Land of the Eagle

Ancestral roots in the Irish potato famine and a keen interest in California history led Author Harry Casey to create the story of two brothers who escape the starvation and British domination of Ireland for America in 1847. Jeremiah Cleary, responsible, hard-working, too often his brother's keeper, and Matthew Cleary, happy-go-lucky, womanizer, drinker and dreamer, suffer the prejudice and rough docks of Boston before heading west. Jeremiah's dream is to own his own land, but Matthew's ambition is to get rich quick in the California gold fields. This is also the story of Jeremiah's young Irish bride, who copes with a new life in a wild, lonesome valley far from the green fields of County Cork, and of her rebel sister who defies the British oppressors in Ireland, but finds her strength of character sorely tested in California. This novel covers fifty years and weaves a tale of two great loves, of droughts and floods, a Civil War battle, Irish land evictions, renegade banditos, squatters and steely-eyed bankers threatening Jeremiah's ranch. Casey, a horseman and cattleman as well as a journalist, writes realistically about this part of the early west. Readers sit with the driver in the seat of a freight wagon, smell the dust of a cattle drive, hear the calves bawling at the brandings, dance at the fiestas, and feel the excitement of a raw, new land. However, this is not a western in the traditional sense, but rather a family saga set in the early west. It was meticulously researched in Ireland as well as California, its historical setting comes alive, and the characters make their way into the hearts of the readers.