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My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search For Home
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)

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Published:
Books on Tape 2019
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
The perfect gift for parents this Father’s Day: a beautiful, gut-wrenching memoir of Irish identity, fatherhood, and what we owe to the past.
 
“A heartbreaking and redemptive book, written with courage and grace.”
–J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy

“…a lovely little book.”
–Ross Douthat, The New York Times

The child of an Irish man and an Irish-American woman who split up before he was born, Michael Brendan Dougherty grew up with an acute sense of absence. He was raised in New Jersey by his hard-working single mother, who gave him a passion for Ireland, the land of her roots and the home of Michael's father. She put him to bed using little phrases in the Irish language, sang traditional songs, and filled their home with a romantic vision of a homeland over the horizon.
Every few years, his father returned from Dublin for a visit, but those encounters were never long enough. Devastated by his father's departures, Michael eventually consoled himself by believing that fatherhood was best understood as a check in the mail. Wearied by the Irish kitsch of the 1990s, he began to reject his mother's Irish nationalism as a romantic myth.
Years later, when Michael found out that he would soon be a father himself, he could no longer afford to be jaded; he would need to tell his daughter who she is and where she comes from. He immediately re-immersed himself in the biographies of firebrands like Patrick Pearse and studied the Irish language. And he decided to reconnect with the man who had left him behind, and the nation just over the horizon. He began writing letters to his father about what he remembered, missed, and longed for. Those letters would become this book.
Along the way, Michael realized that his longings were shared by many Americans of every ethnicity and background. So many of us these days lack a clear sense of our cultural origins or even a vocabulary for expressing this lack—so we avoid talking about our roots altogether. As a result, the traditional sense of pride has started to feel foreign and dangerous; we've become great consumers of cultural kitsch, but useless conservators of our true history.
In these deeply felt and fascinating letters, Dougherty goes beyond his family's story to share a fascinating meditation on the meaning of identity in America.
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Format:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen
Edition:
Unabridged
Street Date:
04/30/2019
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781984842190
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Michael Brendan Dougherty. (2019). My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search For Home. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Michael Brendan Dougherty. 2019. My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search For Home. Books on Tape.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Michael Brendan Dougherty, My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search For Home. Books on Tape, 2019.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Michael Brendan Dougherty. My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search For Home. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2019.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Apr 26, 2019 17:07:08
Date Updated:
Dec 06, 2020 02:43:58
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 12:33:54
Last Metadata Change:
Jan 30, 2024 07:22:56
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 12:33:57
Last Availability Change:
Oct 01, 2023 15:08:06
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 28, 2024 02:11:39

OverDrive Product Record

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The perfect gift for parents this Father’s Day: a beautiful, gut-wrenching memoir of Irish identity, fatherhood, and what we owe to the past.
 
“A heartbreaking and redemptive book, written with courage and grace.”
–J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy

“…a lovely little book.”
–Ross Douthat, The New York Times

The child of an Irish man and an Irish-American woman who split up before he was born, Michael Brendan Dougherty grew up with an acute sense of absence. He was raised in New Jersey by his hard-working single mother, who gave him a passion for Ireland, the land of her roots and the home of Michael's father. She put him to bed using little phrases in the Irish language, sang traditional songs, and filled their home with a romantic vision of a homeland over the horizon.
Every few years, his father returned from Dublin for a visit, but those encounters were never long enough. Devastated by his father's departures, Michael eventually consoled himself by believing that fatherhood was best understood as a check in the mail. Wearied by the Irish kitsch of the 1990s, he began to reject his mother's Irish nationalism as a romantic myth.
Years later, when Michael found out that he would soon be a father himself, he could no longer afford to be jaded; he would need to tell his daughter who she is and where she comes from. He immediately re-immersed himself in the biographies of firebrands like Patrick Pearse and studied the Irish language. And he decided to reconnect with the man who had left him behind, and the nation just over the horizon. He began writing letters to his father about what he remembered, missed, and longed for. Those letters would become this book.
Along the way, Michael realized that his longings were shared by many Americans of every ethnicity and background. So many of us these days lack a clear sense of our cultural origins or even a vocabulary for expressing this lack—so we avoid talking about our roots altogether. As a result, the traditional sense of pride has started to feel foreign and dangerous; we've become great consumers of cultural kitsch, but useless conservators of our true history.
In these deeply felt and fascinating letters, Dougherty goes beyond his family's story to share a fascinating meditation on the meaning of identity in America.
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The perfect gift for parents this Father’s Day: a beautiful, gut-wrenching memoir of Irish identity, fatherhood, and what we owe to the past.
 
“A heartbreaking and redemptive book, written with courage and grace.”
–J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy

“…a lovely little book.”
–Ross Douthat, The New York Times

The child of an Irish man and an Irish-American woman who split up before he was born, Michael Brendan Dougherty grew up with an acute sense of absence. He was raised in New Jersey by his hard-working single mother, who gave him a passion for Ireland, the land of her roots and the home of Michael's father. She put him to bed using little phrases in the Irish language, sang traditional songs, and filled their home with a romantic vision of a homeland over the horizon.
Every few years, his father returned from Dublin for a visit, but...
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      • description: Political Science / Political Ideologies / Nationalism & Patriotism