My name is John Scully. I live in Dublin, Ireland. My dream and ambition since school days was to own a grocery store. I was born in a council cottage and lived there with my father and mother, my four sisters and my brother. We shared two ten square feet bedrooms. There was no kitchen area or cooking facilities, no running water, no electricity and no form of heating. I walked to school barefoot one mile back and forth each day. I left school at fourteen with no educational facility or job training. My first job was a farm hand feeding pigs, cattle and horses. In this type of situation the shop dream looked certain to be an impossible one to achieve. But I was determined that some day I would succeed. Although I had lived in a poverty-stricken era I still loved that little house.

This is the account of how it all went terribly wrong after succeeding in fulfilling that lifelong dream. It was in the 1960s that I saw the hopelessness of my financial situation and decided that if I were to make a decent living there was no option for me but to leave home in search for work. After several years in England and scrimping to save enough I returned to Ireland to make the attempt to set up my shop, and in the early Seventies I returned to the place I loved best and where I had always held close to my heart - Ireland's famously green shores. Returning home was different than when I had left as this time I had a new wife Barbara, who I met and married in London with our first child Nigel. We immediately began the search for a place to call our own and opened our grocery store for the first time. This was terrific and we were completely over the Moon with happiness. We got off to a promising start in Dublin, but soon ran into trouble with the local gangs that vandalised our store and threatened our persons. Our troubles deepened when I tried to interest the local police in our problems. Having to contend with the local gangs was bad enough but when the police who we depended on to protect us began to follow in the gangs footsteps we felt even more terrorised.

I had been arrested on several occasions and locked up in foul police station cells for long periods without food or water.They placed various serious accusations against me, charged me and took me to court where all charges were withdrawn. Our shop and home had been searched and items taken away to the local police station and returned at a later date. We were satisfied the action taken against us was simply because we reported the local police to their headquarters that we were not receiving the required protection for our family, our home and livelihood. In the end we had no option but to leave our home and shop thereby bringing an end to a lifelong dream. It seemed to us that the police were worse than any gang member imaginable in that there was no recourse. We were very disappointed that after our complaints to police headquarters our lives had descended into destitution and desperation. Instead of enjoying our new-found venture we spent the next thirty years trying to rectify the wrongs that had been inflicted on us. Most people in the area of our shop were very protective towards us. It was the gangs of hooligans that worried us but we were satisfied that in the end if we had remained there they'd have left us in peace to manage our shop. We were now running from the police instead of the hooligans.

We took civil action against the police for wrongful prosecution and harassment but they allowed our case to drag on and on almost reaching a decade before filing a defence. They then struck the case from court files without notifying us. Our solicitor was not keen to have anymore to do with our case but after we threatened to expose him to the newspapers he agreed to a reinstatement and a new date was fixed for the hearing. In court our solicitor dozed off to sleep for most of the three days hearing. Our case was dismissed. We told the solicitor that we wanted our case appealed but he refused saying that we would not be in a position to pay his costs for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Although most of these accusations were very serious I was fortunate that the police were unable to frame me with any offence, I had always come out of it a free man but I was angry that because of it I had lost my home and my livelihood and had come close to the breaking up of our family. I sat down many hours a day, every day and made myself ill from worry as to why and how I had been singled out for this treatment. The words “Why Me” have been ringing in my head since then. Many years have been spent trying to come to terms with our loss and trying to figure why this had happened. I have lived a psychologically tortured life because of these accusations and had also suffered ongoing nightmares and hospitalisation.

LETTER EXTRACTS FROM READER’S OF A SHATTERED DREAM

Dear John and Barbara,

I have read your book, your tragic story.

Dear Mr Scully, 
 
I am a HAPPILY MARRIED MOM WITH 3 CHILDREN, 
AGES 8, 7 and 5
 
 
We were on vacation this summer, renting a 
house in Spain from an Irish gentleman.  
 
Your book was sitting upon the shelf in the 
house, and once I read the jacket cover, I 
was compelled to read it.
 
Your book was heart wrenching and I thought 
about you and your family a lot that week.
 
I’m not sure if this email is still working 
– I found it through a Google search, but I 
just wanted you to know that your writing 
and story was inspiring.  
 
After being treated so unjustly and unfair, 
you still kept trodding ahead and that is 
truly admirable. I hope you are in a happier 
place now with your family, as you so much 
deserve to be. 
 
All the very best to you, 
Leanne Holmes Oakville, Ontario, Canada

For copies of A Shattered Dream please contact:

 jscu@gmx.com or John.Scully@iol.ie