dig for shamrocks hidden under the thick flora that cloaked our shady garden. Upon the small pocket of moss, I’d bury these daisy chains and whisper little wishes to the faeries that I thought lived there.

I believed in banshees and nixies and gnomes and elves, and sought adventures in finding these fabled creatures with my dog, an Irish wolfhound that was 6 feet on his hind legs. And even he was entrenched within the Irish fables that had become the fabric of my childhood whimsies; for his name was Cú, after the folklore hero, Cú Cuhlainn. 

As is customary with many Irish homes, storytelling is as commonplace as a pint of Guinness, and it remained a feature of every supper and hour in between meals. I knew I was home when I could hear my grandfather’s voice humming with soft laughter, the rest of the room shaking their heads at the highly hyperbolic tale he’d concocted, soon to be mirrored by a similarly half-true story told by someone else down the table. 

I loved to talk because of this. I loved to tell stories, found value in life through the shared human experience, even when it was half-true. In those parts emboldened by imagination, I felt my childhood extended, the magic that is human communication woven by both fable and truth.

However the unfortunate reality of being a girl with a lot of words and even more imagination is that all too often you’re identified as the girl who likes the sound of her own voice a little too much. By the time I was in fourth grade, my love for talking was a primary point of identification whenever someone attempted to sum up my personality. From teachers, to parents, to coaches, to friends—that was who I was: the girl who loved to talk. 

It occurred to me rather late in life and only at the point when I had become a teacher myself, that this identification had been slightly skewed. It wasn’t that I loved to talk; but that I could best understand the world and my experiences when with good company​​—where there was a little bit of flair and humour, in even the harshest of plots. 

In short: I learned to write for the girl who was made to believe she always had too much to say.

When my grandfather passed away in August 2022, my dad had been asked to write an obituary detailing his remarkable life and his journey from Ireland to England to Canada. It was later expanded into a full piece published by the Toronto Star and it was then that I knew I wanted to write a book inspired by the stories he lived. 

The human experience remains at the root of all our art, and in it we seek to impart our little worlds to demonstrate the shared suffering, joy, and abundance that we are blessed to have. I’ve loved storytelling and consequently writing for this reason. 

My grandfather’s story is remarkable and beautiful but no more than anyone else’s. He struggled, he loved, he overcame, he failed, he succeeded. He had a genuine and beautiful experience with all that life offers, and at no point, even when the hours were long and hard, did he look at the world and curse his conception. The Boy From Dublin is merely a story about a boy who lived, just the same as any of us are right now. And I was keen to write about that in a way that shows the parallels between our lives. How we’re all fighting to keep our heads above water and how beautiful and uniting that can be. The alternative is to look at it as a suffering—a flailing, thrashing thing that hurts for no apparent reason—but I think that what literature seeks to do is dismantle that perception while remaining authentic to the raw emotions that arise from our journeys. And by inserting bits of myself and my experience as a young twenty-something within the life of a boy that I never got to know, there was this transcension of space and time where I could remain in communication with my grandfather and almost immortalize him in a way. 

I think that writing and storytelling in general is strongest when it is motivated by the tangible and known, and then sustained by the magic that is the human imagination. I’ve spent most of my young adult years studying brilliant writers who know how to work words to their full effects; but the best storyteller I knew was my grandfather, and if I can one day become half the creative that he was, I’ll know I’ll have done well. 

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THE BOY FROM DUBLIN

Finn O’Byrne has spent his life running from his past.

As an Irishman navigating working class London in 1956, Finn is determined to reclaim everything that has been stolen from him—no matter the cost.

When he meets Margaret Baumann, a posh English girl far beyond his reach, new ambitions are quickly ignited.

Fighting against class imbalances, as well as the haunting family history which he cannot seem to outrun, Finn finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into London’s underbelly, quickly becoming a front runner for East London’s most notorious gangster brothers, George and Gerry Faustus. He works hard to keep his growing relationship with Margaret separate from his criminal ties, but as the lines between his two worlds begin to blur, keeping them apart becomes impossible—and the consequences could be devastating.

With his future on the line, Finn fights for a place to belong, careening against the pull of a darker life that promises everything he once had. In a story of poverty, corruption, love, and grief, he must decide where home truly lies: in the arms of the girl he loves, or in the shadow of a past that refuses to let him go.

BUY HERE

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Blending family history with vivid storytelling, 23 year-old Bronwyn Brennan’s debut novel, THE BOY FROM DUBLIN, delves into the gritty underworld of postwar London, where Finn O’Byrne, a young Irish immigrant, navigates life among gangsters while pursuing a love that defies class barriers. She is twenty-three years old and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario with her family. When not writing, she can be found in one of the many rinks across the city, coaching ice hockey. She is currently working on her second novel, a fantasy series inspired by the Irish folklore she grew up with. 

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing