 I suppose
every family has its secrets and mine is no
exception. My great-great-grandparents, Bernard
and Hannah McGurk, were living in County
Tyrone, Ireland, when the potato blight decimated
that country's major food staple. Hannah and her
four children, Barney, Cornelius, Margaret, and
Mary Jane, emigrated to escape the famine,
arriving in Boston, Massachusetts, in October,
1849.
What about Bernard? When I was just a boy I was
told that he died in a fire. Many years later I
learned a darker story about Bernard McGurk. It
seems he was arrested for theft, tried in a
Belfast court, and sentenced to seven years in
prison - in Tasmania. One family member claimed
that Bernard's crime was stealing a loaf of bread
to feed his family. How much truth there is in
that I may never know.
 Hannah and
her children settled in Watertown, Massachusetts,
near Boston where Hannah was employed as a
domestic worker until her health deteriorated.
Then her children were taken from her and placed
in a state school in Monson, Massachusetts. Hannah
died in a state hospital, but her children
survived and thrived. Barney and Cornelius served
in the Union Army during the American Civil War,
then settled down, married, and raised families.
Margaret and Mary Jane also married. Mary Jane had
seven children, one of whom was Clara May Rowena
Amadon.
That's where my connection comes in, for Clara
Amadon McMaster was my grandmother. I have vague
memories of her living with our family in
Southbridge, Massachusetts, during the last few
years of her life. My father was one of five
children born to Clara and Robert T. McMaster (my
namesake). Once their children were grown, Clara
held a position as a reporter for the Worcester
(MA) Telegram.
I've always dreamed of one day connecting with my
McGurk relations in Ireland, and in a way the
County Wicklow Mysteries have been a fulfillment
in fiction of that dream. Ciaran McGurk, the
central character of the books, lives in modern
day Ireland. His father was a newspaper editor and
Cary aspires to pursue a similar career. Writing
and journalism seem to run in the family.
I was a teacher for some twenty-five years, in
public schools at first, then for the last twenty
years as a professor of biology at Holyoke
Community College in Massachusetts. In 2011 I
began working on an historical novel set in
Holyoke during the World War I era. Ten years
later there are four books in that series. In 2017
I shifted gears and began work on a biography of
the 19th-century geologist and paleontologist,
Edward Hitchcock, published in 2021.
But my family ties to Ireland and my lifelong
interest in the Emerald Isle could not be denied,
and so the stories of Rose of Glenkerry
and Fugitive from Injustice began to take
shape in my imagination. I am hopeful that
these books will be enjoyed by hibernophiles in
the US as well as by readers in Ireland and
elsewhere.
ALSO BY
ROBERT T. MCMASTER
Book 1 of the Trolley Days Series
“…a joyful, engaging
read from beginning to end...a masterful first
novel."
Mark Ashton, Southbridge
(MA) Evening News
★★★★★
THE
DYEING ROOM (2014)
Book
2 of the Trolley Days Series
“…a
compelling and carefully-researched story.”
Eileen Crosby, Archivist,
Holyoke (MA) Public Library
★★★★★
 NOAH'S RAVEN
(2017)
Book
3 of the Trolley Days Series
"This
book combines a mystery (espionage) with
romance among young residents of Holyoke,
Massachusetts, during World War I…McMaster
has integrated a great deal of local color
and historical background information into
his narrative."
Gerald McFarland, author of A
Scattered People and The
Buenaventura Series
★★★★★
“[McMaster] appears
to have found an enticing way to blend
history
with the excitement and
suspense of a good mystery.”
Mike Lydick, Greater
Springfield (MA) Reminder
★★★★★
“McMaster’s biography
brings Edward Hitchcock alive in all his facets…The book is eminently
readable…I am confident in the scholarship of this
work and
recommend it to scholars as well as to anyone
interested in history."
Joanne Bourgeois, Professor Emerita,
University
of Washington,
review
in Earth Sciences History 41(1) 2022
“A superb book that brings to light the person
and his times."
Stephen
George, Professor Emeritus of Biology, Amherst
College
★★★★★
 
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