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For some of our neighbors, Michael represented a kind of reaching above that made them uneasy: his skill as a piper, his victory in the Galway Races, the breeding of Champion and selling her foals, his dream of a forge. But John Joe Gorman, the Tierneys, the McGuire brothers, and even Neddy Ryan understood what it took to set a ridge and bring forth a ton of potatoes. And no one cut turf in the bog faster or piled it more neatly than Michael. The men of the townland appreciated Michael's skills and looked to him as a leader-an accomplishment for a fellow here only six years. And this year we'd have our biggest yield ever. But the potatoes were ready now. They could go mealy if left in the ground. The next morning, a fine drizzle broke up the fog. "Come on, Mam!" said Paddy. The boys stood at the door, eager to start the digging. "Where's your da?" "The great giant Finn McCool's off to take his morning piss, Mam." "Paddy!" "That's what Da told us." He and Jamesy started to laugh-were still laughing when Da, Granny, Mam, Joseph, and Hughie arrived. Dennis stayed in Bearna with Josie, near her time now. "God bless all here," Da said. The other families from the townlands had started toward their fields, too, and called out to us-"Good morning, missus!" and, "God bless-a decent day for it, finally!" And the sky was clearing. We should get a lot of the potato crop in today. "I'm running ahead with Joseph," Paddy shouted. "He's giving me a go with his hurley." At eighteen, Joseph was still five feet nothing. Paddy's nearly up to his shoulder, with the height he gets from the Keeleys and Kellys both-muscled already. A sturdy lad, halfway up the hill, with Jamesy puffing behind. Hughie, good boy that he was, swung Jamesy up on his back and took off after Paddy and Joseph. More like brothers than uncles to my sons. I walked between Mam and Granny, carrying Bridget. Da and Michael were just ahead, deep in talk of some kind. They get on so well. Michael's part of the Keeley men now, with his own fine children, his loneliness filled. I took Granny's hand. "Our own pratties," I said. "And nothing to do with Jackson or the Scoundrel Pykes or anybody but us. Michael says they keep us safe." "They do," Granny said. I heard Joseph and Hughie shouting down to us, but I couldn't catch their words. And then Paddy and Jamesy were shrieking, "Da, Da, Da!" Michael started running. The boys sounded frightened. I saw Michael reach them, then fall down to the ground. What's he doing? Where's that awful smell coming from? Has something died up here? The stench seems to rise from the land itself. Mam and Da and Granny and I were at the ridges now. Paddy ran to me. He lifted up his hands to me, covered in black muck. "The pratties, Mam," he said. "They're gone!" Michael and Joseph and Hughie were tearing at the ground. "Here, Mam, take Bridget," I said, and knelt down next to Michael. "Where are the potatoes?" I said. "Where are they?" He pulled out a great stinking glob and held it out to me. "Here. This." He shook the filth off his hands, wiped them on the grass, and kept digging. The stalks of all the plants, green the day before, were black and blasted, with slime instead of potatoes under the ground. "This can't be!" I said. "How could they all die in one night?" "Here, Michael, here's a good one," Joseph called, "and another, and another-five solid potatoes up here." "And a sound ridge over here!" Da shouted. "Look, green patches among the black." Michael stood up. "Dig the potatoes from the green ones-fast, fast!-before whatever's doing this spreads. Hurry! Hurry!" Paddy ran to Michael. Mam knelt next to me. Granny carried Bridget a few steps away. Jamesy came to stand at my shoulder. "Mam, Mam, listen." "I can't, Jamesy. I'm digging. Help me." "Listen, listen!" "What?" Now I heard it-echoing from glen to glen. . . . Galway "Keening," Granny said. Wailing voices came from every hillside-the neighbors-their potatoes dead and dying, too. The sound stopped us. We were frozen, kneeling in the muck and mire. Michael recovered first. "Dig! Dig! Dig!" he shouted, heading for the high ridge. I crawled to another patch and plunged my hand into the foulsmelling mess. I felt a hard lump-a good potato. But when I grabbed it, the potato fell apart in my hand, oozing through my fingers. "We must dig faster!" Michael yelled. "Get any whole potatoes out! Carry them to the stream, scrub away the muck." "Michael!" It was our Joseph. "Up here, at the top! They're all sound!" "Get them out! Get them!" Michael shouted. Granny took Bridget and Jamesy away. A hard rain started. Rivers of evil-smelling mud flooded the ridges, soaking us through. We dug and dug, gagging on the smell. We stopped only when the last of the light went. We carried any whole potatoes to the stream near our cottage to wash them, then rubbed them dry on our clothes and stacked them in the pit. All that we had saved barely covered the bottom. We staggered into the cottage. Granny had boiled up some of the early potatoes, dug up last month. Michael looked into the pot. "Sound! These were sound! And the fields were healthy yesterday. . . . What could have happened? What blight could have hit so fast? How could the potatoes rot overnight?" "We must eat and sleep," Granny said. "Take one prattie each." Michael usually eats ten. We ate. I put Mam, Da, Granny, and the children on the straw pallet, and the rest of us collapsed on the floor. I lay down next to Michael. "The ridges behind the long acre might be sound," he said. They weren't. Two days of digging and the pit wasn't half-full. Only the potatoes on the very highest ridges-the ones Michael and Patrick had planted first-had survived the blight. Not enough. Not near enough. "Galway Bay" is published by Grand Central.

The list of hefty novels which explore the terrible time of the Great Hunger continues to grow, and is all the more noteworthy because so many of the works are impressive. In the wake of older classics such as Liam O'Flaherty's "Famine," we've had Peter Quinn's brilliant "Banished Children of Eve" and Kevin Baker's "Paradise Alley," both of which explored New York City as desperate emigrants were fleeing Ireland. Irish America contributor Mary Pat Kelly is the latest to add to the contemporary canon of Irish Famine novels with "Galway Bay." This is an epic story on a grand scale, which explores not just the Famine in Ireland, but a wide range of other events from the era, including the U.S. Civil War and the Fenian invasion of Canada. At the center of "Galway Bay" are Honora Keeley and her sister Marie. Early on they live what, in many ways, was the timeless life of ancient Ireland - amidst fishermen and farmers who pass ancient songs, stories and traditions on to the next generation. Of course, this way of life is disrupted by the Famine, as well as by the woefully inadequate response of the British government. Honora and Marie (I hope it doesn't ruin the story to tell you that they both end up widowed) make a vow to survive the calamity and manage to escape to the U.S. with their children. After arriving in New Orleans they head for Chicago in search of Honora's brother-in-law who is involved in the cause of Irish freedom. Mary Pat Kelly's knowledge of Irish and American-Irish history is what drives this novel. Her descriptions of the immigrants aboard ship, their journey to the Chicago suburb of Hardscrablble, which later became Bridgeport, and work in the slaughterhouses is especially evocative, as indeed is her coverage of the Irish participation on both sides of the Civil War. "Galway Bay," which is based on Kelly's family's own experiences, also offers a glimpse into how women specifically navigated the nightmarish Famine experience and managed to carve out a place for themselves in America. A writer and director of documentaries, and the movie Proud, a story of African-American servicemen in World War II, Kelly is also the author of a previous novel entitled Special Intentions. "Galway Bay," though, is clearly a labor of love, not to mention the labor of a lifetime. Kelly has ambitiously attempted to capture the 19th-century Irish-American experience, and manages to help us understand how we are still living with this legacy today. ($26.99 / 562 pages / Grand Central)