James Cross

James Cross was born in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland, on 29 September 1921, the same year the state was founded, though his mother died during the labour that brought him into the world. He grew up on a hundred-acre family farm before moving in with relatives, learning early that life hands out both bread and bruises without explanation. That boy became a diplomat who fought in France, traded in Malaya, and finally stood at a Montreal window in 1970 when guns turned his residence into a cage. Nenagh gave him a body strong enough to endure what the world would later do to it.