Eamon Loingsigh – författare

Light of the Diddicoy is the riveting and immersive saga of Irish gangs on the Brooklyn waterfront in the early part of the 20th century, told through the eyes of young newcomer Liam Garrity. Forced at age 14 to travel alone to America after money grew scarce in Ireland, Garrity stumbles directly into the hard-knock streets of the Irish-run waterfront and falls in with a Bridge District gang called the White Hand. Through a series of increasingly tense and brutal scenes, he has no choice but to use any means necessary to survive and carve out his place in a no-holds-barred community living outside the law. The book is the first of Irish-American author Eamon Loingsigh''s Auld Irishtown trilogy, which delves into the stories and lore of the gangs and families growing up in this under-documented area of Brooklyn’s Irish underworld.

Exile on Bridge Street details teenage Irish immigrant Liam Garrity''s struggle to adulthood in pre-Prohibition Brooklyn. Back home, Ireland''s fight for its own independence erupts with the 1916 Easter Rising. The fate of Garrity''s father, an Irish rebel, is unknown, which leaves his mother and two sisters vulnerable on the family farm as British troops swarm, seeking reprisals. Garrity must organize their departure to New York immediately. In Brooklyn, Garrity is adopted by Dinny Meehan, leader of a longshoremen gang based in an “Irishtown” saloon under the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. Meehan vows to help Garrity and his family. But just as Ireland struggles for independence, Garrity faces great obstacles in his own coming of age on the violent Brooklyn waterfront. World War I, the Spanish Influenza, the temperance movement, the rise of Italian organized crime, police, unions and shipping and dock companies all target the Brooklyn Irish gang and threaten Garrity’s chances at bringing his family to New York. When “Wild Bill” Lovett, one of the gang''s dockbosses vies to take over, both Meehan and Garrity face a fight for survival in New York City''s brawling streets mirroring Ireland’s own fledgling independence movement.Compelling writing by a master of historical fiction, as evidenced in the author’s critically-acclaimed prequel Light of the Diddicoy.