"The Big Yank - Memoir of a Boy Growing Up Irish," is the story of a young boy growing up in the late 60's/70's rural Ireland. J.P. Sexton's family lived in dire poverty in the most Northerly Region of Ireland - the Inishowen peninsula of County Donegal. Ireland at that time was economically depressed and while many families struggled to make ends meet, the Sextons' battled (in more ways than one) on a daily basis just to scrape by.

At the age of nine, the author was recruited by his father to become a smuggler. His father; John Sexton, known throughout North Donegal as; "The Big Yank" (due to his having been born and raised in New York), had the canteen franchise at the Clubman shirt factory in Buncrana. When he realized that certain food could be bought across the border in Derry for half of what it cost down in the Republic, J.P.'s father began smuggling food across the border, assisted by his young family, every weekend.

Even the "Troubles," when Derry city was being constantly bombed and burned, did not deter The Big Yank from his clandestine shopping expeditions. The family smuggling business only ceased when the restaurant business folded, due to poor financial management. In order to save money by not having to rent a house, the author's father came up with a plan to save money by making his family live in a disused, Lough Swilly Double-Decker bus on the side of a Donegal mountain. Without running water or electricity, it was all downhill from there. Literally.