The Immortal Irishman

December 14, 2015
Those who have heard of Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) will likely know him as a Union general in the Civil War, but Egan (The Big Burn), National Book Award–winner for The Worst Hard Time, moves Meagher convincingly into the ranks of patriots of both the U.S. and Ireland. With novelistic skill, Egan fashions a dizzying tableau of the life of his restless subject. Meagher was an Irish revolutionary who was condemned to death but then exiled to Tasmania. He then escaped to America, where he lived in New York City and became active in Irish-American politics. He was later appointed general of the Union army’s Irish Brigade (which helped knit oft-scorned Irish immigrants into the American fabric) and became a heroic war leader, before becoming lieutenant governor of the Montana Territory. Egan also reexamines evidence about Meagher’s death in Montana, convincingly concluding that he was assassinated by frontier vigilantes resentful of his determination to create the rule of law. As history, Egan’s book is solid; as storytelling, it’s captivating. The work adds little to the broader picture of American history—it focuses on the scenes in which Meagher participated, and those have been exhaustively covered elsewhere—but it provides an impressive biography of a distinctive Irish-American figure, the patriot of two countries, faithful to each to his last. Agent: Carol Mann, Carol Mann Agency.

January 1, 2016

Egan's biography of Irish revolutionary Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-67) illustrates a singularly Irish-American story. In outlining Meagher's life, Egan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the National Book Award winner The Worst Hard Time, seeks to demonstrate how Meagher's experience was emblematic of Irish immigrants' spirit and resolve. Meagher was born in a well-to-do family in Ireland but was deeply empathetic toward the plight of the Irish poor, having lived through the Great Famine in the 1840s. After a failed uprising against the English, Meagher was banished to a penal colony in Tasmania, Australia. He escaped to the United States and took up the cause of freedom, identifying with the new country's anti-British attitudes. Leading the Irish Brigade in the Civil War, Meagher fought in some of the bloodiest battles, including Bull Run in 1861. He survived the war and was appointed governor of Montana territory where he hoped to create a "New Ireland." His death by drowning in 1867 remains a mystery. VERDICT This important account is an excellent choice for all readers, especially those interested in the contributions of the Irish to U.S. history. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/15.]--Barrie Olmstead, Sacramento P.L.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2016
Egan follows the blazingly interesting biography of a man not so much forgotten as insufficiently rememberedthe Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction winner, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher (2012), about photographer Edward S. Curtiswith that of another, orator-soldier Thomas Francis Meagher (182367). The son of a wealthy Irish merchant, Meagher became the courageous public spokesman of the revolutionary, though nonmilitary, Young Ireland movement during the Great Hunger. For that he was first condemned to be drawn and quartered, then reprieved and transported, as were several of his confreres, to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Britain's last penal colony. He escaped and reached San Francisco, where he fired up his fellow Irish immigrants for eventual return to and liberation of their homeland. He also embraced citizenship in his nation of refuge, speaking out against slavery and for the Union and organizing the Irish Brigade, which he led through many ghastly battles of the Civil War. After Appomattox, Meagher hoped to establish a New Ireland in the West and became acting governor of Montana Territory, a position that proved a death trap. Meagher lived life full-tilt, with old-fashioned honor as well as courage and dash, so inspiring Egan that the prose flashes and flares and sometimes strains grammar to accommodate the astonishing figure that he was.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)