'An ambitious and meticulously researched family history' CONOR O'CLERY, Author of The Shoemaker and His Daughter

When William Kennedy joined the Royal Navy in 1854, he embarked on a decade-long service that took him across the globe, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, the Far East and the Pacific. Meanwhile Norry Grady emerged from the hardships of the Famine to become a domestic servant in Trabolgan House, where her skills as a seamstress did not go unnoticed.

The couple married in 1859 and eventually settled into life in coastguard stations across Ireland and England. Their lives were marked by joy, sorrow and resilience as they navigated personal losses with an indomitable spirit that has echoed down through the generations, all the way to the author.

The Sailor and the Seamstress is a vivid historical narrative that paints a rich portrait of nineteenth-century Ireland, a time of great social and political upheaval, capturing the struggles and triumphs of ordinary people during extraordinary times.