Finding My Irish

By Sharon Shea Bossard

Book Overview

An Old letter mailed from Valentia Islans, County Kerry, Island, in 1949 provides an important link that connects family in America to cousins in Ireland. Extensive research through old records in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976757907
• ISBN13: 9780976757900
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Shea Publications
• Length: 305 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Finding MY Irish & So Much More!

Sharon Shea Bossard not only found her Irish in this wonderful story of her search for her Irish ancestors. She found and shared their hardships, their voyage, the journey in the new land. She found the grounds they walked on,the land they farmed & left behind to start a new life in a new country. She takes us to villages, cemeteries, pubs and right into the homes of the people in Ireland who so welcomed her and helped in her search. We learn the story behind the harsh feelings and memories of her mother. The hardships of the Irish immigrant in the new land. I even see in her journey her own self discovery and pride in her "Irishness". It's a superb story, well written and the author brings us along on it all and when we're finished with the book we can't wait to go back and Find Some More Irish!!!! Well done and as the Irish would say "Brilliant!"

journey of self-discovery, pride, wonder, and folklore

Finding My Irish is the memoir of Sharon Shea Bossard and her search to find out more about her Irish ancestry. An old letter mailed in 1949 proved to be the crucial link connecting her family to her cousins in Ireland; together, she and her husband discovered the villages, townlands, cemeteries, and parishes of her grandparents. A journey of self-discovery, pride, wonder, and folklore, Finding My Irish is an inspirational tale especially recommended for anyone preparing to embark on their own search to discover their unique heritage.

Finding My Irish--What brave souls

While reading this wonderful book, I pictured my own grandparents and their treacherous journey across the Atlantic on a ship just like the one in Sharon Shea Bossard's book. She brought to life what I could never have imagined, and made my grandparent's ordeal more real to me. I can never thank this author enough for the gift she gave to me in writing this book. Her story mesmerized me with its real life happenings and the hardships her ancestors had to overcome. Her writing is strong, flawless, riveting and compelling. I cannot stop thinking about her characters and the story she told through them. This book should be made into a movie.

Finding My Irish

It is a beautiful true adventure story of the author searching for her Irish ancestors. The author captures your attention immediately when her mother told her, "That it was time for a change. Do not marry an Irishman". Why would her mother believe such a thing? The author dismisses her mother's harsh comments as not possibly having any merit and starts her family search. The rest of the book takes you along with her as she finds each relative bringing their history to life. Each story is extremely interesting, frank and provokes in you, the reader, a sense of knowing, of compassion, of feeling like her relative could easily have been a relative of yours. It is an awakening of the struggles and sacrifices, hopes and dreams the immigrants, her relatives, your relatives, they all become one, had to make to survive that is not spoken of or written in any world history book. And it isn't until the last chapter, the climax of the adventure, that she discovers and reveals the astonishing truth behind her mother's statement. Anyone whose family immigrated here from Ireland, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, will be able to identify with the authors deep desire to search for and understand her ancestry. I highly recommend this book to everyone. We are all immigrants.

An incredible read

This book promises to captivate and inspire the reader. Far from recounting a sterile search through records,parish registers and the National Archive, the author has involved her reader in her quest. This she has achieved through her descriptive powers and through the introduction of a range of diverse characters encountered. Traveling with her husband through Kerry and Roscommon in what appears to have been almost constant rain, she brings the reader each step of the way. In the second part of her journey of discovery the author has taken the stories of her two sets of grandparents and woven them into a narrative which reveals the harsh truth behind a number of family relationships. This is a fascinating tale written with complete honesty that isn't afraid to include the "bad wood" to be found in most family trees. Highly recommended; you won't be able to put it down.