It to him and he does. Now i hasten to add as i said before, they are not like the others down the mountain. E hes not making any deal with him and those are the people. At youre thinking about those that are not in his blood family. What are their prospects, what is their future . E he sees himself acting as a slave holder to the people within his family and hes treating him in ways that most are not treated. Ca we have a good question that can be answered yes or no. [laughter] you scared everybody. Were you very critical when you were writing this belief and truth . We are critical when its appropriate. Ing beca the reviews are interesting butr there are people that think we hate them and some that are defending. Its hard to know. I think weve try to be balanced about it. Hes not god and hes not the devil. Said the answer is yes and no. [applause] biography of Thomas Francis who led a failed uprising in ireland against british rule before leading a Union Brigade in the american civil war. The author spoke at this years tucson festival of books. Good morning. Welcome to the eighth annuals tucson festival of books. Im the director of publications that the Arizona Historical Society and im going to be moderated but conversation with timothy egan. I want to extend thanks to cspan book tv for sponsoring the venue. The presentation will last approximately one hour including questions and answers please hold your question until the end of the panel. Immediately following the session, tim welby autographing books in booth 153 sponsored by the university of arizona bookstore. Because you are enjoying the yoe festival, and im sure you all are, please consider joining the friends of the tucson festival of books. In the programming free of charge to promote critical literacy programs and communities to become a friend and person by visiting thehethe Student Union ballroom or by going to the website. Out of respect for the author, please turn off your cell phones. Now, if you would. This morning, it is our pleasure to have with this timothy egan, pulitzer prizewinning New York Times columnist and author of books including the book awardwinning the hard times and National Bestseller the bigleasd burn. The book just released last week is entitled the immortal irishman, the Irish Revolutionary who became an american hero, the irony ofan ha thomas more. Id like to begin by asking, it may not be a household term to all of us in this room but there was a time it was a household word go here and in ireland. But hes been sadly forgotten since his death. So, what sparked your interest . It is great to be here in this lovely arizona morning. A huge crowd. Ig, this cant believe you peof books. [laughter] also ive been told a number of times this is the best book festivafestival in the world. [applause] ive been to every book festival ifestivalin the world so i canr sure. At thank you for welcoming us here. I like to think i know our peoples history. Irish on both sides of the family seven kids one after another a classic irish family. I think i know our history. I was standing outside theide th montana capitol then governor of montana, great guy. You can see it from miles away. At the base there are these fighting words from 1848 given at dublin when the time that a million were dying from hunger. And i said who is the guy in the statue and he said you call your self an irishamerican and you dont know who Thomas Francis marr is. I think most people dont know that at one point, he was the famous irish man in the United States probably not until john f. Kennedy came along was very more famous Irish American. On three continents, he lived 12 lives in his short 43 years. Al. There are liberated the slaves because of him and there was a free australian because of him. He knew Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Oconnell the liberated three that the catholics in ireland. So how could this giant stride to threthe three continents ande them disappear it was flawed as well as brilliant. One of the lines that jumped out at me in the beginning of the no book was to live in a land not your own and i wonder if you cam comment on that giving background of your own that he was born into. They are getting into the 700 year and you have to understand what we now call ethnic cleansing and apartheid and what we now call genocide. All of those were applied to the irish. So it was essentially a crime to the irish. They took away their land. They outlawed their religion. They outlawed the language was spoken by the majority of the oe cominthepeople, they outlawed tr sports. So, the first thing they did they settled in st. Johns just to say this will not die. They banned at the heart. Queen elizabeth said roundup wherever they are and hang them. So why is the harp on a bottle of guinness . [laughter] why is it on the irish brigade flag because it was an outlawed instrument. Why do they cling onto the catholicism, because it was a way for people to remain. Remember henry the eighth tried to insist every man and woman follow the religion in the church followed by a serial killer. They are plundering and kicknd o them off at about 80 defensive on their own land. They say to this day one of the worst things is the curse beyony you. They sent 40,000 people or thereabouts in barbados and other parts following the congress in the distance still, so they did everything they could for 700 years. He comes of age get elected to the wall by then but you get into parliament and certainly cant practice selfgovernment. That sets up the stage for his coming astride. That begs the question i went to college in the late 60s and early 70s, so its hard for me not to see parallels. How does a young wealthy irish man become a revolutionary . The great famine. I want to put this in context because theres been scholarship on this. Of the potato on which the average irish depend on you could raise almost your whole family on an acre and put them into the ground. They dug up potatoes and what came out was a black mass. It just completely disappeared. At the time the crop is failing and people are sitting to die but at the time this is going on, ireland is raising fruits, grains, serial, barley, pork. A million die in families without huddling together dead in these houses. The children are in the ditches with their barefoot feet just these horrible scenes the missionaries would describe them a trick to poke the conscious of the British Empire. The nation sent a ship full of corn for the poor starving irish and the people in calcutta passed the hat and so it comes of age and he joins a group of revolutionaries and they are all in their 20s. 20s. Theres poets, philosophers cand educated men and women because they were fully equal in the struggle. They see this horrible crime that irish food is being raised by irish hands but its notbu going into irish mouths. Now, to their credit in 1997 the british minister tony blairri apologized for the famine and said it was one of the great crimes of england. Re we are sorry. Dont take it so hard. But it sort of opened up the windows of scholarship and it would have been a shameful thing if you ask anybody over a certain period they couldnt talk about the famine. They thought there were too many irish and they thought if we kill a million of them if a million of them died, they were letting it happen and the man that was in charge of the famine famon, later said it was a hand of godr and it was the cure for too mane irish. It was a portrait of the gentleman in charge of the portrait is as wante it says war crimes against humanity. Thats what radicalized as him. So this gentle man who could have anything he wanted, attractive, eloquent and speaks five languages, they actually made money in newfoundland and they had the biggest house but you could visit the hotel now and you could go see. He comes of age and this is completely radicalized as withco all this fails miserably. There were these scarecrow of irish that underestimated how they would be. The British Empire is flying over one fourth o of that land masthe landmassand the most tros a tiny island so he leads the revolution and it goes nowhere. He doesnt fire a shot but he discourages them to storm the ports. Lets stop for foo the food frog ireland. Let the food to stay here. Thif the remains are disposed of as they see fit. I was a little surprised to see him pop up in the book. Can you talk about who these people were that were young ireland particularly . One is a poet who went to become the mother of oscar wilder and he said im better known in ireland as the sun. She wrote that he is powerful, powerful poems about what the british were doing to the starving irish but basically refrained. She also wrote these beautifulh poems talking about how beautiful his mouth was and hist lips and how attractive she was and they were very liberated and ahead of their time. They were probably closer to the Early Victorian age. They were all sentenced to be banished to australia. But they all went on to great brilliance. They were all kids in their 20s. Imagine taking on the British Empire. The Bernie Sanders supporters like why dont we just take them down. Sure, they could level in an afternoon but wont people see the cause is great and they will give a speech on th the mountain and southern ireland and half of them were starving and could use 23 when the gift of speech. He doesnt get his body parts thrown in to london which happened in 78. Victoria, her gracious majesty y commits the sentenced to lifetime banishment on the island of tasmania which is where they sent their Political Prisoners. So suddenly they have the most brilliant, the most educated. E he says i will never make my mark. You cant describe how far australia is this time. Its more than half the circumference of the earth. It takes nine months to get there. I will never see ireland again,o which he will not. I will never see my family again. Its so lonely. So they have this thing for the Political Prisoners if you get a code of conduct that you would not escape, they didnt put you in a cage which is what they did to that criminals. So a little 7mile zone hes never supposed to believe. His best friend next to them headaches bridge every friday because they were not in violation of the terms. When h he moves to this he movee committee names this oath that he crafted and he spent many lovely afternoons sailing. He eventually marries twice and there are two different women. There is no other way to say this, he is horny, a young man20 in his 20s. He falls in love with a governess who is the daughter of a man whod been convicted of highway robbery. Y. She was a beautiful governess and he courts her and falls in love and has a child by her. They are going to meet later. He plots his escape. I wont put you how he escapes from tasmania, but it takes him 12 days. My kids have warned me to stop giving away all the parts of the book. The shark filled waters, pirates, a lot of back and forth. I will tell you the way that he gave us his pearls. I hereby notify you that as of noon tomorrow i shall escape p from this place. I remain forever your servant and that did the gentle mans duty. He says im Thomas Francis, catch me if you can and he take off. After 12 days he does manage to escape and is young wife whose 19 is going to meet him in america, but theres complications. That should count a little bit because theres an irony to the mobility sending the letter off there is a tragic consequence. Heres the tragic thing that eventually because of the global irish diaspora which we do havef a lot. There are 70 Million People worldwide. I was in australia have a lot in canada and europe. They put this pressure on. They then slavery and ahead of the u. S. But they had a blindside. In this pressure victoria finally years later had a total sentence of because they had escaped, he would never be allowed to go back to ireland. If he just stayed there he would be able to see his family. Now it made him as he said a homeless exile and thats what he was for the rest of his life. We cant talk about irishamericans, im talking about immigration because its a story. If you can describe what new york city was like in 1852 when he arrived and then how the irish were viewed in 19th 19th century america. This is why i write about history. I dont believe the past is dead. Its not even the past as William Falconer said. Er we have these times in history where we turn against people. We are a nation of immigrants only 1 are native americans and everyone else is from somewhere else. There were people from all over. Most of the people had never been more than 30 miles away from their villages. They raised pigs and potatoes into the office for 10 pounds, that was the price jammed into the quarters ended the first few years one in five of them died in the passage. So when they arrived often there would be seven or eight kids orphaned immediately. And some of them were put on trains and sent to the midwest to be raised by people that had nothing to do with them. Sh so they wash ashore and remember they are coming to this clinking wild. Boston, new york, philadelphia, baltimore. And most of them never go more than four or five blocks from where the ship landed in new york city. They crash into these awful sentiments. Ten to 100foot on the floor, 37 cents a week with a little bucket for the train. Some of them still have pigs and so the New York Times is so shocked they say if you want to do some swimming good onto the newer east side and watch them lie down together. So, they do fill the jails. They are totally out of sorts. Its like they landed on mars. One in four new yorkers from ireland, one in four. So 1. 5 million. Naturally as i said they fill ct the jails, and when he comes ashore, he is appalled and he says this is what has become of our people. Look at this degradation. Living in misery how is this going to help our people coming and hes also encouraged because some of this, theyve done very well in this new country. Rs they are lawyers and prosecutors and judges. Hes hailed as the savior of the irish masses and speaks to 10,000 people and the New York Times elaborate story says hes essentially jesus for the irish. This is a man that can help organize and get them out of their degradation. He now, the backlash you touch on is the know nothing party. The second Biggest Political Party whose peak is in the 1850s. Its the only party in history founded for only one reason, antiirish and some antigerman as well but mostly antiirish. So, they elected the governor oh massachusetts, new york and it makes it hard for them to become citizens. They pushed through these thatat makes it hard to become civil servants. The cops fire them that would fill the ranks and they dig the ditches and canals and the supers and care of other peoples children. But the its hard for them to become citizens. And ththe burning irish firehoud neighborhoods. They seek its own and go back. They draw pictures of them as monkeys, beer in their whiskers, they basically dehumanize them. Its the no party. Its his biggest opposition. Thea they start spreading rumors that his escape was somehow dishonorable. How could it be dishonorable . So that is what he comes up against is the know nothing party. You write that the case of dilemma in the civil wares slave involves slavery. Would you like to talk about that . There is an interesting package i got from the book. He goes to ireland on a speaking tour at the start of the great famine. Rr there is a novel called the transatlantic. I find myself treated here in ireland as a man not a color. But then he said he was appalled by the condition. He said only in the American South have i seen anything worse than the condition of the irish peasant. A and they come to america and over about te the past ten yearn they are told that they will take your jobs, douglas then commented what happened is they came here and start to pick up the racist attitudes. So the big question at the outbreak of the civil war is which side would be beyond because they are told by all the newspapers we wont fight toecae free them because they will come in and take your jobs. Remember they had the lowest round and this is always the case. If theres someone below you and you want them to be free because they will take your job. You can see it. And Abraham Lincoln who if you havent come to the conclusion he was the greatest president come to that conclusion. You realize that it is hardly known. He remains the best was never fired a shot in his life a general on the side of the union. There was regular Army Officers and regular political officers. So the minute the war breaks out he says he had been an agnostic on slavery. Im against it but theres nothing we can do about it. He went south and he said i dont know why people say they are so bad. They treat me very well. But the minute the war breaks out, it changes him. And it will start a very political arc in his life where he becomes more progressive. But he says this is the country that gave us refuge in turkestan after the catastrophe. Im wanted by the British Empire and im afraid of president s in this country. We have no choice but to fight for the union and because they named him a general he then formed the irish brigade which is out of the militia in newfigg york city. Can you talk about 63 as a Pivotal Moment in the thinking . He performs admirably. They go down for the firstt battle of the civil war and the irish did not run. Suddenly all the stories in thes paper, the irish brigade gets all of this press. They are returning to the harvard of the battle of bull run which was a loss for the union. But it was a win for the irish because they prove themselves in battle. Lincoln said lincoln said i neee soldiers that can fight and they visited the irish brigade and can comment. He was knocked unconscious in that battle. They fight him and he him, 23,000 casualties in one day. And the worst as fredericksburgg in the late 62 they have to go up the hill and take a stone wall. He knows it is going to be a disaster. He tells his men to take a little sprig of green box blood and put it under. He says when they find our bodies they will know that we died as irishmen. They are just destroyed. It still gives me goosebumps when i see the speech. When he goes to ireland in 1963, triumphant return of two months before they give a speech to the Irish Parliament and he talks about the boxwood spriggs and he says that is what made them the american and then he gets to the people of ireland a flag from he that battle, which was a part and a sudden burst. It hangs to this day from that battle. Ur now back to the draft rights, 160,000 served and only two of the brigades have higher casualty rates. Because of this, there is a lot of resentment by the middle part of the war that isnt going well. The union is losing. They start a draft and 63 in the draft you could buy your way out for 200. So they never served the union cause unless they were noble anh have a higher calling. For 200 bucks you could get the draft or present a live person so if i said you were going to take my place, i wouldnt have to serve i would have paid you. This really ticked off the iri irish. As the rule of the first draftri of the names that came out were bow valley, all these irish names and so they rioted i will not excuse them if the darkest point in history. Namer based on an african americans, they burned down buildings andin they nearly destroyed new york. E they stuck to the very end had he not been in washington, d. C. They went into the home he was staying current with the, took d burned it. Theres no way to confuse it with darkest week in american history. I want to give you the context. They felt like they were taking the burden of this worst warren casualties. Its really interesting to see the total nonprofessional epiphany in the immediate Commanding Officers to come so sherman who is a professional nonromantic search and delete code officer. They didnt get along at all. The irish, good fight. They did fight and quickly became one of the best in the war. They said famously. Ey just basically get in their face as pure savagery. He has to go away from him and shermans office in theab newspaper. Ta you have to understand between that of the massive festivals. Of course they had a little liquor involved and the massive events that were tossed unionco. Army. They all practice in between these battles and that rubbed the career officers the wrong way as well. A couple miles from theer confederate capital. You cant keep that spirit down. Lincoln did say if general sherman is threatening to shoot you i would take him at his wo word. [laughter] can you kind of assess, it took an emotional toll and he developed what was unprecedented a relationship with a young private. Let me talk about the relationship with his second wife. His first wife and dies in childbirth. Its with a woman that is everything she is not. Shes a protestant come hes a catholic. She is this fifth avenue beauty and in hes a fugitive. He writes this beautiful love letter to her at the Historical Society he asked for her hand in marriage and he says im here alone. I am a homeless exile. The greatest thing in my life is to find you and if you take me as her husband i will share everything with you. Hattered confidence was shattered and he lost so man many field or closeo him and the people that he personally recruited whose mothers he knew from the old country, who he danced with two nights before. He was destroyed by this. Theyve suffered this loss and its winter and its not going me well seen outside of the campfire she starts to fall into this giant bonfire will. They develop a relationship with this boy. Suddenly a team of the best doctors appear in the hospital and they say are you going to lose an arm and they tended them for ten days and he keeps the arm and it turns out hed gone beyond the scenes to make sure that he had the best medical care. This kid wrote a memoir that was never published and i read it somewhere. I forget where it was. I but he said i never saw the general drunk again and he also said that he was the finest most educated man i ever saw put on uniform. He would just go off on these ethnic poems. He loves language and history and probably didnt love the war i would say. A we were talking about what i knew about mar i knew he was the governor of montana its like a leap to go from a Irish Revolutionary to the civil war r soldier to the governor ofr sold montana territory. Not to mention the banishment in tasmania. This is why i love the story. I was going to write something about the famine. I was looking for a story on which i wanted to go deep into my own past to find out about people and then i found out about him you see the whole arc of this one man. You see all the things theyve gone through trying to take away the language and pride and dignity, religion. They are becoming americans. What is said about mexicansca right now in this campaign is the same language they said about the irish. You could just substitute the word and its the exact same. I wanted to bring that forth. And yobut then you get to the ma part. My family as it turns out they are montana irish. My greatgrandfather came from Butte Montana which at one point there was more than any place outside of dublin. There was an operator that is the wealthy just Irish American in this day and he hired mostly irish and the compromise at the time they were building. So they called the richest on earth it was clogged with irish. Suddenly ive got this greatstet story and remember i talked about how he was appalled. If you could get under the openi sky the problem is they are not load ranchers. W they like to be together. So they came to butte because there was community. They wanted a place they could do their rituals and share their stories and a place that they could feast and tell stories. So he sees montana and there might as well be a new ireland. This was the idea of the American Ambassador to Great Britain who had written to theed president saying could we possibly establish the montana territory as something we might call new ireland and name as the governor . It takes him almost six months which is the deadwood is sitting at 6,000 feet with a corpse hanging over by one side and manure all over the main street, drugs rolling around, just this god awful image. He greets general mark and says you were now governor, im out of here. From the montana territory i swear it is never seen again. Ma so now from secretary to governor of the place is five times as big as i ireland, and so youve got this irish fugitive with a price on his head that is the governor of the largest territory. This book ends with a mystery and i would like to leave ititle that way. His body was never found. He supposedly so fell and suggests that his death was one thing or the other. He was up against the vigilant vigilantes. The constitution still applies in the territory of montana. They picked him up and hang him in the committee that they were unworthy and should die. They were the rightthinkingf citizens of the territory. They were freemasons,did no protestants, they hated this idea of new ireland and so most of them tended to be democrats or irish. Y there is a picture of him they strung him up and so he went up against the vigilantes and the bigger the lead suspect but also, one more thing is they say this on never sets on the detectives there were two menroc from scott went yard in on hanover he spent his last day on the night of his death. Ay. They were remember he still had a price on his head. Take them back and throw them in jail. So, the two were floating around this little town. E the brotherhood is something that came about at the same time that there were mostly soldierse that took the vow they would later go back to ireland after they were done with the slaveholders david siegel across the atlantic and liberate the country from the british and that was the pledge. They did invade canada in 1867 and the idea i was surprised to see the papers were reorganized in the far west. He really wasnt. So they thought here is this guy now he is reorganizing montana and they thought they would cross the border into what isco now british america. So the suspects are the vigilantes or scotland yard, or as it was reported by the a vigilantes, he was drunk and fell off a boat. Entertain some questions, so if youd like to come down and speak to either one of the mics. So in the movie gods and generals, the charge of marys heights is depicted, and its very good. But at the top of marys heights behind the stone wall is a Confederate Flag with a harp on it. And they cant believe that their cousins are wearing blue. And but fell below people did join in the confederateument cause so one of the claims to get people to the other side is and if they could do bat maybe they could blast little longer but one of the best friends of life was shot Newt Mitchell who was said to the caribbean than tasmania he was the great or greater. Onetwo p orator it was a onetwo punch. Mitchell finally comes to america as well he sees as a not a bad thing gave itself a couple of slaves and come othr south so they break withpeople,a mitchell he has three boys. Two of them are on the other side of the wall. Here w so there was not a tactical irish brigade in the confederacy i also have the scene in the book for their fighting. The irish could dash into your car philadelphia or baltimore coming to new orleans that was one of the main ports for italians and irish gentry there is a lot of irish edwins it is just here and on hand combat if theyre wondering why do we direct all this energy . We do have a gentleman coming down the way. I want to ask about you. How does a person make the transition from a good local newspaper reporter in to ak you published prizewinning author of what made the key to make a living at it . [laughter] that is the best part of the question. My mother loved literature. In the she loved storytelling. Rs at seven years old she gave me a book and said it will change your life. It was a pod filled it was like parson said of his day he was smarter than all of the adults he freed a the runaway slave it was so magical to see a kid power and that brought me into literature. I always loved writing in storytelling for quite think i got that from monday family but how to make ary living . People raised the question of return there is a newst device that steve jobs said the eyefold would be the death of literature or the death of reading because people dont want to read certainly has changed our Attention Span a road to aa sto column in the average Attention Span in is eight seconds. Less than a goldfish. [laughter] but i wrote this as i was reading the second volume of the churchill biography so a matter what the technology of storytelling we will not lose our love love story or literature or new information. In front of i dont care if it is on the screen or a pixel not you feel you have a story to tell dont worry about where it appears just work on it. Also this is something that we have a disproportionate amount of Irish Writers the best stories happen to those who can tell them. [laughter] still neck how long did it take you with your background . And what type of sources . Mostly firsthand. And then to spend time in dublin from all the islands the notes from captivity captivity, from the
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