Bagpipe Brothers: The FDNY Band's True Story of Tragedy, Mourning and Recovery after 9/11

New Second Edition

"Journalist Kerry Sheridan recounts with startling immediacy the events following the 9/11 terrorist attacks as they affected the Fire Department of New York's pipe and drum band . . . The raw emotions and suspense fully involve the reader in this harrowing tale." -Library Journal

After the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attacks, New York City's Emerald Society Bagpipe Band of firefighter-musicians took out their instruments and prepared to bury their dead--343 brothers in duty and in blood. Many firefighters alternated between playing their instruments at funerals and digging for the missing in the rubble of Ground Zero. The Irish American tradition of funeral bagpiping became the sound of mourning for an entire nation.

In this new second edition, complete with added material, Bagpipe Brothers tells the unforgettable story of four firefighters in the band who struggled to bring peace to their families and themselves as they searched for the dead, coped with the endless round of funerals, and reconsidered the meaning of faith. Their experiences illustrate the grief and recovery of the nation in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

Kerry Sheridan has written the first book to cover the ordeal of the massive number of funerals, the importance of recovering bodies in Irish American culture, and the bagpiping ritual, both traditional and modern.