In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of "Southie," the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat's teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn't come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train...

In order to march with Mr. Finnigan in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Mary must find a perfect shamrock in Manhattan in the middle of winter.

Iowa offered freedom and prosperity to the Irish fleeing famine and poverty. They became the second-largest immigrant group to come to the state, and they acquired influence well beyond their numbers. The first hospitals, schools and asylums in the area were established by Irish nuns. Irish laborers laid the tracks and ran the trains that transported crops to market. Kate Shelley became a national heroine when she saved a passenger train from plunging...

A woman and man, parted a quarter of a century, reunite in a bar in New Orleans as the St Patrick's Day parade goes by. A divorced suburban dad helps his daughter pick out a card for her friend who's moving away. A group of friends in late middle age, all once promising, reunite for dinner when one of their number loses her husband, but the gathering splinters when bitter revelations about their shared past emerge. Two teenage boys sit in a drive-in,...

Lucy Stone investigates the murder of a barkeep who not only cheated but was rumored to have connections with the Irish Republican Army.

"High in the cold skies above China, Daniel Farrell flew alone, a spy pilot on secret surveillance. It was to be his last mission. When the news of his loss was reported to his family, the rich and influential Farrells of Chicago, they mourned him and let the years bury what was too painful to face- until a granddaughter's innocent school assignment threatened to expose the family's hidden skeletons"--Page 4 of cover.

"Fiona and her family moved from Ireland to Chicago to begin a new life. Yet, when the family is struck with misfortune, will Fiona's lace help save them?"--

Born in depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants, Frank McCourt experienced a childhood fraught with poverty and occasional cruelty. McCourt recounts his miserable existence with remarkable exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.