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05th Apr 2018

These Dublin Children Bluffed Their Way From Dún Laoghaire To New York For Free

Darragh Berry

“My mum said: ‘don’t go far, your dinner’s nearly ready,’ I said: ‘I won’t.”

We came across this story today and we must say, we were blown away by the whole bizareness of it all. 

Two young Dublin boys became famous all around the world in 1985 when they managed to bluff their way from their Darndale homes all the way as far as the Big Apple. 

Keith Byrne (10) and Noel Murray (13) somehow managed to avoid numerous authorities in three different countries on their way to New York. 

Their adventures were documented for an RTÉ Radio 1 project which tells the story of how they hopped on ferries and planes for free before getting royally caught out.  

They took the Dart to Dún Laoghaire before sneaking on to a ferry to Holyhead. They didn’t want the adventure to stop there and decided that they would head on a train to Heathrow Airport and see if they could chance their arm to get a flight somewhere, anywhere.

They followed a passenger who had told them that his plane was heading to New York and when questioned by any airport staff, they said their parents were behind them with all the boring paperwork. 

“The plane was only half full so no one came near us,”

And they would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for their naivety and those pesky American cops. 

When they landed at JFK, they asked a policeman for the way into town and immediately alarm bells started to ring. Two kids, alone, in one of the biggest cities in the world? And they don’t know where they’re going?

Something’s not right here.

They were parked into a hotel suite for the remainder of their stay with round the clock security where they were filled with “BLTs, chips, everything, fed us like lords. We loved it.”

They even made a splash in the New York Post before their adventure ended and they headed on home to Darndale. 

It’s something that you would not get away with in this day and age but the story is some adventure. An Irish version of ‘Home Alone’, some might say, without the burglars on their tail, of course.

You can listen to the full documentary of this crazy story here

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