The book will be launched on 28th October but O’Mahony’s in Limerick have some advance copies for sale. The author Des Ryan spent the best part of ten years researching Thomas Patrick Downing.
Thomas was born in 1856 and baptised in Adare. His mother was a Harrigan and the family lived just outside the village on the Rathkeale road.
In 1859, the family moved to America and settled in Savannah, Georgia. The year after they arrived the Civil War started and so Thomas grew up with a difficult backdrop of slavery, Abraham Lincoln, General Sherman and a city that was blockaded for 5 years.
After the war, Thomas left Savannah and travelled to Kentucky where he enlisted in the army. He spent two years in Kentucky suppressing the emerging Ku Klux Klan. He then went to the Canadian border to protect the border commission’s survey from hostile Indian attacks.
Finally, in 1876, he marched with General Custer out of Fort Abraham Lincoln in search of Sitting Bull and Crazy horse. After a month they found them at the Little Bighorn. Thomas died in the ensuing battle.
It is an amazing story of a man born in Adare.
There are two videos to support the book. A short trailer version and a longer one that includes some of the detail and showing some of the supporting records.
Short video – https://youtu.be/oYf6qRpf50A
Long video – https://youtu.be/-VrJLZgIpfE
