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The Exile Breed is a story of the Irish Famine in Ireland, Canada, England and the USA. The Famine intensified in 1847. Many left, but hunger and fever followed them. Thousands died in the Irish ghettoes of Liverpool, Manchester and London. Many more died in the ships on the Atlantic, in the emigrant hospitals of Quebec and Montreal, in the forests and along the back-roads of Canada, and in the slums of New York and other American cities. Those who survived went on to build new lives in the lands of the Irish Diaspora.
About the author
Charles Egan was born in Nottingham, England of Irish parents.
When he was five, the family returned to Ireland, as his father had been appointed Resident Medical Superintendent of St. Luke's, a psychiatric hospital in Clonmel, in County Tipperary.
Every summer they visited his father's family's farm, outside Kiltimagh in County Mayo for a month, where his grandmother and uncles spent many evenings, talking about family and local history.
The family subsequently moved to County Wicklow, where he initially attended the De La Salle Brothers School in Wicklow town. He then went to the Jesuits' Clongowes Wood College (James Joyce's alma mater), and subsequently studied Commerce in University College Dublin, graduating in 1973.
After an initial career in the private sector, including Marubeni Dublin, (where he met his future wife, Carmel), he joined the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in Dublin. After a few years, the desire to be his own boss, led him to resign and set up his own business, which ran for 30 years.
Apart from business, his main interests are history, film and worldwide travel.
Summary
The pitiless epic of the Irish Famine diaspora.
