Just a Boy from Home

About the Book

        Just a Boy from Home

           With songs, stories and recipes

            Bill Bourke shared this entire book from memory.  It contains stories and historical facts about the Catholic Church, the striping of the land after the South gained independence and the words to an IRA song, The Dublin Trials that his father sang.  There are many more songs of Mayo, poems and expressions that otherwise could possibly be forgotten or lost if he had not agreed to sit for many hours reminiscing.  You will read about Patrick Shannon, a Mayo man who was a hero in World War I.  Also, how his good friend Michael Fitzpatrick received his American citizenship 52 years after his untimely death in Korea.   

            Bill tells of the Irish camaraderie that was already present in Chicago upon his arrival and how he got a job being Just a Boy from Home.  The singing and dancing that was found in the neighborhood pubs and said, “Oh, the fun we had!”   But, still the innate loneliness that could be felt in a room full of people for the mother he left behind in the tiny cottage, at the end of the road, in the Village of Ballymacredmond, near the town of Ballina, in the County of Mayo, Ireland. 

           Bill married Kitty Morley, a young girl form County Mayo and continues his training as to be an Engineer Santa Fe Railroad.   It has taken a lifetime of trials, errors and successes to create the foundation for his family that is now continuing to flourish in the great city of Chicago in the United States of America. 

About the Author

          Just a Boy from Home

           With songs, stories and recipes

            Catherine Bourke Chambers, born in 1955, in the middle of the metropolitan city of Chicago during a time where one found many hard-working immigrants from Europe living the American dream.  Cathy’s father, born in 1920 was the eleventh of twelve children, and left his home in the County of Mayo with only his memories.

            Bill Bourke shared this entire book from memory.  It contains stories and historical facts about the Catholic Church, the striping of the land after the South gained independence and the words to an IRA song, The Dublin Trials that his father sang.  There are many more songs of Mayo, poems and expressions that otherwise could possibly be forgotten or lost if he had not agreed to sit for many hours reminiscing.  You will read about Patrick Shannon, a Mayo man who was a hero in World War I.  Also, how his good friend Michael Fitzpatrick received his American citizenship 52 years after his untimely death in Korea.   

            Bill tells of the Irish camaraderie that was already present in Chicago upon his arrival and how he got a job being Just a Boy from Home.  The singing and dancing that was found in the neighborhood pubs and said, “Oh, the fun we had!”   But, still the innate loneliness that could be felt in a room full of people for the mother he left behind in the tiny cottage, at the end of the road, in the Village of Ballymacredmond, near the town of Ballina, in the County of Mayo, Ireland. 

            It has taken a lifetime of trials, errors and successes to create the foundation for his family that is now continuing to flourish in the great city of Chicago in the United States of America.