Bøker av Stephen Kelly

Gerald Boland (Gearóid Ó Beoláin) Irish militant revolutionary, politician and statesman, has until now ranked amongst the forgotten figures of modern Irish history. This book addresses this historical imbalance. Boland's life story offers readers an insight into the birth and subsequent development of the modern Ireland. From a humble working-class family, steeped in the Irish Republican tradition, Boland played an active role in the Irish Revolution and subsequently was at the forefront of political life in the nascent years of the Irish Free State, first as a Sinn Féin elected representative and thereafter within Fianna Fáil. Boland's story thus offers readers a personal insight into many of the major military and political events which helped shape modern Ireland over the duration of his lifetime (1885-1973).Importantly, this biographical study provides readers with a critical examination regarding Gerald Boland's military adventures, political maneuvers and significantly his forgotten role as one of Ireland's eminent state builders. The picture that is painted is of a patriotic adolescent emerging to become a strong-willed militant young man turned politician and later respected (and sometimes feared) government minister.

The Willow is the powerfully imagined tale of one of the largest slave uprisings in American history. In 1822 Charleston, South Carolina, upwards of two-thousand enslaved Africans, led by a freeman, Denmark Vesey, planned a bloody revolt against the white slaveholders of the city. As the hot days of early summer settled over the low country, a powder keg of growing tensions between enslaved blacks and suspicious whites was ready to ignite. Jesse, the slave of a vicious and wealthy plantation owner, struggles to stay connected with his daughter, Moon, who is owned by another family. When the pair are warned of the coming revolt, they are swept into the plot; join the rebels or die along with the whites; if the rebellion fails, they face the hangman. Their next moves must be careful and sure as they spiral toward disaster. A novel twenty-five years in the making, The Willow is a sweeping, richly detailed story of slavery in the antebellum south set against the lost history of Denmark Vesey's rebellion.