Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island?

Jane Gaskin did exactly that, trading in the family home to begin a new life in the

tropics.

But she soon discovers that Paradise has its secrets.

I'm Alice Levine, and this is the price of Paradise,

the island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption, and murder.

Wish you were here.

Follow the price of Paradise Now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm John Bachelor with Professor Tyler Anbinder. The book is

plentiful country, the great potato famine and the making of Irish New York. Irish

New York decides that there's opportunity in America.

And we go to right now one particular opportunity with the New York Central Railroad by John and Anora Colleen, who happened to be a relative

of the author Tyler and Binder.

I understand, Professor, if my notes is correct you're related to the

Colines via Vivian O'Connor your aunt is that correct

correct Vivian O'Connor Malloy, and her great-great-grandfather was a famine immigrant

who came from County Claire and came through New York but moved fairly quickly and this is an important part of the story is you know as you noted about a million famine immigrants come to New York City and

land in New York City.

Many of them move on right away.

Many more stay in New York for several months or years before going elsewhere and one of those was John Colleen he finds that there's much more work and better paying work further west and so he goes to the to Buffalo and works for the New York Central Railroad and gets a job with

them by the early 1850s and works for them for more than three decades until he's 80 years old.

It works for the New York Central, always in a menial position.

...