Irish Trilogy Gift Set
The Irish love a good story and here’s the whole of it, three tales all done in a set - Swampoodle (1936), St. Patrick’s Day (1968) and Mount Olivet (1993). If you’ve ever wondered how it all happened here, the Irish in America, here’s your chance. A wondrous gift to yourself, and all those you’ll want to share it with.
The Swampoodle Trilogy
Swampoodle - The Life and Times of Jack Hennessey
It’s May 1936 and Jack Hennessey’s life is closing. An infant refugee of the Great Hunger, he is 88 years old and determined to see Hennessey Construction, his life’s work, survive for those he leaves behind. As each of his final days unfolds, he comes to a deeper sense and understanding of life’s meaning. His is a triumph of love over loss, a life lived to the full as the Capital City goes through boom and bust from the Civil War to the Great Depression.
St. Patrick’s Day - A Love Story
St. Patrick’s Day tells of the Rileys of Washington, DC, now up from immigrant poverty to Chevy Chase, Maryland. Hennessey Construction, left to Paddy Riley, a son to Jack in all things but blood, is now run by his widow Mary as she struggles with land needing to be sold and a lingering, tearing estrangement from her only daughter, Mary Kate. The book explores the many faces of love as the Rileys overcome tragedy and loss, all nudged along by a bittersweet miracle over St. Patrick’s Day weekend of 1968.
Mount Olivet - The Rising
The Riley’s have prospered with Mary’s son John succeeding her as CEO of Hennessey Construction. Reconciled with Mary, daughter Mary Kate, with own advertising firm in New York, returns to Washington as her brother Michael, a lawyer in the power canyons of the Capitol, is just out of bypass surgery. It is September 1993, with the story unfolding around John Riley’s coming to understand the life values he and the others have taken from their heritage – most especially from Mary, whose counsel draws on her deep appreciation of love as a life force and the faith that brought her to it.