Travels and Travails

Travels and Travails, a work of historical fiction, focuses on the Dermody family, Irish immigrants who settle in Newark, New Jersey, prior to the Civil War. 


The principal character, Frank Dermody, tells us about his father’s experience in the Civil War as a member of General William Sherman’s Union Army. We then learn about Frank’s own life as a boy in rural Ireland and his coming to America at the end of the nineteenth century. Frank’s travels and travails follow, with emphasis on his time in San Francisco during its 1906 earthquake, his passage through the Panama Canal during its construction, and his life in Newark during the First World War. The coming of Prohibition marks the end of Frank’s career as tavern owner—and of his youthful odyssey.


Author Richard J. Connors places Frank’s travels and travails in historical context, giving the reader perspective on rural Ireland, urban Newark and San Francisco, and the construction of the Panama Canal.