Niamh O'Brien

After many years of watching peoples disbelief when recounting her personal adventures, tragedies, and survival about life in Jamaica, the author was inspired to write them down and mold them into a book for readers to enjoy. The story begins in 1951 when Tom OBrien, the authors father, leaves his native Ireland with his pregnant wife Maeve and two year old son Peter to start a new life in their adopted home of Jamaica. The book recounts their interesting stories and miraculous survival during Jamaicas violent, dangerous years of the seventies and eighties. The authors personal stories of her Jamaican upbringing in a completely dysfunctional yet loving family are strewn with amusing highs and unnerving lows, but it is her mothers journey of bravery and growth that is mostly highlighted in the book. Maeves painful personal challenges are hard enough to endure, but it is in later years, when she and the family are surrounded by corrupt politics, barbaric crimes and hateful racial turmoil, that her survival story becomes only more incredulous. Amazingly, in spite of these challenges, she only grows stronger and wiser as the years go by. The unbearable politics and crime forces the family to flee Jamaica in the late seventies. The book details the immigration journey that eventually leads to safety in the United States of America. Maeve always remained proud of the brave choices she made in her life, difficult choices, but ones that ultimately empowered her to find independence and peace. She was a true survivor.

My Family's Journey

Black Irish White Jamaican

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Lonely Planet's Best of London is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Gallery hop along the Thames, explore dark history and glittering crown jewels in the Tower of London, and sample real ale in historic pubs- all with your trusted travel companion.

Lonely Planet Best of London 2020

Niamh O'Brien

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