On January 19th, 1863, when the spectre of the Great Famine still loomed over the land, Alexander Irvine was born into dire poverty in the town of Antrim. His parents had broken with convention and had done the unthinkable in Ireland - they had entered into a 'mixed' marriage. Anna, his mother, was a Catholic, and Jamie, his father, was an illiterate Protestant shoemaker. The social stigma of the relationship forced them to leave their native village of Crumlin to seek a more anonymous existence, away from their respective families and from the people among whom they had been raised. Their...