Irish-American author to discuss his Tyrone-based novel in Dungannon

Based in part on his father’s emigration from Dunnamore, outside Cookstown, to Canada as an indentured servant nearly a century ago, Traveler was an idea that grew out of Heagney’s search for his family history.

That search led to the shocking discovery that his 16-year-old father was shipped off alone for three years of indenture to a series of Ontario farmers. His indenture ended in 1932, a secret his father hid until the day he died.

But Heagney also found that his father had been swept up in what became known as the British Home Children scheme that scattered poor Irish and British children – some as young as 4 – as free labor to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Involving the British government, Catholic Church and 50 other religious and secular organizations, this global program of human trafficking operated for more than 80 years before ending in the late 1940s.

Traveler is the story of teenaged Neddy McKenna who is shipped off to Canada from his parents’ small Dunnamore farm during the Irish War of Independence. He takes with him just a battered suitcase and his dreams.

But in those dreams, he encounters again and again an enigmatic stranger calling himself Traveler who challenges everything Neddy knows ... or thinks he knew. But who is Traveler? An apparition? A guardian angel? Or something young Neddy couldn’t possibly imagine?

Heagney has been a writer, journalist and author for half a century and has won numerous awards and distinctions for journalistic excellence.

He has been an adjunct instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa and he was a journalist for the Tampa Bay Times and several other publications. He resides in Florida with his wife, Linda, and is tolerated by their two cats, Cami and Daltrey.

Admission to the talk is free and signed copies of Traveler will be available for 15 pounds following the program. Traveler also is available on Amazon by searching ...Traveler by John Heagney.