


His father's will prohibits Ronan and his brothers from visiting the Barns, and they are all forced to move away from the farm. His mother goes into a catatonic state, which leaves the Lynch boys to fend for themselves. Niall's death also drives a wedge further between Ronan and his older brother Declan, with whom he already had a complicated relationship. The books say little about what Ronan used to be like before his father's untimely death, but it is implied that he used to be of a friendlier and gentler disposition. One day, before the beginning of the book series itself, Ronan finds his father brutally murdered in the driveway outside their house. Ronan was always particularly close with his father Niall and is considered by his brothers to have been his father's favorite son. In most of his formative years, Ronan and his family lived at a farm called the Barns a little outside of Henrietta, VA.
