The most recommended books on Irish Americans

I love primary sources and histories that reproduce them. Here is another amazing feat of historical detection. “Details have been taken from eye-witness accounts; original Certificates of Registration, paintings, and contemporary lithograph drawings have been reproduced,” may sound dry but this book is alive with the voices of immigrants telling both tragic and triumphant tales. Anyone whose Irish ancestors came to North America between 1846 and 1851 will want to examine the numerous passenger lists that Laxton includes. I think of this book and all it taught me when I visit my hometown and stop by the monument commemorating Irish immigrants on the shore of Lake Ontario.

This is a gritty story of the peril young Irish immigrants faced when coming to America, along with the hardships they were escaping back in Ireland. The fact that others were waiting to abuse and exploit the immigrants is certainly historically accurate. However, B.J. Hoff’s stories are always filled with hope and shine a light on hope in God. It’s Christian fiction, so readers should be aware of that. Also, this new edition includes two stories, a great deal. B.J. Hoff passed away in 2021 but left a long legacy of inspirational historical fiction.

In 1993, a gang of thieves got away with $7 million in a heist at a Brink’s depot in Rochester, N.Y – and the bulk of it has never been recovered.

The cast of characters includes a former I.R.A. man who’d done prison time in Northern Ireland, an activist priest, an ex-cop who became a suspect, and a charismatic prizefighter whose dismembered body was found in Lake Ontario.

I liked this because at the center of it all is the lingering question of whether the missing money ended up with the Irish Republican Army. 

Manhattan Beach is less experimental and more conventional than Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad and The Candy House, but it is every bit as moving, rich, and textured as those justly celebrated novels, and it contains one of the most touching father/daughter relationships that I've ever encountered in fiction.

A historical novel set in Depression and World War II-era New York City, Manhattan Beach begins with almost 12-year-old Anna Kerrigan accompanying her rakish father, Eddie, on a mission to a wealthy gangster. A few years later, Eddie disappears after abruptly walking out on his family with no warning or explanation.

Has he been killed? Is he in hiding?  Why did he abandon a family he ostensibly loved? Plucky, brave Anna devotes herself to the search for her missing father with the ingenuity and zeal of the detectives she reads about in fiction.

I reviewed Manhattan Beach for… show more.

In this deft work of nonfiction, Duffy tells the life and times of William Bailey, a rough-hewn, big-hearted longshoreman turned Communist activist, and how on one summer day in 1935 he and several compatriots came to stage a remarkable protest by hauling down a swastika flag from the SS Bremen, the flagship of Hitler’s commercial fleet. Events unfold as the deluxe passenger liner, which was heartily patronized by many Americans and Europeans, hosted a glitzy party while docked in Manhattan harbor. It was years before the outbreak of World War II, but Hitler already had commenced his anti-Semitic and other repressive initiatives. The trial and acquittal of Bailey et al., and the diplomatic fallout, was what Duffy describes as “the first blow landed against the Third Reich by foreign adversaries, delivered without guns or bombs.”

What I loved most about Ask Again, Yes was the real to life feeling of how the character’s world view from childhood of their family, grew and expanded, and yes, became ever more complicated as the characters themselves aged. I was deeply impressed by the realities of daily life accompanied by the stress of living with alcoholism, mental illness, and family dysfunction. The common thread that tied it all together for me was the deep and believable feeling of love, loyalty, and forgiveness. This novel is a thought-provoking family drama that spans generations with wonderfully flawed characters and world building so real if you reach out your hand you might just be able to touch the wallpaper.

Did you know that the supposed ‘father of gynecology’ built his practice on horrific medical experiments conducted on African-American and Irish women? Owens’ book exposes how J. Marion Sims’ practice amongst relatively elite white women was built upon procedures that he developed through experimentation on Black and Irish women’s bodies, and particularly a series of experimental surgeries to repair African-American women’s fistulas, which were painful and debilitating tears between the vagina and the bladder or anus that developed during childbirth. Cooper makes a crucial and revealing methodological move by recovering and reframing the lives of the women who were objectified by these experiments.

This book reverses the pattern set so far. Rather than a Western teacher traveling to foreign lands, in this memoir, an Irishman travels to teach in New York City.

There, he becomes the teacher you always wanted: compassionate, funny, lyrical, a raconteur. He describes the range of his experiences, from vocational institute to highly competitive high school. In one assignment, he challenges his students to write a creative excuse for being absent. In another he asks the students to turn family recipes into poetry.

His book reminds us, through wit and sharp observation, why teachers, abroad or at home, are diplomats, magicians, myth-makers, and superheroes. In the end, he shows us how talented teachers take us on journeys and help us understand our place in the world.

This is the first in the Nell Sweeney Mystery series. And the slow-burn romance extends over the whole series. Set in 19th Century Boston, these little gems kept me on the edge of my seat, while immersing me in the historical period.

Normally, I don’t find drug addicts make for the best romantic heroes, but William Hewett is not your typical hero. Sure, he was a surgeon in the Civil War, where he was injured physically and emotionally and has become hooked on opium because of it, but he’s not a scorch-your-panties-off kind of hot. (It is the Victorian era, after all.) Yet he’s a compelling character and perfect for the heroine who helps to save him. I found I was rooting for this pair every step of the way. I wanted him to heal, kick his habit, and have his HEA with the unconventional Miss Sweeney.

What stands out for me in Small Mercies is the intensity of Lehane’s writing.

Like his earlier masterpiece, Mystic River, it is a tragic story of working-class people in South Boston, propelled by the loss of a protagonist’s beloved daughter. The added twist in Small Mercies is that it ties into the real-life history of court-imposed school busing in Boston to desegregate Boston schools.

We see this happening through the eyes of Mary Pat Fennessy, a fierce busing opponent, while also sharing the experiences of Black participants in those events, and while Mary Pat also goes to war against South Boston criminals who are ruining the lives of people around her.

I heard Lehane say at a book signing that working-class stories are inevitably tragic. As an exploration of rage, revenge, and grief, Small Mercies provides a memorable example.