The Star of the Sea
Read The Star of the Sea Online
Authors: Joseph O'Connor
The international No. 1 bestseller
‘This is Joseph O’Connor’s best book. It is shocking, hilarious, beautifully written, and very, very clever’ Roddy Doyle
‘A terrific story … A stealthily gripping narrative’
Daily Telegraph
In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by injustice and natural disaster, the
Star of the Sea
sets sail for New York.
On board are hundreds of fleeing refugees. Among them are a maidservant with a devastating secret, bankrupt Lord Merridith and his family, an aspiring novelist, a maker of revolutionary ballads, all braving the Atlantic in search of a new home. All are connected more deeply than they can possibly know. But a camouflaged killer is stalking the decks, hungry for the vengeance that will bring absolution.
The twenty-six day journey will see many lives end, others begin afresh. In a spellbinding story of tragedy and healing, the further the ship sails towards the Promised Land, the more her passengers seem moored to a past which will never let them go.
‘A triumph … A spectacular breakthrough’
Sunday Times
‘His most substantial and impressive novel to date’
Irish Times
‘A masterful storyteller … A thrilling tale … O’Connor writes with nothing less than incandescent passion … Unfailingly gripping’
The Times
‘A modern masterpiece … The language is absolutely gorgeous’ Bob Geldof
S
TAR OF THE
S
EA
Farewell to Old Ireland
From
Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446435786
Published by Vintage 2003
25 27 29 30 28 26 24
Copyright © Joseph O’Connor 2002
Joseph O’Connor has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 2002 by Secker & Warburg
Vintage
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London SW1V 2SA
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
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The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099469629
FOR ANNE-MARIE
AGAIN AND ALWAYS
[The Famine] is a punishment from God for an idle, ungrateful and rebellious country; an indolent and un-self-reliant people. The Irish are suffering from an affliction of God’s providence.
Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to Her Majesty’s Treasury, 1847
(Knighted, 1848, for overseeing famine relief)
England is truly a great public criminal. England! All England! … She must be punished; that punishment will, as I believe, come upon her by and through Ireland; and so Ireland will be avenged … The Atlantic ocean be never so deep as the hell which shall belch down on the oppressors of my race.
John Mitchel, Irish nationalist, 1856
T
HE
M
ISSING
L
INK
: A creature manifestly between the gorilla and the Negro is to be met with in some of the lowest districts of London and Liverpool by adventurous explorers. It comes from Ireland, whence it has contrived to migrate; it belongs in fact to a tribe of Irish savages: the lowest species of Irish Yahoo. When conversing with its kind it talks a sort of gibberish. It is, moreover, a climbing animal, and may sometimes be seen ascending a ladder laden with a hod of bricks.
Punch
magazine, London, 1862
Providence sent the potato blight but England made the Famine … We are sick of the canting talk of those who tell us that we must not blame the British people for the crimes of their rulers against Ireland. We do blame them.
James Connolly, co-leader of the Easter Rising
against British Rule, 1916
TAR OF THE
S
EA
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. He has written eleven widely acclaimed and best-selling books including the novels
Cowboys and Indians
, shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize,
Desperadoes, The Salesman
and, most recently,
Redemption Falls
. His work has been published in twenty-seven languages.
ALSO BY JOSEPH O’CONNOR
Fiction
Cowboys and Indians
Desperadoes
The Salesman
Inishowen
Redemption Falls
Short Stories/Novella
True Believers
The Comedian
Non-Fiction
Even the Olives are Bleeding: The Life and
Times of Charles Donnelly
The Secret World of the Irish Male
Sweet Liberty: Travels in Irish America
The Last of the Irish Males
Stage Plays
Red Roses and Petrol
The Weeping of Angels
True Believers
(adaptation)
The Temptation of Christ, and the Woman
Taken in Adultery for Mysteries 2000
(version of the Chester Play Cycle)
Screenplays
A Stone of the Heart
The Long Way Home
Ailsa
Participation in Collaborative Works
Yeats is Dead!
A Serial Novel by Fifteen Irish Writers
for Amnesty International (editor)
Finbar’s Hotel
(ed. Dermot Bolger)
FROM
Notes of London and Ireland in 1847
by G. GRANTLEY DIXON
of the
New York Times
A LIMITED
,
Commemorative One-Hundredth Edition
.
R
EVISED
, U
NEXPURGATED
and with Many New Inclusions.
