Peeking Between the Pages

...escape into the pages of a good book

Guest Post with Mary Pat Kelly, Author of Galway Bay and Giveaway

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I’m very excited today to welcome Mary Pat Kelly, author of Galway Bay to Peeking Between the Pages. The Galway Bay Book Tour hosted by Hachette Book Group has just been great as is the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and you can see my review of it here. So, sit back and enjoy reading Mary Pat Kelly’s guest post on what An Honor it has been for her to write Galway Bay.

It was an honor to write Galway Bay because through the process I met my great-great-grandmother, who kept her children alive in the most horrific circumstances and got them to America. How did she do it?

Her family faced the Great Starvation in Ireland of 1845-1849. One million died. Yes, a natural calamity destroyed the potato, the people’s food, but it was the policies of the British government that allowed the famine to happen.

The more I learned, the more impossible it seemed that anyone from the devastated West of Ireland had survived. But they did. They escaped to America in one of the greatest rescues in human history. The victims saved each other. I was alive because of the courage of this woman, yet I had no notion of the story until I started to read Irish literature in the 1970s. And even then, the famine was a kind of black hole – not spoken about.

Certainly, growing up in Chicago, I had never realized that my ancestors had suffered. I was Irish and delighted to be, but I didn’t connect that with the actual country of Ireland, nor did most Irish-Americans. We’d created an identity and prospered but I don’t think we understood how much they had to leave behind – a language spoken for two thousand years, stories that informed their lives and shaped their consciousness and because of that surely had some influence on who we were – all gone or diminished.

I only started to touch the truth in conversations with my father’s cousin, a nun who lived to be a hundred and seven and who knew my great-great-grandmother Honora in the 1880s. For twenty-five years I’ve been researching here and in Ireland and trying to imagine this young couple, Honora and Michael Kelly – married at eighteen and nineteen years old – with three little children when the blight struck. I knew Honora had a sister and I know how sisters support each other. I learned Michael Kelly was a piper, evicted from his land. I saw that in spite of all the persecution, injustice and suffering, the Irish spirit was not broken.

“We wouldn’t die, and that annoyed them.” Yes, the English had been trying to rid Ireland of the Irish for centuries, but inexplicably they held on, nourished by songs and stories and a faith much deeper than the institutional Church. Only the Great Famine defeated them, and even then they escaped and triumphed – they built America, fought the civil war and survived.

Discovering the details of the Irish story brought me closer to every immigrant’s story, and all the strong women who have somehow survived and kept their children alive.

I’m grateful for this sense of connection.

Mary Pat, thanks so much for joining us today and sharing your thoughts with us. I look forward to reading more from you in the future.

If you missed it yesterday there was a wonderful little chat at Blog Talk Radio with Mary Pat and you can listen to that here.

Book Description and Author Information
Here at last is one Irish family’s epic journey, capturing the tragedy and triumph of the Irish-American experience. In a rousing tale that echoes the myths and legends of Ireland herself, young Honora Keeley and Michael Kelly wed and start a family, inhabiting a hidden Ireland where fishermen and tenant farmers find solace in their ancient faith, songs, stories, and communal celebrations. Selling both their catch–and their crops–to survive, these people subsist on the potato crop–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 in one of the greatest rescues in human history: the Irish Emigration to America. Danger and hardship await them there. Honora and her unconventional sister Maire watch their seven sons as they transform Chicago from a frontier town to the “City of the Century”, fight the Civil War, and enlist in the cause of Ireland’s freedom. The Kelly clan is victorious. This heroic story sheds brilliant light on the ancestors of today’s 44 million Irish Americans. In the author’s colorful and eclectic life, she has written and directed award-winning documentaries on Irish subjects, as well as the dramatic feature Proud. She’s been an associate producer on Good Morning America and Saturday Night Live, written books on Martin Scorsese, World War II, and Bosnia, and a novel based on her experiences as a former nun – Special Intentions. She is a frequent contributor to Irish America Magazine and has a PhD in English and Irish literature.
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Now, on to the giveaway. I have one hardback copy of Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly to share with one of my readers courtesy of Hachette Book Group. This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only (no PO boxes). Here’s the rules:
  • For one entry leave me a comment with an email address. No email address, no entry.
  • Blog about this giveaway and spread the word for two entries.
  • Follow my blog and get three entries (if you’re already a follower, let me know-that counts too)

I will draw for the winner on March 29, 2009. Good luck everyone! Galway Bay really is a wonderful novel to relax with and savour.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Oh I’ve been really wanting to read this!!! Thank you for the giveaway! My email is nycbookgirl(at)gmail(dot)com

    And I follow your blog. Thanks!

  3. Sign me up, Dar!
    meah56 AT gmail DOT com

    I’ll blog the giveaway in my side bar.

    I follow you in Google reader : )

  7. This sounds like a book I would be interested in reading. Please enter me:

    beachlover20855[at]yahoo[dot]com

  8. I’ve been hearing such great things about this book. Please count me in! Thank you!

    nfmgirl AT gmail DOT com

  9. I’m really hoping I win this 🙂 Fingers and toes are crossed.

    Oh, and of course I follow you as well.

    thereedfamily[at]sbcglobal[dot]net

  11. I’ve been seeing lots of great reviews on this one, and would love to read it.

    I already follow too. 🙂

  14. Sounds wonderful! I’m in an Irish mood this month, of course.
    I’m already a follower.

    saz AT chainreader DOT com

  15. Dar,
    All of your posts have gotten me pretty excited to read this book!! I’m rolling the dice to see if I can win it. I’m a follower..of course, and I posted your giveaway on my sidebar!!

  19. I would love the opportunity to read this book; I love family sagas.
    lcbrower40(at)gmail(dot)com

  20. Holy smoke, you’ve got a following!

    No need to enter me, much as I’d LOVE to read this (I’ve got the PO Box problem. sort of; I could work around it). I’m just dropping in to say thanks for the e-mail. I’ve got this up at Win a Book for ya.

  21. I’m dying to read this. I will post it in my sidebar later today.

    carolsnotebook at yahoo dot com

  22. Enter me please. This sounds like a really great book that I’ve been dying to read. Thanks!

    tiffanyak1986(at)hotmail(dot)com

  29. This looks really awesome, I’d love to snag a copy!
    I’m also a follower; plus, your layout is really cute.
    Thanks! lpmccann(at)gmail.com

  30. Please enter me in this giveaway! I enjoy your blog. I think this is a good read!

    JodiMof3 at hotmail dot com

  32. Please throw my name in there and I am most definitely a follower =) After all these great reviews I’m pretty excited to read it.

  36. No need to enter me, I was part of the tour. I really enjoyed the book! I knew very little about the Potatoe famine and the plight of the Irish before I read this wonderful book. Thanks to Mary Pat Kelly for bringing this to us. I have been enjoying all of your guest posts and interviews.

  37. I would love to read this book — I’m looking for something to get really lost in, and this sounds like it! Thank you for the chance to win a copy!
    geebee.reads AT gmail DOT com

  40. This book sounds great! 🙂

    I’m subscribed to you on Google(I don’t know if that counts).

    +BookBegger
    lyzziebit(at)yahoo(dot)com

  41. THis sounds like an amazing story that must be read. Please enter me. And of course I already follow you 🙂
    jennygirl73ATgmailDOTcom

  42. What a great guest post! It’s fascinating to hear the back story on a book and this one was so interesting. I am intrigued by immigrant stories. I’d love to win a copy of this book!

    Of course, I am already a follower of your blog!!

  43. Now I really must read this story! Wow! I don’t read too many stories set in Ireland but I do enjoy those that I do read.

    Ladytink_534[at]yahoo[dot]com

  44. I’d love to win a copy of this one – so many bloggers are raving about it!

    nnjmom at yahoo dot com

    I subscribe to your blog on Google Reader – that’s how I knew about your giveaway!

  45. The more I hear about this book the more I want to read it. I love multi-generational stories. :0)

    Thanks!
    librarygrinch at gmail dot com

  52. Please enter me in the giveaway. I follow via googlereader.

    kolists a\t gmail do\t com

  57. I have seen some reviews on this book, and I really want to read it. Please enter me. Thanks!

    ayancey(at)dishmail(dot)net

  59. I’m so looking forward to reading this book – please count me in!

    Thanks,
    megalon22[at]yahoo[dot]com

  60. No need to enter me. Just wanted to say this was a great guest post. I really enjoy hearing what inspired authors to write their books and what they learned along the way.

    –Anna
    Diary of an Eccentric

  62. I keep hearing good things about this book. I would love to read Galway Bay.

    ibeeeg(at)gmail(dot)com

  63. No need to enter me, but I wanted to say that not only is this book moving, but so too is her guest post. I love that she discovered her ancestry and uncovered the truth.

  65. Being of Irish ancestry on both sides of my family this is a book I want to read. Thanks for the chance to win.

    rubymoonstone at gmail dot com

  67. Please count me in, Dar, this book sounds fascinating! And of course I’m a follower!