Frank McCue: A small light that shined in Black '47

As you may know if you are versed in Irish history, the year 1847 was the worst in modern memory for the Irish as a people. It was the most horrible time of the Great Hunger (an Gorta Mór) - a year so terrible that it was later known as Black '47.

I was shocked when I learned that not just one, but four of my great-great-grandparents were born in Ireland during or right around the years of the Great Famine, suffering through their childhoods with what must have been constant hunger pains. It is a miracle that they survived and that I am here today. Perhaps the most amazing survival story of the four belongs to my great-great-grandfather Frank McCue, who was born in the month of February during Black '47 itself and survived infancy during that deathly year.

Frank made it through childhood and eventually out of Ireland, immigrating to the United States and becoming a citizen in 1876. He married Catherine Rogers and worked as a teamster in Boston, Massachusetts to support he and Catherine's six children: Rose, James, Frank, Thomas, Catherine and George (born between 1871 and 1885). The family lived in Boston's South End in various homes within the old "New York Streets" neighborhood.

"New York Streets" neighborhood map courtesy of Mark of the And This is Good Old Boston blog

Sadly, Frank died on October 15, 1899 at the age of 52 after suffering from Pulmonary Tuberculosis for four months. Today is the 114th anniversary of his death. He is buried alongside family members (including his wife Catherine) in Calvary Cemetery, Waltham, Massachusetts.

Francis "Frank" McCue died October 15, 1899 and is buried with his wife Catherine (Rogers) McCue (listed on the back of the stone), sister-in-law Rose Boardman, son-in-law Daniel Driscoll, and several other family members whose names are not listed on the tombstone.

This tribute to the life of Frank McCue has been posted in honor of the anniversary of his death and also as a contribution to Tombstone Tuesday. For more information about Frank, stop by his Find A Grave memorial page. For more of my family members' (and others') tombstones, visit the "Laid to Rest" board on my Pinterest page.

"A light in the window": The sign of welcome for 70 million cousins

The title of this blog, A light that shines again, was inspired by a poem by Christopher Pearce Cranch, a 19th-century American preacher, artist and poet. Thought not Irish, and certainly more well-off than the 19th-century Irish-American immigrants on whom this blog focuses, Pearce's words describe well the poor and often forgotten lives of my ancestors and that of many of their contemporaries, and remind me of an old Irish tradition.

Here is an excerpt from Cranch's poem that was read at the 250th anniversary of the first church in Quincy, Massachusetts:

“…Nor less should we forget the worthy sons
And daughters who through centuries lived and died
Unknown to fame. The muse of history shuns
Their buried records. Gathered side by side
In yonder burial ground, they leave no signs
Save in half-obliterated lines
That tell their birth, their death. Yet not in vain,
Fathers and mothers, were your humble lives;
Each in its turn an influence that survives,
A light that shines again
In sacred memories, and in hearths and homes,
Vital as greater names that gild historic tomes…”

History does so often "shun the buried records" of those who "lived and died unknown to fame". Yet, the "humble lives" of my Irish ancestors, particularly those that I celebrate here on this blog and on Small-leaved Shamrock, are a saga of survival: survival out of the great Irish famine, survival out of the American industrial age, survival into the modern age in the lives of myself and others of my generation who have sprung from their seed. I hope that in some small way this blog will enable their stories to be passed on to at least one more generation.

I found the words of another poet thought-provoking, this one a modern Irishwoman of the 20th-century. Here is Eavan Boland's The Emigrant Irish:

"Like oil lamps, we put them out the back —

of our houses, of our minds. We had lights
better than, newer than and then

a time came, this time and now
we need them. Their dread, makeshift example:

they would have thrived on our necessities.
What they survived we could not even live.
By their lights now it is time to
imagine how they stood there, what they stood with,
that their possessions may become our power:
Cardboard. Iron. Their hardships parceled in them.
Patience. Fortitude. Long-suffering
in the bruise-colored dusk of the New World.

And all the old songs. And nothing to lose."

My own ancestors represent only a small number of the many Irish people of the 19th-century who beat incredible odds to survive the largest humanitarian disaster of their century and emigrate from their native land to a new country. Many of you reading this have similar family stories to tell: stories of survival, stories of courage, and tales of odds that were overcome by your ancestors as they struggled to make a life in a new land.

Today the descendants of many brave Irish emigrants number in the millions. There are approximately seventy million people of Irish descent living throughout the world.

Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson sent a special message to the great Irish diaspora during a speech on February 2, 1995. Her words, recalling the simple Irish tradition of placing a candle in the window to welcome visitors, are heart-warming to those of us who long to keep alive our Irish roots. Here are the words of Mary Robinson:

"At my inauguration I spoke of the seventy million people worldwide who can claim Irish descent. I also committed my Presidency to cherishing them - even though at the time I was thinking of doing so in a purely symbolic way. Nevertheless the simple emblem of a light in the window, for me, and I hope for them, signifies the inextinguishable nature of our love and remembrance on this island those who leave it behind."

As we approach St. Patrick's Day this year, plans are in order for a family celebration in my home. There will be green decorations, shamrocks, Celtic music, traditional Irish dance, and images of St. Patrick. There will also be a candle in the window: a symbol of thankfulness for the heritage that our struggling Irish ancestors passed down to us, and a symbol of welcome to any of our seventy million "cousins" who might want to join us in celebration.

~

If you have Irish descent, then you are a member of the worldwide Irish diaspora of which Mary Robinson spoke, and you and I are part of a group of seventy million "cousins"! If that is the case, take a few moments to visit the Seventy Million Project. It is "a social project to find, map and connect the Irish diaspora worldwide". It is "not about Ireland, but about Irishness and all that it means to people of Irish heritage worldwide." Visit the website today and put yourself on the map as either a first, second, third, fourth or fifth-plus-generation Irishman or woman.

You might also enjoy visiting the new Irish Central which is being unveiled March 15. Billing itself as an "Irish website and social networking community", it plans to "use the power of the Internet to create a home for the more than 70 million people around the world who identify themselves as Irish". Irish Central plans to be a hub for Irish news, the home of Irish America magazine and the Irish Voice newspaper, a source for editiorial and video coverage of travel in Ireland, a Gaelic translator, a resource for Irish family history, and more.

Coffin ships to Canada, 1847

It was the year 1847: the darkest year during the most infamous famine in recent Irish history. It was to become the greatest humanitarian disaster of the 19th-century. The Irish people were starving in numbers that are hard for us to fathom today. One million died and one million more, seeing little hope for a future in their native land, emigrated from their home country. Many of these people made plans to leave on what came to be known as "coffin ships". Traveling to North America in the cargo holds of ships, both ill and well faced a true trial.

The story of these famine immigrants and their journey to Canada is told in the new documentary/dramatic film produced by Summer of Sorrow Productions and Tile Films entitled Death or Canada and its companion book by Mark McGowan, Death or Canada: The Irish Famine Migration to Toronto, 1847. Told using the true story of the Willis family who migrated from the West of Ireland, this film and companion book tell the heart-rending story of the Irish people as they faced the dreadful year of "black '47", and the story of the Canadian people that received and gave aid to the Irish that came to North America.

The award-winning Death or Canada (the film) will air in Canada on March 16 and be released for distribution shortly after that. Death or Canada (the book) by Mark McGowan is available now for purchase.

Thanks to Earline Hines Bradt of Ancestral Notes for bringing "Death or Canada" to my attention.

Wordless Wednesday: A wee bit of Irish sod in the Big Apple

The Irish Hunger Memorial is located at the corner of Vesey Street and North End Avenue in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Manhattan. It was dedicated in 2002.

For more images of the site, view this virtual New York City Walk through the Irish Hunger Memorial.

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

"Denying famine a future": Blog Action Day 2008

It is hard for my imagination to grasp what the childhoods of my great-great-grandparents Patrick Tierney and Catherine Kennedy must have been like. Patrick was six years old during the worst year of the most infamous Irish famine in recent history. The year was 1847, later known as "Black '47". Catherine was born in that year or shortly thereafter. Her babyhood must have been a true trial for her mother.

As a mother myself, I cannot fathom the worry that both Patrick and Catherine's parents must have faced as they struggled to provide food for their young children, the rest of their families, and themselves during this horrific time.

"...Sick! Sick! Sick!
With an aching, swimming brain
And the fierceness of the fever-thirst
And the maddening famine pain..."

~ From The Song of the Famine, published by The Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal, July - December 1847, p. 102-104

As they watched neighbors, friends and family succumb to the effects of the death-dealing famine, how did my ancestors keep up hope that they and their children would make it through those dark days? And what mathematical odds did my great-great-grandparents overcome to make it possible for me and their other descendants to be living today?

I have other ancestors who may have experienced poverty and near-poverty during their lifetimes, yet when I first learned of Patrick and Catherine's childhoods during this infamous time in Ireland's history, I was struck with awe.

According to The Oxford Companion to Irish History, famine may be defined as "a persistent failure in food supplies over a prolonged period. It is something experienced by society, whereas starvation is something that affects individuals... The causes are complex."

Much has been written about the causes of The Great Hunger, as the Irish called the famine of 1845-1849 (An Gorta Mor in Irish Gaelic). Much will continue to be written about its causes and its impact on Ireland. It is clear today that the suffering of the Irish people during this time could have been significantly lessened if grain and other exports from Ireland had been restricted earlier and if more comprehensive measures had been taken to provide relief to those in need.

According to the International Famine Center at University College Cork "...it is important to note that famine occurs not only because a chain of events disposes to a famine outcome but also because nothing, or at least nothing effective, is done to break the process. It has been rare for the governments of famine-prone countries to possess the means with which to intervene to prevent famine."

Thankfully, the Irish famine was over long ago, although it will continue to live on in the collective memory of the Irish people for centuries. Yet, famine is still with us today in the suffering of many nations and peoples. The list of countries impacted by devastating food shortages continues to grow. Today people are in serious need in:

• Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and more of east Africa


• Sierra Leone and more of west Africa


• Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and more of southern Africa


• Haiti


• Dominican Republic, Honduras and more of Central America


• Afghanistan


• Myanmar


• Other parts of the world

Few corners of the world are immune to poverty. In fact, many nations are now facing famine, or are on the verge of such a dire situation.

It is truly humbling for me to study the famine of mid-19th-century Ireland, particularly because I know that my family was impacted by this harrowing turn of events in such a direct way. It is also humbling to look at the current statistics that indicate that at least 800 million people in the world today face hunger. One quarter of those are children under five years of age.

Overwhelming as it might seem to consider the fact that one in five members of the human population suffers in this way today, there is hope. I am heartened by the fact that modern global communication allows us to be aware of those hurting in other parts of the world, and gives us the means to do something about it.

On this Blog Action Day 2008 focused on poverty, I hope you'll join me in taking the time to educate yourself about poverty and famine throughout the world - and take steps to do your part to change it.

According to the website of the International Famine Center at University College Cork (quoting Michael Glantz' 1987 Drought & Hunger in Africa: Denying Famine a Future):

"Preparing for famine so as to prevent it, although not a new idea, is one that we should be thinking about and working to realize. The reasons are humanitarian, social, economic, and political. We can both protect development and promote it by preparedness planning to 'deny famine a future'."

~

What You Can Do

Here are some ways that you can do your part to make a difference in the life of someone who is living with or close to poverty today:

• Help keep a small business owner in the developing world out of poverty by making a micro-loan at Kiva.org
• Help feed the hungry while you and/or your kids test your knowledge at FreeRice.com
• Join Catholic Relief Services in praying, learning, participating and speaking out
• Donate to those in need through Food for the Poor
• Purchase items created by local artisans throughout the developing world at Ten Thousand Villages, which ensures that the artisans receive fair compensation for their work through fair trade
• Print a letter to your President or Prime Minister through the Poverty.com website
• Get involved in World Food Day - October 16, 2008
• Learn about other ways to make a difference in the lives of those in need

Special thanks to my daughter for her help with suggestions and revisions for this article. Her knowledge of the current global challenges continues to motivate me to learn more and do more to make a difference in the lives of those in need.

~

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event uniting the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters as they post about the same issue on the same day. This year's goal, according to the Blog Action Day website, is to raise awareness of poverty and trigger a global discussion.

If you'd like to read more about poverty, visit the Blog Action Day 2008 website for links to the words of more than 12,000 participants worldwide, including another of my articles at 100 Years in America: "Finish your dinner!": A grandmother's wise words on poverty.

Song of suffering

It's a book of historical fiction geared toward middle-school students, but it is one of the most moving descriptions of the Great Famine in Ireland that I have read.

Nory Ryan's Song by Patricia Reilly Giff is the fictional story of a young girl who struggles through the worst period of suffering in Ireland during the 19th-century. Beginning in 1845, readers learn of the beauty of the west coast and the sad fate of the residents who remain on its shores during one of the most devasting times in the history of Ireland.

The author has based this story on years of research, including the study of her own personal family history. It is a tale of culture and family, of overlords and tragedies, of suffering and hope. Nory's sister, like many of the Irish, has left for America. Nory's story mirrors that of young girls of the time who heard tales of a new world "where no one was ever hungry". She lives from day to day struggling for survival and hoping for the grace to see that kind of place she dreams of someday.

Patricia Reilly Giff's book Maggie's Door is the sequel to Nory Ryan's Song.

Note: Several reviewers have given a suggested reading level of ages 9-12 for this book. Because of the vivid descriptions of the suffering of the people of Ireland throughout the story, I suggest that it be reserved for readers ages 12 and up.

Passing the torch: sharing Irish history with young people

In my post entitled Ready for battle: history for kids over at Small-leaved Shamrock I explained my desire to bring history and genealogy alive to young people. As I stated there, it is important to me to share what I've learned about my family's history and its place in the overall context of world history with my children, my nieces, nephews, second cousins, etc. I find joy in the knowledge that the next generation has an understanding of the sacrifices of those that lived before them and takes pride in their heritage.

I was well into adulthood before I had even basic knowledge about the Great Irish Famine, not to mention Irish history in general. With the intention of preventing that sort of "lapse of memory" within future generations, I would like to continue to share with children what I've learned about my own family history and the history of the Irish. On the sidebar of A light that shines again and my other blogs Small-leaved Shamrock and 100 Years in America, you can find Related Reading lists that include not only books for adults, but also books geared to children of various ages.

I enjoyed learning about one young lady who has taken an interest in her own Irish heritage to heart - so much so that at the age of 17 she has published a book of fiction based on her interest in Irish family history and culture.

Amanda Burris' novel, entitled "Remember The Dance: The Story of Nora Shanahan", was the result of an interest in her family's heritage and her research into all things Irish, including the Gaelic language and Irish dance. A homeschool student in her final year of high school, Amanda spent several years writing the book. According to the Remember the Dance website, the book gives readers a chance to:

Come explore the rich history that has long been forgotten by many and discover the difficult, yet exciting life of Nora Shanahan, a spirited, young Irish girl whose love of dancing brings her through times of starvation and oppression. But when the time comes to leave the land she loves so much, will the remembrance of the dance keep her spirits alive, even in a frightening, unwelcoming new land of America?

You can read more about Amanda's book in the following online articles: Teen Writer Brings History to Life and Kannapolis teenager publishes novel based on Irish ancestry.

Thanks to Dear Myrtle for sharing the story of Amanda Burris' book.

Song of a proud Irishman

My great-great grandfather Patrick Tierney was an Irish laborer who eked out a meager living in the North End of Boston in the late 19th-century. I have often heard of "No Irish Need Apply" signs facing Irish men and women seeking work in the U.S. during that time period and have wondered what types of struggles Patrick faced in his quest to provide for his family.

While thinking of Patrick recently I found the song What Irish Boys Can Do written by William Sutherland and published in 1864. It is one response to the insults that Irishmen received when others "called him green; an Irish bull" and posted "those dirty words: No Irish need apply!"

Here is the full song:

What Irish Boys Can Do
(Answer to: No Irish Need Apply)

They insult an Irishman, and think nought of what they say;
They'll call him green, an Irish bull: it happens every day.
Now to these folks I'll say a word; to sing a song I'll try,
And answer to those dirty words: No Irish need app'y!

So, if you'll give attention, I'll sing my song to you,
And the subject of this song shall be: What Irish boys can do.
If you'd come to Ireland, they'd treat you well, I'm sure;
Pat would share his last potato with the destitute and poor;

If you were sick and weary, and had no place to rest,
The bed you'd get, though poor perhaps, would be Pat's very best.
He'd nurse you, too: he would that, and give you whisky, too;
And you cannot find a nobler act than Irishmen can do.

Did you ever know an Irishman from any danger flinch?
In fighting too he'd rather die than give his foe an inch.
Among the bravest in the world are the sons of Erin's green isle.
Sure, the Iron Duke of Wellington was a native of the soil;

And didn't he badly whip the French on the plains of Waterloo?
Which plainly showed to the whole world what Irishmen can do.
Old Ireland's had her warriors, who fought both true and brave;
Pat's assisted every nation, on the land and on the wave.

And poets, too, she's had: yes, many and many a score;
Where can you find much brighter stars than Lover or Tom Moore?
Old Ireland's had her actors, and authors not a few;
And things of wit and humor the Irish all can do.

Did you ne'er hear tell of Sheridan, or of lamented Catharine Hays!
Did you ne'er see fun in Irish songs, or laugh at Irish plays?
Old Ireland's had her statesmen: their fame the wide world rings!
She's likewise had musicians to tune her old harp' strings!

Not all Irish girls are beautiful, but then they're always true,
And, for faith and generosity, the Irish girls will do.
And then, too, in the present war between the North and South,
Let no dirty slur on Irish ever escape your mouth;

Sure, did you ne'er hear tell of the 69th, who bravely fought at Bull-Run!
And Meagher of the seven days fight that was in front of Richmond,
With General Shields who fought so brave for the flag red, white, and blue?
And anything like a bayonet charge the Irish boys can do.

Then, why slur upon the Irish? Why are they treated so?
What is it you have against them is what I want to know.
Sure, they work for all they get, and that you can't deny!
Then, why insult them with the words: No Irish need apply?

If you want to find their principles, go search the wide world through,
And you'll find all things that's noble the Irish folks can do.


Tommy Makem, a modern day singer-songwriter, wrote his own version of a response to "No Irish Need Apply" back in the 1970's. The lyrics to his song They Told Us No Irish Need Apply can be found on his website Makem.com.

Tommy Makem's song includes mentions of many famous Irish-Americans including politicians, presidents, leaders of the Church and more. My favorite lines in his song are in the seventh verse and celebrate the more common Irishmen, my ancestors:

We're the men who built the railroads,
we're the men who fought the wars
We're the men who manned the police force,
we're the men who drove street cars
We're the men who formed your unions,
we're the men who sang your songs
We're the men who filled your history
and tried to right your wrongs.

For more on the 69th Pennsylvania infantry see my article at Small-leaved Shamrock entitled The fighting Irish in America's Civil War.

For some of the "poets Ireland's had" see "The Wearin' of the Green",
"We searched for birds in every furze...", The dreamer and A child's eye view here at A light that shines again; and The Celtic blessing: food for the soul and On "poor Pat" and his emigration from Ireland over at Small-leaved Shamrock.

You can also find the song What Irish Boys Can Do online at the Library of Congress' American Memory website and at the "Poor Pat Must Emigrate" webpages for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

"A good story never has to end..."

With St. Patrick's Day approaching I've been reading up on good Irish stories and wanted to share one in particular with you. If you are a reader of Small-leaved Shamrock, you may know that I particularly enjoy sharing family history and Irish culture with children. St. Patrick's Day is a special time to do so, since the color green is popping up all over the place.

While looking for good reading this season I was reminded of a book that I had enjoyed not too long ago. The St. Patrick's Day Shillelagh by Janet Nolan is a heart-warming story of one Irish immigrant family's way of honoring their roots. At the time of the great famine, a young boy on his journey from Ireland whittles a shillelagh. After his arrival in America, each St. Patrick's Day he takes out the stick and reminds himself of the journey, later sharing the story with his son. Through the passing down of the shillelagh and the simple telling of the story from father to son and daughter (in successive generations), the family's heritage is kept alive from year to year, generation to generation.

I can't help but wonder after reading this book just what my own immigrant ancestor's journey to America was like, and what successive generations knew about his arrival and his early life in the United States. I know one thing for sure: if I had an original memento from his trip (such as the shillelagh in the book), I would give it museum-quality care. What an heirloom that would be!

As I continue to write about my own family's history, I'll take to heart the words spoken by the grandfather in The St. Patrick's Day Shillelagh:

"A good story never has to end as long as someone remembers to keep telling it."

Good Samaritans across the Atlantic: February 1847

It was one-hundred and sixty-one years ago that America rallied to send aid to a suffering Ireland. Word had come across the Atlantic of the devastating famine that had hit Ireland, and Americans responded with kindness and generosity.

According to Mass Moments and its sources (Thomas O'Connor's books The Boston Irish: A Political History and Fitzpatrick's Boston, 1846-1866: John Bernard Fitzpatrick, 3rd Bishop of Boston) the city of Boston was among the first to respond to the crisis. The Irish Catholic community eventually sent $150,000 to its brothers and sisters in Ireland. On February 7, 1847, the city's new Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick had made the needy Irish the focus of his first pastoral letter, stating:

"A voice comes to us from across the ocean, the loud cry of her anguish has gone through the world. . . . Apathy and indifference, on an occasion like this, are inseparable from crime!"

On February 18, 1847 leading citizens of Boston (both Catholic and Protestant) met in Fanueil Hall to sort out plans for aid to the Irish. The committee eventually sent 800 tons of food and clothing to Ireland by way of the United States Navy's U.S.S. Jamestown.

Little did those that aided the Irish in the year 1847 know of the severity of the famine or its eventual length over a period of years. They could not have known the almost complete devastation of the Irish people that would be the result of the potato blight. And they could not have foreseen the role that their own city would play in the coming years as the newfound home for many of the suffering Irish that they had sought to aid.

On the finer points of Irish lacemaking

No, I'm not actually going to explain to you how to do fine lacework. It would be hard for me to find the time and the patience to gain proficiency at that amazing craft.

However, I would like to share some of the finer points of Irish lacemaking with the regard to Irish history: namely the fact that it supported thousands of families during the decades after the Great Famine, providing a way for women to make money to help feed their families.

I enjoyed reading the Irish Family History blog's post about the topic entitled Irish Crochet Lace and Muings Lace School and following their link to the website for the 2005 ‘Irish Crochet Lace - 150 Years of a Tradition’ at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles in California. Thanks to the Irish Family History blog, I enjoyed viewing the slide show and reading the exhibit brochure, which gives a nice history of Irish lacemaking in Ireland along with details about the craft itself.

Speaking of Irish lace, ever heard the term "lace-curtain Irish"?

This term was not so much an Irish term as an Irish-American term. It was often used to refer to the more "settled" Irish immigrants - those that were no longer "just off the boat", so to speak.

Kate Marin's comment on the Wicked Good Guide to Boston English site sums up the term "lace-curtain Irish" very nicely:

Lace was an industry that poor women in Ireland were able to pursue whilst doing everything else required to run homes on no resources. However, like the produce and livestock raised during the Irish Famine, lace wasn't made for home use. It was only for export and the tourist trade. Thus, "lace curtain Irish" were doing well for themselves, & might well be lording it over those a rung or two lower on the immigrant ladder.

The home page for the exhibit at the Lacis Museum has a beautiful poem that honors those women who used every bit of their spare time to help support their families through the beautiful craft of Irish lacemaking:

A tribute to the human spirit.
Beauty born of necessity.
Conceived from lowly beginnings,
With a dream of higher aspirations,
It grew out of patience, perseverance and ingenuity,
To stand in majesty,
To feed a nation.

Muings Lace School in County Mayo is currently slated to become a heritage center and museum. For more information on the project please visit Fís na Muingi-Iorras's website: Save Muings Lace School.

Images of the Irish lace and instruction books from Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles, Berkeley, CA.

"The city where a century ago he came unwanted, he has made his own..."

If any city in the United States could be described as a place with strong Irish heritage today, it would be Boston. But that wasn't always the case. The city provided perhaps the most unpleasant welcome of any American city to the poverty-stricken Irish of the 19th-century. Yet today Boston is known equally for its Irish heritage as for its Puritan and Patriot origins.

After at least a century of discrimination and sometimes actual physical endangerment, the Irish finally found a place of acceptance in the city, and today it would hardly seem imaginable to have Boston without the Irish.

Of all the immigrant groups who made their home in Boston during the 19th-century, the Irish held the most strongly to their identity and culture. This was probably as much because of their mistreatment by other residents of the city as because of their strong traditional ways and beliefs.

As Oscar Handlin explains in his classic 1941 book, Boston's Immigrants, 1790-1880: A Study in Acculturation:

"Every phase of the experience in America [of the Irish who settled in Boston] heightened the disparity between their heritage and that of their neighbors. The physical barriers segregating them from the dominant cultural currents of the day disappeared in the New World; but the spiritual ones crossed the Atlantic in the hold of every immigrant ship. Reaffirmed and strengthened by the difficulties of the new environment, these restraints ruled Irish thoughts as vigorously in Boston as in Cork."

The Irish in Boston were different from other Boston residents. In a predominantly Protestant city, they were Catholic. In a world of intellectuals, well-to-do citizens and a thriving middle-class, they were dirt poor. Even as compared to other immigrant groups in the city (of which they were the largest) the Irish were at the bottom of the ladder economically.

As Kerby Miller writes in his Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America,

"Because of their alien religion and peasant habits, all seemingly repugnant to native institutions and bourgeois ideals, Irish Catholics provided easily identifiable targets for middle-class reformers and beleaguered Protestant workers who joined ranks in a second Great Awakening to purge the United States of everything sinful and foreign."

Miller goes on,

"The sacking of the Charlestown (Boston) convent in 1834 and the great Kensington riots of 1844 - both incidents ranging native and Irish Protestants
against Irish 'papists' - were only the most blatant examples of the religious and ethnic animosities permeating Jacksonian America."

Boston was not a safe place for the Irish in the early 19th-century and conditions did not improve significantly until many years later.

In her book Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900-1920 Paula Kane quotes Katherine Conway, a new resident who had just moved to Boston in 1880. Katherine observed,

"To a young journalist coming to the capital of New England from Western New York, it was like coming to another world... The whole aspect and outlook were radically different. There was a line of cleavage in Boston that she had not encountered before in the few cities in which she had dwelt. It was a frankly racial and religious line - a little more religious than racial."

Back in 1847, Boston had sent aid to the Irish during their time of need. According to Jim Vrabel's When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac, on February 18, 1847 an Irish Famine Relief Committee was organized at Faneuil Hall. The committee, which included prominent Catholics and Protestants, responded to Bishop John Fitzpatrick's plea to aid the Irish in "famine and despair". They eventually sent four provision-loaded ships to Ireland.

Sending aid across the ocean was one thing. Receiving the impoverished Irish as immigrants into their own city was another thing altogether for Bostonians. The mid-19th century saw the swelling of the city with waves of immigrants, most of them Irish. What was a strongly Protestant city with a proud connection to their English roots, became the new home of thousands of Irish Catholics looking for escape from famine and mistreatment by English overlords.

As Miller describes in Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America,

"Unskilled workers and servants, especially, encountered the ubiquitous 'No Irish Need Apply' notices when they searched for jobs in Boston, New York, and other major cities... Even well-educated, middle-class Irish Catholics experienced religious barriers to success and respect: 'Although in this country all religions enjoy perfect equality before the law, in society it is far otherwise,' lamented the Young Ireland exile John Blake Dillon."

By 1880, according to When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac, the city was the fifth largest in the United States and its population had grown to 362,839. This number included 114,796 foreign-born Boston residents, 64,793 from Ireland. The Irish were clearly in Boston to stay.

The year 1885 saw Boston's first Irish mayor: Hugh O'Brien.

Just a little over two decades later, in 1907, the city received a new Catholic archbishop, William Henry O'Connell. He would be elevated to Cardinal (Boston's first) in 1911. According to Paula Kane's book he established a "triumphalist, separatist Catholic subculture...sacred but equal, separate but integrated."

The city's Irish Catholics had received a spokesman, pleading on their behalf before God as well as the residents of Boston.

In 1908 the Boston archdiocese celebrated its centennial. What had begun as two priests and 2,000 parishioners had grown to 1,500 priests and over 1.5 million people. Archbishop O'Connell delivered the centenary sermon at Holy Cross Cathedral declaring:

"The Puritan has passed, the Catholic remains. The city where a century ago, he came unwanted, he has made his own...It is time for Catholic manhood to stand erect, square its shoulders, look the world in the eye and say, 'I am a Roman Catholic citizen; what about it?"

This story has a happy ending for the Irish. Modern Boston wouldn't seem itself without the Boston Irish Heritage Trail, numerous St. Patrick's Day celebrations, the Boston Celtics, even a library honoring a hometown Irish Catholic boy who became President of the United States.

Generations later, peoples who struggled to coexist live side by side and intermarry happily. And descendants of those struggling Irish, like myself, are amazed at what a difference one-hundred years can make.

Boston image thanks to National Geographic Urban Drives Photo Gallery.

Image of Mayor Hugh of O'Brien by John Angel James Wilcox can be found on the website of the Boston Public Library's Digital Image Gallery.

Image of William Cardinal O'Connell courtesy of American Catholic University of America.

Can you make a passing grade in Irish geography?

I thought I knew a little bit of Irish geography until I came across this little map quiz of Irish counties on Professor Thomas J. Archdeacon's website for his History 200 course on The Great Irish Famine at the University of Wisconsin.

It looks like I've got some studying to do...

Give it a try yourself and then click here for the answer key. No cheating!

The poverty-stricken Irish: Why did they pick Boston?

Boston, Massachusetts was not the destination of choice for most immigrants arriving in America in the 19th-century.

According to Oscar Handlin's Boston's Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation:

"Certainly, prospective settlers who could be at all selective would pass Boston by in favor of its younger and relatively more flourishing sisters. For in this community there was no room for strangers; its atmosphere of cultural homogeneity, familiar and comforting to self-contained Bostonians, seemed
rigidly forbidding to aliens. And above all, space was lacking. Boston offered few attractions in either agriculture or industry. Its commercial ranks were not broad enough to absorb the sons of its own merchant class, and the fields of retail trading and handicraft artisanry were limited. The constricted social and economic life of the city and the far greater opportunities elsewhere, combined to sweep the currents of migration in other directions."

All "currents of migration" that is, except one: the poorest of the poor, the Catholic Irish.

As I mentioned in my earlier post Boston was a place where, according to Thomas O'Connor's The Boston Irish: A Political History, "an Irish Catholic, under any circumstance, should never, ever, [have] set foot."

But no other major immigrating group in the history of Boston, or even possibly the nation, arrived with such urgency, desperation and poverty as the Irish exiles forced from their homes during the time of the Great Famine.

In the words of the Cork Examiner, March 10, 1847:

"The emigrants of this year are not like those of former ones; they are now actually running away from fever and disease and hunger, with money scarcely sufficient to pay passage for and find food for the voyage."

As Oscar Handlin's book describes, "At the port of embarkation emigrant funds were inevitably depleted by weary weeks of waiting for passage, and any residue was used up during the long crossing. In New York and Boston the penniless newcomer arrived with no alternative but to stay where he was."

That is most likely the way in which my 17-year-old great-great-grandfather Patrick Tierney made his arrival in Boston in 1857. The son of Michael & Mary (O'Neill) Tierney of County Tipperary, Patrick had been born just a few days shy of the feast of St. Patrick in the year 1841. He was born just four short years before the most devastating famine in the history of Ireland. In 1857, after surviving what must have been an incredibly traumatic childhood, he stood on the threshold of a new hope for his future as a penniless new American immigrant.

Patrick lived most of the rest of his life in Boston's North End doing odd jobs - laborer, grocer, trader, peddler. He married and he and his wife Catherine Kennedy Tierney raised at least seven children in the North End before their move to Quincy just a few short years before Patrick's death in 1900.

It was a hard life where the struggle for daily bread was probably never far from this father's mind. Yet his move to Boston had saved Patrick from what might have been certain death had he remained in his homeland wracked by severe overlords and horrible famine.

If Patrick Tierney felt as his wife Catherine did, he was happy to have chosen the life of a poor Irish laborer in Boston's impoverished North End as opposed to remaining in the depravity of the land of his birth.

Patrick surely could relate to the feeling of the poet who penned these words to The Emigrant's Farewell published in the Boston Pilot on August 16, 1862:

Farewell to thee, Erin mavourneen,
Thy valleys I'll tread never more;
This heart that now bleeds for thy sorrows,
Will waste on a far distant shore.
Thy green sods lie cold on my parents,
A cross marks the place of their rest, -
The wind that moans sadly above them,
Will waft their poor child to the West.

For more information about the Irish Immigration postage stamp pictured above see this U.S. Postal Service webpage.

Some good Irish stories for ya'...

The call for entries for the inaugural edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture was announced over at Small-leaved Shamrock. Everyone loves a good Irish story is the result of that call for entries.

If you enjoy reading about the amazing history of the rugged Irish people, or if you just love a good story, happy reading!

Included in the 1st edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture is the story about the amazing life of John Boyle O'Reilly: Irish boy, exiled prisoner in Australia, escapee to America and finally, editor and part-owner of Boston's The Pilot newspaper. (Did I forget to mention that he was a poet?) Read The Dreamer here at A Light That Shines Again for my story about O'Reilly's fascinating life.

Want to read the story of some other brave Irishmen and the part they played in the war which faced them in their new country? Take a look at The Fighting Irish in America's Civil War over at Small-leaved Shamrock for the story of the 69th Pennsylvania Infantry: a group of volunteers who ended up fighting in every major battle of the Civil War, most notably the battle of Gettysburg.

For more good Irish reading, take time to read the other entries at the 1st edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture.

The 2nd edition of the carnival will feature Irish research & resources.

Here's the specific topic:

As genealogists and historians, we're always trying to get the facts. What was the world like during a certain time and place in history? Who was there - what were their names and where did they live? What role did they play in the world around them?

Please share with us your recommendations for books and resources on Irish genealogy and history. What is your favorite (or most frustrating) database of Irish records? Can you recommend a favorite book or resource for Irish research? How about sharing your favorite Irish history books? Any online resources that have helped you in your search for Irish ancestors or your attempt to gain an understanding of Irish history in general?

I'm looking forward to receiving your recommendations via carnival entry by December 28 and publishing them on January 1, 2008 at Small-leaved Shamrock just in time for a fresh start on our projects for the new year! Even if you've never participated in a blog carnival before, please consider joining us. And if you have any ideas for topics that you would like to see on future editions of the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture, please send them via email. Your ideas and suggestions are welcomed!

The dreamer

I'm not sure exactly which side of the family passed down to me a love of poetry, but it has always been a part of me. My grandfather was known to have some classic poems memorized, and he often encouraged my childhood writing attempts, but I do not know if he ever penned a poem of his own. My dream would be to someday uncover a notebook of writings by him or a great-grandfather or great-grandmother who also loved to read and write poetry. So many things are lost to history: names, dates, where family members lived, their occupations. But so much more that a family historian can sometimes only dream of discovering.

So with the knowledge that I have Irish ancestors who loved poetry, and with the sad realization that I may never know who they were, I share with you a story of another Irish poet. One who lived an adventurous and incredibly busy life, yet found the time to pen meaningful verse that still lives on today. In fact, he may have been John F. Kennedy's favorite poet.

John Boyle O'Reilly was born in 1844, just three years after my great-great-grandfather Patrick Tierney and at the onset of the Great Irish Famine. John was born in a castle near Drogheda, north of Dublin, to a family that took seriously their Irish patriotism.

O'Reilly's early life included a good early education, newspaper work and military training. His amazing story continued with his involvement in the secret Irish society of Fenians, two years in English prisons for this offense, his deportation to Western Australia, and finally his escape and arrival in the United States. John began his new life of freedom in Boston and went on to become the editor and part-owner of The Pilot, Boston's well-known Irish newspaper.

After such an adventurous and difficult life, it is no wonder O'Reilly longed for the peaceful days of his childhood back in the country in Ireland.

John Boyle O'Reilly's poem, The Cry of the Dreamer, expresses his longing for a simpler time and place:

I am tired of planning and toiling
In the crowded hives of men,
Heart-weary of building and spoiling,
And spoiling and building again,
And I long for the dear old river,
Where I dreamed my youth away;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.

I am sick of the showy seeming,
Of life that is half a lie;
Of the faces lined with scheming
In the throng that hurries by;
From the sleepless thought's endeavor
I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a thinker dies in a day.

I can feel no pride, but pity,
For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city
But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skillful,
And the child-mind choked with weeds!
The daughter's heart grown willful
And the father's heart that bleeds!

No! no! from the street's rude bustle,
From trophies of mart and stage,
I would fly to the wood's low rustle
And the meadows' kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved for my dreams alway;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And the toiler dies in a day.

A newspaperman and poet, he had the knowledge of the world around him and the artistic ability to express that world in a way that helped others to see it with new eyes. One of my favorite of O'Reilly's statements speaks of the freedom of the press:

For all time to come, the freedom and purity of the press are the test of national virtue and independence. No writer for the press, however humble, is free from the burden of keeping his purpose high and his integrity white.

Quoted in Roche, James Jeffrey (1891). Life of John Boyle O'Reilly, together with his complete poems and speeches edited by Mrs John Boyle O'Reilly. New York. p 195.

John Boyle O'Reilly was perhaps the most influential Irishman in 19th-century Boston. For twenty years (from his arrival in Boston in 1870 to his death in 1890) he acted, according to irishheritagetrail.com, as "a spokesman for the downtrodden, at times singlehandedly bridging the gap between people of various races, creeds and nationalities".

The life of John Boyle O'Reilly, the ideals he stood for and the work he did to encourage those ideals is immortalized in the John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial (at left), located along the Irish Heritage Trail in Boston. The O'Reilly Memorial was dedicated in 1896.

More information about the O'Reilly Memorial and other sites of interest on the Boston Irish Heritage Trail is located on their website. The Irish Heritage Trail is (according to irishheritagetrail.com) "a self-guided, three mile walking tour that takes you through Boston's downtown, North End, Beacon Hill and Back Bay. You'll learn about famous politicians, artists, matriarchs and war heroes, part of a rich tradition of rebellion, leadership and triumph that personifies the Boston Irish." (Talk about good stories.) The site includes a clickable version of the trail map below, with information about each memorial or site of interest.

Sometimes referred to as "the capitol of Irish America", Boston's past is rich with stories of Irish immigrants like John Boyle O'Reilly and the America that they and their descendants embraced and influenced to become the Boston we know today.

The Irish influence in Boston

This online video description of the Irish influence in Boston is interesting. Specifically of interest is the footage of the Famine Memorial in Boston (above), unveiled in 1998.

A child's eye view

The Great Famine, though devastating to all areas, caused the most suffering in particular areas. This map shows the areas that were hit the worst.



Being a child, or a parent of a child, in the time of the Great Famine had to be almost unbearable at times. Of course, many of them died. Those that survived suffered through days and nights of hunger pains and illness caused by malnutrition.

The following poem, by Amelia Blanford Edwards, gives us a child's-eye-view of these difficult days:

Give Me Three Grains of Corn, Mother

Give me three grains of corn, Mother,
Only three grains of corn;
It will keep the little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.
I am dying of hunger and cold, Mother,
Dying of hunger and cold;
And half the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.
It has gnawed at my heart like a wolf, Mother,
A wolf that is fierce for blood;
All the live long day, and the night beside,
Gnawing for lack of food.
I dreamed of bread in my sleep, Mother,
And the sight was heaven to see;
I awoke with an eager famishing lip,
But you had no bread for me.
How could I look to you, Mother,
How could I look to you
For bread to give your starving boy,
When you were starving too?
For I read the famine in your cheek,
And in your eyes so wild
And I felt it in your bony hand,
As you laid it on your child.
The Queen has lands and gold, Mother,
The Queen has lands and gold,
While you are forced to your empty breast
A skeleton babe to hold-
A babe that is dying of want, Mother,
As I am dying now.
With a ghastly look in its sunken eye,
And famine upon its brow.
What has poor Ireland done,Mother,
What has poor Ireland done,
That the world looks on, and sees us starve,
Perishing one by one?
Do the men of England care not, Mother,
The great men and the high
For the suffering sons of Erins Isle,
Whether they live or die?
There are many a brave heart here, Mother,
Dying of want and cold,
While only across the channel, Mother,
Are many that roll in gold.
There are rich and proud men there, Mother,
With wondrous wealth to view,
And the bread that they fling to their dogs tonight
Would give life to me and you.
Come nearer to my side, Mother,
Come nearer to my side,
And hold me fondly, as you held
My father when he died;
Quick, for I can not see you, Mother,
My breath is almost gone;
Mother! dear Mother! ere I die,
Give me three grains of corn.

"Never."

I took a nice trip to Scotland years ago. My friend and I traveled with large backpacks on our backs, took trains and stayed in youth hostels along the way. It was a memorable trip for many reasons, not the least of which was the beautiful Scottish scenery that surrounded us wherever we went.

My most striking memory of the trip was how awestruck I was by the fact that everything was so green - in shades so vivid that they seemed to be unreal. It was a beautiful place and I'd love to mingle with the friendly people and the Highland cows again sometime.

I've always imagined Ireland to be even more beautiful than the Scotland that I knew then. Photography of Ireland (in several volumes that rest on my bookshelves) certainly assures me that it will be. Quaint Irish villages with little thatch-roofed homes, green fields as far as the eye can see, cliff views of the ocean that defy the imagination. I would love to take a long, leisurely trip to the land of my heritage. I even daydream sometimes of living there for a year or so. I had often been saddened to think that my great-great-grandparents, Patrick Tierney and his wife Catherine (Kennedy) Tierney had been forced to leave such a beautiful land. Both had left after spending their childhoods during the famine years.

Imagine my interest when I discovered a letter a couple of years ago written in 1985 by my Great Aunt Mary (McCue) Primiano. Her letter, addressed to my grandparents, described a recent trip she had taken to Ireland by way of France & England.

Of specific interest to me was her description of a short conversation that she had once with her grandmother, "Gran", Catherine (Kennedy) Tierney. It reminded me that the land of Ireland not only has its beauty but a harshness that has made its people strong over the generations.

"We took an overnight trip on the Irish Sea last year. Talk about being a bad sailor. I can get queezy on a ferry and the storm on the Irish Sea darn near did me in.

"I remember asking Gran one time if she ever wanted to go back to Ireland. She laughed and said, 'Never.' After that trip I can now understand why."

Now I know what "Gran", who died on February 4, 1934 in her mid-eighties, would have said if given the chance to go back.

I'll just have to take the trip for her - but I'm sure my stay will be a much more pleasant one than she had.

A rough start in Ireland

On March 14, 1841 a baby boy named Patrick was born to Michael & Mary (O'Neil) Tierney in County Tipperary, Ireland. Little did this family know what would transpire in their homeland in the near future.

Their lives, which were probably not too easy to begin with, would become tried beyond the imagination.

With the potato being the main food of the rural Irish, the failure of the potato crops in 1845-49 resulted in the disastrous Great Famine. Starvation and famine fever spread through the land; its greatest impact was in those communities on marginal lands. During the last part of the Famine, grain continued to be exported from Ireland to the markets of England, and Indian corn was prohibited by tariffs from entering Ireland (or England).

Government policies were criminally slow to react to the disaster. Workhouses, established under the Poor Law Act of 1838 for the relief of the destitute poor, were overwhelmed. At the height of the Famine, 3,000 per week were dying in the workhouses of Ireland. One million people perished due to the famine and within a decade or two, a further two million emigrated from Ireland.

Tipperary was relatively badly affected by the
Famine. Almost 70,000 people died in the county between 1845 and 1850 particularly in the years 1849 and 1850. The county population fell from
435,000 in 1841, to 331,000 in 1851 and to
249,000 in 1861. The rural population declined by two-thirds in that period and the town population by nearly one-half.

Read more about Tipperary history here.

Living a childhood in this kind of world, it is a miracle that young Patrick Tierney survived and went on to live to age 59, passing away in 1900.