Boss Croker

"In 1846 the Crokers, a Presbyterian landlord family, flee Ireland's famine in West Cork aboard the Henry Clay, survive shipwreck and land in New York. There they are confronted with the grim realities of a teeming city, street gangs, poverty and prostitution. In this New World their youngest son, Richard 'Boss' Croker (1841-1922), thrives. Through sheer ambition the barely literate Croker - engineer, prizefighter, fixer, union organizer - battles his way from the underworld to seize control of Tammany Hall, the seat of power-politics in New York." "Charming and corrupt, Croker manipulates all within his sphere, becoming one of the city's most influential citizens of the late nineteenth century. Boss Croker also captures the drama of Croker's later years: his move to Dublin, where he reconstructs Glencairn in Sandyford, winning the 1907 English Derby with Orby, the first Irish horse to do so; his support for rebellion in Ireland through contacts with Clan na Gael and Michael Collins. In 1914, after the death of his wife, heiress Elizabeth Fraser, he marries Bula Edmondson, a beautiful young Cherokee Indian, in the teeth of opposition from his children. He is finally carried to his grave in 1922 by Oliver Gogarty, Arthur Griffith and Alfie Byrne."--Jacket.