Author timothy eagan. This is live coverage of the tucson book festival. Good morning, welcome, im going to be moderating this conversation this morning with timothy eagan. I want to expand thanks to cspan tv and book tv for sponsoring and will last approximately one hour, including questions and answers till the end of the panel immediately following the session tim will be autographing books at the bookstore, thats 153 by the university bookstores. Because youre enjoying the festival and im sure you all are, please consider joining the festival of the tucson festival of books. So become a friend by visiting the Student Union ballroom or go into our website. Out of respect for the author, please turn off your cell phones, now, if you would. This morning its our pleasure to have timothy eagan. The worst hard time and the National Best seller the big burn. Tims current book just released last week is entitled to immore eat irishman who became an american hero, a biography of thomas mar. Hes sadly been largely forgotten since his death so tim what starked your interest in mar. Well, thank you, bruise, its great to be here in this lovely arizona morning, this huge crowd, i cant believe it. You people love books. [laughter] also ive been told a number of times ive been told this is the best book festival in the world. [cheers and applause] but as someone who is interested in getting the truth right, ive been to i havent been to every book festival in the world but my experience is it passes that task. I would like to think that i pe im one of seven kids, you know, one after the other, sort of classic irish family. I like to think i knew our history. And even though i thought i knew our history, i was somewhat of a lapsed irishamerican. [laughter] i was standing outside the montana capitol with thengovernor brian schweitzer, great guy, and theres this enormous e equestrian statue. You just cant miss it. You can see it from miles away. And its, as i said, a map on his horse with a sword pointed towards the Rocky Mountains and at the the base are these fighting words, given from dublin at the time irish were dying. And i said who the hell is that on the statue, and the governor looks at me and says you dont know who Thomas Francis meagher is . At one point he was the most famous irishman in the united states, probably not until john f. Kennedy came along was will a more famous irishamerican. He affected history on three continents. He lived 12 lives in his short 43 years. There were liberated slaves because of him, there was a free ireland because of him, a free australia because of him. He knew abraham lincoln, he knew chief red cloud of the sioux, he knew daniel oconnell, the man who freed the catholics in ireland, he knew horace greeley. So how could this giant stride three continue innocents and continents and have him disappear . He was flawed as well as brilliant. One line just jumped out at me at the beginning of your book, and that is to be irish in ire was to live in a land liarland was to ireland was to live in a land that was not your own. Meagher was born in 1823, previctorian ireland. And its, theyre getting into probably the 700th year of being under the english boot heel. And you have to understand, i saw all these parallels later, what we now call ethnic cleansing, what we now call apartheid. And in the famine what we now call genocide. None of those terms were around. All of those were applied to the irish. So for almost 700 years it was, essentially, a crime to be irish. They took away their land, they outlawed their religion, they outlawed their language, spoken by a majority of the people. They outlawed their sport, hurling. The first thing the irish did when they moved to newfoundland, one of the first things they did was establish a hurling club just to say this will not die. They did everything, they banned the harp. Queen elizabeth in the 15th century said round up the harpers wherever they are found and happening them. So why is the harp on the bottle of guinness . [laughter] why is the harp in front of, on the irish brigade flag during the civil war . Its a martyr instrument, it was an outlawed instrument. People always ask me why do the irish cling to the roman catholicism . Well, because it was a way for a conquered people to remain defiantly irish. Now remember, the wifekilling king, henry viii, tried to insist every irishman and woman follow his new religion, anglican church, again, founded by a serial killer. Sorry. [laughter] so this didnt really go well after theyd taken Everything Else from them. One of the things that happened most people didnt understand after the cromwell conquest which was just brutal pillaging be plundering, and thats when they kicked them off their land and gave the land to the cromwell soldiers. About 80 of the irish didnt live on their own land, and they say one of the worst things you can say in ireland is the curse of cromwell be on you. They sent 40,000 people or thereabouts into slavery in barbados and other parts of the caribbean. There are descendants of them still. So they did everything they could for most of 700 years to erase the irish people, take everything that made them a people, their song, their language, their sports, their culture, to take it away from them. Meagher comes of age just as theyre lifted some of the penal laws, but you still cant serve in parliament unless youve renounced your religion. So that set the stage for his, for his coming astride. That kind of begs the question then i went to, i went to college in the late 60s and early 70s, so its hard for me not to see parallels sometimes. How does a young, wealthy irishman whos fathers a member of parliament become a revolutionary . The great famine. It is to this day considered the biggest crime in the history of ireland. Now, i want to put this in context, because theres been a lot of good scholarship on this. Most people think that the famine was caused by the potato rot, which it was. The ostensible cause was the potato, you could raise almost your whole family on an acre. You were a tenant farmer, and you put tease tuber these tubers in the ground in the spring, youd come back and or harvest, a little butter milk, maybe some bacon, youd feed your family for a year. They dug up the potatoes, and it was a black mess. It just disappeared. So slowly they get these reports, the crop is failing, people are starting to die. But ireland is raising a lot of other foods; grains, cereal, barley, pork. They are the leading exporter of beef in the British Empire. So the great famine in which a million irish die in four years time, and families are found huddling together they would in these poor houses. Children are in these ditches with their teeth stained green, their barefoot feet just clawed, i mean, horrible seens that the quaker missionaries scenes would describe. The choctaw Indian Nation sent a ship full of corn for the poor, starving irish. The people of calcutta passed the hat for the poor, starving irish. So meagher comes of age at the time of this greatest crime in irelands history. He joins a group of revolutionaries in dublin called the young ireland movement. They were poet, philosophers, educated men and women because women were fully equal in this struggle, ahead of when they ever got suffrage. And they see this horrible crime that irish food is being raised by irish hands, but its not going into irish mouths. Now, to their credit, in 1997 british Prime Minister tony blair apologized for the famine and said it was one of the great crimes of england. Were sorry. Dont take it so hard. [laughter] but, actually, blairs policy sort of opened the windows of scholarship. And what had been a shameful thing in ireland, you ask anyone, oh, we just couldnt talk about the famine. They now know it was what the british called a policy of ec termination. That was extermination. That was their word. If a million of them die, and i want to make this clear, they werent actively killing them, they were passively letting it happen. And the man of who was in charge of the famine, later knighted, he said this death of a million irish was the hand of god and it was, quote, the cure. That was his term, the cure for too many irish. If you go to the Quinnipiac University great hunger museum, theres a portrait of the english gentleman in charge of believing the irish fate and beneath that it says wanted for crimes against humanity. Thats what radicalizes meagher. This man who could have anything he wanted, attractive, eloquent, speaks five languages, wealthy family that came back and bought the land that cromwell had taken from them, they had the biggest house on waterford, which you can visit its a hotel now and you can see meaghers bedroom. He leads an uprising and as, unfortunately, with all irish uprisings, it fails miserably. [laughter] there were these pitchfork paddies, starving irish. Meagher said i underestimated how weak the people would be. They couldnt storm the barricades. The British Empire, the flag of england is flying over onefourth of the everetts land mass, and the most troublesome part is earths land mass, and the most troublesome part of it is little ireland. He urges the hungry masses to storm the ports. Lets stop the food from leaving ireland. Symptom the food, storm stop the food, storm the ports. Hes arrested, and hes sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered and his remains disposed of as her majesty shall see fit. I was a little surprised to see oscar wilde pop up in this book. Could you talk about who these people were . Im glad you asked that. One of meaghers lovers, i think based on the papers, she went on to become the mother of oscar wilde. And whenever he toured, he said i am better known as the son of speranza. She wrote these powerful, powerful poems about what the british were doing to the starving irish. She has this refrain a million irish dead, the skeletons awake, the skeletons call. These crimes you will pay for. And she also wrote these very beautiful poems. She wrote a poem about meagher talking about how beautiful his mouth was and his lips. They were very liberated and very ahead of their time. They were these irish progressives who were closer to late 20th century than the mid Early Victorian age. All of these people were brilliant. One of them and then they were all sentenced to be hang, drawn and quartered. But they all went on to great brilliance. They were all kids in their 20s, imagine taking on the British Empire sonnets against swords. They had this quixotic attitude that Bernie Sanders supporters have [laughter] why dont we just take the banks down, you know . [laughter] they thought, well, you know, the British Empires, sure, they could level dublin is in an afternoon, but wont people see that our cause is great . And meagher gave a speech before 50,000 people one hot august afternoon on a mountain in ireland, and half of them were starving. He was only 23 when he gave that speech. He was considered the great orator in ireland. Yeah, when meagher later banished he doesnt get hanged, drawn and quartered and have his body parts thrown into dublin which is what they did to the rebels of 1798. Victoria, her gracious majesty, commits him to lifetime banishment on the island of tasmania. Suddenly they have the most educated, most brilliant [laughter] and meagher so lonely. Hes the greatest orator, and he talkings to his dog. Talks to his dog. He says ill never make my mark. You cant describe how far australia is at this time. Its more than half the circumference of the earth. He says ill never see ireland again, which he would not. Ill never see my family again. Hes so lonely. And so he, the brits have this thing for the political prisoners. If you gave them your gentleman code of conduct that you would not escape, they didnt put you in a little cage and whack you with a cat and nine tails which is what they did to the petty criminals. So he had a 7 mile by 7 mile zone which he was never supposed to leave. His best friend had a zone next to him. They found a little river is and a foot bridge, and they arranged to have lunch there every friday because they were not in violation of their terms. [laughter] when he moves to his little place, he names his boat speranza and spent many lovely, loan hi afternoons sailing just a little bit here, since were talking about speranza, meagher eventually marries twice, and theyre two very different women. Right. Hes lonely, and theres no other way to say this, hes horny. [laughter] hes a young man in his mid 20s, and he falls in love with governess whos the daughter of a man whod been convicted of highway robbery, as they called him, the highwayman. But she was a beautiful governess, and meagher courts her, he eventually has a child by her, and theyre going to meet later. Meagher then plots his escape. Its one of the most gripping episodes in an amazing life. Takes him 12 days. My kids have warned me to stop giving away all the parts of this book. [laughter] but its shark of filled waters, this is pirates, theres a lot of back and fort. The way he gave up, he sent a note to the governor general of the island of tasmania and said i hereby notify you as of noon tomorrow i shall escape from this place. [laughter] i remain forever your honorable servant, Thomas Francis meagher. [laughter] and that did his gentlemans duty. And then the governor sent these troops up to get him, mooringers on a meaghers on a horse, and he says im Thomas Francis meagher, catch me if you can. [laughter] and he takes off through the tasmanian wild. After 12 days he does manage to escape, and his young wife whos 19 is going to meet him in america, but theres complications that ensue. Why dont you cover a little bit, because theres an irony to meaghers nobility in sending that letter off that later on turns boo a tragic consequence you mean in terms of the that role . Yeah. Eventually because of the global diaspora we do breed a lot, irelands a country of 6 million right now, but there are 70 million worldwide, they put this pressure on Queen Victoria that how can you, this country that is mostly progressive, they ban slavery ahead of the u. S. , they had, you know, rights of men were honored, etc. , but on the irish they had a blind side. So under this global pressure, victoria finally this is years later or commutes the total sentence to australia of the seven young ireland rebels. But because meagher had escaped, he would never be allowed to go back to ireland, that if he just stayed this, he would have been able to go home and see his family, but now the irony of his escape made him, as he said, im a homeless exile, and thats what he was for the rest of his life. We cant talk about irishamericans without talking about immigration because its the story. So if you could just describe a little bit what new york city was like in 1852 when he arrived and hen how the irish and then how the irish were viewed in 19th century america. This is why i write about history. I dont believe the past dead, its not even past, as William Faulkner said. We have these periodic times in our history where we turn against people. Were a nation of immigrants. Only 1 of us are native americans, everyone else is from somewhere else. The irish were the first of the big waves, many waves would follow, italians, southern europeans, asians, but the irish were the first wave. They did not want to leave. They loved their emerald island, but remember, a million died, 1. 5 million left. They were rural people, they raised pigs and potatoes. They got on these cotton ships for ten pounds that was the price and jammed into these quarters. And in the first few years one in five of them died in the passage so that when they arrived, often there would be seven or eight kids orphaned immediately. And some of them were just put on trains and sent to the midwest to be raised by people when had nothing to do with them. So they wash ashore and, remember, theyre rural people. Theyre coming to this cranking, loud, extraordinary series of cities, boston, new york, philadelphia, baltimore. And most of them never go more than four or five blocks from where their ship landed in new york city. They crowd into these awful tenements, just awful. They live 10100 square foot with sleeping on straw on the floor, 37 cents a week with a little bucket for a latrine. Excuse me, some of them still have pigs, and so the New York Times is so shocked, they say if you want to see some real slumming, go down to the Lower East Side and watch, quote, the pigs and the paddies lie down together. So they do fill the jails. Theyre totally out of sorts. Theyre just like they landed on mars. Theres one in four new yorkers in 852 is from ireland 1852. And its the biggest surge of immigration. A million five had left their country, so is theyre just and it naturally, as i said, they fill the jails. They fill what was called the new york city lunatic asylum. And when meagher is appalled. He says look at whats become of our people, this living in misery and squalor. How is this going to help our people . Hes also encouraged because of some of his fellow educated have done very well in this country. Theyre lawyers, prosecutors, judges, writers, politicians, they have the ear of the president. Meagher comes ashore, hes hailed as the savior of the irish masses. The New York Times gives an elaborate story of his escape and says this man can unite the irish masses, hes essentially jesus for the irish, thinking this is the man that can help organize and help them get out of their degradation. Now, the backlash, bruce, which you touched on, is the knownothing party. At one point the second Biggest Political Party in the united states. Its peak is in the 1850s. Its the only party in our history founded for only one reason, antiirish. And some antigerman as well, but mostly antiirish. They elect a governor of massachusetts, a governor in new york, and they push through these laws that makes it really hard for the irish to become citizens, they push through these laws that makes it very hard for them to become civil servants, cops and firemen. The irish dig the ditch, the canal, the sewers, they take care of other peoples children. The citizens, the nonothing party burns catholic churches in philadelphia and burn an irish fire house, they burn irish neighborhoods, they say, get on the boat and go back, they treat them horribly, they draw pictures of monkeys and tails, they basically dehumanize them and thats what mar runs up against the nonothing party before the civil war which rescues him and the rescu