They called him the “boughten boy”. Jonathan Carrick, bought at the age of four by Alvah Stoke, farmer and brute. As Alvah’s son, George, plump and dangerous, says “ Shit, you ain’t even human . Like a cow.”The “boughten boy”, bright eyed and chatty, until the brutality of the Stoke family reduces him to silence. Hole in his chest you could throw a frying pan through.”The story of Jonathan Carrick is the story of Joan Brady’s own grandfather, another “boughten boy”.

Source: The Irish Times May 11, 2018 22:52 UTC