Thomas Keneally’s book "Schindler’s List" won the Man Booker Prize in 1982 and later become the basis for the Academy Award winning film starring Liam Neeson.

He followed this success with "The Great Shame", a memorable book which calls on his Irish ancestry and deals with the famine, the emigrations and the transportations to Australia. 

In an interview with Patricia Harty in Irish America, Keneally talked abut his first visit to Ireland.

“I found Cork very provocative because the convicts who were sent to Australia were put on an island in the harbor prior to departure. My grandfather was from Co. Cork.”

Keneally was born in Homebush, New South Wales in Australia and attended St. Patrick’s College nearby. He entered St. Patrick’s Seminary to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination, and later worked as a schoolteacher.

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