In the summer of 1985, two boys from Dublin, Ireland went outside to play before dinner. Within a matter of days, they stepped off a jumbo jet in New York. They crossed the Irish Sea and the Atlantic without passports, tickets, luggage, or a single adult noticing what they were doing or where they were going.
Keith Byrne was ten. His friend, Noel Murray, was thirteen. Boys too young to be travelling on their own. They lived in Darndale, Ireland, and each had one wildly ambitious idea – to travel to America and meet B.A. Baracus, the tough-talking character played by “Mr. T” on “The A-Team.” So they started walking.
They first boarded the DART train to Dún Laoghaire without paying, then slipped onto a ferry bound for Holyhead, and avoided inspectors long enough to reach Britain. From there, they caught a train to London, eventually arriving at Heathrow Airport.
By that time, they were both hungry and almost penniless. They decided to collect coins from public fountains, then wandered through one of the busiest airports in the world always looking for a way to continue their adventure.
At Heathrow, they discovered that an Air India Boeing 747 was headed to New York. When questioned, the boys reportedly claimed that their parents were nearby. Somehow, amid the crowds and confusion, they passed through the airport and boarded the aircraft without tickets or travel documents. Not one person stopped them.
During the flight, they watched a James Bond film and struggled through a curry that was far hotter than anything they were used to eating in Dublin. For several hours, the two runaway schoolboys were simply passengers crossing the Atlantic.
Their luck in travelling unsuspected finally collapsed after they reached JFK Airport. When officials became suspicious, the boys attempted to escape but were quickly caught. Their journey triggered an international security alert and became headline news. Authorities placed them under guard in a New York hotel while arrangements were made to send them home. Keith later remembered the experience less for the panic than for the food. “They fed us like lords,” he recalled. “We loved it.”
The boys returned to Darndale exhausted, famous, and facing furious families. They never met Mr. T. But decades later, their extraordinary journey became the subject of the documentary “Nothing to Declare,” ensuring that the two boys who went out before dinner would never be forgotten.
I can relate to the parents being furious. If these were my boys, I would be forever grateful for their safe return, and assure they would never see the light of day for being grounded forever.
I have to remind myself of this scripture after reading story like this. Psalm 127:3: “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.”
