The Star and the Shamrock

When her husband doesn’t come home one day, Ariella realizes that the only way she can ensure her Jewish children’s safety is to avail of the Kindertransport, but can she bear to let them go? A thousand miles away, Elizabeth Klein has closed herself off from the world. Losing her husband on the last day of the Great War and her child months later, she cannot, will not, love again. It hurts too much. But she is all Liesl and Erich Bannon have.

Berlin, 1944. Ariella Bannon is being hunted. Someone is determined to betray her as a Jew, but she has survived against incredible odds, and the end is in sight. She will be reunited with her precious children, no matter what it takes. Meanwhile, Liesl and Erich have found a home in Ireland, away from the chaos of war-ravaged Europe. As the dark news of what has happened to the Jews filters through, they are torn - love for their mother and their home on one hand, and the profound sense of peace and belonging they have in Ballycreggan, on the other.

Dublin 1950: Liesl Bannon has never felt like she was truly at home anywhere, not since her mother placed her and her brother Erich on the last Kindertransport out of Berlin in 1939. She’d been so much more fortunate than most Jews, saved from the horrors of the Nazi regime. Being adopted by Elizabeth and Daniel Lieber meant she and Erich spent the war in Northern Ireland, safe and loved, but Liesl always knew something was missing.

Erich Bannon is happy in the small Irish village he has thought of as home since he arrived as a terrified, traumatized seven year old, one of the last Jewish children to escape Berlin in 1939. Now, at 23, it feels like all of his friends are drawn to The Promised Land, and he can understand why, but Israel is not for him. One by one, they leave, and Erich is bereft. He feels lost, but a chance encounter with an Irish Catholic girl gives him hope. All he and Róisín want is to be allowed to love each other, but the traditions and rules of their backgrounds forbid it.