“Irish Above All combines the myths and magic of Ireland with the grit and energy of Irish-American Chicago in the first half of the 20th century. I am delighted that main character Nora Kelly travels with Eleanor Roosevelt to visit the US Marines stationed in my beloved Derry during WWII—a little known story—and that Nora has a spiritual awakening in the Grianan of Aileach, a sacred space for me since childhood.” — Roma Downey, New York Times best-selling author of Box Of Butterflies, acclaimed actress and producer, president of LightWorkers Media, the Faith and Family Division of MGM Television
“Mary Pat Kelly is a peerless storyteller. In Irish Above All, she blends history and fiction into a seamless narrative that is gripping, poignant and enlightening. We all have our favorite novelists. Mary Pat Kelly is mine.” – Peter Quinn, American Book Award-Winning Author of Banished Children Of Eve
“Mary Pat Kelly’s masterful saga of Irish American life and history comes to a thrilling conclusion with Irish Above All as the Kellys and the Kennedys achieve political power with very different consequences. A great read.” — Patricia Harty, Cofounder, Editor-in-chief, Irish America Magazine
“Prepare to be transported through 1920-40s Chicago and Ireland for an epic story of love, loss and the strength of one incredible Irish woman.” — Martha Hall Kelly, New York Times best-selling author of Lilac Girls
“Mary Pat Kelly vividly captures the tumult of Chicago machine politics, with its hard-fought ethnic and racial struggles. A tale told by a feisty spirited woman, Irish Above All takes us from the Jazz Age through World War II. It is history with a timely contemporary message. For as one Irishman puts it: ‘All of us are descended from someone who got out against the odds.’” — Margo Jefferson, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Negroland: A Memoir, Pulitzer Prize winning cultural critic The New York Times, author of On Michael Jackson
“Ahead of her times, Nora Kelly is a fascinating woman of vision and an inspiration to todays’ generation of women photographers.” – Barbara Kasten, internationally recognized artist known for her abstract photographs
“Fascinating story. Engrossing, with enduring central character and a wonderful, rich historical background” – Mary Higgins Clark, international and New York Times best-selling author
“Kelly is a wonderful, creative, intelligent writer who’s endowed with a sense of humor.” — Malachy McCourt, New York Times best-selling author of A Monk Swimming
“Captures the drama, the turmoil, and the excitement of the complex history of Irish and Irish Americans in the early twentieth century . . . and illuminates the arduous task of finding one’s true self in the heart of a whirlwind.” — Mary Gordon, award-winning author of The Company Of Women, Final Payments
“A sweeping historical novel placed on one of the worlds richest stages – Paris in the teens and twenties, where Irish ex-pats mingle with Americans and fascinating fictional characters rub shoulders with Hemingway, Gertrude Stein even Coco Chanel. The book trembles with the entries of international politics, thunders with the distant sounds of strife and pulses with life… It’s complex, lively, wildly romantic, and hugely entertaining.” William Martin, New York Times best-selling author of The Lincoln Letter
“A gripping story about passionate people. It also an exploration of the depth and height of that explosive word, Irish. There is heartbreak in the word —and exultation. A real reading experience” – Thomas Fleming, New York Times best-selling author of The Secret Trail Of Robert E. Lee
“Fiesty Irish American girl from Chicago discovers love, independence what it means to be Irish…Vivid and full of passion Of Irish Blood will sweep you away” – Lynn Garafola, author of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes
“Mary Pat is an incredible writer; there is really no one better to capture the unpredictable, original and slightly off-beat Parisian fashion of the roaring 20s as seen through the eyes of the younger generation.” – Tommy Hilfiger, iconic fashion designer
“A passionately told tale of romance and revolution that brushes away the dust and cobwebs of history to bring alive a time when the fates of individuals and nations hung in the balance . . . irresistible.” — Peter Quinn, American Book Award-Winning Author of Banished Children Of Eve
“After reading her novel Galway Bay, you might wonder if Mary Pat Kelly knows everything about nineteenth-century Ireland, the Great Famine, and the emigrant experience in America. But it’s her exploration of the human heart that moves you. Against landscapes beautiful and bleak she brings her characters to unforgettable life. As they say in Ireland, ‘Take your ease with this book.’ You’ll need time for laughter and tears and pure magic.” — Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Angela’s Ashes
“So rousingly epic that it can’t help but reach readers’ hearts.” — People Magazine
“A book that should be in every Irish-American household library.” — Irish America Magazine
“This is the story of our people . . . an extraordinary book.” — Irish American News
“Nothing short of riveting.” — Boston Irish Reporter
“Both a family saga and a historical epic, replete with much romance and rigor . . . meant to be read over a couple of long evenings in a comfy chair with a high foot rest . . . A novel Irish both in sensibility and circumstance . . . the humor throughout is by turns gentle or sardonic; the characters exhibit a toughness both resolute and wily, their confidence placed in pluck, not luck . . . In dire times, the Irish would encourage each other to hope for Ireland’s restoration by saying, ‘the Harp will be re-strung.’ Mary Pat Kelly has done precisely that.” — America, The National Catholic Weekly