Even though I have a timeline worked out for Brendan, it's still shifting. I added in this long bit where Ma is listening to the results of Bobby Sands being elected to Parliament, and the demonstrations and riots the followed. People are getting hurt and even killed by rubber bullets fired too close.
But then Ma drifted off into memories that Brendan knows nothing about. It sounds like his parents lived in Belfast till after Mairead's birth and there was some kind of confrontation...maybe with a priest or a Unionist poll worker...that made them run to Derry and find a place to hide. And that's why Da's past is shrouded in mystery.
I'll need to be careful, here. I want everything to work out properly. Clearly. I'd thought for a while about having Brendan's father having been molested by a priest while in a boys' home, but that felt too obvious and symmetrical. It's bad enough the priests would seriously beat the boys in their care. That's how they instilled good Christian values in them. Which was a completely bullshit way of treating kids, but that's how the church worked.
The story seems to be aiming for another reason behind Brendan's father's alcoholism. Da starts out when first married as a fine storyteller, in demand at fetes and such. Not a lucrative career so he also worked a steady job on the Belfast docks.
But still so much of his life is a mystery to Brendan...hell, to the whole family. And it seems to be part of what the story's really about, now.
Or not. Won't know till I'm done.
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