This text is the story of rootlessnes, of a London-Irish boy who has two identities and feels at home with neither. John Walsh found the Irishness of his parents' Battersea home stiflingly warm and puzzlingly foreign. Spellbound equally by Mick Jagger and by images of Irish martyrdom, he discovered at the age of 16 an extended family he had never known existed. In the hidden life of Galway was revelation that begged a crucial question: how do we know where our true nature Lies? By his mother's bedside in a Galway hospital, 30 years later, he starts to unpick the past, looking for clues to his identity.