A great night was had by all in the Greystones Library, when I launched my new book Cold is the Dawn. This book is the third in the trilogy of the Great Irish Famine in Co Mayo. Below is an extract from the Bray People who came along on the night.
Charles Egan’s new novel ‘Cold is the Dawn’ had its launch recently at Greystones Library.
Local historian Charles Egan and his wife Carmel live in Greystones.
Cold is the Dawn is the concluding book in his historical fiction trilogy.
Hunger deepened in Ireland in 1848 as the potato crop failed again.
In London, the government, alarmed by austerity in England and revolution in Europe, refused to re-open the soup kitchens in Ireland. But, worse still, they refused to halt food exports from the starving country.
Emigration quickened as many were evicted, and many more fled from a wasted land. They worked the waterfronts and coal mine of America and the railways and building sites of England. But hunger still stalked them. The book follows on from ‘The Killing Snows’ and ‘The Exile Breed’ and is based on the Great Irish Famine.
It follows the stories of a group of characters fighting for survival – both those eking out an existence in Ireland and those forced to flee to England and America where hunger still stalked them as they worked on the waterfronts and coal mines of America and the railways and building sites of England.
Guests at the launch enjoyed a short talk by Charles on the history of the Great Famine in Wicklow in particular, as well as a reading from the book. Charles also signed books for those who had come along to the event.
Bray People