Museum of Newport Irish History | Newport, Rhode Island

Rosamund Burton, writer and journalist, "Castles, Follies and Four-Leaf Clovers: Adventures Along Ireland's St. Declan's Way"
2013-09-12 18:00 UTC
Dotted with deserted monasteries, ruined castles, holy wells and plenty of pubs, St Declan’s Way stretches 100 kilometers (approx. 60 miles) from the iconic Rock of Cashel in South Tipperary, over the beautiful Knockmealdown Mountains, to the Co. Waterford fishing village of Ardmore, the oldest Christian settlement in Ireland, founded 416 AD by St. Declan, who introduced Christianity to the south of Ireland before the coming of St. Patrick. This ancient highway and age-old pilgrim route follows quiet country roads, farm tracks, riverbanks and mountain paths through a part of Ireland that is steeped in history. St. Declan’s Way passes through the heritage town of Lismore with its magnificent castle, in the east wing of which Rosamund’s family used to live.
In her illustrated talk, Rosamund Burton, author of Castles, Follies and Four-Leaf Clovers: Adventures Along Ireland’s St Declan’s Way (Allen & Unwin, 2012) will speak about walking the ancient highway, St Declan’s Way, and read from her book. She will describe Norman castles, Celtic churches and colorful characters, miraculous wells and talking statues, stories of goddesses, ghosts and fairies, as well as staying in a convent and a day at a horse fair. Copies of her book will be available for signature and sale after the talk ($20).
ROSAMUND BURTON was born in Ireland and grew up in England. When her father got a job with the Duke of Devonshire the family moved back to Ireland into the east wing of Lismore Castle, which is on St. Declan’s Way. Rosamund went on to become an actress, performing at Dublin’s Gate and Gaiety Theatres, and in the film, Educating Rita with Julie Walters and Michael Caine. She then worked in London before moving to Australia 18 years ago. Rosamund now writes for a range of newspapers and magazines. She is married to an Australian and lives in Sydney. We welcome Ms. Burton for her first speaking engagement with the Museum and her inaugural visit to Newport and the United States.

Patrick Conley, Ph.D., R.I. Historian Laureate, "Politics, Prejudice, Patriotism, and Perseverance: Rhode Island's Catholic Irish Confront the Civil War"
2013-10-08 18:00
Dr. Patrick Conley has edited a new book to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, entitled The Rhode Island Homefront During the Civil War Era (Rhode Island Publications Society, September 2013). The book contains essays by former chief justice Frank Williams, a nationally acclaimed Lincoln scholar, Prof. Maury Klein, one of America’s leading economic historians, James Tackach, a professor of literature at Roger Williams University, and Conley himself.
In his talk, Dr. Conley will focus on his essay that examines the ordeal of Rhode Island’s Catholic Irish immigrants and the nativist reaction to their arrival. He focuses on the period from the Dorr Rebellion of 1841-43 through the era of Civil War and Reconstruction. Dr. Conley places special emphasis on the Irish Catholic response to slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction amendments (13, 14, and 15) to the United States Constitution and demonstrates how local anti-Irish sentiment shaped the Fifteenth Amendment. He also examines the nativistic provision in the Rhode Island Constitution of 1843 that was designed to make immigrant Irish Catholics second class citizens and lessen their influence on the politics of their adopted state. Copies of The Rhode Island Homefront During the Civil War Era will be available for signature and sale after the lecture.
PATRICK T. CONLEY holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, and a J.D. from Suffolk U. Law School. He has published twenty-five books, including Catholicism in Rhode Island: The Formative Era, with Matthew J. Smith; An Album of Rhode Island History, 1636-1986; Rhode Island’s Founders, 1636-1790, and more than a score of scholarly articles on history, law, ethnic studies, religion, real estate development, and political science. He was the youngest person ever to attain the rank of full professor at Providence College. Dr. Conley has served as chairman of the Rhode Island Bicentennial Commission, chairman and founder of the Providence Heritage Commission, chairman and founder of the Rhode Island Publications Society, and general editor of the Rhode Island Ethnic Heritage Pamphlet Series. In 1977 he founded the Rhode Island Heritage Commission. Dr. Conley was also chairman of the Rhode Island Bicentennial of the Constitution Foundation and chairman of the U.S. Constitutional Council. In May 1995 he was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame–one of a handful of living Rhode Islanders who have been accorded that honor– and he has served as Hall of Fame president since 2003. Dr. Conley was named Rhode Island’s first Historian Laureate in July 2012.

Christopher Klein, Author & Journalist, John L. Sullivan, "The Boston Strong Boy" author of "The Boston Strong Boy”: America's First Irish-American Hero
2013-11-12 18:00
Born in Boston’s South End to Irish-immigrant parents, John Lawrence Sullivan (1858-1918) was the last of the bare-knuckle heavyweight boxing champions. He was the first American athlete to earn over one million dollars, the first American sports “superstar,” and an Irish-American hero during the Gilded Age.
Writer Christopher Klein has published a new book on Sullivan entitled Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America’s First Sports Hero (Lyons Press, November 2013). It is the story of a hard-hitting and hard-drinking boxer against the backdrop of Irish-America emerging during the Gilded Age. When Sullivan, known as the “Boston Strong Boy,” captured the heavyweight title in 1882, no Bostonians celebrated more than the Irish, who had felt blistered by Brahmin scorn since their arrival. That legendary spirit of the fighting Irish that was made flesh in Sullivan transformed him into a hero for hundreds of thousands of sons and daughters of the Emerald Isle who had felt emasculated in the wake of the Great Hunger, powerless under the thumb of the British, and slighted in their new homeland. Sullivan’s strength and self-belief were elixirs for a people who had suffered from malignant shame.
Klein’s illustrated lecture will include a plethora of historic photographs from this colorful era in American history. Copies of his book will be available for signature and sale after the talk ($25, hardcover).
CHRISTOPHER KLEIN is an author and freelance writer specializing in history, travel, and sports. He is a frequent contributor to the travel pages of The Boston Globe and History.com, the web site of the History Channel. His articles have also appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, The Boston Globe Magazine, and Harvard Magazine, among others. In addition, Christopher is the author of Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands and The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston. A native of Andover, Mass., he graduated with highest honors from Drew University in Madison, NJ.

John F. Quinn, Ph.D., Salve Regina U. History Dept. Chair, "The Cause of Humanity is One The World Over: Frederick Douglass' Irish Advocacy"
2014-02-27 18:00
Frederick Douglass is well known for his 1845 autobiography which described his life as a slave in Maryland and his escape to freedom in the North. The book, which bluntly recounted the abuse that he and other slaves endured at the hands of their masters, became a bestseller in the 1850s and is thought by many historians to have contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.
While first and foremost an abolitionist and promoter of black equality, Douglass was also a defender of other peoples that he thought were oppressed. He was especially outspoken on behalf of the Irish, convinced that they and African Americans had much in common. He visited Ireland twice, met with the “Liberator,” Daniel O’Connell, and gave lectures on behalf of the Irish cause. Professor Quinn will discuss Douglass’ travels to Ireland, his relationship with Daniel O’Connell and his support for Irish political freedom.
JOHN F. QUINN received his Ph.D. in history from Notre Dame. He has been professor of history with Salve Regina University since 1992 and is History Department Chair. A prolific writer, Dr. Quinn is the author of numerous articles, as well as the book Father Mathew’s Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth Century Ireland and Irish-America (U. of Mass. Press, 2002). His interests include Irish America, Modern Ireland, and American Religion and Ethnicity. He is an expert on Irish and Irish-American attitudes towards slavery in the 19th Century. Dr. Quinn’s professional memberships include American Catholic Historical Association, American Conference on Irish Studies, Irish American Cultural Institute, and Society of Catholic Social Scientists. This is Dr. Quinn’s sixth speaking engagement with the Museum.

Janet Nolan, Ph.D., "Servants of the Poor: Teachers in Ireland and Irish-America at the Turn of the 20th Century"
2014-03-27 18:00
Urged by their mothers to pursue an education, the “one thing they can’t take away,” the American daughters of Irish-born mothers are the unsung heroines of Irish achievement in the United States. While immigrant mothers often became servants of the American rich, their educated daughters became servants of the poor in America’s public schools.
By the first decade of the twentieth century, Irish-American women were the largest single ethnic group among teachers in cities such as Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. In an era when social mobility was measured almost exclusively by the success of men, the teacher-daughters of Irish born mothers led Irish America into the middle class. Professor Nolan will trace the evolution of this educational and occupational achievement across two generations of Irish women in the United States.
JANET NOLAN is professor emerita of Irish, Irish-American, and European history at Loyola University Chicago where she taught for almost a quarter of a century after receiving her PhD in history from the University of Connecticut. She has also just completed a year as an adjunct lecturer in European history at the University of Rhode Island. She is the author of two books, Ourselves Alone: Women and Irish Emigration, 1885-1920 (UP of KY, 1989) and Servants of the Poor: Teachers and Mobility in Ireland and Irish America (Notre Dame UP, 2004), as well as numerous essays, articles, and reviews. She has given invited lectures in Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Switzerland, throughout the United States, and on television and radio in both the United States and Ireland. She now lives in Portsmouth, RI. We welcome Dr. Nolan for her first speaking engagement with the Museum.

Rev. Robert W. Hayman, Ph.D. " Rhode Island's Struggle to Redeem Its Promise to Its Irish Civil War Volunteers"
2014-09-10 18:00
While the rest of the states of the Union in the 1820s and 30s were moving toward universal manhood suffrage, conservative-dominated Rhode Island chose to preserve the state’s once liberal tradition of a suffrage limited to those who possessed $134 of taxable property. When in the 1830s Irish immigrants, particularly the Catholic Irish, began to take up residence in the state in increasingly large numbers, their presence provided an additional reason for denying the right to vote to those without substantial property. Since the right to vote was limited, few of the Irish sought to become citizens. Many of those who did, sought naturalization in order to legally own property. However, in the light of the service of the foreign-born Irish in the Civil War, the injustice of the situation of the Irish became more apparent. It would not be until 1888 that the efforts of the Irish and their fellow Rhode Islanders succeeded in partially ending Rhode Island’s uniqueness.
ROBERT W. HAYMAN is currently the historian of the Diocese of Providence and one of its archivists. Until his retirement in June 2010, he was an Associate Professor of History at Providence College for thirty-six years. He is the author of a two – soon to be three–volume history of the Diocese of Providence, which tells the story of Catholicism in Rhode Island from 1780 to 1971. The first volume served as Fr. Hayman’s dissertation for a doctorate of philosophy degree in history, which he received from Providence College. During his research, he has looked at the experience of the many immigrant groups that have settled in the state. We welcome Fr. Hayman for this talk, his third for the Museum of Newport Irish History.

Edward T. O'Donnell, Ph.D. "Streets of Fire: The Irish and the Civil War Draft Riots of July 1863"
2014-10-06 18:00
The Draft Riots of July 1863 in New York City constitute the largest civil uprising in American history. At least 118 people were killed, including a dozen free blacks who were lynched. Although people of many backgrounds participated in the violence, the Irish played the most prominent role. The riots occurred at an especially critical stage in the war (Gettysburg had concluded just days prior) and they exposed deep divisions within the Union over Lincoln’s leadership, the direction of the war, the ability of the wealthy to avoid military service, and most importantly, emancipation. This presentation, augmented with more than 75 visuals, will examine key questions such as, why did Lincoln decide to impose a draft? Why did the Irish oppose the draft, especially when so many thousands of Irish had joined the Union Army? What key social and political factors led the Irish to riot? How did the riots unfold over four days and how were they ultimately suppressed? Why were the rioters especially brutal towards African Americans? And finally, what was the significance of the riots in terms of this history of the Civil War?
EDWARD T. O’DONNELL was born in Gloucester, MA to Irish American parents. He earned his doctorate in American History from Columbia University and currently is Assoc. Professor of History at Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA. He is the author of several books, including Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum (Random House, 2003), 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History (Random House/Broadway Books, 2002), Visions of America: A History of the United States (coauthor, Pearson, 2009), and the forthcoming Henry George and the Crisis of Gilded Age America (June 2015, Columbia University Press). His scholarly articles have appeared in the Public Historian, Journal of Urban History, and the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He has also worked on several major museum exhibits on Irish American history, including serving as curatorial consultant to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in NYC for their Irish Family Apartment (opened, June 2008). This is his second lecture for the Museum of Newport Irish History.

Cahal Dunne, Irish singer/songwriter on his new semi-autobiographical book, "Put Yer Rosary Beads Away Ma"
2014-10-27 18:00
Singer/songwriter, recording artist, storyteller and comedian, Cahal Dunne, has published a semiautobiographical book. Set in economically depressed 1970s Ireland, it is the coming-of-age tale of Dunne’s alter ego, Billy Golden. During this era there seemed few possibilities and little hope for Ireland’s younger generation, and, to the chagrin of Billy’s mother, he gives up the security of a teaching job to follow his heart into the music business. His six-man band wins the right to represent Ireland in the international Eurovision Song Contest, and his own song is watched on TV by over 500 million people — the chance of a lifetime. Billy and the band have hilarious journeys as they play in dance halls in Ireland and Europe in the waning days of the “show band” craze, and ultimately grow into one of the first ever “Celtic Rock” bands, thirty years before it became the rage on American college campuses.
Cahal will take us along on Billy Golden’ s colorful journey, weaving modern Irish history together with anecdotes and his experiences as he tells the story behind Put Yer Rosary Beads Away Ma (c. 2013). Cahal may even sing a song or two for us! Copies of his book will be available for signature and sale after the talk.
CAHAL DUNNE, “Ireland’s Happy Man,” has been a U.S.-based solo performer since the 1980s. Born in Cork (city), Ireland, he is the nephew of former Prime Minster of Ireland, Jack Lynch. Cahal received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University College of Cork. In that same year, he won first prize in the Castlebar Song Contest with his own song, “Shalom.” He represented Ireland in the Yamaha World Song Contest in Tokyo with another of his own songs, “Lover, Not Just a Wife.” With his winning song, “Happy Man,” he earned the right to represent Ireland at the 1979 International Eurovision Music Contest in Israel. The song became number one in Europe and Ireland with record sales topping the 250,000 marks. A recording artist with more than a dozen albums, he is best known for his renditions of traditional Irish songs and enjoys a busy travel and performance schedule. Cahal lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Kathleen and son, Ryan.

Kurt C. Schlichting, Ph.D. " The Irish Immigrants in Newport: A Question of Upward Mobility"
2014-11-17 18:00
Oscar Handlin, the eminent Harvard historian, argued that immigration was and is the key to understanding American history. For Newport, the arrival of large numbers of Irish immigrants in the late 1840s and 1850s shaped the history of the city to present times. One question that arises is the degree of upward mobility: To what extent did the Newport Irish realize the American Dream? While these immigrants faced hardship and discrimination, did their children and the children’s children enter the mainstream of American life and have opportunity for social and economic success?
Measuring economic mobility is a particular challenge for the 19th century. The 1880 Census asked questions about home ownership and occupation, but none regarding household income. To study income and wealth distribution during this period of Irish immigration is daunting. Historical records such as property tax lists are not computerized and require hundreds of hours of research. However, the establishment of income tax during the Civil War and resulting records in the National Archives provide data on income distribution and can be used to ascertain the ethnic composition of the wealthiest segment of Newport’s population in 1865, as the wealthy are identified by name, occupation and address, providing an indication of the socio-economic status of the Irish during this time frame.
KURT C. SCHLICHTING is the E. Gerald Corrigan ’63 Chair in Humanities & Social Sciences Department and a Professor of Sociology at Fairfield University (CT). He is the author of Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Architecture and Engineering in New York (Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2001), for which he received the 2002 Best Professional/Scholarly Book: Architecture & Urbanism Award from the Association of American Publishers. This book was the basis of “Grand Central,” an American Experience documentary on PBS, for which Dr. Schlichting served as an academic advisor and was an on-screen interviewee. His recent book, Grand Central’s Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan, was published by Johns Hopkins in the spring of 2012.
In collaboration with the Redwood Library, he and his students are creating a website, “Digital Historic Newport Rhode Island,” to explore Newport’s rich history. The project is funded by the Humanities Institute of Fairfield University. Dr. Schlichting received his bachelor’s degree from Fairfield University in 1970 and his master’s degree and a doctorate from New York University. We welcome Dr. Schlichting for this, his third talk, for the Museum of Newport Irish History.

Scott Molloy, Ph.D. " Rhode Island Irish Socio-Economic Progress: From "Shanty" to "Lace Curtain" during the Gilded Age"
2015-03-26 18:00
Irish immigrants faced a punishing arrival in our state, and their forward progress over the years was not much kinder. By the end of the 1800s, Rhode Island Irish had at least progressed from “shanty” Irish to “lace curtain” status in some quarters. Prof. Molloy will discuss the conditions in Providence’s Irish-dominated Fifth Ward (Newport did not have a patent on fifth wards!) and describe the breaking of the barriers for Irish-Catholics to get into Brown University—and who those students were. Learn how a pro-Irish Yankee editor of the Providence Journal treated the Gaels in the 1880s with fairness, and even published the essays and stories of some of the most famous Irish literary figures in the world. That editor’s collection of Irish sources is now one of the most important collections of its kind in the world and is housed at the Providence Public Library. Prof. Molloy will also outline the continued, almost angrier, animosity against the Rhode Island Irish as they finally climbed the ladder of success by the end of the Gilded Age and the beginning of a new century in 1900.
SCOTT MOLLOY is an award-winning professor at the Schmidt Labor Research Center, University of Rhode Island. He previously drove a bus, was a union activist, and was chief of staff to a United States Congresswoman. He earned his doctorate in American History from Providence College. A prolific writer, Molloy wrote, Trolley Wars: Streetcar Workers on the Line (U. of New Hampshire, 2007) and Irish Titan, Irish Toilers: Joseph Banigan and Nineteenth-Century New England Labor (U. Press of New England, 2008), the latter the topic of a past lecture for the Museum. Professor Molloy has a bibliographic essay about the John Gordon case about to be published and was recently inducted into the R.I. Labor History Society Hall of Fame as well as the R.I. Hall of Fame. We welcome him for this, his fourth speaking engagement with the Museum.

Michael Feldberg, Ph.D., Exec. Dir. George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom, (www.gwirf.org.) "When Irish-American Catholic Churches Burned: The Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844."
2015-04-16 18:00
The 1830s and 1840s were arguably the lowest moment for Irish Catholics in American history. Michael Feldberg will recall those difficult years by recounting the attacks by xenophobic Protestants (including some Orangemen) on two Irish Catholic churches in Philadelphia, one of which was burned to the ground. The immigrant Irish Catholics fought back, and several individuals were killed on both sides. Each time, it took the Pennsylvania militia several days to quell the disturbances.
Among the consequences of the riots were the creation of the Philadelphia Police Department, the second such department in the United States, and the establishment of the Philadelphia Catholic parochial school system. On the Protestant side, many of those anti-immigrant “nativists” went on to join the American Republican party, a forerunner of the Republican Party that would nominate Abraham Lincoln for president.
In short, this is a complicated story that has largely been forgotten.
MICHAEL FELDBERG, PhD is executive director of the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom, the organization that established and operates the Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. Visitors Center at the Touro Synagogue National Historic Site in Newport, RI. Previously, he served as executive director and director of research at the American Jewish Historical Society. He has taught American history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and at UMass Boston and directed the Criminal Justice Program at Boston University. The author of several books, Feldberg is most recently a co-editor of the forthcoming A Rebuke to Bigotry: Reflections on George Washington’s Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, RI.

Barbara (Lepley) Roy - "How to Obtain Your Irish Citizenship"
2015-09-09 18:00
If you have at least one grandparent who was born in Ireland, you are eligible for Irish Republic (dual) citizenship and then can obtain an Irish passport. Our speaker will walk us through the process for fulfilling all the requirements of both Irish citizenship and getting your Irish passport. In addition, she will share how you can enjoy the many benefits of being an Irish citizen, both practical and sentimental.
While many of us may have Irish-born grandparents, relatively few apply for Irish citizenship, perhaps put off by concern about the paperwork and the process. Take the first step and come and learn what is really involved from a fellow Museum member and Newport County native who has learned first-hand and is eager to share her knowledge. Barbara Roy has proven success in this process, including the required interaction with the Irish Consulate Office. Q&A will follow the presentation.
BARBARA (LEPLEY) CROWELL ROY grew up in Middletown and has two maternal grandparents born in Ireland. After a trip to Ireland in 2006 she decided to apply for Irish citizenship. She became an Irish citizen in 2007 and received her Irish passport shortly thereafter. Married to Vance C. Roy, MD, she divides her time between Newport and Sachseln, Switzerland. A graduate of the former St. Catherine’s Academy, she is a registered nurse who holds an MBA from Boston College and a Masters in Counseling Psychology from Arizona State University. She serves as a docent at the Museum of Newport Irish History Interpretive Center and is president of Eve’s Fund for Native American Health Initiatives, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting literacy, injury prevention and education for Native American youth in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

Tom Riley - "The Great Hunger and Its Impact On The Orphan Train Era in America, 1853-1929"
2015-10-15 18:00
The Great Hunger led to massive emigration to the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe. Shiploads of emaciated Irish adults, children and families arrived daily on coffin ships in New York City, America’s Golden Door. Many parents, already emaciated, died aboard ship and were buried at sea, or shortly after their arrival. Families and parentless children made their way into Lower Manhattan, including the notorious “Five Points area. Over 15,000 orphaned children, many Irish, flooded New York streets, living in sewer pipes, alleyways and wooden boxes. The Irish Diaspora was later followed by many other ethnic groups fleeing corruption, tyranny, hunger and lack of opportunity.
Author Tom Riley will share “the greatest American story never told.” Learn what happened to the 273,000 New York City children, as many as one-quarter Irish, sent out across America on Orphan Trains — an attempt to assist the massive numbers living in poverty and exposed to disease, abuse and exploitation. Orphan Train founders believed salvation was to be found in America’s heartland. Learn how, at a time when America lacked a “safely net,” the American Female Guardian Society built twelve industrial schools to teach these children a trade. Learn about two orphan train riders, sent on the same train to Indiana, and how they later became the governors of Alaska and North Dakota.
Tom has researched and written several books on the Orphan Train Era, which will be available for signature and sale after the presentation. Learn more by visiting www.TheOrphanTrainRiders.com, including Tom’s fascinating bio on the “About” page.

Edward T. McCarron, Ph.D. - "Facing the Atlantic: Ireland, Newfoundland and Outmigration to New England, 1790-1860"
2015-11-12 18:00
Newfoundland was an early destination for Irish immigrants during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The beginnings of this migration were deeply embedded in the growth of the Atlantic cod fishing trade which saw many Irish venture to Newfoundland as seasonal fishermen. As Arthur Young recounted in 1776, “The number of people who go passengers in the Newfoundland ships is amazing; from 60 to 80 ships, and from 3000 to 5000 annually.” By 1800 a permanent pattern of Irish settlement had emerged. This migration was remarkable in its geographical origins – with most voyagers hailing from the southeast of Ireland.
Economic circumstances propelled some of these Newfoundland migrants (or their children) to eventually move on to the North American mainland. These “two boaters” left a footprint in early Irish communities particularly in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and those of coastal New England.
This illustrated lecture will explore the homeland origins and Atlantic experience of Irish who journeyed to Newfoundland – with particular emphasis on those leaving from south Kilkenny. We will also investigate outmigration from Newfoundland to New England – highlighting this stepwise movement through several case studies of Irish emigrants to Maine during the nineteenth century.
Ed McCarron is an associate professor of history at Stonehill College. He is originally from Pennsylvania, and currently resides in Maine, but over the years he has lived in a variety of places – from the Florida Panhandle to a rural village in southeast Ireland. Perhaps for this reason, his research interests have focused on place, community and the historical landscape, especially viewed through the lens and contours of Irish immigrant communities. His publications have included articles ranging from an exploration of early Irish settlements in Maine, to a regional case study of Inistioge, County Kilkenny that appeared in the Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape (2nd edition). With his wife Fidelma, he is working on a historical atlas of the Nore Tidewater region of County Kilkenny – a river valley that has witnessed an ebb and flow of migration over the centuries. The Museum welcomes Prof. McCarron back for this, his second talk to our membership.

Edward H. Furey, founder, The Keely Society: "Patrick C. Keely's Legacy to the Catholic Church in America and St. Mary's Church in Newport, R.I."
2016-03-22 18:00
This lecture will be held in St. Mary’s Church, which was designed by Irish-born architect

Patrick C. Keely
(1816-1896).
Patrick Charles Keely (1816-1896) designed and built an estimated 700 ecclesiastical structures including churches, cathedrals, schools, colleges, and other parish buildings. He left Thurles, Ireland, for America in 1842, and arrived in Brooklyn, NY where he began to practice his carpentry skills gleamed from his father and brother, who had both worked on the building of St. Patrick’s College, Thurles. Keely arrived in the United States just as the Roman Catholic Church was experiencing unprecedented expansion.
A chance meeting with Fr. Sylvester Malone of Brooklyn led to designs for Keely’s first church in America — the highly acclaimed Church of St. Peter and Paul in Brooklyn, 1848 (demolished 1957), designed in the Gothic Revival style, fast becoming a hallmark of Catholic Church design. The Brooklyn commission spawned a succession of designs for churches, cathedrals, and institutional buildings that distinguished Keely as America’s leading Catholic architect of the 19th century. This career eventually led Fr. James Fitton, legendary New England pioneer priest, to bestow on Keely the title of “Prince of American Catholic Architects.”
In 1848, Patrick Keely would begin the design for “Church of the Holy Name of Mary,” in Newport Rhode Island. Fr. Fitton was the first pastor of St. Mary’s and he later called upon Keely to design Holy Redeemer Church in East Boston, where Fr. Fitton remained until he died.
The Power Point presentation will focus on what is known of the (Kiely) Keely family in Ireland, their contribution to the Catholic Church in America, on through the building career of Patrick Keely, and the legacy of his monumental career of ecclesiastical structures in America.
Edward H. “Ted” Furey is the founder and president of the Keely Society, dedicated to the art and architecture of Patrick Charles Keely (www.PatrickKeely.com). Mr. Furey is the Historical Curator of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and the Cathedral Liturgical Museum. He is Head of the Art Dept. of St. Bernard School, Enfield, CT and a Board Member of the Enfield Historical Society. He has been an expert witness at historic landmark hearings regarding Patrick Keely. He has hosted a number of Keely Congresses in both Boston and Brooklyn. Ted also was called upon to write an extensive article on Patrick Keely for the Pugin Society, UK, which was published in their quarterly publication

Dean Robinson and Donald D. Deignan, Ph.D., of Ireland's Easter Rising of 1916 Centennial Remembrance Committee of R.I. and John Quinn, Ph.D., of Salve Regina University: " A Doomed Rebellion? The 1916 Easter Rising and Its Impact on the Irish Newporters."
2016-04-12 18:00
As this April marks the centennial of the Easter Rising, which helped usher in the Irish Free State (1922), the Museum is pleased to present this timely lecture and welcome three special guest speakers.
Dean Robinson will provide an overview of the week-long Rising–the Irish leaders, the Proclamation, the casualties and the British treatment of the prisoners. Don Deignan will then consider whether the Rising had any chance of success and whether Patrick Pearse sought victory over the English or whether he wanted to create martyrs for the Irish cause. John Quinn will look at the 1919 visit to Newport by Eamon de Valera and Harry Boland, who had been sentenced to death for their role in the Rising but were given reprieves. Q&A to follow the presentations.
DONALD D. DEIGNAN is a professional historian and writer. After earning his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Brown University, he taught for several years at R.I. College and then worked for more than a decade at various agencies of state government in a variety of administrative capacities. In 1997 along with his R.I. College classmate and friend, Dr. Scott Molloy, he was a founding member of the R.I. Irish Famine Memorial Committee, Inc. Since June 2010 he has served as President of that organization. JOHN F. QUINN received his Ph.D. in history from Notre Dame. He has been professor of history with Salve Regina University since 1992 and is History Department Chair. A prolific writer, Dr. Quinn is the author of numerous articles, as well as the book Father Mathew’s Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth Century Ireland and Irish-America (U. of Mass. Press, 2002). His interests include Irish America, Modern Ireland, and American Religion and Ethnicity. Dr. Quinn’s professional memberships include American Catholic Historical Association, American Conference on Irish Studies, Irish American Cultural Institute, and Society of Catholic Social Scientists. DEAN G. ROBINSON of Barrington, R.I. is an attorney in private practice. He is a member of the 1916 Centennial Remembrance Committee of R.I. and a member of the Museum of Newport Irish History. He is also a member of the Dennis E. Collins Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians where he is on the Irish History Committee. Dean has presented numerous talks on Irish history and has traveled extensively in Ireland.

Margaret Lynch-Brennan, Ph.D., Public Scholar for New York Council for the Humanities: "The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930"
2016-09-20 18:00
Who was the Irish Bridget? What relevance does her story have to the history of Irish immigration to America? Learn the answers to these questions in Dr. Margaret Lynch-Brennan’s presentation “The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930” which is based on her book of the same name.
The young Irish immigrant girls who labored as cooks, maids and nannies in middle and upper class homes in urban America were once the stock figures of ridicule in popular American magazines such as Harper’s Weekly. Dr. Lynch-Brennan will use photographs and personal letters the Irish Bridget’s wrote to one another to give insight into their lives. She will discuss their work life, their social life, the impact they had on Irish-American life, and their contribution to American ethnic history, labor history and women’s history. Copies of the book will be available for signature and sale following the talk.
MARGARET LYNCH-BRENNAN is currently a Public Scholar for the New York Council for the Humanities. She earned a Ph.D. in American history from the University at Albany, State University of New York. She has given presentations in Ireland, Australia, Germany and throughout the United States. She worked with the Lower East Side Tenement House Museum in New York City as a consultant on the interpretation of Irish immigrant Bridget Meehan Moore in the Museum’s Moore family tenement. In addition to “The Irish Bridget,” Dr. Lynch-Brennan is the author of chapters in three other books and two journals. She taught at the elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate levels, and retired from the New York State Education Department after 30 years of service. She lives near Albany, New York.

Steve Marino: - "Fort Adams and the Irish"
2016-10-25 16:00
On April 8, 1824, the Newport Mercury announced, “We learn, that surveys are now being completed by an officer of the Engineer Corps, preparatory to commencing and extending the works at Fort Adams, (Brenton’s Point,) in this harbor.” Over the next 20 years, the construction of this massive, state of the art fortification would change the economically depressed city both culturally and economically and would establish the foundation of the Irish-Catholic community that exists in Newport today.
Who were these early workers? Where did they live? How did they live? How did Newport react to these newcomers? By examining articles in contemporary newspapers, church records, census data and other primary documents we will start a conversation on this important but often misunderstood time. Please join us as we begin to shed light on this foundational era of Newport Irish History.
STEVE MARINO taught history in Connecticut for 35 years and retired to Newport. He has been giving tours at Fort Adams since 2008. He is also on the Board of the Museum of Newport Irish History. He has degrees from Williams College, Brown University and the Hartford Seminary.

Scott Molloy, Ph.D. - "George W. Potter and the Providence Journal's 1950 Irish Pilgrimage"
2016-11-30 18:00
A local labor activist once said that the Providence Journal hated unions like the Devil hated holy water! You could easily have substituted “Irish” for “unions” at almost any time in the newspaper’s long history. But there were a couple of exceptions. Alfred Williams, a Civil War era reporter, eventually became the paper’s editor in the Gilded Age. Remarkably, Williams sympathetically covered Irish nationalism, visited Ireland, and collected Irish artifacts and literature. Incredibly, he even printed some works by the greatest of Irish writers in the Journal.
In 1949, around the time RI Congressman John Fogarty proposed withholding post-WW II Marshall Plan aid to Great Britain if Ireland remained divided, the Journal dispatched another reporter, George M. Potter, to report on the Emerald Isle. Potter became smitten, like Williams before him, and wrote a series of newspaper articles that became a book, “An Irish Pilgrimage,” in 1950. Potter would later pen one of the most influential books about Irish immigration, “To the Golden Door.”
Learn about the Potter trip and what he had to write. And discover the Journal’s reason for dispatching him to lionize the earlier editor and preserve his collection of “All Things Irish,” which was ultimately donated to the Providence Public Library.
SCOTT MOLLOY is Professor Emeritus at the University of R.I., where he was an award-winning professor at the Schmidt Labor Research Center. He previously drove a bus, was a union activist, and was chief of staff to a U.S. Congresswoman. He earned his doctorate in American History from Providence College. A prolific writer, Molloy wrote, Trolley Wars: Streetcar Workers on the Line (U. of New Hampshire, 2007) and Irish Titan, Irish Toilers: Joseph Banigan and Nineteenth-Century New England Labor (U. Press of New England, 2008), the latter the topic of a past lecture for the Museum. Dr. Molloy was inducted into the R.I. Labor History Society Hall of Fame as well as the R.I. Hall of Fame. Scott Molloy, who holds dual U.S.-Irish Citizenship, was recently elected Grand Marshal of the Providence St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2018. We welcome him for this, his fifth speaking engagement with the Museum.

Rebecca L. Abbott. MFA., Prof. of Communications, Dept. of Film, TV & Media at Quinnipiac U. and Christine Kinealy, Ph.D, founding Dir. of "Ireland's Great Hunger Institute" at Quinnipiac, will host the documentary film: "Ireland's Great Hunger and the Irish Diaspora"
2017-03-28 18:00
Why did over a million people die of starvation and disease, and more than two million leave during roughly six years in mid-1800s Ireland? The label “potato famine” does not begin to explain a crisis that was hundreds of years in the making, and one that happened in the midst of plenty.
This 49-minute documentary film, narrated by actor Gabriel Byrne, explores not just the potato failure that led to mass starvation, death, and emigration in Ireland from 1845 to 1852, but also examines the historical, social, and political circumstances that made the great famine almost inevitable. The film views the history of An Gorta Mór – the great hunger — through the eyes of descendants of those who survived it, and descendants of those who fled Ireland through the Canadian quarantine station at Grosse Ile, Quebec in 1847. Also included are those whose maternal ancestors emigrated to Australia under the Earl Grey scheme, 1848–52, along with the voices of several leading scholars of Irish history.
Dr. Christine Kinealy, widely published author and authority on Irish history, and filmmaker, Prof. Rebecca Abbott, will be present to introduce the film, and to lead discussion and answer questions afterwards. Copies of the film will be available for sale after the presentation.
REBECCA ABBOTT is Professor of Communications at Quinnipiac University and an Emmy-award winning independent filmmaker. Abbott’s documentary subjects have included excellence in public education; the history of jazz music in New Haven; the impact of war on veterans and the role of arts in healing; the life of humanitarian Albert Schweitzer; and aeromedical rescue in the US Air Force. Ireland’s Great Hunger and The Irish Diaspora is her latest work. CHRISTINE KINEALY is the founding director of the Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University. She is an authority on Irish history and is author of 20 books and numerous scholarly articles on Irish and Irish American history. In 2011 Kinealy was named “one of the most influential Irish Americans” by Irish America magazine, and “Woman of the Year” in 2014 by the Irish America Heritage and Culture Committee of the New York Department of Education. Her most recent works are “The Bad Times. An Drochshaol, A graphic novel,” written with illustrator John Walsh (Connecticut: Quinnipiac University Press, 2015).

Kurt C. Schlichting, Ph.D., "Manhattan's Irish Immigrant Neighborhoods: From the Famine to the Movie Classic - On the Waterfront"
2017-04-10 18:00
Between 1846 and 1851 over 600,000 Famine Irish arrived on ships in the port of New York. Many settled in the neighborhoods along the East and Hudson rivers, creating the Irish waterfront. They found hard work on the docks as longshoremen. New York became the shipping center of the world. In the adjacent immigrant neighborhoods, the families of the longshoremen lived in tenements and fought to survive.
1954, the classic American film, “On the Waterfront,” starring Marlin Brando, vividly portrayed the violence along the Manhattan waterfront and the stranglehold of corrupt union officials and the mob. The waterfront priest played by Karl Malden was a Jesuit, Father, Fr. Pete Corridan, who taught at the Labor Institute at Xavier parish on W.16th Street near the Hudson River docks. Corridan and other young Jesuits, the labor priests, came of age during the 1930s and 40s when the Catholic Workers movement, led by Dorothy Day, championed the rights of workers to form unions and collectively bargain for higher wages and better working conditions. Inspired by Day and the Papal labor Encyclicals, the labor priests saw their ministry as dedicated to social justice for the longshoremen. Fr. Corridan battled not just the unions and mobsters but also with Archdiocese of New York that saw the Church’s mission as saving souls, leaving social justice to the labor unions and the politicians.
KURT C. SCHLICHTING is the E. Gerald Corrigan ’63 Chair in Humanities & Social Sciences Department and a Professor of Sociology at Fairfield University (CT). He is the author of Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Architecture and Engineering in New York (Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2001), for which he received the 2002 Best Professional/Scholarly Book: Architecture & Urbanism Award from the Association of American Publishers. This book was the basis of “Grand Central,” an American Experience documentary on PBS, for which Dr. Schlichting served as an academic advisor and was an on-screen interviewee. His book, Grand Central’s Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan, was published by Johns Hopkins in the spring of 2012. Dr. Schlichting received his bachelor’s degree from Fairfield University and his master’s degree and a doctorate from New York University. We welcome Dr. Schlichting for this, his fourth talk, for the Museum of Newport Irish History.

Janet Nolan, Ph.D., "Weathering the Storm: A Fish Story of Ireland and Irish-America"
2017-09-27 18:00
“Why didn’t the Irish fish when the potato crop failed during the Great Hunger of the late 1840s?” is a perennial question asked by the perplexed in a modern world with a global infrastructure. An examination of one family’s migration from an Irish-speaking fishing village in County Waterford to the American seaport of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the post-Famine era, seeks to answer this persistent question.
The Power brothers left their homeland in the early 1850s at the same time on different ships. Having promised to find and marry two sisters they met in Ireland, the brothers eventually arrived in Boston where they did indeed find and marry the sisters.
The Powers were not unskilled when they arrived in America. They were the heirs to a millennium-long tradition of deep-sea fishing in Ireland. Eventually settling in Gloucester, a premier fishing port on the North Atlantic coast, they plied their heritage in a new world.
This is the story of frontiersmen working in the wilderness of the open sea, and of the connection between Irish and Irish-American fishing traditions. The Irish did indeed catch fish during and after the Famine, as they long had done.
JANET NOLAN is professor emerita of history at Loyola University Chicago, where she taught Irish and Irish-American history for almost a quarter of a century after receiving her PhD in history from the University of Connecticut. She has also taught full-time at the Universities of Connecticut and Rhode Island. She is the author of two books: “Ourselves Alone: Women and Emigration from Ireland, 1885-1920” (1989) and “Servants of the Poor: Teachers and Mobility in Ireland and Irish America” (2004), as well as numerous essays, articles, and reviews. She has given invited lectures in both the Republic and Northern Ireland, and throughout Europe and the United States. She has also appeared on television and radio in the United States, Ireland, and Northern Ireland. She now lives by the sea in Portsmouth. This is Professor Nolan’s second lecture for the Museum.

John F. Quinn, Ph.D., "The French Effect: How Rochambeau's Occupation Benefited the Irish in Newport"
2017-10-16 18:00
Newport is well known as having been a religiously diverse and tolerant city in the colonial era. Newporter’s accepted Baptists, Quakers and Jews into their midst in the seventeenth century. The welcome did not extend to Catholics, however. Pamphlets and sermons often warned residents of the dangers of “popery” and effigies of the pope were burned each year on Thames Street.
With the arrival of General Rochambeau and his officers and chaplains, attitudes towards Catholics started to shift. Newporter’s were charmed by the French and intrigued by their solemn liturgies. Many of the city’s residents were sorry to see the French leave for Virginia in 1781.
In the first decades of the nineteenth century, new waves of nativism erupted in Boston and other New England cities in response to the growing number of Irish Catholic immigrants. Newport, which had a sizable Irish community centered around Fort Adams, did not experience the sort of conflict which was so commonplace elsewhere in New England. Surely, Rochambeau and his officers and priests helped set the groundwork for the acceptance of later generations of Irish Catholics in Newport.
JOHN F. QUINN received his Ph.D. in history from Notre Dame. He has been professor of history with Salve Regina University since 1992. A prolific writer, Dr. Quinn is the author of numerous articles, as well as the book Father Mathew’s Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth Century Ireland and Irish-America (U. of Mass. Press, 2002). His interests include Irish America, Modern Ireland, and American Religion and Ethnicity. He is an expert on Irish and Irish-American attitudes towards slavery in the 19th Century. Dr. Quinn’s professional memberships include: American Catholic Historical Association, American Conference on Irish Studies, Irish American Cultural Institute, and Society of Catholic Social Scientists. We are delighted to welcome Dr. Quinn back for his eighth speaking engagement with the Museum.

Ray McKenna, MA, "Providence's 'Little Ulster': Urban Industrial Life and the Famine Irish Generation"
2017-11-13 18:00
While there was remarkable success among those Irish who arrived on American shores sickly and unskilled, for a great many it would be generations before the hopes they had for their children would be fulfilled. This reality was based on the newcomers’ social and economic situation, the general distrust by Americans of foreigners, and the political reality of the State of Rhode Island. It would take the arrival of more “exotic” foreigners as well as Irish-American political and economic success to make the immigrants’ dreams for their children a reality. This talk will address Providence Irish immigrant housing, employment, family life, crime and more, and touch on the successes and joys as well as the setbacks and challenges faced by that generation.
RAYMOND J. MCKENNA received his BA in History from the University of Rhode Island and his MA in History from the University of Connecticut. His master’s thesis was on the history of immigration to America, and specifically on the Immigration Act of 1965. He taught European, Russian and American history for eleven years before going into the wine trade, full-time, in 1987. About ten years ago he returned to a project that he had worked on during his academic career: learning everything he could about the Famine Irish immigrant experience in Rhode Island, inspired by his fascination with the experiences of his ancestors. Six years ago, he “returned” to Truagh for the first time since his family left in the 1840s. Subsequently, he researches and gives talks about nineteen century Irish immigration to Rhode Island, the most recent being last March when he spoke at McCartan College in Emyvale, County Monaghan, on the migration from that small patch of land overlapping Tyrone, Monaghan, Armagh and Fermanagh.

Steve Marino, "The Newport Pre-Famine Irish Community in Transition: 1836-1846"
2018-03-20 18:00
Starting in 1836, after enjoying ten years of relatively good wages and steady working and living conditions, the Irish Catholic laborers at Fort Adams were experiencing military, economic and cultural forces that would fundamentally change the character and circumstances of Newport’s Irish community. During the next ten years, from 1836 – 1846, the Irish community evolved from a “fort” entity into an integral part of the city.
Please join us as we continue the conversation revealing the life and times of the pre-famine Irish in Newport.
STEVE MARINO taught history in Connecticut for 35 years and retired to Newport. He has been giving tours at Fort Adams since 2008. He is also on the Board of the Museum of Newport Irish History. He has degrees from Williams College, Brown University and the Hartford Seminary. This is Steve’s second presentation to our membership.

Kurt C. Schlichting, Ph.D., "The Irish in Newport - Building a Community: The St. Mary's Church 'Great Collection of 1881'"
2018-04-24 18:00
In the most recent U.S. Census survey, 81% of the adult population self-identified a specific ancestry and 10% wrote that they were “Irish.” For Newport County the Irish percentage was 24% and for Newport 27%. How did the strong sense of identity among the Newport Irish persist over generations in the face of anti-Irish sentiment in the 19th and 20th centuries, an identity that continues today?
St. Mary’s Church anchored the Irish community. The magnificent church building, dedicated in 1852, and its school required the financial support of the parishioners, many of whom were recent immigrants, working class, and not wealthy. In 1881, the Pastor, Fr. Philip Grace D.D., organized the “Great Collection of 1881” and published a 27- page report listing parishioners by name and address, the amount pledged, and what they contributed.
Linking the “Great Collection” names and addresses to the 1880 Census data provides a fascinating view of the Newport Irish in the period after the Civil War. On what streets and in which houses did they live? What were their occupations and how generous were their contributions to the “Great Collection of 1881”? A $20 contribution may seem modest today, but if you worked as a laborer for $1 a day at the Fall River Line shipyard on Washington Street and earned $24 dollars a month, working 6 days a week, the contribution represented a month’s income.
KURT C. SCHLICHTING is the E. Gerald Corrigan ’63 Chair in Humanities & Social Sciences Department and a Professor of Sociology at Fairfield University (CT). He is the author of Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Architecture and Engineering in New York (Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2001), for which he received the 2002 Best Professional/Scholarly Book: Architecture & Urbanism Award from the Association of American Publishers. This book was the basis of “Grand Central,” an American Experience documentary on PBS, for which Dr. Schlichting served as an academic advisor and was an on-screen interviewee. His most recent book, Waterfront Manhattan: From Henry Hudson to the High Line, will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press in May 2018. Dr. Schlichting received his bachelor’s degree from Fairfield University and his master’s degree and a doctorate from New York University. We welcome Dr. Schlichting for this, his fifth talk, for the Museum of Newport Irish History.

Christine Kinealy, Ph.D., "Frederick Douglass and Ireland"
2018-09-26 18:00
In August 1845, a young fugitive slave arrived in Dublin to oversee the publication of his bestselling life story, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Seven years earlier, Douglass had escaped from slavery, but the Fugitive Slave Act meant that he remained in danger of being captured and returned to his ‘master.’ His work as a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society and the success of his Narrative increased this risk and so he was persuaded to travel to Britain, where he would be safe. However, an Irish Quaker printer, Richard Webb, who was also an ardent abolitionist, offered to reprint the book, and thus provide Douglass with an income. So, two days after arriving in the transatlantic port of Liverpool, Douglass travelled to Dublin. He had intended to stay for four days, but remained in the country for four months, describing these four months as “the happiest times” in his life. Moreover, for the first time in his life, he felt truly free and like “a man, and not a color.”
This presentation will explore Douglas’s time in Ireland and his life-long fascination with the country and its people.
CHRISTINE KINEALY is the founding director of the Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University. She is an authority on Irish history and is the author of 20 books and numerous scholarly articles on Irish and Irish American history. In 2011, Kinealy was named “one of the most influential Irish Americans” by Irish America magazine, and, in 2014, “Woman of the Year” by the Irish American Heritage and Culture Committee of the New York Department of Education. Her most recent work is Frederick Douglass and Ireland. In His Own Words (2 vols, Routledge, 2018). She is also curator of a year-long exhibition at Quinnipiac University entitled Frederick Douglass in Ireland: “The Black O’Connell.”

Tom Foley, M.A. Candidate, University of Rhode Island, "The Emmet Guards of Worcester, Mass."
2018-11-28 18:00
On September 20th, 1803, twenty-five-year-old Robert Emmet was executed for leading an abortive Irish rebellion; his grave was unmarked to erase his name from history. At his sentencing, a stoic Emmet delivered one of the most memorable speeches of the 19th century, asking the world to leave his name and his tomb in obscurity until “my country takes her place among the nations of the earth. Then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.” Rather than vanish from history, Emmet became a potent symbol of egalitarianism and the struggle for Irish liberation, especially for Irish-Americans.
A generation after Emmet’s death, 56 Irish immigrants formed an independent militia company in Worcester which would become known as the Emmet Guards. Its officers swore an oath to defend Massachusetts, but the company had other unofficial purposes: to protect the rights of the Irish in Worcester and to facilitate, if possible, the restoration of Ireland to her rightful “place among the nations of the earth.” Though few if any of these original “Emmet’s” would ever return to Ireland to fight for independence, the company was a source of ethnic pride and solidarity for the next 5 generations of Worcester Irish. The Emmet Guards of Worcester would serve with distinction in the American Civil War, Spanish American War, and World War One.
This presentation will cover Robert Emmet and his legacy, the origin of the Emmet Guards, and the company’s service in France (1917-18), concluding with the post-war Irish independence movement in Worcester. It will also touch on other units with the same or similar moniker, such as the Emmet Guards of Providence, RI, and the Robert Emmet Guards of Newport, RI.
TOM FOLEY is a native of Westerly, RI, and is the great-grandson of Major General Thomas F. Foley, Captain of the Emmet Guards from 1912 – 1918. Tom received his B.A. in History from Providence College and is now a graduate student at the University of Rhode Island (M.A., History, projected 2021). This is a presentation of research collected in preparation for Tom’s master’s thesis.

Brendan O'Malley, Ph.D. Newbury College, "How the Irish Shaped Immigrant Politics in Nineteenth-Century New York"
2019-02-11 18:00
Between 1820 and 1920, about five million Irish crossed the Atlantic. Almost all faced formidable challenges, but the wave of two million arriving between 1845 and 1860 in the wake of the famine encountered especially difficult conditions. Decades of scholarship have documented the hardships of the famine migrants, including crushing poverty, hard labor for low pay, miserable tenements, rampant disease, family separation, nativist persecution, and even deportation. Less well understood is how the American Irish grew in a few decades from a marginalized group to one that wielded considerable power, taking control of urban political machines like New York City’s Tammany Hall by the late 1800s.
We will examine how the American Irish in New York began to consolidate power in one key arena: immigration politics. In 1847, during the famine migration crisis, the state legislature created a government agency devoted to protecting immigrant welfare, the Board of the Commissioners of Emigration. In 1855, this agency would open its Castle Garden Emigrant Depot, which would process eight million new arrivals over the next thirty-five years and serve as the nerve center of a small welfare state for immigrants. Irish New Yorkers played a key role in establishing the Emigration Board and overseeing its operation. This talk will demonstrate how the often-divided American Irish community in New York learned to come together and exert its rising political power to improve conditions for all immigrants arriving in the nation’s largest port of entry.
BRENDAN P. O’MALLEY is assistant professor of history at Newbury College in Brookline, Massachusetts. He earned a doctorate in history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2015 and currently is at work on a book entitled “Castle Garden: America’s First Immigrant Gateway.” His most recent essay, “Welcome to New York: Remembering Castle Garden, A Nineteenth-Century Immigrant Welfare State,” was published online by Lapham’s Quarterly in September 2018.

Dr. Lucy Salyer, author of "Under the Starry Flag: How a Band of Irish Americans Joined the Fenian Revolt and Sparked a Crisis over Citizenship"
2019-03-25 18:00
In 1867 forty Irish American freedom fighters, outfitted with guns and ammunition, sailed to Ireland to join the effort to end British rule. They never got a chance to fight as British authorities arrested them for treason as soon as they landed, sparking an international conflict that dragged the United States and Britain to the brink of war. Under the Starry Flag (Harvard University Press, Oct. 2018) recounts this gripping legal saga, a prelude to today’s immigration battles.
The Fenians, as the freedom fighters were called, claimed American citizenship. British authorities disagreed, insisting that naturalized Irish Americans remained British subjects. Following in the wake of the Civil War, the Fenian crisis dramatized anew the idea of citizenship as an inalienable right, as natural as freedom of speech and religion. The captivating trial of these men illustrated the stakes of extending those rights to arrivals from far-flung lands. The case of the Fenians, Lucy E. Salyer shows, led to landmark treaties and laws acknowledging the right of exit. The U.S. Congress passed the Expatriation Act of 1868, which guarantees the right to renounce one’s citizenship, in the same month it granted citizenship to former American slaves.
Dr. Salyer will examine how the small ruckus created by these impassioned Irish Americans provoked a human rights revolution that is not, even now, fully realized. Placing Reconstruction-era debates over citizenship within a global context, Under the Starry Flag raises important questions about citizenship and immigration.
LUCY E. SALYER is Associate Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire and author of Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law, which won the Theodore Saloutos Book Award for the best book on immigration history. A former Constance E. Smith Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Salyer received the Arthur K. Whitcomb Professorship for teaching excellence, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.
