Dr Rankin Sherling on 'Finding the McCains'

"This is a unique piece of work.  Not only has Barry McCain produced a fine book that is very interesting to McCains--and it is that in spades--but to historians of Irish identity and Irish migration as well.  McCain uses the story of his search for his own Gaelic roots to demonstrate how the intelligent use of DNA helps to fill historical gaps that traditional historical techniques never could.  The results are dramatic and strongly challenge the traditional, nationalist mythologies of Irish historiography."  

---Rankin Sherling, author of The Invisible Irish: Finding Protestants in the Nineteenth-Century Migrations to America (McGill-Queen’s University Press, Fall 2015).