Ah Ireland!
Ah, Ireland! I was contacted by the author, Eileen O'Finlan for a review of Kelegeen and of course since it was about Ireland, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen health issues, it was a year before I actually got time to read it.
The Great Hunger, or An Gorta Mór1845-1849, was a time of starvation and despair. Crops failed because of disease. As people were running out of food, they started getting ill from the diseases that come from starvation. In the book, Meg O'Connors family is one of the families that was affected by the blight. They tried to stay upbeat looking toward getting married, Meg and Rory Quinn found ways to help support the family during this terrible time. Meg, her mother, and her sisters took in sewing and Rory carved little trinkets and other pretty things out of wood. An unfortunate accident for Rory takes that talent away as his hand is smashed.
Father O'Malley the parish priest for Kelegeen is one of those priests that should be a saint. He does his rounds to all the families as they become ill along with an English doctor, Martin Parker. These two men become friends and they both do what they can to help the people suffering from hunger and disease. Father O'Malley has demons of his own, he had been engaged to be married to Siobhan. She was murdered by an English soldier and after that Father decides to become a priest.
Not only did the residents of Kilegeen have to deal with the potato blight, but they also had the English. Their land was taken away and they had to pay rent, if they did not have the money to pay, their homes, which in most cases were hovels, were torn down. The Irish language was outlawed, and the Catholic religion barely tolerated.
After the famine went on for years, Meg and Rory decided that she would go to America if their crops failed again. By this time there had been so many deaths for their own families and others in the community, that this is what people were doing. Go to America and send back money and bring their families over. This was how the book ended, I sure hope the author continues the story as I want to see how the O’Connor and Quinn families fare. This book is so well written that the story of the famine and how the families are affected just tugged at the heartstrings. The characters are well written and the story very well researched.
I am of Irish descent and doing my ancestry tree and there are a lot of people in the family that were in Ireland during this time frame. As I got further into the story I could almost feel the emotions and the heartbreak. Looking for a historical fiction read? I think you should put this one on your TBR stack, preferably at the top! I read this book in only a few sessions and I really enjoyed it!
