The Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848: How Dreams of Freedom Ended in an Old Widow's Cabbage Patch in Tipperary
It is July 18, 1854 and young Irish revolutionary Thomas Meagher has been drinking--a lot. In only the last six years Meagher has become a convict, a fugitive from justice and a world renowned celebrity of the Irish diaspora that grew out of the millions who fled from his homeland during the Great Potato Famine of the 1840’s. He has become an American citizen, and now, at the young age of thirty-one, Meagher has also become a widower and father to a small child that he’s never even seen. If anyone, at that moment in 1854 had reason to drink it was Thomas Meagher. And things were about to get even worse. After spending years as a convict, castaway by the English Crown to the remote British penal colony of Tasmania, Meagher, thanks in large part to his well-connected, wealthy and loyal to the British Crown father, made a harrowing escape from the remote prison colony. He, like many of his Irish revolutionary friends in the early 1850’s washed up on the shores of Manhatta...