Knock wood and light the pumpkin: your ancient ancestors are closer than you think -- Prehistoric Ireland: megaliths and mystery -- The origins of the Celts -- Life in ancient Ireland -- The four cycles of storytelling -- Keeping faith at the crossroad: Celtic Christianity -- Druids first Christians later: Druidic beliefs -- Christianity comes to Ireland -- Monastic life in ancient Ireland -- Gone Viking -- No one leaves your table hungry: invasion, starvation, and emigration -- Eight hundred years of invasions -- Oliver Cromwell: the devil in Ireland -- The Scots-Irish migration to America -- A diet of potatoes: conditions ripe for disaster -- An gorta mor: the great hunger -- Away away to Amerikay -- Irish roots and rising Irish: the Irish become American -- Pre-famine Irish Catholic immigrants -- The incoming tide -- Our ancestors "get to work" -- Politics as a ladder: from Tammany Hall to the White House -- Fighting for Amerikay: the Irish in the Civil War -- The parish and the Catholic Church: helping the Irish to rise -- Meanwhile back at the ranch: rising Irish and bold Fenian men -- Diaspora

More than forty million Americans claim Irish ancestry. This lively book explains how and why they got to the U.S. and shows how their history made them who they are. From prehistoric Ireland to Irish schools in America, this well-illustrated book provides an essential overview of the ties between the Emerald Isle and the New World