An Irish American story in the truest sense of the word, Farragher set these characters from scenarios not only from his own life, but also from headlines of both The Tuam Herald and The New York Times. “There was a lot going on at either side of the Atlantic as I was writing this,” Farragher explains. “In and around this part of Ireland, they were reviving their glorious past with the restoration of the Ballyglunin Train Station, one of the sites where The Quiet Man was filmed. At the same time, they were confronting the darkness of their past as Tuam uncovered hundreds of children buried carelessly on the site of an old Catholic run orphanage in a gruesome story that made headlines worldwide. In America, we grappled with things like rising healthcare costs and a caustic political conversation in a relentless news cycle and on a personal level, I watched friends around me dealing with crumbling marriages and the loss of parents this year as well. It all went into this scenery.

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