The Irish Book Club

Green Suede Shoes remembers three decades of a lost New York, and celebrates the music and song in which it now lives.

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Quinn Parker, a retired attorney, begins a family history project to learn about family that his Grandfather, Jeremiah Desmond, may have left behind in Ireland when he fled during the Famine. Quinn's mother sparks his interest in one of their last conversations before she passes away that there were other Desmond family members that did not leave Ireland during the famine years. Quinn's innocent appearing family history project takes a turn he would regret when he discovers a packet of old, yellowed letters written in Gaelic and stored in his mother's basement.

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 Synopsis

More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England’s Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the eighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only long experience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters. Their cultural identity reflected acute individualism, dislike of aristocracy and a military tradition, and, over time, the Scots-Irish defined the attitudes and values of the military, of working class America, and even of the peculiarly populist form of American democracy itself.

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Synopsis

A Bard’s Tale is a collection of poems inspired by Ireland and her people. This is an interesting work that anyone is sure to enjoy. There are poems about the author's family and tales about the heros of Ireland's troubled history. The author has studied Ireland’s history and is striving to find peace and resolution for Ireland’s troubles. This collection is lyrically, thoughtfully, and passionately written.

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Synopsis

This title presents the first comprehensive regimental history of Chicago's Irish Volunteers. Extensively documented and richly detailed, "Chicago's Irish Legion" tells the compelling story of Chicago's 90th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, the only Irish regiment in Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's XV Army Corps. Swan's sweeping history of this singular regiment and its pivotal role in the western theater of the Civil War draws heavily from primary documents and first-person observations, giving readers an intimate glimpse into the trials and triumphs of ethnic soldiers during one of the most destructive wars in American history.

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Synopsis

For more than a decade, Chicagoans woke up to Bob "Uncle Bobby" Collins on their radios. The WGN-AM 720 morning radio host’s tragic death in an airplane crash in February brought an outpouring of emotion and tears as Chicagoans sought to share their grief. Noted for his folksy radio personality, Collins was as genuine as he seemed on the air, and a friend to many. His charitable works, especially to the Salvation Army and WGN’s Neediest Kids Fund, were unmatched. Every morning, Uncle Bobby is truly missed in Chicago.

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As a tribute to this great man, I Remember Bob Collins is a collection of stories and tales about the legendary broadcaster from his friends, fans, fellow broadcasters, and the media. Some of the notable personalities whose memories are features in the book include Wally Phillips, Roy Leonard, former Illinois governors Jim Edgar and James R. Thompson, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Spike O’Dell, as well as many others who share their fond memories of Bob Collins.

Author 

Vicki Quade is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Newsweek, the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune. A lover of the spoken word, she is also one of the playwrights and the producer in Chicago of the long-running comedy hit Late Nite Catechism.

As a child, Quade took her little black transistor radio with her everywhere and remembers falling asleep with that radio stuck to her ear, listening to AM stations in Chicago.

 Synopsis

 O'Keefe imagines an Irish seminarian's plot to assassinate President FranklinDelano Roosevelt

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 Author

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Fadó, pronounced f’doe, is an Irish expression meaning “long ago” or “in years past.” The term was commonly recited as an introduction to old Irish stories related by a Seanchaidh (shana-'kee), a Gaelic word meaning a teller of tales, an antiquarian, or historian. A Seanchaidh was regarded as an important and highly revered member in Irish society.

It is by this unique story-telling device that author Kevin O’Donnell chronicles the confluence of two distinct cultures: one in Ireland, the other in the American heartland.

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The happiest times in my life are those spent around festivals, especially the afters parties. I have had the opportunity to get to know these wonderful men and women as people, not as performers. Seeing these amazing and genuine people, up close and off camera, has been the inspiration for writing this book. When I tried to find out more information about them, where they came from, in the sense of what made them who they are, beyond just the town they were born in, there was so little information available. I decided to change that.

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