Ireland--after forty years
By: by Luke B. Callan.
Edition: First Edition.  It was the only edition published.  Now a rare book.
Publisher: Angel guardian press
Published: 1933
Place of publication: Boston, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 207
Subjects: Ireland -- Description and travel.
First sentence: Chapter 1: "Callan," said a friend of mine recently, offering me a gnarled hand with a grip of genuine Irish welcome in it, "you were always a lucky man.  You are welcome back from Ireland!  How did you find them over there?"
Description: Describes the author's first return to Ireland since he left for America as 15-year-old with his parents in 1890 from the Townland of Coolkill, Crosserlough Parish, County Cavan.  The first chapters of the book describes his trip over and arrival as a delagate from Boston to the 1932 Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.  Subsequent  chapters describe his days after the Congress, revisiting places and people he knew from his boyhood days, particularly those of Coolkill and the surrounding townlands.  He writes a mix of joy and sorrow about the revisit.  His joy was that much of Coolkill was as it was when he left Coolkill some forty years ago and that a number of folks and families that he knew were still in place.  His greatest sorrow was finding that his Callan family cottage in Coolkill, where he was born and raised, had fell to ruins.

A value of the book is that it is a first person account of what life was like in rural poor Ireland in the late 1800s and how families lived the positive.
Notes: Author Luke B. Callan (1874-1943) was my granduncle, a brother of my maternal grandmother, Kate Callan Sullivan (1875-1931), who as also born and raised in Coolkill.  The family settled in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.  Luke spent his adult life in Peabody, MA where he married, raised his family and died.

Ireland After Forty Years is online at http://www.johncallan.com/irelandafter40years/

Submitted by James P. Lynch