Status Updates From Star Of The Sea

The lexicon of crime became his favourite contemplation. The English possessed as many words for stealing as the Irish had for seaweed or guilt. With rigour, with precision, & most of all with poetry, they had categorised the language of thievery into sub-species, like fossilised old deacons baptising butterflies. Every kind of robbery had a verb of its own. Breeds of embezzlement he never knew existed came to him...

Love the illustrations at end of each chapter, the fragments of letters from Ireland to their immigrant relatives. Poems, songs.
Prologue presented as notes by a NYT writer from An American Abroad, of Ireland and London 1847 by a G. Grantley Dixon
Preface The Monster: recollections of the ship journey, passengers and the evil that stalked them.
Ch.1 The Leave Taking, 1st of 26 days at sea, notes of master of vessel.

Winter of 1847, departing an Ireland disrupted by injustice and natural disaster, the Star of the Sea sets sail. Reading this in conjunction with Land by Maggie O'Farrell for more about that period in Irish history.

Too much for a holiday read so gave up and chose another book !