Go Going Gone

This story is about destinations. We're often going somewhere, towards something new and undiscovered – that's part of the thrill of being alive, but there are risks involved. Hinging on big decisions, 'Go Going Gone' charts a young Englishman's rite of passage inextricably linked with the struggles of an Irishman and his eight children trying to cope without a wife and mother. Advised to 'Go West' in the summer of 1967, ex-school friends Simon Cooper and Ian Bradshaw end up in a coastal town. Here they meet pub singer and seaweed factory worker Joe Pierce, whose wife has recently left him for England, leaving her eight children and their ailing grandfather in the family's small cottage. Despite much fun and entertainment, the violence and squalor in the household become too much for Ian, who hitches back home. Bound up in events beyond his wild imagining, Simon's bold wish to get their mother back has life-changing consequences. Featuring priests and nuns, doctors and policemen, lawyers and courtroom drama, along with family turmoil on both sides of the Irish Sea, 'Go Going Gone' includes moments of craic and comedy, domestic violence and tragedy. When professional social work in rural Ireland was largely unheard of, the church had other ways of doing things. Full of culture shock and sudden change, this story bristles with conflict.