Read an Irish Novel for St. Patrick's Day Month

March is Irish month and I'm thinking I need to re-read the four books in my Irish Dresser series. I've been immersed in promoting 'Catharine, Queen of the Tumbling Waters,' which has an entirely different setting and time than Norah McCabe's world from Famine Ireland to New York City.

But here we are closing in on St. Patrick's Day and I'm re-reading passages from the last book in The Irish Dresser series. 'The Irish Milliner' is set in NYC pre-Civil War to the end of the war. Norah is a milliner and a friend to Elizabeth Jennings, a young African-American teacher who refused to get off a trolley car for whites only. She was forced off and took the trolley company to court and won. When I found the real-life Elizabeth Jennings in NYC the same time Norah McCabe was there, I knew they would become friends. Norah meets Abraham Lincoln, the real-life famous hat-maker, Charles Knox, and also becomes involved in making hats for the Underground Railroad. There are scenes of the aftermath of Gettysburg and the Draft Riots. The novel is so full of longings, pain, tension, beauty, hope, racial injustice, and romance. Maybe it should be two books, perhaps scaled down. I'm told readers have shorter attention spans due to social media and just want believable characters and a good plot going at a fast pace. There's little time for nuance, lyricism, and mulling over descriptions, history...is this true? I believe we need both...fast paced, engaging novels and ones that slow us down to linger over words, history, and our humanity.

Here are a couple of screen shots of a chapter from 'The Irish Milliner' when Norah and Elizabeth Jennings discuss race. I hope it piques your interest to read this novel and the series. This post is dedicated to my publisher, Mary Lou Monahan, of Fireship Press, who has recently passed. She had the vision for Norah (third book in the series) and The Irish Milliner. Thank you, Mary Lou...and I'm so glad you made it to Ireland!

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