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A review by iamkallia
The Road to McCarthy: Around the World in Search of Ireland by Pete McCarthy
5.0
"I drive out to Allihies, through the village, past the signs saying 'Caution - Old Mineshaft,' and sit on the hilltop above the last of the stone and brick ruins that are all that remain of the mines, temples to copper on an island of saints. I try and imagine how it must have been when this empty mountainside, swaying today with wildflowers, was teeming with industrial life; but I can't. It hardly seems possible. So instead I turn my gaze on the Atlantic, a glacial shade of turquoise-meets-emerald where it pounds the cliffs, and think of the millions who traveled, or were sent, with nothing but hope. And I know what I must do. I will go across the mountain, to my favorite bar in the world, and raise a glass in their memory.
Or two. Maybe I'll have just the two."
With this book, Pete McCarthy might have just made my list of top 5 favorite authors. The stories he weaved in this novel - the stories of Terrence McCarthy, the Young Irelanders (John Mitchel, Francis Meagher, and William Smith O'Brien) and the mysterious James McCarthy - while unrelated, speak measures of the tenacity and spirit of man.
McCarthy treats every topic he tackles with the respect that it deserves. Whether it's the possible defrauding of people by Terrence McCarthy, the horrors suffered by transported prisoners in Tasmania, the volcanic eruption on Montserrat, or the hard living chosen by hundreds in Butte, Montana and McCarthy, Alaska - you can tell this is a man who respects not just the topics at hand, but the people that are wrapped in the subjects. He blends the historical stories with the modern stories to create a picture of these countries you can't truly get when you focus on one or the other.
This is a truly brilliant book, and my platitudes don't give it half the respect it deserves.
Or two. Maybe I'll have just the two."
With this book, Pete McCarthy might have just made my list of top 5 favorite authors. The stories he weaved in this novel - the stories of Terrence McCarthy, the Young Irelanders (John Mitchel, Francis Meagher, and William Smith O'Brien) and the mysterious James McCarthy - while unrelated, speak measures of the tenacity and spirit of man.
McCarthy treats every topic he tackles with the respect that it deserves. Whether it's the possible defrauding of people by Terrence McCarthy, the horrors suffered by transported prisoners in Tasmania, the volcanic eruption on Montserrat, or the hard living chosen by hundreds in Butte, Montana and McCarthy, Alaska - you can tell this is a man who respects not just the topics at hand, but the people that are wrapped in the subjects. He blends the historical stories with the modern stories to create a picture of these countries you can't truly get when you focus on one or the other.
This is a truly brilliant book, and my platitudes don't give it half the respect it deserves.