Caitlin Murphy (Lourigan)

Caitlin is Ian Murphy’s younger sister.  Ian is ten years old when she is born and at that age has no interest in having a sibling – especially a girl.  Caitlin looks up to her older brother but finds him aloof and a bit of a mystery.  By the time Caitlin is eight her brother is off to Dublin to attend Trinity College.

The relationship with Ian begins when Caitlin is 18 and engaged to be married.  Caitlin wants Ian to be a brother to her finance, Brian Lourigan, because she believes Ian has always wanted a brother rather than a sister.  One of Caitlin’s flaws is that she is always trying to fix things that don’t need fixing.

Ian completely rejects Caitlin’s idea that Brian Lourigan can be his brother.  The two men, on the surface, have nothing in common.  When they meet Brian is 20 years old and a mason by trade.  Ian is 28 years old, a graduate of Trinity College, an author and lecturer at University College Cork.  However, the two men are unaware they have two things in common.  First, they both have secrets and second their secret is that they are volunteers in the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

Caitlin’s major flaw is that she is an idealist.  After Brian Lourigan is killed in a botched IRA bombing she moves to Belfast with their one year old daughter (named Brianna for her father) to work with Sinn Fein to bring peace to Northern Ireland.  Her move causes major heartache for her mother.  Her father refuses to visit her in Belfast because as a young man was a volunteer with the IRA and believes violence is the only way to reunite Ireland.  Caitlin’s idealism is the cause of her own family dysfunction.

Brianna is injured by a Molotov cocktail while playing in a Peace Zone in Belfast causing Caitlin’s idealism to be shattered forever.