Embracing Hope: The Famine Irish Experience in Providence, Rhode Island

Raymond J. McKenna

Embracing Hope tells the story of the Irish farmers and laborers who, in the wake of the Great Hunger, made their home in the Ocean State. It is the humble folks, the day laborers, the domestic servants, the unwed mothers, the abandoned children, whose lives reflect the damage and heartbreak that hunger and disease brought to these otherwise optimistic people.

With the eye of a genealogist as well as an historian, Ray McKenna interweaves his family’s troubles and perseverance with those of their neighbors and friends. His depiction of their daily routines paints a picture of a way of life in the years before and during An Gorta Mór. Then, in nineteenth-century Providence, McKenna brings to life neighborhoods like Federal Hill, with its South Ulster flair.

What emerges is a story of chain migrations, beginning in the 1790s and extending to this day, delivering the people who changed the face of Rhode Island and the nation as a whole.

McKenna employs paintings, lithographs, and photographs throughout the book to illustrate the story of a people downtrodden yet ascendant. The good cheer — the hope, if you will — for which the Irish are rightfully recognized shines through in this retelling of their lives.

This book will ship in April 2026.

Please note that this book can only be shipped to an address within the United States.