23/07/2026
THE BOYS WHO RAN AWAY TO NEW YORK ✈️🇮🇪🇺🇸
(And Accidentally Shocked the World)
In 1985, two boys from Darndale, Dublin did something so unbelievable it still sounds like fiction.
Keith Byrne (10) and Noel Murray (13) left their homes one afternoon “to go out and play” before dinner… and ended up in New York City.
No passports.
No tickets.
No adults.
No plan — except one.
Keith just wanted to meet his hero: B.A. Baracus from The A-Team.
What followed was one of the most extraordinary true Irish stories ever told.
The boys hopped on a DART to Dún Laoghaire, snuck onto a ferry to Holyhead, dodged ticket inspectors, then boarded a train to London. Emboldened by their success, they made their way to Heathrow Airport with nothing but a few coins they’d taken from a charity fountain.
At Heathrow, they asked a random man where his flight was going.
“New York,” he said.
So that was that.
They told airport staff their parents were “just behind them” — and unbelievably, they were waved through security and boarded an Air India flight to JFK.
This was only two months after the Air India bombing off the coast of Ireland, one of the deadliest aviation disasters in history. The fact that two children managed to slip through airport security during such a tense global moment is still jaw-dropping.
On the flight, no one questioned them. The plane was half empty. They watched James Bond’s A View to a Kill and tried (and failed) to eat a very spicy Indian curry.
When they landed in New York, reality finally caught up.
Outside JFK, the boys asked a policeman for directions “into town.”
That was the end of the adventure — and the beginning of worldwide headlines.
They were taken to a police station and immediately became an international sensation. Fearing diplomatic fallout, US authorities put them up in a hotel suite guarded by five security guards.
Keith later said:
“There was BLTs, chips, everything. They fed us like lords. We loved it.”
Back home, Ireland was in shock. Parents were terrified. Gardaí were embarrassed. Governments in three countries were scrambling for answers. Newspapers around the world ran the story on their front pages — two Dublin kids who accidentally exposed massive holes in international travel security.
Eventually, after media frenzy, diplomatic calls, and intense questioning, Keith and Noel were safely returned home to Darndale — grounded, scolded, famous, and forever part of Irish folklore.
Today, both men still live in Darndale.
This story has everything:
🎬 Childhood innocence
🎬 1980s Ireland
🎬 International chaos
🎬 A security scandal
🎬 Heart, humour, and pure Dublin cheek
And yet… it has never been made into a movie.
That’s a crime.
So here’s the petition:
👉 This story deserves to be turned into a film.
An Irish coming-of-age adventure.
Funny, tense, emotional, unbelievable — and 100% true.
If you’d watch it, like this post 👍
If you want it made, share it 🔁
If you know someone in film, TV, RTÉ, Netflix, BBC, or Irish cinema — tag them 🎥
Let’s make The Boys Who Ran Away to New York the movie it was always meant to be 🇮🇪✨
