Out of Ireland: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Description

In the late 1860s in Bantry, Ireland, sixteen-year-old Eileen ODonovan is forced by her family to marry an older widower whom she barely knows and does not love. Her brother Michael, at age nineteen, becomes involved with the outlawed Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of British rule in Ireland. Their fates intertwine when they each decide to emigrate to America, where both tragedy and happiness await them.

An exciting coming-of-age story of a brother and sister in an Ireland still under the harsh rule of the British, Out of Ireland brings alive the story of our ancestors who braved the dangers of immigration in order to find a better life for themselves and their families.

Reviews

Wernickes prose has a charming lilt to it, and her meticulous descriptions of late-19th-century daily life in Bantry Bay capture the physical beauty of the landscape and the feelings of hopelessness in a land roiled by poverty, famine, and political turmoil. . . . An engaging, poignant, and ultimately uplifting story with a likable protagonist.
Kirkus Reviews

As an immigrant to America in the 1800s, Eileen Sullivan faces what so many immigrant women have faced before and since: startling new freedoms alongside the cruelties of events beyond their control. Out Of Irelandis a love letter to the strength of women who came before us, full of beauty, pain, andmost of allperseverance.
Stacey Swann, author ofOlympus, Texas, aGood Morning AmericaBook Club Pick

Impossible dreams are realized in ways the dreamers didnt imagine in this fine, heart-wrenching novel. Brother and sister Michael and Eileen emigrate from Ireland to escape poverty and British oppression only to discover unexpected challenges in the New World. A believable story based on history, with themes of hope, courage, devotion, and love, it will stay with you long after the last page has been turned.
Linda Stewart Henley, award-winning author ofEstelleandWaterbury Winter

Many Irish-Americans will see the stories of their own families in these pages. Wernicke skillfully brings life to history as her characters make the difficult passage from troubled Ireland to St. Louis infamous Kerry Patch.
Patrick Murphy, author ofThe Irish in St. Louis: From Shanty to Lace Curtain

Author Bio

Marian OShea Wernicke is the author of Toward That Which is Beautiful, her debut novel published in 2020 by She Writes Press. She has also published a memoir about her father called Tom OShea: A Twentieth Century Man. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to an Irish Catholic family, she entered the convent of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood at age sixteen and spent eleven years as a nun before leaving the convent and marrying Michael Wernicke, an electrical engineer from Pensacola, Florida. Wernicke earned a masters degree in English from the University of West Florida and went on to become a professor of English at Pensacola State College for twenty-five years. Upon her retirement from college teaching, Wernicke began her new life as full-time writer in 2010. She and her husband now live in Austin, Texas, near their daughter Kristin and son-in-law Max, and beloved grandson, August Michael.