num_pages: 158
description: This is wonderful historical fiction with its roots in Irish tradition and lore, and the American Civil War. Some of the story is biographical, the rest is wishful blarney. John Shanley did migrate from Ireland and did join the Union Army. He was wounded in the second battle of Bull Run, and he was later captured and sent to Richmond, probably to Libby Prison as a prisoner of war. But he died in Richmond on January 17, 1864. The author is a distant relative through John's oldest son. He visited Libby prison in 1987 and was so moved that he had to recreate John Shanley's trek from Ireland to a better life in the United States. He has rewritten family history a bit--superimposing possible adventures, an escape from Libby, and a life in Boston and Bangor. John Shanley is given the life he could have had and the reader is treated to the person he most probably would have become because of his personal convictions. Surely Irish eyes are smiling on the older Shanley's enhanced daring do's and the younger Shanley's sensitivity to his story. The atmosphere and mood are accurate.
language: English
title: A Bit of Irish Earth
titlecomplete: A Bit of Irish Earth
publisher: Royal Fireworks Pr