During the 19th and 20th centuries, millions of Irish immigrated to the United States. Among them was 20-year-old Bridget Meade of County Clare who arrived alone in Boston in 1909. Her grandson, Vincent J. Quealy, Jr., chronicles her story in the book, Reflections of an Irish Grandson. It is an authentic Irish story of sorrow and sacrifice, courage and resistance, and family and devotion. Quealy is a 1975 Boston College graduate and past president of BC Alumni Association. He writes, “I remember my grandmother’s Irish accent and Irish expressions and stories of Ireland and I came to learn later about the difficulties and hardships confronting my grandmother and her Meade family in Ireland at a time when Britain still ruled that country very harshly. I wanted, for many years, to discover all that I could about why she left a beloved homeland, along with so many others, and about the struggles of the family she left behind.” An excerpt from Quealy’s book about the Irish War of Independence and the violence visited upon his grandmother’s hometown of Miltown Malbay and the Meade family was published by RTE (Ireland’s national public service media).