As she etches a variety of job titles in the world of art and entertainment onto her professional belt, producer, director, screenwriter and novelist Mary Pat Kelly’s list of achievements seem to go on and on. Kelly holds a Ph.D. in Irish literature and is a frequent contributor to Irish America.

 

A former associate producer of "Saturday Night Live" and "Good Morning America," Kelly is no stranger to the world of television and film. She has directed several award-winning documentaries including To Live for Ireland, a portrait of Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume and Home Away from Home: The Yanks in Ireland, a history of U.S. forces in Northern Ireland during World War II. She wrote and directed the film Proud, a story she first came upon while researching World War II American soldiers in Ireland.

 

From Martin Scorsese to Bosnia, the topics of her several books are always captivating. Her novel "Special Intentions" was based on her experience as a nun. Most recently, Kelly published a novel entitled "Galway Bay" which follows the lives of Honora Kelly and her sister as they embark on an epic journey away from the starving shores of Ireland to a new life in Chicago. Like Special Intentions, Galway Bay has a strong personal connection to Kelly.

 

While the story itself is fiction, the basis of the novel is the life of the real Honora Kelly, Mary Pat’s great-great-grandmother. On her website, Kelly writes, “We are all descended from people forced from their homes who turned the tragedy of exile into triumph by simply surviving.”

 

Mary Pat and her husband, Martin Sheerin, live in New York City.