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Available for over a year

This is the story of two Derry Boys who were never supposed to be friends. Approaching the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement and with Northern Ireland making headlines again this is a unique audio record of a 50-year-old friendship which defied the odds. In the 1970s, a remarkable couple in Holland decided to change the lives of two little Derry boys for ever. Donna and Danny De Vries signed up to bring working-class Catholic and Protestant children from Northern Ireland into their home. Their first young visitors were Patrick O‘Doherty and Raymond Hamilton. Memories and remarkable moments from that original visit were captured on tape by Danny, a sound recordist. Producer Proinsias O’Coinn has unearthed the De Vries tapes and goes to Derry to reunite Patrick and Raymond as they listen and reflect on that visit and how it changed them. The trip derailed the odds of geography, history and destiny. How did they sound then and what do they think now… 50 years on? The illuminating audio recordings of their trips will take listeners – and the boys - to Derry during the height of The Troubles in the '70s and to Holland, a world away from their lives in Northern Ireland. Both will share how being brought together, away from home, changed their lives, their minds and the hopes they now have for the place they call home.