In 1837 a young couple meet and fall in love on the shores of beautiful Lough Ramor in south-eastern County Cavan, Ireland. They survive poverty, hunger, natural disaster, and the loss of parents, holding on to their common dream of emigration to a new and better life in America. They leave Ireland as newlyweds just three years before the Famine. After an incredible early Steam Age odyssey through Dublin, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Wheeling, they arrive in the summer of 1842 in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the National Road.
Born in the remote Cavan townland of Knockaraheen in 1819, Jack Malone, the author's great-great-grandfather, first met his wife, Margaret Burns of Cleggan, as a passenger on the little ferry he and his father operated across the lake. After a long, difficult courtship, they finally married and said farewell forever to poverty-stricken rural Ireland. Based on a true story, this little book is full of fascinating real-life characters, traditions, places and events. It transports the reader back in time to a carefully researched early 19th century setting, spanning both Ireland and America.