Dermot Bolger: The Journey Home [2003] paperback

'The Journey Home' is the story of a young boy's struggle towards maturity, set against a shocking portrait of Ireland: a tough urban landscape, not a rural Eden.

Francis Hanrahan, the shy child of grey suburban streets, is Francy at home to his country-born parents. But when he meets Shay, an older, wilder image of himself, he becomes Hano, and is cast out into the night-time world of Dublin - a world of drugs, all-night drinking sessions in bars and snooker halls, and the stench of political corruption.