Keeping Longford Connections - The County Longford Colony in New York, Part II

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During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, immigrants from Longford not only found themselves with an ocean between Ireland and America, but an information ocean between them and the people and events at home. Desperation to find a lost relation or friend resulted in the appearance of the "missing friends" column in Irish weekly newspapers. Ads were inserted asking for information about immigrants who had been "lost" for some time, and these appeared regularly in weeklies like the Irish American, the Irish Worldand Irish Advocate up to the time of World War I. "Missing Persons" ads were sometimes tacked on to the end of news items about Longford. The Irish American in 1866 contained a typical notice: The Dublin Irishman asks for information of Captain James Cox, 47th New York Volunteers, who was honorably discharged with his company, 30th of August, 1865. Also, Michael Thompson, who left Longford for America, 31st of August, 1864. Address Thomas Cox, Father of Captain Cox, care of Mrs. Thompson, Bridge street, Longford. 1 Vol.18, 2004 Keeping Longford Connections:The County Longford Colony in New York - Part II By John T. Ridge John Ridge is a former president of the New York Irish History Roundtable and currently serves as its vice president for local history. He is the author of several books on the history of the Irish in New York City. The first part of his article on New Yorkers from County Longford appeared in volume 17 (2003) of New York Irish History. © 2005. Published with permission of John T. Ridge.

Photo:Frank Mulvey (at right) outside his Third Avenue store in 1905. He was one of many Longford immigrants who ran successful small businesses. From the John T. Ridge Collection.

NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 33 Newspapers from Ireland were a great source of information, and they were available in some shops in New York and Brooklyn as early as the 1850s. Although out of date by several weeks, detailed information of economic, agricultural and political events could be obtained, but less complete was social news from the home county. Gradually, coverage in this area too was increased by 1900. New York's Irish-American newspapers provided a regular summary of local events for each of Ireland's thirty-two counties. County Longford news usually consisted of on average between three and five paragraphs of short condensed reports. Although most of the news carried was the relatively dull proceedings of life in rural Ireland, crime of any sort drew special notice. The more shocking the event, particularly if it had both a Longford and a New York connection, the better the chance there was of its appearance in the weekly summary such as an 1866 report in the Irish American: On the evening of the 2d inst., a murder was committed, the victim being an illegitimate child, in the village of Newtownforbes, and adjoining the grand gate leading to Castle Forbes, the residence of the Right Hon. The Earl of Granard, by a girl named Julia Tracy. It appears that the unfortunate mother emigrated to America about two years ago with her father and mother.

Shortly after their arrival she obtained a situation in one of the hotels in New York as a maid. There she remained till within the last three months, when she expressed a wish to her father and mother to return to Ireland to see her aunt and uncle. She arrived in Ireland safely and stopped at her uncles, but on last Thursday, after complaining of being unwell she was confined of a child, when she severed the head from the body, rolled it up in old rags, and placed it under a heap of straw. The police arrested her, and secured the remains of the infant.

An inquest was held to day before Thomas Quinn, Esq., coroner, and a verdict of willful murder was returned. 2 Death notices of fellow immigrants also kept the Longford community together. Specific newspapers like the New York Herald or later theJournal-American, were favored by the Irish com-munity and, not surprisingly, death notices wereoften the first pages to be consulted upon open-ing a newspaper. The wakes became virtualreunions of the Longford community. The socialaspect of the Irish wake as recounted in suchnovels as The Last Hurrah offers an odd combination of the joyful and the pathetic. Death notices over the years chronicle a geographic change of Longford neighborhoods from the downtown areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn to, first, more distant corners of the boroughs and, finally, beyond the borders of New York City.

For most Americans readers of the daily press, the name Longford was unfamiliar and not within the handful of county names, such as Dublin and Cork, they would recognize. Around 1880, however, and for more than a decade afterward, the land war in Longford was frequently alluded to in press reports, particularly in the New York Herald. Its sympathetic coverage became so well known in Ireland that local branches of the Land League, including a committee in the Longford Parish of Killoe, wrote appeals for relief directly to the paper. 3 The Brooklyn Eagle, serving a community of thousands of Longford immigrants, was particularly attuned to events in the county, and occasionally letters sent from Ireland to Brooklynites were reprinted in the paper. The Reverend Sylvester Malone, a county Meath-born priest who was one of the most politically powerful clergymen of any faith serving in Brooklyn in the nineteenth century, sent a letter from his brother, a civil engineer, who had been called to work in Longford to help alleviate the distress there: Dearest Brother - Your welcome letter page 34New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 Illustration: Picnics and outdoor gatherings at Jones' Wood on the East River were summer recreations for immigrant groups for several decades during the nineteenth century.

Courtesy of New York Public Library NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 34 came to hand on the 13th. I was then down in the middle of the famine at Crowdrumman between Ballinamuck and Drumlish, in Longford, on the borders of Leitrim. 'Tis ill luck that brings nobody good, and whenever there is famine in country we have also a scarcity of engineers.

Hence, I have been very busy since about the first of December, down in Longford preparing plans, reports and estimates for gentlemen who propose to borrow under the Board of Works, Longford Union being one of those scheduled as famine stricken.

The proprietors get loans free of interest for two years.... This is a great boon granted by the government to all interested in the country threatened with famine. 4 The Irish World led a strident campaign for change in the system of land tenure, and as part of its plan it advertised for agents in America to distribute its fiery newspaper in Ireland. In early November 1880 an ad appeared asking for two Longford men to take charge of its "Spread the Light" campaign to distribute the Irish World. A positive response came from a Mr. John Leddy of Brooklyn, a Longford immigrant and in June 1881, a Longford resident named Donegan responded: 5 Camistown - Ballymahon, Co.

Longford - Mr. John Leddy, Brooklyn, N.Y. - Dear Sir: -By the 'Irish World' I see you are anxious to Spread the Light in your native Co. Longford. Alas! There is every need to do so. All the other counties are organizing, priests and people going hand in hand; but portions of Longford are still dormant. Were it not for the gallant stand the men of Drumlish made, Longford's voice would scarcely be heard.

Not that the people are cold or apathetic, but that those who should lead them on, as in other counties, are remaining silent, with folded arms, watching the gallant spectacle of the other brave counties confronting the armed myrmidons of landlord tyranny. Of the thirty-two counties there is not one that requires the Light more than sleeping Longford." 6 Leddy then called into the Irish World office on Barclay Street and paid $2 for copies of thenewspaper to be sent to Donegan and otheraddresses in Ireland. Leddy told the editor that he already had been in the habit of sendinghome each week "as many copies of the newspa-per as I can get." British customs authoritiesoften seized the Irish World as contraband and the story was circulated that officials inquired for illegal items with the question, "cigars, revolvers or Irish World s?" Another correspondent to the newspaper writing from near Ballinamuck said "I have distributed with marked effect the package of Irish Worlds sent me, and I can assure you I have become a popular youth since then." A letter of thanks for newspapers came from a Patrick Lennon and John Ford at Kilmahon, Drumlish.

They pleaded "Spread the Light and the truth of the Irish World around us, and let not the fell clouds of coercion overshadow us. Keep the fire alive around us, that we may not deviate for a moment from the principles of the Land League.

Send us more Light." 7 Politicians in Ireland increasingly looked on the Irish in New York and elsewhere as a virtual extension of their political realm. 8 The agitation in the 1880s brought about a close relationship between the Members of Parliament representing Longford and the New York Irish community. It became the norm for these representatives to make visits to New York on a frequent basis and none was more known than the M.P. for South Longford, Justin McCarthy. In September 1886 a reception was held in his honor, and the committee included several Longford-born New Yorkers such as Matthew Leavy, the Brooklyn brewer of the firm Leavy and Britton. Leavy was a major manufacturer of ale and porter and later raised $75,000 for the Irish Parliamentary Fund among his business associates. Leavy's employees New York Irish Historypage 35 Vol.18, 2004 Photo: Excursions on large boats on the Hudson River were frequent diversions from the crowded city.

Courtesy of New York Public Library NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 35 alone pledged enough money to support the campaigns of two Irish members of parliament. 9 Edward Blake, who succeeded McCarthy as M.P. for the South Longford constituency, arrived in New York in 1894 for a reception for the Irish Parliamentary Fund. His host was Thomas Addis Emmet, nephew of Robert Emmet, and the festivities were held at Emmet's large commercial building at 89 Madison Avenue. Other receptions followed including an elaborate dinner at the exclusive Hoffman House at which Patrick Egan was an organizer and speaker. Blake made another fund raising trip to the city two years later. 10 James P. Farrell, founder of the Longford Leader, made several trips to the United States after his election to Parliament in 1900. At a banquet at Reilly Brothers, Sixty-seventh Street and Columbus Avenue, "neighbors from the home of the guests" enjoyed a ten-course meal with cigars, caviar and demitasse coffee. 11 Farrell was on this occasion the prep man for a visit to the city of the leader of his parliamentary party, John Redmond. After the demise of the Parliamentary Party during World War I, fund-raising continued for Irish Republican causes and political leaders in the decades that followed.

LONGFORDSOCIALLIFE Although a few county associations had formed in the city as early as the late 1840s, there is no record of any Longford group until the 1880s.

Tenant rights and the horror of evictions caused many Longford immigrants to do something for the old homeland. The Longford Young Men's Association was formed in Manhattan in 1880 at the height of the land league agitation. Two years later it celebrated its third annual picnic with an afternoon and evening of entertainment at Jones Wood on the east side of Manhattan. 12 Less than a year later in March 1883 a County Longford Social Club was organized in Brooklyn, and it too announced a picnic as one of its first social activities. Just before it was due to take place in July an article appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle (under the headline "Dangerous - Evils that Spring from Moonlight Picnics") naming the new association along with others as sponsoring an activity that was "a growing source of crime" where "young girls drinking beer with men twicetheir ages" could be seen. The Longford club wasdefended by its president, Peter F. McCormick,who wrote a reply explaining the one-hundredmember society composed mostly of men bornin County Longford was an organization strictlyfor respectable social purposes: ...if your representative took the pains to find out who they are, and every man belonging to the organization, he would find that most of them own their business and attend to it, the balance of them occupying positions of trust in highly respectable houses and who must feel grieved at the slur cast on the club to which they belong. The Longford Club holds its first picnic on Thursday, the 26th, at Myrtle Park, and therefore your reporter cannot surmise what kind of affair it is going to be unless he as been grossly informed. I take the liberty of inviting your representative to the picnic, and if he finds anything to criticize in its management I shall not feel grieved if he so make public. The Brooklyn County Longford Social Club was organized about six months ago, for the sole purpose of bringing together former residents of the County Longford, Ireland, and most of the members are men of family, who respect themselves and their families, and would have nothing to do with any affair that would have a demoralizing tendency. 13 Both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Longford societies, however, failed to endure and by the early 1890s new societies were formed in each of the then separate cities. In Manhattan a Longford Ladies Society was formed while the Longford Men's Social and Benevolent Association in 1896 grew to twohundred members. Peter McDonnell, the prominent contractor, acted as the association's recording secretary. The Irish World called McDonnell "the millionaire Longford man," and he is remembered today as a major contributor to the completion of the early subways and as the progenitor of the family of the once formidable Wall Street investment house of McDonnell and Company. 14 Annual excursions up the Hudson River or out along Long Island Sound were popular before page 36New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 36 the turn of the century, but unlike the picnic and social events these outings had their share of problems. It was usual for barges to be hooked up to a steamer or tug to carry the thousands of extra people that typically joined the outing, and this precarious arrangement contributed to frequent accidents. Mechanical problems on board also caused long delays, and steamers sometimes departed leaving hundreds of passengers behind.

Confinement on board a small steamer and attached barges on a hot summer's day, where even games of tag took place, did not always result in the pleasant outing that the committee promised. In 1898 the body of a drowned man was found in Staten Island by a group of oystermen one evening. Fully dressed in a dark coat and vest, he carried no identification except a card from the Church of the Holy Cross (West Forty-third Street) and a dance card from the County Longford Men's Excursion of three days before. It was supposed "he was drowned from the excursion and not missed." 15 Another serious incident occurred in 1904 when an argument broke out among participants "over the merits of respective counties in Ireland." As a result one excursionist shot another in the hip. This incident took place in the same year as the infamous General Slocum tragedy, and thereafter boat excursions began to fall into disfavor. Longford excursions, however, continued until about 1911. After 1904 all the society's excursions were like the one held in 1906, when it was reported that there was "not a dispute or a mishap from beginning to end." 16 Curiously, the only untoward events ever reported at a Longford events over the course of 125 years both involved summer excursions. The business meetings of the Longford Men were usually followed by a social of impromptu step dancing exhibitions and sing-songs. The closeness of the membership can be seen in the frequent accounts in the New York Irish weekly papers of house parties held on occasion like a member's birthday, marriage or departure on a trip to Ireland. In the years before the World War, it was reported that many immigrants were "going home for the summer." In addition to the Longford Men, there were many other small associations before World War I composed of immigrants from specific towns or parishes in the county such as Ballymahon, Edgeworthstown,and Drumlish. Many of the local Longfordgroups had organized to raise money for a specificpurpose, commonly to build or repair a church inthe old country, and once the fund-raising wasover the group often faded away.

Both the Longford Men and Ladies Associations tried to find employment for their members, and in 1908, the county was among the first to establish a formal labor (employment) bureau. Members of the Sheet Metal Workers Union helped many Longford immigrants find jobs in the construction industry. James Lennon (1877-1932), organizer for that union, was also president of the Longford Men for several years. 17 The ladies Longford society was a young people's organization with nine of its eleven officers unmarried in 1911. Calamitous events like the outbreak of World War I caused severe disruption in both men's and ladies' associations.

More than one-hundred members of the Longford Men served in the American Army. 18 One of the biggest boosts to the county associations was the formation of Gaelic football teams. The Longford team organized in 1907 and held initial practices in Astoria Park with formal games at Van Cortlandt Park. The club was on the opening program in 1909 for the new Wakefield Park in Yonkers, a valiant but failed effort to acquire a permanent Irish-owned sporting ground.

Football came a generation after two Longford-born race walkers achieved prominence in that once popular sport. John Ennis (1843-1929), a native of Richmond Harbor, came to America at age six and served in the Civil War with an Illinois regiment. He loved sports and excelled at many including swimming, fencing, and skating. He held the 100- mile skating championship of America for twenty years when he finally lost at age fiftytwo to a twenty-four year old challenger. He was still skating at age eighty-seven. His greatest fame came as a race walker and his name was a household name in the 1870s and 80s.

In 1910 he left Coney Island for a cross country walk to San Francisco, a task he accomplished in 80 days beating the previous record of 105 days. Although Ennis, a successful contractor in his business life, was a resident of Stamford, Connecticut for most of his life most of his major races were held at New York New York Irish Historypage 37 Vol.18, 2004 NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 37 City venues. 19 Patrick Fitzgerald, popularly known as "Johnny Wild," was born at the Hill of Listuff in 1846 and first broke into prominence as a runner in 1868. According to the New York Times, he was the first to break the "minute mile" (sic) for a eleven mile course. In 1882, as a race walker, he outlasted all competitors on an indoor course in New York covering 582 miles in the event. Despite a Timesdescription of him as "homely and uncouth as a longshoreman," he traded his sports fame for politics and was elected as an alderman in Long Island City, once an independent town in Queens. By 1884 his best days of race walking were over, but he could be depended upon to always put on a good show. 20 CLERGYMEN One of the earliest clergy from Longford in New York was the Reverend Thomas O'Beirne who came to the city in 1775 as a chaplain to Lord Howe.

Although trained at St.

Omer in France to become a Jesuit, he left for England and took orders in the Anglican Church. In 1776 he preached at St. Paul's on Broadway, the only pre-colonial church still standing in Manhattan, before returning to Ireland. Another early arrival, Bernard O'Reilly, born at Colmcille, came to Brooklyn in 1831 and administered at St. James (Pro-Cathedral) during the terrible cholera epidemic a year later.

He was elevated to Bishop of Hartford where he died in 1856. 21 During the time of the Great Hunger the Longford clergy really began to make a mark on the cities of New York and Brooklyn. The Reverend Thomas O'Farrell (sometimes "Farrell") was born near Edgeworthstown in 1823 and at age twenty followed a brother to Virginia. He was ordained for the New York Diocese in 1848 andwas appointed in 1857 pastor of St. Joseph's,Greenwich Village, one of the wealthier RomanCatholic churches in the city at that time. Father O'Farrell was quite different from most of his clerical colleagues, being both an abolitionist and radical Republican, at a time when most priests were Tammany Democrats. He was also the leader of a group of liberal clergy called the "Academia," some of whom held controversial views on such subjects as papal temporal power, biblical inspiration, and the role of religious orders in the modern world. Father O'Farrell's speech at a public meeting celebrating the Italian occupation of Rome and the creation of the modern Italian state ran him afoul of Cardinal John McCloskey, and he was temporarily removed from his parish. He was only reinstated after a canonical trial and subsequent submission.

O'Farrell died in 1881 and was succeeded by another Longfordman, Father Felix H. Farrelly. Father O'Farrell left a clause in his will leaving $5,000 towards the establishment of the city's first black church, St. Benedict's, in 1883. 22 The Reverend Thomas Boyce, a native of Ardagh, came to America as a youth and was ordained in 1854. He was pastor for many years of the downtown working-class parish of St.

Teresa's until his death in 1876. 23 In another Lower East Side parish, St. Mary's on Grand Street, lived a Longford immigrant family named Drumgoole from Coolecragh near Granard. Their only son, John, was a determined man and after saving carefully for several years (his account was opened at the Emigrant Savings Bank in 1853) entered the seminary late in life. His special mission was the care of the orphan newsboys who page 38New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 Illustration: The Father John Drumgoole statue outside his Lafayette Street Orphanage in Manhattan as sketched by an artist for the Irish World in 1894. From the John T. Ridge Collection.

NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 38 struggled to make a few cents selling their papers in all sorts of weather and commonly slept in the streets at night. He took over the St. Vincent's Home for Newsboys on Warren Street near City Hall in 1871, and in the course of a few years had expanded the facilities to a home on Lafayette Street and eventually to the establishment of Mount Loretto in Staten Island. Aided by twentyfive cent memberships in the St. Joseph's Union, he soon had 1,400 orphans under his care at the 500-acre institution which was at one time the largest in America. While struggling to reach the home during the blizzard of 1888 he caught a cold which soon developed into a fatal case of pneumonia. His memory is preserved in a plaza named in his honor near city hall and by a boulevard in Staten Island. 24 Longford-born priests were to be found in greater numbers in the Brooklyn diocese. The Rev.

Timothy O'Farrell was born in Longford in 1818 and came to America with his parents in the 1830s. He was ordained in the Diocese of Cincinatti and his first parish covered a vast area of southern Ohio between the (West) Virginia and Kentucky borders. Sick call sometimes involved journeys of ninety or one hundred miles on horseback. A dispute with his bishop released him for service in the New York Diocese and in 1854 he founded the parish of the Visitation in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. It was a poor and "turbulent" district surrounded by the waterfront on three sides and full of warehouses and factories.

Five sixths of the neighborhood was Catholic, many of them immigrants from Longford.

O'Farrell was a skilled fund-raiser and had an extraordinary hold over his parishioners. 25 Ten years after his death it was recalled: He is described as being a lover of shooting, in the early days, and would go about in a short green shooting coat bagging wild ducks and other game that could be shot along the shore near his house. Many times he came out on a fine Sunday and joined the boys in a game of ball or kept order at an exciting match. In the Know Nothing times (an anti-catholic and anti-Irish political movement in the 1850s) the fanatic known as the Angel Gabriel came over on two Sundays with a lot of New York rowdies and held meetings at the old market houseon Columbia street and endeavored to excitea disturbance, but Father O'Farrell cau-tioned his people from the altar not to payany heed to the disturber and went about tosee that the caution was attended to. Owingto his vigilance there was no breach of thepeace and the meetings at the market wereabandoned. 26 As poor as Visitation parish was, further up the hill on Park Slope there was a new parish, founded in 1870 in the midst of a growing upper class neighborhood, by Longford-born Father Louis Rhatigan. Building on the groundwork laid down by Rhatigan, the most expensive Catholic Church ever built in the diocese, St.

Augustine's, replaced the original edifice in 1892. Very close to St. Augustine's and located just to the northeast of Prospect Park, another of Brooklyn's major parishes, St. Teresa's, was established in 1874 by another Longford man, the Monsignor Joseph McNamee from Dromard.

The neighborhood was known as the Ninth Ward and was such a strong Irish area that long after the ward system became obsolete, many of its old time Irish residents still referred to it by that name. Even today, among the survivors of the last generation to live there, the term is still known. In the 1930s and '40s St. Teresa's was the heart of Brooklyn's Irish community and had large numbers of Longford and Donegal residents. While the neighborhood was always working class, Monsignor McNamee was another fund-raising genius, and he became such a valuable asset to the diocese that he was appointed vicar general, a position of importance second only to the bishop. When a new church was erected in 1887 the altarpiece on the epistle side of the church depicted: ...St. Patrick confounding the Druid priests at Tara. St. Patrick and his followers are painted in a corner surrounding a small fire on a plain before the Ard Righ and his court. The Druid priests are in the foreground preparing to sacrifice a lamb in the worship of the sun. 27 Perhaps the most extraordinary Longford priest in the metropolitan New York area was Monsignor Thomas Taaffe who was born at Dromard in 1836. He arrived in Brooklyn in 1863 after his ordination and became pastor of New York Irish Historypage 39 Vol.18, 2004 NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 39 Our Lady of Mercy in the downtown section in 1868. This parish became something of a port of passage for many Longford-born clergy including a brother of Thomas Taaffe, Father James Taaffe, who became pastor of the parish in 1894. Thomas Taaffe became pastor of St. Patrick's in 1872, a large but struggling parish with a huge debt, but like many of the other Longford pastors he earned a fiscal reputation after putting his first parish on a firm financial footing. St.

Patrick's was a sprawling complex near the Navy Yard and demanded his innovative fund-raising.

Father Taaffe turned to the Irish parishioners in the church societies, particularly the Father Matthew Total Abstinence and Benevolent Society. 28 The parish became a focal point for amateur Irish entertainment: dramas and comedies performed by the temperance men and the women of the parish. On the steps of the rectory the clergy of the diocese took the salute of the ten thousand or so paraders of the old Brooklyn St. Patrick's Day parades before World War I. Taaffe in the 1880s divided his parish into sectors and assigned the ushers to collect thousands of dollars for the Irish Land League and the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1880s. Although his brother James died at the early age of forty, theSt. Patrick's pastor lived to 1920 and age eighty-seven. 29 The Taaffes were related to at least six other Longford priests who served in Brooklyn and were the nephews of the Reverend John T. Taaffe who was pastor of a church in Bayonne, N.J. until his death in 1880. The aforementioned Monsignor McNamee was a cousin of the Taaffes as was the Reverend John Maguire (McGuire), pastor of St. Mary's in Long Island City,and the Reverend Hugh Lynch, pastor of St. Raphael's, Long Island City. The other cousins were the Reverend Thomas Baxter, Reverend John F. Baxter and the Reverend John Reynolds. All these priests served in the Brooklyn diocese, sometimes in the same church with one of their cousins. The last of this remarkable family of priests was Father Reynolds who passed away in 1957 at age ninety. 30 Whether by kinship or friendship a close connection was maintained between the Longford clergy at home and those in New York.

As early as 1859 the Reverend Doctor Kenna from Longford preached at St. Paul's, Court Street, as a visiting priest. In 1887 the Reverend John Canon Monahan, Vicar General of Ardagh (the Longford diocese) came to Brooklyn on a "mission to glance over the American vineyard page 40New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 Illustration: Brooklyn's St. Patrick's Church on Kent Avenue was a center for Longford settlement under its pastor, Dromardborn Reverend Thomas Taaffe, who served there from 1872-1920. From the John T. Ridge Collection NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 40 and watch the gardeners at work." He stayed with Father McNamee at St. Teresa's and renewed acquaintance with four brothers who were all residents of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Eagle published a long interview with Canon Monahan in which the vicar general expressed opinions on conditions in Ireland, including comments on evictions, the landlord class and agricultural and political conditions. 31 In 1896 the Reverend Thomas McGevy, founder of the temperance society in Longford town, was in Brooklyn looking up "his Longford friends and asking them to help pay off some of his debts." The former missionary promised to deliver a lecture for the "Longford Catholics of New York" entitled "The History of the County Longford" as a means to raise funds. 32 The years before World War I were a particularly active time for fund-raising committees helping to raise money for good causes in Longford. Sometimes the Longford society of New York or Brooklyn helped out, but more often it was a temporary committee of former residents from a particular part of Longford. The best fund raisers were the young single women immigrants, "the good Irish girls of New York" as the pastor of the church at Drumlish, the Reverend John Keville, called them in a letter to the Irish Advocate. The priest went on to invoke the memory of the 1798 Rising and recall the past charity of the parish exiles: Without the generous help we have received from New York we should still be worshipping in the old chapel, with floods of underground water bursting in through rotten walls. To all the good friends who have helped us I again express my deep gratitude and indebtedness. 33 Twenty years later in 1931, Drumlish immigrants in New York were still collecting for their old parish when they held dances and socials to build a new parochial residence. 34 Such fund-raising went on for virtually every parish in County Longford.

One of the last of the great Longford priests was Ohill-born Monsignor Christopher Dunleavy (1880-1963). Dunleavy, who served as spokesman, led a campaign to condemn the atrocities committed by the Black and Tans during the War for Irish Independence in 1922. He served as treasurer to the "County LongfordRelief Fund" which raised thousands of dollars ofaid for the areas where the devastation had beenthe most severe. Up to World War II when theautomobile was still not owned by every family,he conducted a "St. Christopher's Shrine of theHighways" at his church of St. Columba on WestTwenty-fifth Street where once a year vehicles ofall descriptions, from baby carriages to trucks,lined up in front of the church for a formal bless-ing. He was chaplain of the Longford Men formany years. 35 SETTLINGIN The older generation of immigrants in some areas of the city began to be regarded as its pioneer residents. The Longford immigrants in the first half of the nineteenth century had virtually grown up with some of the newly developed areas, so they became the respected old citizens and carried as much an authority New York Irish Historypage 41 Vol.18, 2004 Illustration: Reverend John Maguire, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Brooklyn (1877) was one of a group of a half dozen Longford cousins who served in the Booklyn Diocese.

From the John T. Ridge Collection NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 41 on the history and folklore of their neighborhood as if their ancestors had arrived on the Mayflower or the Half Moon. Obituaries frequently recalled individuals like James Farrell in 1889 who were early settlers of their neighborhoods: He was born in the county Longford, Ireland, in 1810 and came to this country over sixty years ago, locating in the tenth Ward. The place was then sparsely settled and its population was scarcely 3,000. He lived in the neighborhood of Third and Hoyt for over fifty years. 36 Lawrence Jordan (1811-1891), the Longford-born sexton of Assumption Church at Jay and York Streets in Brooklyn's "Irishtown" neighborhood became almost inseparable from his new neighborhood. Although he lived just steps from the ferry to Manhattan, Jordan had only once left Brooklyn in fifty-three years of residence. 37 Memories of the old days in Longford were fondly recalled by senior immigrants.

Mrs. Margaret Donohue was born in 1783 and passed away one-hundred years later at her son's house in East Seventy-fourth Street in Manhattan. She witnessed some of the incidents of the 1798 Rebellion first hand and recalled seeing the martyr Robert Emmet inperson. 38 Rose Langan, although born just one year before the 1798 Rising, was fond of regaling her fifty-six grand and great grand children with accounts of her families involvement in the rebellion. When she passed away in 1889 she had spent almost seventy years in the Williamsburgh section. 39 When the Civil War broke out many Longford immigrants became neighborhood leaders. At least two Longford-born New Yorkers rose to the rank of colonel. Michael Graham (1834-1885) came to the U.S. as a boy and learned the boat making trade. At the outbreak of the war he organized the Jackson Rifles that was soon merged into the 20th N.Y. Volunteers and sent to the front. Graham was at the Battle of Bull Run, had a thumb shot off at Gettysburg and served a total of three years in the Army of the Potomac. 40 Augustus P. Green (1825-1889) won fame as a Civil War cavalryman. He had come to America at sixteen, and when war broke out he organized the 5th N.Y. Ira Harris Cavalry.

He was promoted to the rank of colonel in the field for acts of bravery. He was wounded at both the Battle of Bull Run and at Kelly's Ford.

After the war he established a popular riding school in Manhattan. 41 Running a successful business, very commonly in the building trades, was a sure way up the economic ladder and established many as pillars of their neighborhoods. James Moore, who arrived in the New York at nineteen in 1825, joined two brothers who were contractors on the public works. He was so successful that he was able to retire after only a few years and then spent the rest of his life devoted to charitable causes. ( Irish World, September 21, 1878) Two well-known contractors set up their business in the Ninth Ward of Brooklyn near Father McNamee's St. Teresa's Church. Patrick Farrell came to Brooklyn in 1862 and became involved stone for building trade. One of his largest works was the magnificent road to the sea known as Ocean Boulevard (now Ocean Parkway) that quickly connected for the first time the city to the fresh air of the sea at Coney Island and adjacent beaches. ( Brooklyn Eagle, November 6, 1880) Bernard E. Gray lived fifty-eight of his seventy-nine years in the Ninth Ward where he was engaged in contracting and trucking. He page 42New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 Illustration: Longford-born Hugh Monahan was one of Brooklyn's leading merchants. He was known a businessman with a good heart who provided quality goods at good prices.

His seven-floor store was lighted for night sales by sixty-eight arc and one-hundred incandescent lights in 1898. From the John T. Ridge Collection.

NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 42 "was once the wealthiest man in the Ninth Ward, and, thirty years ago, controlled its Democratic politics." 42 Francis Curran came to America in the 1840s with four other Longford friends. He became one of the most noted of Brooklyn's builders and upon his death the Brooklyn Eagle wrote "possibly no one builder has done more during the last half century to enhance the architectural display of Brooklyn than has Frank Curran. One-half of the Roman Catholic church structures throughout the city and a large number of public schools are a result of his skill and labor." He deliberately chose to settle in Brooklyn, recalling later in his life that he decided "I'll strike out for a small town and grow with it." 43 Curran and his four Longford companions "all secured a comfortable share of the world's goods." His friend Andrew Walsh became a well-known and respected judge after two terms in the state assembly. Another companion, Thomas Carroll, became Brooklyn's Police Commissioner. 44 While small taverns, groceries, and dry goods stores were commonly run by Longford immigrants, larger firms could also be found. John Tucker (1843-1885), a native of Curnallin, was in the grocery business in Longford and Dublin before emigrating to America in 1862. In 1868 he went into the wholesale supply of groceries and dry goods in Greenwich Street and later in Hudson Street on the lower west side of Manhattan. He was in partnership with his Longford-born brother-in-law, , who became the sole owner after his death. The firm had a reputation for honesty and won many contracts with the City of New York to supply public buildings like hospitals and its charity homes. 45 When the City of Brooklyn faced a scandal over the high prices and poor quality of supplies purchased for its public agencies, the firm of Hugh King was held up as an example of what it should have been: Is there a thrifty woman in Brooklyn who will not hail as a benefactor the man who can supply good tea for eight cents a pound, split peas for thirteen cents a bushel and shoes for children at eight cents a pair? The Commissioners of Charities have found such a man, and his name is King, Hugh King of Greenwich Street, New York. 46 Furniture dealing, judging by the consistent advertising from such dealers in the Irish American weekly press, was a business engaged in by many Irish-born New Yorkers. Hugh V. Monahan came to America at age eighteen in 1870 and was first employed in the grocery business. In 1883 he began operating a furniture business on Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue near Nineteenth Street in the Park Slope section where business was so good he erected three years later a much larger store with a 75-foot front. In the summertime he charted a tug and the largest barges available for a free summer excursion for six-thousand people up the Hudson to a riverside picnic grounds. Monahan "was never known to do a mean thing in his life and many is the noble act he has done to some New York Irish Historypage 43 Vol.18, 2004 Photo: In 1881, Longfordborn Hugh King constructed this building for his successful wholesale business on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. It has since been converted to two separate residential buildings.

NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 43 poor and distressed mother or child who have been unable to meet their obligations to him." 47 Longford immigrants could be found in a number of business endeavors. Thomas Mason, after several years in mining out west, became a manufacturer of plumbing supplies. He died in 1936 on board the train at Cork after crossing the Atlantic to visit relatives at home in Longford. 48 Some Longford natives were in the cloth trade.

Henry Adams (1845-1926) was a wool broker.

Charles Looney (1865-1937) began his business career in the wholesale linen trade in Dublin and came to New York as a young man. 49 Both were active officials in the city's Masonic community.

Mrs. Margaret Mulhall (1850-1944) founded a dressmaking establishment at 20 East 57th Street.

Her firm was one of the most successful of its type and catered to an exclusive clientele. She made frequent trips in connection with keeping up on the latest fashions to London and Paris. 50 Another Longford native in the clothing trade was Francis Mulvey whose custom-tailoring firm was located at 645 Third Avenue. His clientele was more broadly based and furnished many suits to brother members of the County Longford Men's Association. 51 John Devine, a native of Derawley, Drumlish, was reputed to be a millionaire. He located to New York in 1873 and built a fortune around investments in the financial and real estate fields. He was an active member of the Irish League, the organization of John Redmond's Irish Party in Parliament, in the period up to World War I. 52 LONGFORD ANDPOLITICS The McNamee Family from Longford in 1818 came to the Sixth Ward of Brooklyn, the working class largely Irish area below Atlantic Avenue west of the Gowanus and near the waterfront. The Longford-born eldest son, Michael, and established one of Brooklyn's most popular taverns that became a meeting place "for the prominent men not only of the Sixth Ward, but of all the South Brooklyn territory." 53 These "jolly souls who like the atmosphere of a public house" helped put a younger brother, John, a stonecutter, into public office, at first as an alderman and eventually into the most lucrative of nineteenth-century political offices, Sheriff of Kings County. In 1870 John gave up politics for art and went to live inFlorence, Italy, where he opened a hotel and beganto live the life of a sculptor. He won a reputationfor a number of life-like busts of former Brooklynmayors that were ordered to grace the city hall. 54 Another Sixth Ward Brooklyn Longford politician was John Shanley (1843-1890) who came to the city as "a lad." He served four terms in the New York State Assembly in Albany before being elected County Clerk of Kings County. A contemporary politician from the Sixth Ward was Senator John Kiernan who was born in the district to parents from Longford. His mother who arrived in the 1840s from Ardagh, it was claimed, passed on to Kiernan "much of his ability and push." 55 Curiously, Manhattan's Sixth Ward also produced a number of leading politicians with Longford connections. John Stacom (1831-1896) came to New York as a young child and worked his way into politics through his affiliations with the 69th Regiment in the Civil War, the volunteer fire department, and in Tammany Hall. He served several terms in the New York Board of Councilmen and for six months in 1868 was its president. 56 Bernard "Barney" Martin (1843-1914) came to the 6th Ward when he came from Longford, but moved further up town to the west side. He served as an alderman and for eleven years as a state senator. His saloon on West Twenty-third Street was known, however, as an underworld hangout and he was forced by Tammany higher-ups to sell out to his partner. As a reward he was appointed County Coroner. 57 The longest-lasting political dynasty in Manhattan, which has lasted for over one-hundred years on the west side, had Longford roots. 58 The McManus Family of brothers and their descendents ruled the west side in the West 40s and 50s as Democratic District Leaders. So powerful was their reputation that the leader was known as "The McManus" as if he was an Irish chieftain of old. Maria McManus (1837-1907), mother of the clan, was the woman behind the throne and exercised a powerful influence on her son, Thomas J., to the extent he once remarked: I have six brothers and we all live under the same roof. When we sit down to our meals, mother does the carving. Mother is sure of my election. She has visited nearly every tenement house in the district. 59 page 44New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 44 While William Geoghegan (1844-1901) certainly would have qualified as one of Manhattan's most influential politicians, he is best remembered as the "poet Geoghegan." Born at Ballymahon he was educated in England and after arriving in America worked as a reporter for newspapers like the Brooklyn Eagle, the Sun, the Sunday Democrat, and the Evening Journal. He soon became a hard fighting Tammany politician on the lower East Side. His largely romantic poetry was well written, even poignant at times, but it remains scattered over dozens of periodicals. If it had only been published in a single volume, his name might well have survived like some of the leading poets of the day. He was a regular contributor to local newspapers, but his literary recognition was overshadowed by his political face. The Eaglewrote: "To see Mr. Geoghegan at the head of a Democratic procession, or lounging about Park Row, one would never imagine that he was a writer of verses whose delicacy and beauty have been commented upon by English critics." 60 His most famous poem, "Dawn on the Hills of Ireland," reflected the feelings of an emigrant upon first sighting the coast of Ireland after many years of exile. One line from that poem where the emigrant says "I bid you the top of the morning" has survived in popular American culture as a supposedly genuine Irish turn of phrase.

Geoghegan's poetic greeting "top of the morning" lives on long after the memory of the author has passed on into relative obscurity. 61 THESTRESS OFIMMIGRATION In writing about the men and women from Longford in New York City, not to be forgotten is the strain placed on individuals, marriages and families by the often catastrophic consequences of immigration. From the moment of landing to the last will and testament, immigration often had a dark side. John P. Reilly, a bookkeeper, and his nephew, John McGuire, a carriage maker, arrived at Castle Garden immigrant depot in August 1885. Neither had any friends in the country and set about looking for work after finding rooms in Brooklyn's Sixth Ward. While standing on a corner near their new abode they wereapproached by a friendly young man whooffered to find them employment at $15 aweek at a machine shop he claimed he owned.As they walked along together to the shop, anelderly man came up to them and addressedthe supposed machine shop owner. Hedemanded payment for a delivery of machin-ery he had just made to the young man's com-pany, but refused to accept a check saying hewas instructed to take only cash. The youngman then asked his newfound Longfordfriends if they had any cash they could give theold man until he could reimburse them whenthey got to the machine shop. The obligingimmigrants handed over $277 to the old manin exchange for a bogus receipt. They contin-ued their stroll until they arrived at city hall(now Brooklyn's Borough Hall) where theyoung man said this was his office and hewould go inside to arrange their new jobs. TheLongfordmen waited in vain. It was not until ayear later that the police tracked down andarrested the confidence team who turned outto be father and son. 62 An incident at Ellis Island in a group of newly arrived immigrants was perhaps not too uncommon: The girls were a young lot also. Every county in Ireland was represented. Their ages ranged from fifteen to thirty years, and they all had a doctor's certificate of health, except one girl from County Longford, who developed an acute case of melancholia on the voyage because she feared she should never see her mother and sister again. A stalwart young fellow waited for hours for this girl until the tender from the Servia arrived, but she hardly seemed to know him. She held out her hand as though she had seen him but yesterday. "Aren't you going to kiss me?" He gasped.

She did; and then began to cry for her mother. The doctor at the hospital told the anxious lover that a day or two of rest would bring her around. The young man said he had brought her brother on from Fall River to be the best man at the wedding. 63 Marriages often felt the strain of immigration. In 1844 James and Bridget Nugent living in Brooklyn's Irishtown neighborhood had been married for three years and had young child.

New York Irish Historypage 45 Vol.18, 2004 NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 45 Nugent's brother arrived to tell him that his wife's first husband was apparently not dead after all.

The brother had conveyed this news with malicious intent for it caused James Nugent, who three thousand miles away from Ireland had no way to tell whether the claim was true or not, to abandon his wife and daughter. Bridget appealed to the courts for help and a ruling ordered the husband to pay support to his wife and child until definite word could be obtained from Ireland on the status of his wife's first marriage. 64 America was sometimes a place to escape to in order to avoid obligations. Patrick Cahill left a wife and daughter behind in Longford in 1846 and went to England supposedly to find work.

He wrote a letter home telling his wife he was going to America, but was not heard from after that. Mrs. Cahill followed the trail first to England and finally to America searching for her errant husband. After thirty years, in 1876, she received a tip that he was living at Hamilton Avenue and Henry Street in Brooklyn. Mrs.

Cahill and her daughter appeared at Pat Cahill'sdoorstep only to learn that he wasliving with another woman. Thesecond Mrs. Cahill exploded inshock and anger closing the dooron the first Mrs. Cahill and "thenhad a healthy time inside withCahill himself." Hauled before acourt, Cahill, a prosperous milkdealer, avoided bigamy charges byconcluding an agreement with hisfirst wife for a lump sum settle-ment. 65 On the other hand, New York was the destination for many an elopement or would be elopement. Michael Reilly, 21, of Dunbeggan and Bridget Columb, 20, of Larkfield were a couple in love, but the union was opposed by her father. Their plan to flee to America was frustrated when the local priest refused to marry them without the permission of her parents. Bridget returned home while Michael decided to head for New York where he hoped they would be reunited. He wrote one last letter to her pledging "though we are prevented from meeting by your crusty father, our friendship is nothing the less." 66 One of the most unusual marriages ended in a Westchester County courtroom in 1930. A Mrs.

Elizabeth Dunne of Pelham Manor sued for an end to her union because her marriage had been "induced by duress." She claimed that, when she was aged eighteen at Killoe in 1920 during the War for Irish Independence, an officer of the Irish Volunteers who controlled the village "compelled her to marry Dunne in spite of her objections." Mrs. Dunne was granted the annulment. 67 Even after death, marriages could cause big problems. Edwin S. Blake, an English officer in charge of garrison troops at Athlone married a young Longford beauty named Ellen Sheridan in 1819. Blake's family objected to his marriage to a Catholic, and as a result he abandoned his inheritance and his commission and set sail for America with his bride. Many years later, after a fortune made in mining, he and his wife settled down in England where his widow passed away in the 1880s. No children survived and the nearest relapage 46New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 Photo: Renaissanceman Padraic Colum at the premiere of the film version of The Plough and the Stars in 1937. He is standing with the star Erin O'Brien-Moore (at left) and with Helen Landreth, author of Dear Dark Head. From the John T. Ridge Collection.

NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 46 tions turned out to be a number of relations in Brooklyn. 68 And when Ann McMahon (nee Hannigan) of Brooklyn died intestate in 1895 a number of Longford nephews, children of her brother, claimed the estate. Unfortunately, a number of other brothers had immigrated to America without trace, so the court was unwilling to award anything to the claimants until a thorough search for possible descendents was carried out. 69 EPILOGUE If a single outstanding immigrant might be chosen to represent the county, perhaps it might be Padraic Colum (1881-1972) who played a large part in explaining rural Ireland to America's literary elite.

Colum was poet, playwright, historian and novelist. When he died at age ninety he was remembered a renaissance man at the center of two literary worlds. He was born in the Longford workhouse, where his father was the master, but went on to write forty-five books - novels, plays, poetry, folklore, biography and history. Beginning as a young poet of eighteen years he quickly rose to be an associate of the giants of the Irish stage in whose company he became one of the founders of Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre. Colum became friend or acquaintance with virtually everyone involved in the great Irish literary revival such as Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, Synge, and Lady Gregory. Most importantly, he analyzed and explained in his scholarly reviews and articles for New York and American periodicals the works of these Irish masters in a style that piqued the interest of American readers.

After a honeymoon spent there in 1914 Colum recognized that the city was now the world's literary capitol, and it offered far more opportunities for getting his writing published than in Dublin or London. For many years Padraic Colum taught courses at Columbia and at other institutions of higher learning. He became one of the few Irish-born individuals at the center of New York's cultural scene, But, perhaps because he was away from the center of the Irish revival, he did not receive the recognition he deserved, and he was overshadowed by some of his contemporaries in Ireland. His own writing emphasized a gentler side of Irish life, whimsicaland romantic, and included one of the best col-lections of Irish folklore ever published. Hebecame the close friend of James Joyce, whosework contrasted sharply from his own, andserved for decades as one of Joyce's foremost pub-lic defenders and admirers in New York. Although Colum's place in the literary firmament can be argued with good effect, his greatest role was the part he played in showcasing and explaining Ireland and the Irish to others. He was an invaluable guide for New York's literary critics, and it is in this circle he won many friends and confidants. He was an Irish insider who made it easier for them to grasp some of the subtle intricacies of Irish literature and history. One wonders whether contemporary Irish writers in America would have made such an impression without the renaissance man Padraic Colum bridging the cultural gap. Hopefully through men and women like Colum Longford's contributions to New York will be remembered. 70 Notes 1 Irish American, March 24, 1866 2 Irish American, July 28, 1866 3 Longford Journal, April 10, 1880 4 Brooklyn Eagle, April 8, 1880 5 Irish World, November 27, 1880 6 Irish World, June 14, 1881 7 Irish World, February 19 and May 7, 1881 8 One of the founders of the Irish Land League in 1879 was Patrick Egan, from Longford, a bookkeeper who was forced to flee to Paris where he directed the League. He came to the United States in 1883 and found success in American politics. After a term as United States Minister to Chile, he eventually settled in New York where he became closely identified as a supporter of the Parliamentary nationalist movement in Ireland. New York Times, October 1, 1919 9 New York Times, September 25, 1886 and Brooklyn Eagle, January 3, 1888 10 New York Times, February 9, 1894 11 Irish Advocate, September 10, 1908 12 Irish Nation, July 15, 1882 New York Irish Historypage 47 Vol.18, 2004 NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 47 13 Brooklyn Eagle, July 22, 1883 14 Irish World, January 20, 1896 15 New York Times, August 10, 1898 16 Irish Advocate, August 11, 1906 17 New York Times, September 14, 1932 18 Irish Advocate, March 14, 1908, June 8, 1911 and April 3, 1920 19 New York Times, March 16, 1879, June 5, 1926 and April 23, 1929 20 New York Times, March 3, 1882 and May 4, 1884 21 Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (on-line edition) 22 Irish American, August 13, 1881; Shelley, Thomas J., Greenwich Village Catholics, Catholic University Press, Washington, D.C., 2003 p. 77-96 23 Irish American, July 22, 1876 24 New York Times, March 30, 1888 25 Brooklyn Eagle, February 18, 1876 and Irish World, March 4, 1876 26 Brooklyn Citizen, July 17, 1887 27 Brooklyn Citizen, September 18, 1887 28 Father Theobald Mathew was a Cork-born crusader for temperance in the 1840s. He traveled extensively in America and swore thousands of immigrants to take the pledge to abstain from alcohol. 29 Irish World, September 25, 1886; Brooklyn Standard Union, June 20, 1909; Brooklyn Tablet, March 5, 1909 30 Brooklyn Citizen, May 12, 1912 31 Brooklyn Eagle, August 16, 1887 32 Irish World, August 15, 1896 33 Irish American, January 27, 1908 34 Irish Advocate, February 20, 1931 35 Irish Advocate, March 11, 1922; New York Times, December 16, 1963 36 Brooklyn Eagle, September 25, 1899 37 Brooklyn Eagle, September 4, 1891 38 New York Times, September 1, 1883 39 Brooklyn Eagle, July 10, 188940 New York Times, January 21, 1885 41 New York Times, June 17, 1899 42 Brooklyn Eagle, September 3, 1900 43 Br ooklyn Eagle, February 9, 1890 44 Brooklyn Eagle, November 10, 1889 45 Irish American, August 29, 1885 46 Brooklyn Eagle, July 15, 1873 47 Brooklyn Citizen, March 10, 1901; August 28, 1898; December 13, 1891; April 17, 1898 and May 6, 1895; Brooklyn Eagle, August 23, 1901 48 New York Times, July 17, 1936 49 New York Times, September 16, 1926 and March 26, 1937 50 New York Times, December 24, 1944 51 Irish Advocate, February 11, 1905 52 Irish Advocate, February 17, 1917 53 Brooklyn Eagle, December 1, 1895 54 Brooklyn Eagle, August 22, 1895 55 Brooklyn Eagle, August 6, 1893 56 New York Times, July 23, 1896; Irish American, July 27, 1896 57 New York Times, August 11, 1914 58 New York Times, December 14, 1907 59 New York Times, December 7, 1935 60 Brooklyn Eagle, October 26, 1884 61 New York Times, March 13, 1901 62 Brooklyn Eagle, March 16, 1886 63 New York Times, April 30, 1897 64 Brooklyn Eagle, February 21, 1844 65 Brooklyn Eagle, February 21, 1876 and March 6, 1876 66 Irish Advocate, April 15, 1911 67 New York Times, September 20, 1930 68 New York Times, September 25, 1889 69 Brooklyn Eagle, June 6, 1897 70 New York Times, January 12, 1972 page 48New York Irish History Vol.18, 2004 NYIHR_P33_Ridge_V18.qxd 8/25/05 9:49 AM Page 48