Before being let go, taking on journalism on a full-time basis and writing a hurling book/ memoir/ biography about my father Ned Power, I used to sell houses for a living.

One of the very first properties I sold was to an American of Italian extraction named Fred Caruso.  He lives in the American mid-west with his wife ellen.  I didn’t know it at the time, but it was an extraordinary, danger-filled story that brought him from being a Italian New-Yorker who couldn’t see the point in leaving New York (let alone the USA itself) to being an Irish citizen with his own little home in West Cork.

It was the dying tradition of conscription that forced his hand in the early 1960s.  His country called him at the barrel of a gun, as it were and he reluctantly boarded a plane as Private Caruso, bound for an American army base in Germany.   But the plane carrying him and many others crashed into the Atlantic.

Lucky to survive, he was taken ashore in Ireland where he was “re-born”.  He eventually ended up marrying a lady of Irish origins and was led by the hand of fate to his natural spiritual home.

His memoir – “Born Again Irish – O’Caruso” – is a well written account of his rollercoaster ride of an experience.  His taught journalist style comes through and its an entertaining read.

For more information or to order a copy of the book, click here.  Hurling book it ain’t, but it’s great stuff nonetheless.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.