even small birds fly free

In the middle of the 19th century, a disease hits potato crops across Europe, which has a devastating effect on small tenant farmers in Ireland. The Westminster government recognises it as the hand of God and does not intervene. A million people die and a further two million people are forced to emigrate as refugees, mainly to the new world of the United States. This is the story of five people, three who emigrate to America and are swept up in the division of the country which leads to civil war. Brothers Pádraig and Caelan from Skibbereen travel to the New World and end up on opposite sides of the conflict. Mary arrives as a refugee in Five Points and is caught up in the turbulence of New York City. Peadar, Mary’s father, finds work on a Famine Road in County Cork. Cormac seeks refuge among Boleymen on the Sheep’s Head peninsula. The intimate portrayal of these five lives traces a traumatic time when the face of both Ireland and the United States are changed through the devastation of one culture and the reckoning of another. “People who are ignorant about what occurred before they were born are destined to always remain a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the lives of our ancestors by the records of history?” Cicero