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Visit our Web site at First eBook Edition: February 2009 Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.Īll rights reserved. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of nonhistorical persons or events are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. In order to give a sense of the times, some names or real people or places have been included in the book. This book is a work of historical fiction. 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. 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. The family joins two million other Irish refugees–victims saving themselves–in the emigration from Ireland.ĭanger and hardship await them in America. Honora and Michael vow their children will live.

Because they and their countrymen must sell both their catch and their crops to pay exorbitant rents, potatoes have become their only staple food.īut 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. 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. In the bestselling tradition of Frank Delaney, Colleen McCullough, and Maeve Binchy comes a poignant historical family saga set against the Famine.

Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly