Wild Irish Roses: Tales of Brigits, Kathleens, and Warrior Queens

Forget the myth of the sweet Irish Colleen. Real Irish women were no creampuff debs. From the ancient warrior queens Marrigan, Macha, and Badbh to the labormovement maven Mother Jones, Irish women have backbones of steel. Wild Irish Roses is a fascinating look at wild Irish women throughout history/ serious information imparted in Trina Robbins' trademark style, with verve and humor.

The women in Wild Irish Roses are not always nice girls or even good girls, but they are women who know how to get things done, whether on the battlefield or in the bedroom. These are women who preserved and handed down the old stories. They are women who fought in revolutions with either gun or pen, wrote books, starred in books others wrote, and stormed heaven itself.

Author Trina Robbins is an impeccable researcher whose knack for telling stories and embellishing them with engaging illustrations and photos, brings each of these Wild Irish Roses to life, including:

• Maeve and six other warrior queens
• Grania and Deirdre, who ran away from kings for the love of younger men
• Five women who turned themselves into birds to get the job done right
• Saint Brigit and the saintly Kathleen O'Shea
• Cultural revivalist Maude Gonne and friends
• IrishAmerican beauty roses, including Scarlett O'Hara
• And warriors in their own right, such as Mother Jones and company

Wild Irish Roses is a celebration of tough, independent, beautiful Irish women from myth to modernity. It's a book that is sure to entertain, inform, and inspire readers of every background to find the Irish rose in themselvesto discover what they want and have the courage to go out and get it.

Trina Robbins has been called Bad by the best of them. More polite people simply refer to her as outspoken. The author of several books, including From Girls to Grrlz, Tomorrow's Heirlooms, and The Great Women Superheroes, she has been a pagan since 1977. She admittedly can't live without cats, and she considers herself the oldest grrrl in San Francisco.