Fran Brady

Debbie's Dream Fran Brady

A novel of literary fiction, set in rural Ireland and London and Berkshire in England, between 1972 and 1996. A tale of romance, the hero and heroine searching for incompatible dreams, a tale of activism, love, loss pain and eventual atonement. Twenty-two year-old Mike O'Connor takes his first tentative steps into the world of activism when he joins in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament March from Trafalgar Square to Aldermaston in April 1972. Here he falls into step with third generation activist Debbie Bailey. She is the only child of bohemian parents, who live in a barn house on the banks of the Thames in the Berkshire countryside. Three months later, during a visit to Mike's more conservative home in Glenaulin in Ireland, Debbie wanders into the wildflower-strewn pathway which leads to the humble home of recluse Sam Flood. This chance trespassing into Sam's property has lasting rewards and repercussions. A chain of events on that Friday night in early May 1982 elicits an impulsive reaction in Mike which changes the course of many lives both sides of the Irish Sea.