Received another nice email from a reader. Here it is:

Hello David,
I am sure you can’t possibly remember me & wife, … but we met some years ago in Ocean Shores at the … Irish Festival. You had your book for sale. We got it a bit later & I started reading it & could not put it down. A number of my wife’s family moved from Belfast to Ballycastle & much of the history of that area was in the book (especially the bad part about the massacre on Rathlin Island).

I know you said you did not write to incite hatred … but it is hard not to feel anger at what the Irish suffered for centuries under that cruel regime. My wife’s family was originally from Donegal & Limerick. The ended up in Derry & Belfast. My ancestors are from Antrim & I think there may be some distant relations in Ballycastle as there are quite a few McCaughan’s in that town & the surrounding vicinity.

Many thanks for this book. It opened my eyes to much history of which I was unaware. As the gaelic saying goes: Maith thu!