The Boy at the Gate

Danny Ellis was a survivor, strong and resilient. A successful singer/songwriter, he was proud of the way he’d ‘handled’ his painful past: the grinding poverty of the 1950s Dublin slums, and the brutality of the orphanage, the notorious Artane Industrial School where he was left. He’d safely buried it. Or so he thought.

Then one night, while writing a powerful song that would launch his acclaimed album, 800 Voices, his past came flooding back to haunt him. Long-forgotten memories of betrayal and abandonment burst forth in a shocking revelation: his eight-year-old self was still lost in the orphanage.

Although badly shaken, Danny began a courageous journey that would lead him back to the streets of Dublin, to the tenement slums and, eventually, to the brutality and scallywag shenanigans of the Artane playground. What he found with each twist and turn of his odyssey would change his life for ever.

The Boy at the Gate is a poignant, profoundly moving memoir of forgiveness and redemption, and an inspiring testament to the healing power of music and love.