Nory Ryan's Song is a Historical Fiction Middle Grade Literature novel by Patricia Reilly Giff. In Ireland in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan leads a peaceful life in Maidin Bay with her grandfather, elder sisters Maggie and Celia, and little brother Patch. On their small farm, they work to plant potatoes while her father is away at work as a fisherman in Galway, earning money to pay rent to Lord Cunningham.
But after Maggie gets married and departs with her new husband for America, a blight hits the potatoes and plunges all the residents of the bay, including the Ryans, into starvation. As the famine continues and Nory struggles to find food for her family, she finds an unexpected source of support in the reclusive local healer, the elderly Anna Donnelly, who teaches her how to work with herbs and looks after her and Patch.
Through Anna's mentorship and her own conviction, Nory finds it in herself to hold onto hope—no matter how dire the circumstances—and continue to dream that one day, her family will be together again in America.
Received a sequel, Maggie's Door, in 2003.
Nory Ryan's Song provides examples of:
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: A variation, in that the speaker is not talking about herself, but rather the person she's talking to. Anna tells Nory about a little girl she watched over whom she loved because she reminded her of her son Tague, but the child was afraid of her, and Nory knows that she is the child in question.Anna: [Tague] was always singing, never still. And after he was gone the whole world seemed quiet. I thought there'd never be another like him. But then, years later, I began to watch someone, a small child backed up against a wall...This child had such love in her, a laughing child, brave like my son. She sang. She climbed over walls. She left gates open. She danced through the cemetery and over the cliffs. And I loved her for that. Loved her always.
- Angst Coma: Nory essentially falls into this after the food she bought and the package from Maggie are stolen from her by a thief who attacked her when she left the post office. She's ill and unconscious for several days and has to be nursed back to health by Anna.
- Big Applesauce: The location itself never actually appears, but is namedropped often. Maggie and her husband leave to start their family in Brooklyn, New York, and Nory's goal is to one day live there as well with her loved ones.
- Big Friendly Dog: A black-and-white sheepdog is left behind when her owners are deported in the beginning, and Nory names her Maeve after the queen from Irish myth. True to form, she's sweet-natured and takes to her new owner very well. Anna ends up adopting her, as Nory's family cannot afford to feed another animal.
- Big Sister Instinct: Nory is extremely protective of Patch and makes it her duty to watch over him in their father's absence. So much so that, near the end, she willingly gives him up to Sean's family so he can go with them to the ships at Galway to travel to America.
- Bittersweet Ending: A little more sweet than bitter, but still counts. In the end, Nory receives the tickets from her father to join the rest of her family in America, just like she dreamed of, and sets out on her way to travel there. But she must leave Anna behind in Ireland, and they will likely never see each other again.
- Childhood Friends: Nory is close to a boy around her age named Sean Red Mallon, who grew up near her, and regards him as a brother. They work together often to find food, most importantly near the end when, after her food is stolen, she resorts to stealing eggs from seagull nests on the cliffs while he holds her up on a rope.
- Cool Big Sis: Maggie is kind, understanding, and the eldest of Nory's two sisters, being the only one of them to be an adult while Celia is fifteen and Nory is twelve. Nory admires her greatly and her absence after leaving for America is keenly felt, with Nory often wondering what Maggie would do in certain tough situations.
- Death by Childbirth: Nory's mother died after giving birth to Patch, and Anna was unable to save her.
- The Fair Folk: The infamous sidhe of Irish mythology and their fairy rings are often referenced as a danger.
- Family Portrait of Characterization: This turns out to be what was in Maggie's package from the post office, which Nory is able to recover when she finds it after it was stolen and then discarded. The portrait itself is a colorful drawing on wood of the family together in Brooklyn, with details like Maggie's hand being on her waist (implying pregnancy) and Nory and Celia making faces at each other (referencing their sibling rivalry before Maggie left).
- The Ghost: "Da", the father to Maggie, Celia, Nory, and Patch, is discussed frequently but never once makes an appearance in person.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Irish words are sprinkled throughout the narrative, some important ones being fuafar (used by Nory to refer to anything she finds disgusting), sidhe (referring to The Fair Folk), madra (the Irish word for "dog", referring to Maeve), and Dia duit (Irish greeting for "God be with you").
- Hate Sink: Lord Cunningham is the cruel, domineering landlord who owns the land that Nory's family and various others farm, takes away vital possessions or has them shipped off to Australia when they fail to pay rent, and makes no secret of the fact he wants to turn them all out and destroy their homes so that his sheep can graze where they were.
- Irish Potato Famine: The story takes place around this time, with Nory's family and many others suffering from starvation and disease brought on by the blight that destroys the potato crops.
- Karma Houdini: Cunningham gets away with his hateful treatment of the Irish tenants because, being a rich English lord, there's not much they can do against him other than escape by leaving Ireland entirely. The man who tried to sell Nory milk and then pushed her down and stole her packages after she refused to buy from him also qualifies, as he's last seen running off with them.
- Kick the Dog: Cunningham takes away Sean and his brother's currach (boat) as payment for rent and has it chained up on the pier to waste away, depriving them of the only thing they can use to catch fish during a famine.
- Missing Mom: "Mam", the mother of Maggie, Celia, Nory, and Patch, is absent due to her Death by Childbirth.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Anna Donnelly, an elderly woman who lives alone and has knowledge of healing. Nory and Sean initially fear her and think of her as a Wicked Witch who has a sidhe under her table, and it takes desperation to save local girl Cat Neely from being deported over inability to pay rent for Nory to go to her and ask for a coin. Anna only gives her the coin if she agrees to work for her and help her with herbs, and though Nory fails to save Cat because she accidentally dropped the coin down a well and arrived too late before she was taken away, she learns greatly from working for Anna and develops a close kinship with her.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Patch's real name is Patrick (which Nory suggested to her parents while her mother was pregnant), but everyone only calls him "Patch".
- Outliving One's Offspring: Anna had a son named Tague, a fisherman who fell to his death while gathering eggs from a seaside cliff. It's implied that his death is the reason for her initial reclusiveness.
- Parental Abandonment: A two-fold example for Nory, as her father is far away at work in Galway and her mother died in childbirth years ago.
- Plucky Girl: The titular character. Though Nory frequently struggles to hold on to hope, she never loses it and doesn't give up in trying to provide for her family.
- The Promised Land: America is this for the characters, specifically Brooklyn, New York, where Maggie and her husband Francey go to start a new life. Gradually over the course of the book, the rest of Nory's family and friends leave to go there as well, and at the very end, Nory departs to join them.
- Sibling Rivalry: Nory and Celia do not get along, mainly because of Nory's tomboyish, headstrong nature and the more feminine Celia's bossiness, especially at the beginning when they fight over their mother's hair comb and end up breaking it in half. Needless to say, the hardship of the famine that hits makes them both mature out of their bickering. In the end, before leaving with their grandfather, Celia gives Nory her half of the broken comb as a sign that they will be together as a family one day in Brooklyn.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: Nory is a poor seamstress and makes a mess of the shawl she tries to stitch. In contrast, Anna is talented at sewing, which comes up twice: she gives Nory a shawl she sewed, which Nory sells to Lord Cunningham's wife for coins to buy food and get Maggie's package from the post office, and in the end she fixes Nory's ruined shawl and gives it to her to wear for her journey to America.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Nory is the outdoorsy, rebellious tomboy and Celia is the reserved girly girl who is the better of the two at sewing.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Cunningham's right-hand man, Devlin, had his stomachache healed by Anna, but he shows her no more leniency than the other tenants unable to pay rent and takes away her dog and cow as payment. Subverted near the end; he indicates to Nory that he remembers what Anna did for him when asking her to tell Anna her assistance is needed, and in return Nory asks him to return Anna's animals and give her new seed potatoes, which he agrees to.
- Villainous Glutton: Downplayed. Cunningham is not described to be fat, but Nory notes that his face is "mottled" from eating so much mutton because of all the sheep he owns, and he's an unpleasant sort who serves as the closest thing to an antagonist.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Patch wears a girl's long skirt, which is to protect him because of superstition dictating that the sidhe of Irish lore always look to steal away young boys.
- You Remind Me of X: Near the end, Anna tells Nory she reminds her of her son Tague.
