Free born traveller - Grattan Puxon

The nuns call Denise Hanley 'the lame duck'. Her live-in boyfriend, Steve Aiken, has been proclaimed a communist by the Archbishop of Dublin. Steve arrived in Dublin on the run from the British Army. It is a turbulent time. An IRA splinter group is letting off bombs during a ceasefire, while the country's travellers are massing on illegal encampments at Cherry Orchard near Palmerstown. Based on actual events during the 1960s, this remarkable story -- about a young English couple who take up with the tinkers of Ireland, get mixed up in IRA politics and find themselves persona non grata with the Irish State -- can now finally be told. Handicapped Denise starts a makeshift school for the travellers, only to see it burned down by Dublin Corporation. A series of brutal evictions follow, causing the death of an infant. The travellers make their final stand at Cherry Orchard. The school is rebuilt and Larry Ward, the King of the Tinkers, joins the camp in time for the showdown. For Steve and Denise imprisonment, betrayal and fear await.