The Great Shame : And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World

"Thomas Keneally recounts history with the uncanny skill of a great novelist whose only interest is to lay bare the human heart in all its hope and pain. As he was able to do in Schindler's List, he shows us in The Great Shame a people despised and rejected to the point of death, who in the face of all their sorrows manage to keep their souls. This story of oppression, famine, and emigration--a principal chapter in the story of man's inhumanity to man--becomes in Keneally's hands an act of resurrection; Irishmen and Irishwomen of a century and a half ago live once more within the pages of this book." --Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization In the nineteenth century, Ireland lost half of its population to famine, emigration to the United States and Canada, and the forced transportation of convicts to Australia. The forebears of Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, were victims of that tragedy, and in The Great Shame Keneally has written an astonishing, monumental work that tells the full story of the Irish diaspora with the narrative grip and flair of a great novel. Based on unique research among little-known sources, this masterly book surveys eighty years of Irish history through the eyes of political prisoners--including Keneally's ancestors--who left Ireland in chains and eventually found glory, in one form or another, in Australia and America. We meet William Smith O'Brien, leader of an uprising at the height of the Irish Famine, who rose from solitary confinement in Australia to become the Mandela of his age; Thomas Francis Meagher, whose escape from Australian captivity led to a glittering American career as an orator, a Union general, and governor of Montana; John Mitchel, who became a Confederate newspaper reporter, gave two of his sons to the Southern cause, was imprisoned with Jefferson Davis--and returned to Ireland to become mayor of Tipperary; and John Boyle O'Reilly, who fled a life sentence in Australia to become one of nineteenth-century America's leading literary lights. Through the lives of many such men and women--famous and obscure, some heroes and some fools (most a little of both), all of them stubborn, acutely sensitive, and devastatingly charming--we become immersed in the Irish experience and its astonishing history. From Ireland to Canada and the United States to the bush towns of Australia, we are plunged into stories of tragedy, survival, and triumph. All are vividly portrayed in Keneally's spellbinding prose, as he reveals the enormous influence the exiled Irish have had on the English-speaking world. "A terrible and personal saga, history delivered with a scholar's density of detail but with the individualizing power of a multi-talented novelist." --William Kennedy It was 1786 when Arthur Phillip, an ambitious captain in the Royal Navy, was assigned the formidable task of organizing an expedition to Australia in order to establish a penal colony. The squalid and turbulent prisons of London were overflowing, and crime was on the rise. Even the hulks sifting at anchor in the Thames were packed with malcontent criminals and petty thieves. So the English government decided to undertake the unprecedented move of shipping off its convicts to a largely unexplored landmass at the other end of the world.Using the personal journals and documents that were kept during this expedition, historian/novelist Thomas Keneally re-creates the grueling overseas voyage, a hellish, suffocating journey that claimed the lives of many convicts. Miraculously, the fleet reached the shores of what was then called New South Wales in 1788, and after much trial and error, the crew managed to set up a rudimentary yet vibrant settlement. As governor of the colony, Phillip took on the challenges of dealing with unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, a bewildered, sometimes hostile native population, as well as such serious matters as food shortages and disease. Moving beyond Phillip, Keneally offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines, who both aided and opposed Phillip, and of the settlers, including convicts who were determined to overcome their pasts and begin anew.With the authority of a renowned historian and the narrative grace of a brilliant novelist, Thomas Keneally offers an insider's perspective into the dramatic saga of the birth of a vibrant society in an unfamiliar land. A Commonwealth of Thieves immerses us in the fledgling penal colony and conjures up colorful scenes of the joy and heartbreak, the thrills and hardships that characterized those first four improbable years. The result is a lively and engrossing work of history, as well as a tale of redemption for the thousands of convicts who started new lives thousands of miles from their homes. Thomas Keneally is a writer of extraordinary range: from Schindler's List to The Great Shame his storytelling has engaged millions of readers. Now, after a brief departure into non-fiction, he is back with a novel as timely as it is enduring.On the outskirts of Sydney, Father Frank Darragh is embarking on his new life of priesthood just as war erupts in the Pacific theater. American GIs pour into Father Darragh's neighborhood, and with them comes a reminder of the atrocities abounding nearby. Determined to shun hypocrisy, the earnest priest finds himself constantly at odds with his superiors, who frown on his efforts to rescue an errant black soldier and pay deathbed visits to the wayward. But Frank Darragh persists, becoming his parish's most popular confessor, particularly among wives of Australian servicemen who confront an array of temptations while their husbands are away. One such parishioner, Kate Heggarty, turns the tables of temptation on young Darragh, challenging his spiritual beliefs and stirring a vulnerable place in his heart. When Kate is found murdered, his anguish is only compounded by accusations that he caused her death. Poignantly depicting the conflicts between the secular and the holy, and between the family of Darragh's birth and the brotherhood of priests, OFFICE OF INNOCENCE is a tale set in the most compelling of circumstances. Drawing on his own experience studying for the priesthood in his youth, Thomas Keneally has created an endearing protagonist who speaks to the conundrums of our age while paying tribute to quiet heroes of the past. "In the style of the best historians, [Keneally] allows the intrinsic power of the tales he tells and the people who populate his pages to draw the reader into a fully elaborated universe."-The New York TimesFrom the Hardcover edition.

Hero, adulterer, bon vivant, murderer and rogue, Dan Sickles led the kind of existence that was indeed stranger than fiction. Throughout his life he exhibited the kind of exuberant charm and lack of scruple that wins friends, seduces women, and gets people killed.

Book Magazine

The lurid life of Dan Sickles—a notorious nineteenth-century libertine who murdered his wife's lover and somehow got away with it—could have inspired a compelling historical novel. But Keneally, author of the Booker Prize-winning Schindler's List, presents Sickles' story in a tone so stuffy that it fails to capitalize on the material. A flamboyant footnote to American history, Sickles was a New York congressman who flaunted his affairs with prostitutes, was a protégé of President James Buchanan and a confidante of Abraham Lincoln (whose wife he was rumored to have seduced), and became a controversial Civil War general. Society permitted Sickles to indulge what Keneally terms his disordered hungers, yet wouldn't forgive his young wife, Teresa, for her affair with Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott). Younger male visitors became moonstruck over her superior gifts of body and temperament, writes Keneally, who himself seems to moon over the ill-fated wife. Keneally fails to get under the skin of either his subject or any of the book's other crucial figures. He makes adultery and murder seem surprisingly dull.
—Don McLeese

Marshalling the vast powers of narrative and historical re-creation that he brought to his international bestseller Schindler’s List, Thomas Keneally has created a moving and provocative novel about a headstrong young Catholic priest in World War II Australia. As Sydney braces itself for a Japanese invasion, Father Frank Darragh finds his pastoral duties becoming increasingly challenging. How should he counsel an AWOL black American soldier who may face death for his involvement with a white woman? And what should he say to another woman—the distressingly beguiling Kate Heggarty—who impresses him with her virtue even as she edges toward sin?

When Kate is found murdered, Darragh falls under suspicion. And even if the police clear him, his superiors—and his own conscience—may not. Office of Innocence is a book that’s impossible to put down, dense with moral complexity and alive with period detail.

Paul Baumann

Keneally is comfortable with explicitly religious themes and employs them mostly to good effect. With its dizzying moral ironies, smart pace and deft set pieces, his novel evokes Graham Greene -- especially the Graham Greene of Brighton Rock. Like that novel, Office of Innocence features both a psychopathic killer with theological pretensions and crucial confessional scenes. — The New York Times

Hero, adulterer, bon vivant, murderer and rogue, Dan Sickles led the kind of existence that was indeed stranger than fiction. Throughout his life he exhibited the kind of exuberant charm and lack of scruple that wins friends, seduces women, and gets people killed. In American Scoundrel Thomas Keneally, the acclaimed author of Schindler's List, creates a biography that is as lively and engrossing as its subject.Dan Sickles was a member of Congress, led a controversial charge at Gettysburg, and had an affair with the deposed Queen of Spain--among many other women. But the most startling of his many exploits was his murder of Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key), the lover of his long-suffering and neglected wife, Teresa. The affair, the crime, and the trial contained all the ingredients of melodrama needed to ensure that it was the scandal of the age. At the trial's end, Sickles was acquitted and hardly chastened. His life, in which outrage and accomplishment had equal force, is a compelling American tale, told with the skill of a master narrative.From the Trade Paperback edition. Hero, adulterer, bon vivant, murderer and rogue, Dan Sickles led the kind of existence that was indeed stranger than fiction. Throughout his life he exhibited the kind of exuberant charm and lack of scruple that wins friends, seduces women, and gets people killed. In American Scoundrel Thomas Keneally, the acclaimed author of Schindlers List , creates a biography that is as lively and engrossing as its subject. Dan Sickles was a member of Congress, led a controversial charge at Gettysburg, and had an affair with the deposed Queen of Spainamong many other women. But the most startling of his many exploits was his murder of Philip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key), the lover of his long-suffering and neglected wife, Teresa. The affair, the crime, and the trial contained all the ingredients of melodrama needed to ensure that it was the scandal of the age. At the trials end, Sickles was acquitted and hardly chastened. His life, in which outrage and accomplishment had equal force, is a compelling American tale, told with the skill of a master narrative. Drawing on historical documents and journals, with the authority of a historian and the narrative grace of a novelist, Keneally recounts the founding of the first penal colony in Australia in 1788. At the center of the story is Arthur Phillips, an ambitious captain in the Royal Navy assigned the formidable task of organizing the expedition to Australia and establishing a colony comprised mainly of unskilled and malcontent criminals and petty thieves, many determined to overcome their pasts and begin anew. Keneally re-creates the grueling overseas voyage, a hellish journey that claimed many lives. As governor, Phillips took on the challenges of dealing with unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, a bewildered, sometimes hostile native population, as well as such serious matters as food shortages and disease. In the end Phillips emerges as a governor driven by a yearning for recognition and advancement, yet possessed of a social conscience rare for his time.--From publisher description In The Great Shame , Thomas Keneally--the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's List --combines the authority of a brilliant historian and the narrative grace of a great novelist to present a gripping account of the Irish diaspora. The nineteenth century saw Ireland lose half of its population to famine, emigration, or deportation to penal colonies in Australia--often for infractions as common as stealing food. Among the victims of this tragedy were Thomas Keneally's own forebearers, and they were his inspiration to tell the story of the Irish who struggled and ultimately triumphed in Australia and North America. Relying on rare primary sources--including personal letters, court transcripts, ship manifests, and military documents--Keneally offers new and important insights into the impact of the Irish in exile. The result is a vivid saga of heroes and villains, from Great Famine protesters to American Civil War generals to great orators and politicians. In this spirited history of the remarkable first four years of the convict settlement of Australia, Thomas Keneally offers us a human view of a fascinating piece of history. Combining the authority of a renowned historian with a brilliant narrative flair, Keneally gives us an inside view of this unprecedented experiment from the perspective of the new colony's governor, Arthur Phillips. Using personal journals and documents, Keneally re-creates the hellish overseas voyage and the challenges Phillips faced upon arrival: unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, bewildered and hostile natives, food shortages, and disease. He also offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines and of convict settlers who were determined to begin their lives anew. A Commonwealth of Thieves immerses us in the fledgling penal colony and conjures up the thrills and hardships of those first four improbable years. Sydney, 1942, the year of the fall of Singapore, the bombing of Darwin and the surprise attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines. Surely Australia is doomed to fall to the Japanese. In the confessional, Father Frank Darragh hears how his community is changing -- how the very real fear of invasion is leading people to challenge the teaching of the Church. Especially vulnerable are those whomen whose husbands have been captured. Facing the future alone and unprotected, they are at risk of succumbing to the charms of more subtle invaders -- American servicemen. When one of Father Darragh's 'fallen' parishoners, is found burtally murdered, she takes on the character of a victim of war in the mind of the naive young priest. His obsession with her fate, leads Darragh on a dangerous journey of personal discovery -- one that puts his own life at risk

With the authority of a brilliant historian and the narrative grace of a great novelist, Keneally recounts the founding of the first penal colony in Australia in 1788. Unabridged. 11 CDs.

The New York Times - Alison McCulloch

In his more than 40 years as an author, the Australian-born Keneally has made a specialty of writing about history, both in fiction (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Schindler s List, for example) and in popular nonfiction (notably American Scoundrel, his biography of the Civil War general Dan Sickles, and The Great Shame, about the Irish diaspora). Here, he turns his novelist s eye to the first four years of white Australia, folding the dreary facts and figures into the more engaging elements of character and narrative.

"In the nineteenth century, Ireland lost half of its population to famine, emigration to the United States and Canada, and the forced transportation of convicts to Australia. The forebears of Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, were victims of that tragedy, and in The Great Shame Keneally has written the full story of the Irish diaspora with the narrative grip and flair of a novel. Based on unique research among little-known sources, this book surveys eighty years of Irish history through the eyes of political prisoners - including Keneally's ancestors - who left Ireland in chains and eventually found glory, in one form or another, in Australia and America."--BOOK JACKET. A history of the European settlement of Australia tells the story of Captain Arthur Phillip, who was empowered to govern a colony comprised primarily of unskilled criminals and petty thieves, disgruntled military men, and a sometimes hostile native population Father Frank Darragh enters the priesthood just as war erupts in the Pacific, and he finds himself constantly at odds with his superiors, who frown on his efforts to rescue an errant African-American soldier and pay deathbed visits to the wayward Provides an incisive analysis of the influence the Irish had on the world in the nineteenth century, when Ireland lost half of its population, to famine, emigration, and transportation to Australia. Reprint. 65,000 first printing. IN 1853, AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-THREE, Daniel Edgar Sickles was appointed first secretary to the United States legation in London, at a time when there was much dispute between Britain and the United States. Provides an analysis of the influence the Irish had on the world in the nineteenth century as a result of the population decrease due to famine and emigration to Australia and America Publisher Fact Sheet Featuring passion, politics, and war, American Scoundrel tells the story of the notorious 19th-century rogue who got away with murdering his wife's lover