Swampoodle
The Life and Times of Jack Hennessey
Swampoodle is the story of Jack Hennessey, an infant refugee of the Great Irish Famine of 1845-52. Raised in Baltimore from 1848, he leaves in July 1864 on the death of his mother, Mary Mulholland. Moving to Washington, DC and taking the name Hennessey, he starts as a barback in Brady’s Pub, one of a dozen saloons in Swampoodle, a slum just north of the Capitol building thick with the Irish.
It is the spring of 1936 and Jack, now 88, is coming to terms with a terminal cancer. A widower since 1892, his life’s work is Hennessey Construction Company and he is determined that it survive for those he leaves behind, firstly Paddy Riley, a son in all things but blood. Paddy and his wife Mary, their children and Paddy’s father, Sean, have all become Jack Hennessey’s extended family.
Past and present play as the story unfolds, times gone-by running his mind, the death in childbirth of his wife, Christine, and their only child, traveling to Ireland to be with her family, coming to a grounding there that not only reconciles him to his mother’s memory, but a clearer sense, as well, of who he is and where he belongs -- an American, in America.
Jack marks his final days at his home on Washington’s waterfront with those closest and dearest to him, enjoying their friendship and good company, and through each a deeper appreciation of the forces in his life and their meaning. "It's love,” he explains to Mary in their final time together, “that’s the truest measure…It’s the most we can give in a life, and the most we can get..."
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The Swampoodle Trilogy (Swampoodle-1936, St. Patrick’s Day-1968, Mount Olivet-1993) tracks and speaks to the Irish in America. Out of the famine and into the history of the place, it is the Irish as integral to the continuing creation and reality of the American phenomenon itself, its purpose and validation.
“From a place of oppression and want,
we came to a land of freedom and plenty,
and we made it better.”
Note: The books of the Trilogy underwent a refresh on the August 2020 launch of the new website. It is recommended that purchases be made from Amazon new stocks only.
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“You won’t forget Jack Hennessey and the Irish American communities of Washington DC and Baltimore where his story takes place…A stirring and satisfying read!”
“Swampoodle is a powerful and poignant story of the tragedy and triumph at the heart of the Irish-American experience…capturing the spiritual strength and physical endurance that allowed immigrant outsiders to make new lives for themselves... Few historical novels combine style and substance as well as this one.”