Blog #2 | Michael J. Hopkins

July 8, 2026

Blog #2

The following is a first look at some excerpts from the Introduction of my book, The Irish Ties That Bind, prepared for a yet-to-be-finalized book blog tour sponsored by The Coffee Pot Book Club:

The Irish Ties That Bind: Excerpt #1
(An Introduction to Irish Emigration)

“In the southern region of Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century, the majority of the population shared a distinct cultural identity rooted in significant Irish ties that bound them together. . . . What divisions that existed among the people were largely due to differences in religion, social class, and land ownership. . . . Ultimately, the British Protestant landlords wanted to keep the Irish Catholic tenant farmers in a state of ongoing struggle, poverty, and dependence on the land. This situation led to a growing sense of national consciousness among Irish Catholics, motivating them to seek independence from British rule. In other words, it became another unifying ‘Irish tie that binds.’ . . .

The coexisting lives of the Irish poor and the wealthy diverged dramatically during the Great Famine (1845-1852). . . . The potato blight caused widespread starvation and disease, and the resulting famine killed at least one million Irish peasants and forced over one million more to flee their homeland. . . . Each family traces at least one ancestral line to southern Ireland. Similar to the interconnected veins of Irish clover, these four emigrant families from the 1840s and 1850s share common cultural ties and lived experiences. . . .

Each featured formidable female leadership and a deeply religious lifestyle before, during, and after their lives crossed paths (directly or indirectly) in 1920 in one relatively small northern Illinois city with a population of just over eight thousand. Distinctive women impacted the lives of people living in Dixon, Illinois, as well as American society and the world . . . As expressed in Proverbs 31:25, ‘Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.’ In other words, a woman of God is strong, dignified, and graceful because she fully understands the power and influence her words and actions hold, thanks to her strong faith in God.”