St. Patrick's Day special - Christian singer Skylar Kaylyn paired with yours truly ;-)

I am delighted to invite you to a special interview hosted by Monica Brinkman on It Matters Radio on Thursday, March 12th at 9:30 EST.  I am honored to be paired with a Christian singer-songwriter Skylar Kaylyn. She will be talking about the inspiration behind her music, and I will chime in with my input on Irish nationalism and my Irish history series revolving around the Easter Rising of 1916. The two novels highlighted will be Brendan Malone: the Last Fenian and Martyrs & Traitors, a Tale of 1916. Praying that technology cooperates! 

http://www.spreecast.com/events/n2-powerful-talented-women

Roscommon, Ireland, 1910. A string of crop failures and botched rebellions had left the country a pitiful wasteland. Brendan Malone, a struggling Gaelic landlord, succumbs to a midlife flare-up of nationalism and joins a circle of the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood, while his two sons climb the academic Olympus at University College Dublin. When they return home, Brendan demands that they revert to their Gaelic identity and join him on his underground crusade. Dylan, primitive and compliant, clings to his overbearing father, while Hugh, anglicized beyond recognition, harbors his own ambitions that do not include liberating his native land. Hugh's refusal to obey sends Brendan into a violent rage. Overnight, the meager village becomes engulfed by a storm of disasters that result in a skirmish and a group execution. How far will a fanatical father go to punish his disobedient son? Based on true historical events, Brendan Malone: the Last Fenian is a folkloric satire examining the dark, destructive side of paternal love.
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  Dublin, Good Friday, 1916
Kidnapped and held at gunpoint by his former IRB comrades, Bulmer Hobson, the misunderstood antihero of 1916, denounces the ill-fated Easter Rising he had tried to prevent. While his captors joke about shooting him and dumping his body on the railroad tracks, his terrified fiancee roams the chaos-ravaged city in search of him. Fifteen years of political rivalry, international conspiracy, botched love affairs, and taunting promises of glory culminate in a bloody showdown. Once branded 'the most
dangerous man in Ireland' by the police, Hobson is about to be deleted from history. Based on historical accounts, Martyrs and Traitors is an intimate glance into the conflicted and shattered heart of Ireland's
discredited patriot.