Keith Byrne was 10 years old. Noel Murray, 13. They lived in Darndale, a neighborhood in Dublin, and in 1985 they left home with one fixed idea in mind: to get to the United States to meet Mr. T, the actor who played B. A. Baracus in The A-Team.
They had no passports, no tickets, and not enough money. Only determination. They took a train, boarded a ferry to Wales without paying, crossed London collecting coins from public fountains, and ended up standing in front of an airport counter. They asked a stranger where his flight was going. He said New York. That was enough for them: they made the staff believe their parents were nearby and boarded an Air India plane bound for JFK without anyone discovering them throughout the entire journey.
The chaos came after they landed, when they asked a police officer how to get to downtown Manhattan. Their faces ended up in newspapers around half the world and exposed security failures in three countries. Four days later they returned to Dublin, were scolded by their families, and were forever marked by a feat that is now a documentary short film.