Tunnel Tigers

About the Book: 

Tunnel Tigers is a colourful portrait of the off-beat characters who worked on Scottish hydro projects, and of the tensions that were created when men of various religious and ethnic groups shared the same space.

Tunnel tigers are an elite group of construction workers who specialise in a highly paid but dangerous profession: driving tunnels through mountains or underneath rivers or other large bodies of water, in locations as far apart as Sydney and San Francisco. At the turn of the last century they tunnelled out the subways under New York and London; in the 1940s and 1950s they were involved in a score of huge hydroelectric tunnels in Pitlochry and the Highlands of Scotland. They continue with their dangerous craft today in various locations all over the world.

Many of these daring men were born in north west Donegal, Ireland, where the tunnel tigers were viewed as local folk heroes because they had the bravado to work in dangerous conditions that few other working men could endure.

Reviews: 

Brilliant, Moving, Memorable ... Stories that stay with you for life. CHRISTINE GOLDBECK, author of A Tribute to O'Hara and Other Stories

I found the book of absorbing interest and read it straight through in one sitting. ERIC McKEEVER, author Tales of the Mine Country Anthracite History 

A poignant, gripping story. HOWARD CROWN, author, Guide to the Molly Maguires

About the Author:

PATRICK CAMPBELL left his home and family run hotel in Donegal to work as a tunnel tiger in Scotland before emigrating to America. He was marketing communications manager for the World Trade Center until he retired in 1996, after a marketing career with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that lasted 35 years. He is a graduate of Rutgers University with a Masters Degree in English and he owns an internet bookshop, P.H. Campbell, which specialises in first editions of books on Irish history, literature and folklore.

He was formerly a theatre critic, book editor and columnist and has appeared in documentaries and numerous television and radio shows. Campbell was born in Dungloe, Co Donegal. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his Donegal-born wife. He has one daughter.