New York Irish History Roundtable - Journal Articles

Historical accounts of hurling in the United States generally begin with the "American Invasion" of 1888, when 50 athletes and officials of the fouryear-old Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in Ireland arrived for a tour of northeastern U.S. cities.

The grand plan to spark American interest in the ancient Gaelic game fell flat, a victim of unpublicized and poorly-attended exhibition matches. But the germ of future success was hidden in the apparent failure. Some seventeen of the athletes stayed on at the end of the tour. The presence... [Read Full Article]

Family History Author Fran Christ's recounts her personal stake in researching "John Kenny and the Easter Rising": "How the project got started. ^ I (above) Mother and daughter, Elizabeth Kenny and Fran Christ M y mother, Elizabeth Kenny Gilroy never met her grandfather, John Kenny. He was ostracized from the family and no one ever spoke to her of him.

She assumed he had died before she was born. My aunt, Anne Kenny spoke to all of us, however, about the part my great-grandfather played in the Easter Rising.

One story told me... [Read Full Article]

A longing to know more about Ireland and my ancestors became part of my life as a child. I learned my family's history, by eavesdropping on the long conversations my parents had with our many Irish relatives and friends who visited us in our home in Rockaway Beach. Fascinated by their memories of Ireland and of the many grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who still lived in the old country, I stored away the names of these distant relatives in my memory and tried to sort out their relationships to me.

When the old ones told their... [Read Full Article]

Calvary Comes to Queens: The Emergence of Long Island City by Richard F. Teevan L ong Island City came into existence directly as a result of the "The Rural Cemetery Act," passed in 1847 by the New York State Legislature. The act authorized the "corporate ownership" of cemeteries outside of churchyards and private property. Gravesites in the churchyard of old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street and its 1 lth Street annex were full to capacity. Archbishop Hughes had plans to build a cathedral on the site originally intended as the... [Read Full Article]

There were many accolades indeath certificate, we should remember the City's newspapers-all and give thanks for the great gift to New York City that was Paul O'Dwyer.

O'Dwyer upon his death this past June. Paul also had the inspiration for But there was no hint of the man that The New York Irish, Ronald H. Bayor the New York Irish History Roundtable and Timothy J. Meagher, eds. knew and loved. We tried to remedy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins this with a brief insertion in the New University Press, 1996). As he wrote in... [Read Full Article]

Many great tributes have been given to Paul O'Dwyer but to my mind the most appropriate of all was delivered about one-half hour ago at the corner of 79th Street and Broadway. The kettle drums tapped out their cadence. The cortege moved forward to the Church of the Holy Trinity and the Emerald Pipe Band of the New York Police Department struck up the air A Nation Once Again.

He was the eleventh child born of the union of Patrick O' Dwyer and Bridget McNicholas. He was the youngest and the smallest and the family income... [Read Full Article]

George Harrison was born on 2 May 1915 in Kilkelly, Co. Mayo and emigrated to the United States in 1938. He was succesfully defended by the firm of O'Dwyer and Bernstien in U.S. vs. Harrison, Falvey, Mullen, Gormley and Flannery in 1982. of us who were privileged to know and work with and under Paul's advice over decades of long and sometimes difficult times were emotionally saddened when he was called away on the 23rd of June. He was the rock we all leaned on in good times and bad. Like many of his comrades in the worldwide... [Read Full Article]

The problems with being an immigrant l suppose is that you are called upon to see things in the land you left and the land you came to and you are called upon to do something about it. The first time that think was called upon to really raise funds here, although that was common among immigrants, was when an old man by the name of Thomas McGowan (that time probably in his late seventies, at this point find it difficult to judge people's age at that period ).. got a group of us together who came from Bohola....That would be now when I... [Read Full Article]

Pestilence and ashy-faced starvation have their iron grip on hundreds of thousands of our fellow creatures." 2 Prompted by recent reports of starvation in Ireland brought to America by the steamer Hibernia, a group of prominent Brooklynites called for public meeting to organize a Brooklyn Irish Relief Committee. Residents of the City met at Hall's Exchange, the same site as the December fundraiser, to discuss the situation in Ireland and concluded "that state of famine there exists unexampled in modern times." Former... [Read Full Article]