Walking with Ghosts A Memoir

Gabriel Byrne

eBook - 2021

“A masterpiece . . . poetic, moving, and very funny . . . find it on the shelf alongside other great Irish memoirs including those by Frank McCourt, Nuala O’Faolain and Edna O’Brien.” —Colum McCann As a young boy growing up in the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working class parents and the eldest of six children, he harbored a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was eleven years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and ...factory laborer to get by. In his spare time, he visited the cinema, where he could be alone and yet part of a crowd. It was here that he could begin to imagine a life beyond the... more