{"product_id":"2940014446716","title":"The Last of the Fenians","description":"The Irish-American Story wouldn't be complete without some reference to the Irish wars of the early 1900s. I have a personal interest since my father and his were in Ireland during this period. A Cavan barmaid's scream, \"He's a Yank,\" saved my father from being run through by the Black and Tan. \u003cbr\u003eWhen I first started this manuscript, it was to be a fictional novel about the Irish Republican Brotherhood seizing the Titanic's sister ship, and there's still a bit of that included. But as I started to research the period, my writing took a path of its own. I came across a book on the internet about an Irish division in Gallipoli. Up to then, I had always thought Gallipoli was solely an Australian\/New Zealand operation. It wasn't until 2010 that Ireland's President Mary McAleese went to Turkey to pay tribute to the thousands of her countrymen buried there. Despite the strong feelings of many that Irishmen should never have worn a British uniform, I don't agree, therefore, I included the battles of WWI in The Last of the Fenians. An oversight by most Irish historians long in need of closure.\u003cbr\u003eIreland's freedom had been won on the streets of Dublin and in the hills of Cork and Tipperary. The right to nationhood was earned in the gullies of Gallipoli and the trenches of Flanders.\u003cbr\u003eThe Last of the Fenians begins in Donegal where Fiona Glackin deserts her childhood sweetheart, PJ Sleavin father of her unborn child, forsakes her religion, flees to Belfast, and does the unthinkable, marries a Protestant, not just any Protestant but the son of a Belfast shipbuilder. PJ takes up boxing to finance his search for Fiona. Once in Belfast, he is blackmailed into signing up with the British Expeditionary Force as a bicycle messenger. PJ takes the reader into the headquarters and trenches of every major WWI English battle, including those where Irish and Ulster divisions made their mark.\u003cbr\u003ePJ's close companion Father Edward (Reed) Ward, assigned to Cork's Clonakility Parish befriends a young Michael Collins and William Martyn an Anglican Minister. Martyn convinces Reed to enlist and serve the tens of thousands of Irish Catholics in the British Army. Both are assigned to Gallipoli. The Anglican perished, Reed lost his arm and returned to Dublin in time to witness the 1916 Easter Rebellion.\u003cbr\u003eFollowing the armistice, PJ and Reed reunite with Collins to partake in the Anglo-Irish War, The Treaty, Ulster, and The Irish Civil War. During a park bench confession, Reed forgives Fiona, who flees to America with her children.","brand":"Sligo publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47182588707056,"sku":"2940014446716","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014446716_p0.jpg?v=1763608688","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014446716","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}