The author notes that his purpose was to "uncover the role of the Irish on the American frontier," and Missouri, the Gateway to the West, was his logical starting point. He does not concentrate on the familiar "Famine Irish," rather beginning much earlier with the eighteenth century. He documents Irish place names in the New World and the very earliest immigrants. He follows Irish immigration across the state, from St. Louis to Kansas City and points in between. Illustrated in black and white, the book has seven sections, in chronological order, and a name index.