New York Irish History Roundtable - Journal Articles

The New York 400 - a list of the supposed most prominent families in New York City, continues to interest celebrity followers. A 400 list has survived 130 years of continuous revision and challenges to its relevancy. Given the cur - rent national dialogue about issues of social inequality and immigration, it is opportune to review the origins of the New York 400 and tell the story of one of its first challengers, a New York City Irish immigrant. New York City history buffs may know the story of the Astor-McAllister connection,... [Read Full Article]

On May 17, 1897 the late edition of the New York Times carried the following rather cautious report of the launching of a ship earlier that day: ...the Holland, the little cigar-shaped vessel owned by her inventor, which may or may not play an important part in the navies of the world in the years to come, was launched from Lewis Nixon's shipyard this morning.

The cigar-shaped vessel was a submarine. She was launched at the Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard in Elizabethport, New Jersey. The designer and owner was John... [Read Full Article]

As long as they have been present in New York, summer has been a special season for Irish immigrants and their descendants. Hardly a greater weather contrast could be found for any immigrant group as the Irish experienced in their new city. They learned they had exchanged a cool, wet July and August in the old country for an often times insufferably humid and deadly inferno when New York's seasonal weather pattern was at its worst. Relief was sought at the shore in common with the native inhabitants and the resulting... [Read Full Article]

Michael Andrew Kelly was born on September 28, 1879 in the townland of Cloghauninchy beside the Atlantic Ocean in the parish of Kilmurry Ibrickan, County Clare. He was the fourth son of John Kelly, a comfortable farmer whose family was said to have been descended from Captain Patrick O' Kelly who was slain at the Battle of Aughrim in 1691. Patrick's first wife is said to have been a Miss Plunkett, sister-in-law of one of the Irish Jacobites principal leaders, Daniel O'Brien, Viscount Clare of Carrigaholt Castle. Michael... [Read Full Article]

Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly was born in Ireland in 1862 and came to America as an eleven year-old. A graduate of Women's Me College in New York, she devoted much of her professional time providing medical care to the poor. However, she never lost interest in Ireland or in working for its independence. During the early twentieth century she won prominence through her work and leadership on behalf of suffragism, labor and social justice, and freedom for Ireland. Courtesy of New York Times.

Historical memory is both capricious and fickle.... [Read Full Article]

William Russell Grace became the first Irish-American Catholic mayor of New York City in 1880. In the same year, he provided support for one quarter of the relief cargo sent to Ireland by the New York City Irish Relief Committee.

Born in Co. Cork, Grace had developed a successful international shipping line. Courtesy of Library of Congress. least three times in the nineteenth century the cy and emerged as the center of the relief effort. Thirty-six ships left New York City to American people provided transport relief supplies to... [Read Full Article]

Marguerite Moore was born in Co. Waterford in 1846. As a young woman In Ireland she became an early member of the Ladies Land League. Because of her organizing work in the League, in 1882 she was arrested and imprisoned in Tullamore Gaol. In America, she was an active Irish nationalist, a suffragist, and a leader in social reform efforts. Courtesy of Waterfordlive.ie.

On December 14, 1914 meeting was held in the Hotel McAlpin in New York City which resulted in the creation of an American auxiliary of Cumann na mBan, the Irish... [Read Full Article]

Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan stands beside his "crate" at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field shortly before his 1938 epic flight. Courtesy of T. John T. Ridge.

Vol. 32, 2018 Wrong Way Corrigan and the New York Irish BY JOHN T. RIDGE The story of Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan's flight from Brooklyn to Ireland in 1938 began with something of a mystery as the New York Times for July 18th reported: Pilot of Old Plane Wings Toward Sea Flier Who Came Non-Stop from Coast Vanishes Eastward on His 'Return'... [Read Full Article]

On March 17, 1905 the stars briefly aligned over Manhattan and a long-desired wish was fulfilled. The recently inaugurated President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, a New York City native son and possibly the most admired man in the United States, arrived in the city mid-day and that evening would be the guest of honor at the 121st anniversary dinner of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick.' It would be a great day for the city and for the New York Irish; it would mark in history the progress of a people in a city... [Read Full Article]

In the 1950s, the Irish Government seeking ways to stimulate the weakened economy looked to the United States with its 2.5 million population of Irish-born and first-generation Irish -Americans as a potential solution to the fiscal concern. Se?n Lemass, Ireland's minister classic in America, one that was easily married to the Festival of Kerry's pageant. The notional love story of a Tralee native yearning for his beloved "Mary, Rose of Tralee" provided a touching framework for the event, as did the appeal of a homecoming for... [Read Full Article]