Description
Book SynopsisExplores the lives of over forty men and women – great and otherwise – whose pioneering journeys beyond the Irish shore played a profound role in world history.
Trade Review'This fascinating assortment of case histories, spread across 1,400 years and six continents, is an impressive feat of research. All of the chapters are based on a solid body of up-to-date historical writing. The summaries of often-complex historical background to the lives explored are models of lucid compression. The short biographies themselves are lively yet judicious, packed with vivid detail but willing, where necessary, to question or dismiss colourful legend. And the reader will come away with a new sense of the many ways in which Ireland has interacted with the world beyond its shores, and of some of the extraordinary careers that have resulted' - BBC History
Table of ContentsIntroduction – Emerald Exodus • Columbanus & the Merovingian Kings • Virgilius of Salzburg • The Carolingian Irish • Brendan the Navigator & The Monks of Iceland • Helias of Cologne • Jacobo of Ireland & the Mongol Empire • Luke Wadding & The Vatican Elite • Don Guillén - The Original Zorro • Lord Bellomont's Piratical Venture • George Berkeley – The ‘Irish Plato’ & Bermuda College • Richard Brew - Slave Trader • The Abbé de Firmont • Hercules Mulligan - Washington's Spy • James Hoban - Architect of the White House • General Gough - Conqueror of the Punjab • Pat Watkins – Crusoe of the Galápagos • Chile's Irish Patriots • John Field – A Muscovy Nocturne • Frederick Young - Father of the Gurkhas • Dr James Barry - Caesarean Pioneer • The Texan Revolution • Sir George Gore - Buffalo Slayer • Margaret of New Orleans • Children of the Famine • Little Al Cashier • Thomas D'Arcy McGee - Father of The Canadian Confederation • The Railroad Men • Eliza Lynch - First Lady of Paraguay • John Philip Holland - Father of The Submarine • Nellie Cashman - The Angel of the Wild West • The Grace Brothers' Conquest of Peru • Annie Moore - The First Emigrant Through Ellis Island • Margaretta Eagar – The Last Tsar’s Governess • The Moore Brothers - Hollywood Stars • Louis Brennan - The Wizard of Oz • Violet Gibson – Killing Mussolini • Don Patricio O'Connell – Barça’s Saviour • Lord Haw-Haw - The Voice of Nazi Germany • Brendan Bracken - Churchill's Spin Doctor • Patrick Gallagher - Vietnam Hero • The Irish in the White House • Epilogue – Reflections on Irish Identity
