The Luck of the Irish Author:Harry J. Boyle The Luck of the Irish is a warm, humorous story told in the traditional round-about style that always has time to explore an interesting side issue. And in the Irish-Canadian farming community where this book is set there are enough remarkable characters per acre to provide plenty of hilarious side-trips. — Many of the characters are often to be ... more »found gathered at Will O’Brien’s store, where they meet to tell stories and shake their heads over the Macraes, wee Tom and his domineering big sister Carrie, whose attempts to farm meet with disaster after disaster. They seem to be “long on faith and short on luck” as one of the head-shakers comments when the Macrae barn burns down while they are both at church. The loss of the barn brings things to a head. With an Ontario winter on the way and no barn to shelter the livestock – and no prospect of finding the money to build a new one – the Macraes are in desperate trouble. So a deputation goes to the local priest in the hope that he will come up with a solution.
In desperation, Father Gibbons suggests that the Macraes make a pilgrimage to the Martyr’s Shrine at Midland. The trip, the first time away from home for 22-year-old Tom, brings him in contact with things whose existence he had only dreamt about – and alters his life, almost miraculously …« less