The Irish Connection
A historical saga you will devour, pause to regroup, and never forget.
West Cork, Ireland, 1846: Desperate and half-starved, an Irishman boards a hurricane-battered ship to the Caribbean. But life away from Ireland is also bleak. The ship is attacked by pirates, his best friend is killed, and he arrives on a stunning, distressful, slave-scourged island.
Jamaica, West Indies, 1846 – 1849: Sean O’Sullivan barely endures his work as overseer for the cruelest British planter in Jamaica. Britain is forced to abolish slavery, but angry planters continue to brutalize and subjugate blacks. Rebellions erupt and activists are lynched.
O’Sullivan quietly resists planter abuse and creates thriving farming communities owned by his ex-slaves. How will he survive, as uprisings continue to flare and a well-respected human rights activist returns home to Jamaica.
There was one character in The Irish Connection, Olumbo, who stayed with me and my readers. Olumbo insisted that the story of his people be told, so I wrote my next novel, Marooned.
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Excerpt
My mind flashed back to the ‘coffin ships’ I’d read about in the Irish Times, and fear gnawed at me. The Times said many of the ships heading to Canada and America were unseaworthy, over crowded, and had inadequate amounts of drinking water, food and sanitation. Passengers on those ships were said to be ‘fleeing from one form of death to another’, and hundreds of bodies had to be buried at sea. But here I stood, staring at the huge vessel in front of me, thinking this was my only escape from starvation and disease.