Six hours on a cramped red-eye from Boston had Donovan in a foul mood—jumpy and irritable. He’d resisted this journey for 18 years; never thought he’d find himself back in Ireland with this mission. Still, he reasoned, if things worked out, this would be the first and last time he’d have to make the dreadful trek. For a man who hated to travel, once was plenty. All the more reason to make this one count.

He’d been jerked from a semi slumber by the screech of the landing gear on the Aer Lingus jumbo jet, slicing through the dense fog over Shannon airport. His wristwatch—which he’d set five hours ahead—showed “5:45 a.m., February 3, 2005,” as he vaguely tuned in to the faux-British accent of the young stewardess prepping the passengers for landing.

Strapped pertly in her seat outside the cockpit, her short, green skirt showing off a pair of long, sexy legs, the stewardess rotely issued a litany of commands: “Please secure your tray tables and be sure your seats are in the upright position for landing. Check the seat pockets for personal….” Donovan tuned her out, reflecting on the pitiful irony of native social climbers still trying—and failing—to mimic the upper-class accent of their former British colonizer, fifty years after independence.

From his window seat near the front, Donovan smiled grimly at the familiar mosaic of green fields, brown fences, and silver streams decorating the luscious landscape of the Limerick dawn. As they came in for landing and taxied down the runway, he retraced—for the umpteenth time—the chain of events that led him to this ‘homecoming’ moment.