Outskirts Press, INC.

An Unforgettable Holiday in Ireland

It is 1961. Times are uncertain around the world – the tension of the Cold War has been building for years, and the tragic conflict of the Vietnam War has just started. At the US Army base in Mannheim, Germany, soldiers have been in constant preparation for war. The Berlin Wall has just gone up; the Bay of Pigs crisis is in full swing. While conventional war would be bad enough, the threat of nuclear war is continual. Stress levels are high, and there is a pervasive sense that time may be short…too short. A young American soldier goes on leave to Dublin, after one year in Mannheim, and on the enchanted Emerald Isle he finds a gift he couldn’t have imagined. At the Sea Point Ballroom, he meets Mary, a beautiful and independent woman – a commercial artist, who shares a dance with the young soldier. But that dance leads to so much more…in each other’s arms they waltz out the back door and surrender to the beauty of the moonlit Galway Bay. Follow this adventurous pair as they embrace all that life has to offer during dangerous times, and savor every moment of the eighteen days they shared in a Galway Romance.

Reviewed by Alice D. for Reaaders Favorite Thomas O'Hare served in Charlie Company 51st Inf 4th. Armour Grp. of the United States Army in 1961 and, at that time, was stationed in Germany. Thomas's father had died just before his enlistment and he'd lost his girlfriend to someone else' so that when an occasion came along for Thomas to spend military leave in Ireland, he accepted with delight. He flew to Heathrow in England and on to Dublin, where he was transported to Galway on Ireland's west coast. With joy, Thomas shares with the reader what it was like to dance, sing and have a genuinely good time in that city, Galway, where the term "lynch him", originated with a Mayor Lynch of long ago Galway. Thomas meets Mary O'Grady at a local dance and their relationship is the basis for this memoir, "Galway Romance". Mary and Thomas dance together, shop together, go boating together and fall in love with each other. Do they marry or is this vacation romance to be Thomas's special memory forever? "Galway Romance" is well-illustrated with color and black and white photographs that are not identified but are clearly of the author's trip to Ireland and especially to Galway and the people that he met there. Most of the book's pages are filled with the account of author O'Hare's brief romance with Mary O'Grady, but there are descriptive passages that tell of Galway's history. There are moments of humor as when the haystack where Thomas and Mary were making love was found to be filled with field mice. Some punctuation errors need correcting, but otherwise this is a delightful memoir that all will enjoy reading. Was this review helpful?