Galway Bay

Galway Bay is a historical family saga set during the Irish Famine. Young Honora Keeley and Michael Kelly marry and start a family in a rural Irish community where fishermen and tenant farmers rely on potatoes as their primary food source, forced to sell their catch and crops to pay high rents. When potato blight destroys three harvests in four years, a government and landlords indifferent to the crisis transform the disaster into mass starvation that kills one million people. Determined their children will survive, Honora and Michael join two million Irish refugees emigrating to America. In Chicago, Honora, her sister Mvoire, and their seven sons help develop the city from a frontier settlement into a major metropolis. The sons later fight in the Civil War and participate in efforts for Irish independence. The narrative spans six generations, following the ancestors of today's Irish American population through experiences marked by hardship, joy, and heroism.