Peter K. Connolly attended the University of Notre Dame, Stonehill College, and Marquette University, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism. He retired from General Dynamics as Corporate Director of Public Affairs. Connolly has been a columnist, writer for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball club, and magazine contributor. Grottogate is his third novel. He authored The Last Slider in 2004 and When Shadows Fell at Notre Dame in 2007.
A native of suburban New York City, he now lives in rural Missouri west of St. Louis and devotes much of his time to birding, growing watermelons, feeding catfish and bass, watching Fox News, and buying birthday cards for his six children and 24 grandchidren.
Connolly can be reached at ptrcon@fidnet.com or 573 459-6774.
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When I began writing the novel "Grottogate" about a year ago, I had only a vague outline in mind. I wanted to include the Titanic disaster (100th anniversary fast upcoming), the ill-considered honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Notre Dame to Barack Obama, and the occasion of the 100th birthday of Notre Dame's oldest graduate.
How to tie all these together?
Along the way, serendipity stepped in. I discovered that there were two passengers on Titanic named Kate Connolly (my soulmate sister's name). I began to uncover other road signs that told me I was most certainly on the right path. Talking to ND's oldest grad, I learned that his mother shared my surname, that our ancestors were from the same county in Ireland, and he and I both were Bridge fanatics. Soon after, I discovered that a Notre Dame classmate and friend had published a scholarly tome on exactly the university's same disheartening digressions from Catholicism that I hoped to explore. Then I found that the 85-year-old daughter of an Irish-born Titanic survivor was living just 15 minutes from me.
That lady was Mary Kathleen Daly Joyce of Union, MO, whose father, Eugene Daly, was one of the 705 who survived the April 15, 1912, sinking of the most famous ship in maritime history. Mary was still active in Titanic-related events.
She was kind enough to let me interview her several times. I brought her a coffee table book on “A Day in the Life of Ireland.” We examined every page as her black cat sat on my lap.
She gave me access to photographs of her famous father, who was memorialized as the “piper” aboard the Titanic. He played the Uillean or “elbow” bagpipes that relieved the piper of blowing into the bag. In the short four days before the Titanic collided with a massive iceberg south of Newfoundland, Eugene Daly had become the darling of the third class (“Steerage”) passengers, entertaining them with Irish jigs and reels as the luxury liner sped across the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage.
Ultimately (under the character name Mary Dolan), Mary Daly Joyce became a major character in my book (“Grottogate”). We exchanged letters and phone calls regularly. She sent me recollections of her father, interspersed with relevant quotes from Scripture.
I called her late in September to let her know that I expected first copies within weeks. “Forget the book,” she said. “Just come over for some more talk and tea—and some soda bread.” I did not. I was swept up in the last of the many telephone and e-mail communications with my publisher that led to the book's arrival at my front door.
On October 15, I approved the final proofs. Ten days later, the first books were delivered. I called Mary immediately to let her know I'd be over with her copy.
I hadn't told her that I'd included a tribute to her in the “front matter” of the book. It read: “The Lord blessed me the day he sent me to Mary Daly Joyce of Missouri, a God-fearing and faithful friend and daughter of Eugene Daly, the piper aboard the Titanic who survived to return to Ireland. I treasure Mary's memories and moral support.”
After several failed attempts to reach her by phone, I called her son's home. “Mary died two weeks ago,” I was told.
I have only her letters, some photos, (and her father's recipes for Soda Bread and Irish Brown Cake) to fall back on. I've made many mistakes in my life. The decision not to visit her that last time was certainly among the worst.
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Grottogate?
For those who have read When Shadows Fell at Notre Dame, this new work of fiction might be seen as something of a sequel: a Notre Dame sixty years after young Mark Haverty arrived on the campus of Our Lady. In the year 2011, however, it is not a pleasant sight. Nor a comfortable one. Something is missing. Something called Catholicity. There are far fewer Holy Cross clerics. It is likely an arriving freshman will complete four years of course work without ever having been taught by a priest. Indeed, he or she is more likely to be lectured by an agnostic, an athiest or even a "Liberation Theologist." That is the Notre Dame of the 21st century.
There are other far more ominous signs that extend well beyond the campus, a campus that has gone from pastoral and pristine to upscale urban. The United States has become a Marxist dictatorship under the control of Mubaraq El Baba whose muslim (sic) roots are becoming more evident each day. Notre Dame and other "Catholic" colleges and universities have traded the mandates of their mission for increasingly larger "research" handouts from Washington. University officials give only lip service to their Catholicity. In their all-consuming lust to join the Ivy League's peer group, they have established one set of standards for their critics and another for their supporters.
The heart and soul of Notre Dame for more than a century has been the Lourdes Grotto below Corby Hall and adjacent to St. Mary's Lake. It is in the shadow of the "Guardian of the Grotto," a five-limbed sycamore tree that is more than 200 years old and whose limbs have been said to be reaching out to the sky "in a pleading gesture." For thousands of students down the years, the Grotto has been a refuge where they can ask Our Lady's intercession or simply offer thanks.
The actions of the Notre Dame Administration and faculty since the late 60s, covert at first but now unveiled for all the world to see, represent nothing less than a blatant betrayal of the very core principles of the university as it was founded by Father Edward Sorin and molded in succeeding years by generations of priests, students and alumni. The trust of the Notre Dame family, alumni and supporters around the world, has been violated. The soul of Notre Dame, the Grotto, has been dishonored.
A young couple, Josh Allen and Shelby Lester, have recruited the help of alumni and friends of the university to challenge the administration. They have uncovered a long-concealed fact that will force the issue of the sanctity of life into the public eye. Notre Dame must take a stand on one side or the other. A football game with New England's Stonehill College becomes the venue for a final confrontation.
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The landmark 200+ year-old sycamore tree by the Notre Dame grotto. |
