Galway Bay

Contributors

By Mary Pat Kelly

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Price

$11.99

Price

$14.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. ebook $11.99 $14.99 CAD
  2. Trade Paperback $16.00 $21.00 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around February 9, 2009. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

In the bestselling tradition of Frank Delaney, Colleen McCullough, and Maeve Binchy comes a poignant historical family saga set against the Famine.

In a hidden Ireland where fishermen and tenant farmers find solace in their ancient faith, songs, stories, and communal celebrations, young Honora Keeley and Michael Kelly wed and start a family. Because they and their countrymen must sell both their catch and their crops to pay exorbitant rents, potatoes have become their only staple food.

But when blight destroys the potatoes three times in four years, a callous government and uncaring landlords turn a natural disaster into The Great Starvation that will kill one million. Honora and Michael vow their children will live. The family joins two million other Irish refugees–victims saving themselves–in the emigration from Ireland.

Danger and hardship await them in America. Honora, her unconventional sister Mv°ire, and their seven sons help transform Chicago from a frontier town to the “City of the Century.” The boys go on to fight in the Civil War and enlist in the cause of Ireland’s freedom.

Spanning six generations and filled with joy, sadness, and heroism, Galway Bay sheds brilliant light on the ancestors of today’s forty-four million Irish Americans–and is a universal story you will never forget.

Genre:

  • "A vividly lavish historical novel. Through the eyes of the extended Kelly clan, the reader is treated to a panoramic overview of the Irish American experience."
    Booklist
  • "[A] readable and highly personal novel of the Irish experience is an excellent addition to the already rich collection of Irish historical fiction. Highly recommended."
    Library Journal
  • "[Will] appeal to fans of Frank McCourt and Irish History."
    Publishers Weekly
  • "After reading her novel, Galway Bay, you might wonder if Mary Pat Kelly knows everything about 19th century Ireland, the Great Famine, and the emigrant experience in America. But it's her exploration of the human heart that moves you. Against landscapes beautiful and bleak she brings her characters to unforgettable life. As they say in Ireland, 'Take your ease with this book.' You'll need time for laughter and tears and pure magic."
    Frank McCourt, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of ANGELA'S ASHES

On Sale
Feb 9, 2009
Page Count
576 pages
ISBN-13
9780446545075

Mary Pat Kelly

About the Author

Mary Pat Kelly is the best selling author of Galway Bay, the first in a trilogy of Irish American historical fiction that includes Of Irish Blood and Irish Above All. She has published another novel, Special Intentions, as well as five nonfiction books. She wrote and directed the critically acclaimed feature film, Proud, starring Stephen Rea and Ossie Davis as well as a series of award-winning documentaries for PBS. She worked on the television shows Good Morning, America and Saturday Night Live and was a screenwriter for both Paramount and Columbia Pictures.
 
Irish America magazine twice named her one of the top 100 Irish Americans as well as one of the top global Irish and placed her in the inaugural class of the top 50 Power Women. She graduated from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, attended NYU Film School and received a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center.
 
Born and raised in Chicago, she lives on New York’s Upper West Side with her husband, web developer Martin Sheerin, from County Tyrone.

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