"The trouble was, Colin didn't know whether he wanted to join such an establishment, one which had drawn the country into a terrible war, stirring dissent across the land that spring." (Chapter 1, pg. 4.)

"The difference between the blacks and the Irish, she thought, was that the blacks had tried to advance through the civil rights movement - sit-ins, marches, demonstrations, ultimately riots - while the Irish had used politics. Alice believed in politics - it was the American way of getting ahead. And for a long while it had paid off." (Chapter 3, pg. 22.)

"But if Charlestown had become an industrial slum, at least it was an Irish slum. By the turn of the century it was Boston's most Irish neighborhood." (Chapter 6, pg. 79.)

"For more than two centuries - down to Joan Diver in contemporary Boston - the MeKechnies would feel they were following in that noble tradition." (Chapter...