I'm Sending a Shamrock to Remind You of Home: Roscommon Families and the Irish Diaspora 1875-1950 Kindle Edition

by Thomas Callahan Jr (Author)

This book about Irish emigration to America demonstrates how the "big picture" of history can be viewed through the individual portraits of those who make it nd also addresses the difficult problems facing those who undertake such a project -- to rescue the history of average people from obscurity by using the scattered remnants of their past.

Tom Callahan recently retired after 46 years as a Professor of History at Rider University in New Jersey. Many of his students had Irish surnames, but very few knew anything about even their recent ancestors. Most had been average, working-class folks who left little behind them, save the memories, and when these faded, the ancestors "disappeared" from history. So he began to seek ways in which their history could be recovered, using his own Irish roots to reconstruct the turbulent period when millions of poor Irish emigrants left their families and all they had known to begin new lives in America. He continues today to demonstrate that knowing one's "roots" is important and that the "big picture" of history is composed of the individual portraits of those who made it.