ASIN: B01N06YB24
Publisher: McStorytellers
Pages: 73
Helena Mary Bella Lane was born into the fledgling Irish Free State, a country that was recovering from the ravages of its recent War of Independence against Britain and its more recent and even bloodier Civil War; a country that existed in a state of Purgatory between complete British Rule and complete independence from that rule.Lena, as she was known, was also born into impoverishment. Her father, a broken war hero, preferred to wallow in drink rather than shoulder his family responsibilities. With her mother too ill to cope with the family’s eight children, the twelve-year-old Lena, as the eldest daughter, became the mother hen to her brothers and sisters. But she was soon to experience the horror of her family being torn apart. When her mother was sectioned, she and her siblings were taken into care, suffering the cruel regime of clergy-run homes while they waited to be farmed out ...
