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Gerard Neary

Gerard Neary

About

Gearóid O’Neary is a genealogist and writer.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Gearóid is a writer, and the nom de plume and the alter-ego of Gerard Neary, the genealogist.

Gearóid would prefer to while away his days writing stories about all manner of things he observes, some daft and some with serious overtones. On the other hand, Gerard gets emotionally engrossed in researching our ancestors, and then compassionately distributes his findings in private. Gearóid gives him a break now and again, usually dragging him off to the village inn to partake in parish gossip, or to put the world to rights in mildly-heated political debates. Both of them have a sense of humour.

Gearóid is a dreamer. Gerard pays the bills.

The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls

The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls

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<p>Emerging from the long shadow cast by his formidable father, Harold Godwineson showed himself to be a worthy successor to the Earldom of Wessex. In the following twelve years, he became the King's most trusted advisor, practically taking the reins of government into his own hands. And on Edward the Confessor's death, Harold Godwineson mounted the throne—the first king of England not of royal blood. Yet Harold was only a man, and his rise in fortune was not blameless. Like any person aspiring to power, he made choices he wasn't particularly proud of. Unfortunately, those closest to him sometimes paid the price of his fame.<br /><br />This is a story of Godwine's family as told from the viewpoint of Harold and his younger brothers. Queen Editha, known for her Vita Ædwardi Regis, originally commissioned a work to memorialize the deeds of her family, but after the Conquest historians tell us she abandoned this project and concentrated on her husband, the less dangerous subject. In THE SONS OF GODWINE and FATAL RIVALRY, I am telling the story as it might have survived had she collected and passed on the memoirs of her tragic brothers.<br /><br />This book is part two of The Last Great Saxon Earls series. Book one, GODWINE KINGMAKER, depicted the rise and fall of the first Earl of Wessex who came to power under Canute and rose to preeminence at the beginning of Edward the Confessor's reign. Unfortunately, Godwine's misguided efforts to champion his eldest son Swegn recoiled on the whole family, contributing to their outlawry and Queen Editha's disgrace. Their exile only lasted one year and they returned victorious to London, though it was obvious that Harold's career was just beginning as his father's journey was coming to an end.<br /><br />Harold's siblings were all overshadowed by their famous brother; in their memoirs we see remarks tinged sometimes with admiration, sometimes with skepticism, and in Tostig's case, with jealousy. We see a Harold who is ambitious, self-assured, sometimes egocentric, imperfect, yet heroic. His own story is all about Harold, but his brothers see things a little differently. Throughout, their observations are purely subjective, and witnessing events through their eyes gives us an insider’s perspective.<br /><br />Harold was his mother's favorite, confident enough to rise above petty sibling rivalry but Tostig, next in line, was not so lucky. Harold would have been surprised by Tostig's vindictiveness, if he had ever given his brother a second thought. And that was the problem. Tostig's love/hate relationship with Harold would eventually destroy everything they worked for, leaving the country open to foreign conquest. This subplot comes to a crisis in book three of the series, FATAL RIVALRY.</p>

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<p>http://wheresmerrill.com/2014/03/08/editorial-book-review/</p> <p style="border:0px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(187,187,187);line-height:24.375px;background-color:rgb(15,15,15);">By <a href="http://www.authoralliance.net/category/readers-lounge/author-alliance-reviews/joseph-spuckler" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(39,167,22);"><strong style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;">Joseph Spuckler</strong></a> of <a href="http://www.authoralliance.net/" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(39,167,22);">Author Alliance</a>:</p> <blockquote style="border:0px;font-family:Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;font-size:15px;font-style:italic;margin:0px 3em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(187,187,187);line-height:24.375px;background-color:rgb(15,15,15);"> <p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BMUQN0I" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(39,167,22);"><strong style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;">Where’s Merrill? A Genealogical Thriller</strong></a> by Gearoid O’Neary is a cross between a research paper and a mystery. I really did not know what to expect with this book initially, but was won over fairly quickly. Trying to find Merrill in a family history reminded me of my days a history major and searching for minor historical figures. In fact, my classmates and I had done this sort of thing so often in so many Latin American history classes that this research took on its own name. No matter who we were researching, the joke was his name is Juan Obscuro. So reading about someone searching down a person using historical records was not that intriguing to me. The author, as the main character, searching for someone else’s Juan Obscuro really seemed monotonous to me.</p> <p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;"><strong style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;">But, my initial thoughts were wrong</strong>. Jed, the main character, was a former engineer riding high on the building boom in Ireland when it crashed. Corporate backlash and Jed’s feeling of duty to his people, left him out on the street. He, in turn, turned a hobby into a career: Genealogy. Well, here was something positive I could relate to. I was a project manager riding high on the telecom wave   when it crashed, and likewise, I found myself unemployed. I turned my hobby into a career: Bicycle mechanics. I was surprised that someone could earn a good living researching people’s past as I am sure that people are surprised a bicycle mechanic can earn a good living. Anyway, that sealed my bond with Jed, and his wife Susan. No high-life, but real hard working people and a reasonably good life.</p> <p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;">Tim is the American, who asks Jed to help find his past. Tim’s mother, when she was alive, hid her family’s past. Now that she was gone, Tim could discover his past without upsetting his mother or going against her wishes. Here too, I was pleasantly surprised. Jed and Sue had a far more interesting time researching Tim’s family than I ever did researching Juan. The history crosses the American Midwest, from Iowa and up in to Minnesota. It spreads to California and Washington, D.C.. There are several twists and turns in the research too. What is expected and reported is not always what happened. Merrill, is a particularly difficult subject to track and not always by accident. The story jumps back and forth between Jed and Susan and the search for Merrill. The Jed’s and Susan’s story runs chronologically. The genealogy part of the story jumps back and forth as new pieces of information are found and new family members are found and traced, but it does flow very logically.</p> <p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;">I was expecting a novelization of a dry research paper when I started this book. I was pleasantly surprised by the actual story. It was far more than I could have expected; interesting is an understatement. The writing is very well done, although at the beginning chapters the conversation seemed a little forced, but that impression also disappeared as I read further in the book. I also found the process of the research interesting too. I never realized that there was that much of an infrastructure for records going that far back. I had expected many records to be lost, destroyed, forgotten, or just simply no longer worth keeping by the local government. A very interesting read whether you are interested in genealogy or not. The story resulting from the search is definitely worth the read as historical fiction — the research is real — the names have been changed and conversations inserted. Very well done. <a href="http://wheresmerrill.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/joe-spuckler1.jpeg" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(39,167,22);"><img alt="Joe Spuckler" class="size-full wp-image-722 alignright" src="http://wheresmerrill.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/joe-spuckler1.jpeg?w=584" style="border:1px solid rgb(44,44,44);margin-top:.4em;float:right;margin-left:1.625em;height:auto;width:auto;margin-bottom:1.625em;padding:6px;" /></a></p> </blockquote> <p style="border:0px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(187,187,187);line-height:24.375px;background-color:rgb(15,15,15);"> </p> <p style="border:0px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(187,187,187);line-height:24.375px;background-color:rgb(15,15,15);">Joe awarded “<a href="http://t.co/VZiD7gX6Bw" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(39,167,22);">Where’s Merrill?</a>” four out of five stars – but as he readily admits, the Evil Cyclist does not toss out his review stars willy-nilly.</p> <p style="border:0px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(187,187,187);line-height:24.375px;background-color:rgb(15,15,15);">Joe’s twitter handle: @Evil_Cyclist</p> <div> </div> <div class="wpcnt" style="border:0px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;text-align:center;line-height:0;color:rgb(187,187,187);background-color:rgb(15,15,15);"> <div class="wpa" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;"> </div> </div>