EXPERIENCE "I want to fight you," he said in a Belfast accent. Amazed and scared, with hurried words I resisted. "Fighting solves nothing. Tell me how I've annoyed you," I said. But more insulted the man persisted. In the lavatory he squared his fists and approached me: "Now you can talk," I backed over cold stone in A room that contained us and joined us. "It's all so silly," I pleaded, searching for spaces to be alone in. I shrank from his strangeness, not only afraid. But at last of course I suffered what could not be delayed, The innocuous struggle, the fighting words, "bastard," and "f...," A torn shirt and my lip numb and bloody, My anger and -- strange-- the feel of my own body New to me, as I struck, as he struck. -- James Simmons (born 1933)

Robert Scally is a professor of history of NY University and director of Ireland House in NYC. He is also author of "The End of Hidden Ireland." Per Mr. Scally, "If there was one experience common to the Irish refugees from the Great Famine, other than hunger, it was the sight of Liverpool. Very few sailed directly from Ireland across the Atlantic - fewer than one in four. The vast majority first sailed east to Liverpool, the greatest seaport of the 19th century - leaving Cork City, Dublin, Wexford, and Belfast behind. For these future Americans, the grimy seaport of Liverpool was the last they would see of Europe. Liverpool was the first gateway to America, directing the flow of hundreds of thousands of Irish to NY, Quebec, New Orleans, Boston, Charleston, Savannah. Its influence extended along the global maritime network of commercial ties and routes that had been in place, and growing, for more than 100 years by the time the migration reached its peak during the "hungry forties." Slavery and cotton were two of the main reasons for Liverpool's maritime dominance - it had cornered the slave trade before its abolition and then became the main receiver in Europe of the cotton from the Old South, the endless flow of 500-pound bales picked and hauled by slaves to the levees of New Orleans and Charleston. Ireland's "Black 1847" witnessed more Irish than ever pouring from the country, most of them refugees fleeing the hunger as best they could but among them, too, many thousands who had saved for and set their minds on emigrating for years. For the destitute, there was often no choice of destination: They had but money enough to be among the half-million who would immigrate only to Britain with perhaps a hope of one day returning. Or they were among those whose immigration to America was "assisted." That is, passage was paid for by their landlords, who, under the Poor Law Extension act, either moved their poor charges off the Crown's soil or paid for the tenant's welfare in Ireland. For those who could muster the fare, the courage, for the long voyage across the Atlantic, the choice was clear - a new life away from the blight, away from the Brits. And that route went through Liverpool. Ironically, it was into Liverpool and its massive warehouses that the cargoes of grain, meat, and dairy goods denied to the starving Irish countryside flowed unceasingly from Irish ports. Now the ships were carrying the supercargo of hungry Irish. In the two decades before the Famine, a rising tide of emigrants passed into Liverpool, reaching nearly 100,000 in some years before 1845. In 1847, at least 320,000 Irish men, women, and children poured from the Irish ferries, many of them unable or unwilling to go any further. It might be said that Liverpool beckoned the torrent of Irish emigrants to its doorstep through its Irish network. There was profit in the emigrants' fare, but thousands of them were also needed in the port itself for hauling cargoes, excavating the roads and railway cuttings, and in extending the great docks. For these tasks they were welcome. But as their numbers grew and their condition worsened, their popular reception became increasingly hostile. In the story of the Famine emigrants, the Liverpool ordeal attracted more attention at the time than London or New York. The scandal of death and suffering on its waterfront was widely reported in the press and reports to Parliament from the municipal health authorities. Contemporary writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Brontes depicted some of the horrors to which the Famine imigres were routinely subjected to as they were disgorged from the Irish ferries. Some were outraged by what they witnessed there. But not all observers of Irish misery on the Liverpool docks were moved by the spectacle of human suffering. Hawthorne, who was the American consul in Liverpool at the time, noted the ragged throngs of Irish huddled around the dock gates, but in him they inspired only disgust: "The people are as numerous as maggots on cheese," he wrote. Almost alone among the witnesses who wrote of Liverpool at that time, the young Herman Melville declared his outrage at the wanton cruelties the newcomers met in the town. In what is by far the most eloquent account of midcentury Liverpool, Melville described in "Redburn," His First Voyage," the "endless vistas of want and woe staggering arm in arm along these miserable streets." The desensitized feeling of humanity apparent in Liverpool may have been more extreme than elsewhere at the time, with its volatile mix of Celts, evangelists, and lawlessness. But it was not the end of the callous faces the Irish immigrants would encounter on their long journey to America."

Passing this resource for the CARSON surname -- The Clan Carson Website now has details of over 280 Carson's who entered the USA through Ellis Island. Enter by choosing "Carson Cruisers" then "Ellis Island". The database now contains details of almost 3000 Carson's originating in Scotland and Ireland Visit the Clan Carson website at http://www.clancarson.com

Hi List.... To the person that e-mailed a request to me to pass on information about obtaining copies of the Irish Ordinance Maps....I'm sorry I accidentally deleted your message...but if you read this..This is the link I got from many kind listers, and it's great. http://www.archives.ca/02/020207_e.html Hope this message reached you. Michelle Wilson micpaint@pshift.com researching: FARLEY, MAGEE, LEMON, ADAMS, McMILLAN, TUKE, QUINNELL in Ireland

In a copy of the yearly "Leitrim Guardian" magazine, Eileen McGovern offers her view of Ireland -- "There is a peace in Ireland. It lives amongst its people. It's the slow, easy way a hand is extended to welcome you "home." No matter you weren't born there. Your father, mother or generations beyond were. And that is good enough. Not for rural Ireland the rushing from pillar to post. No mad yearning for fancy things. Bread in the press, tea in the pot, turf on the fire. An ever-open door, and no fear to squeeze it ajar, late or not, for there is always time, to stop, to sit, to talk, about days gone by and days to come. The quiet keeping of the old ways. Holding tradition. Unquestioningly. For that is the way things always were, and please God always will be. There is a natural and rugged beauty all around to please the weary eye. No skyscrapers here to pierce the sky but the soft outline of a tiny town, a bridge across the water, a swell of mountain peaks. A! sleepy dog warms his belly on the road. He dozes, but doesn't dream of danger where he lies, for all that pass him will harm him not, they know he is there. Soft berries in the hedges swell, a childish hand may pull at one or two. Or maybe a soul who walked this way many years ago as that child now visits from a concrete city far away and feels the same thrill at finding that fruit. They as mothers and fathers now will press upon their children all the things that used to be. So simple, unmarred and pure. They try to paint a picture. And true to say the second generation share their love of their land and try so hard to see it as it was back then. No rattle of TV or buzz of telephone or watching of the loudly ticking clock is here. T'will get done when time is right, without worry or tightening of the heart. A spirit lives on, long after a family moves on to do "better" things. But so many return, and see, with eyes anew in the twilight of their lives, what they always had but could not see. Such a well-kept secret, this beauty is. And a heady drink to sip at for those, like me who know the speed of city life. My children too will know these things, I will make it my task to teach them. We must not let beauty go or change. Dear Ireland, a haven, a way of life which eludes so many. I dream of you on winter nights. You share that same moon and stars but are a million miles away. I wish I was there. I walk the roads and pass each house. I smell the air and hear the silence. And dream and dream of all that is you until I stand, feeling your peace, on your sacred land.

Eileen McGovern offers her view of Ireland -- "There is a peace in Ireland. It lives amongst its people. It's the slow, easy way a hand is extended to welcome you "home." No matter you weren't born there. Your father, mother or generations beyond were. And that is good enough. Not for rural Ireland the rushing from pillar to post. No mad yearning for fancy things. Bread in the press, tea in the pot, turf on the fire. An ever-open door, and no fear to squeeze it ajar, late or not, for there is always time, to stop, to sit, to talk, about days gone by and days to come. The quiet keeping of the old ways. Holding tradition. Unquestioningly. For that is the way things always were, and please God always will be. There is a natural and rugged beauty all around to please the weary eye. No skyscrapers here to pierce the sky but the soft outline of a tiny town, a bridge across the water, a swell of mountain peaks. A sleepy dog warms his belly on the road. He dozes, b! ut doesn't dream of danger where he lies, for all that pass him will harm him not, they know he is there. Soft berries in the hedges swell, a childish hand may pull at one or two. Or maybe a soul who walked this way many years ago as that child now visits from a concrete city far away and feels the same thrill at finding that fruit. They as mothers and fathers now will press upon their children all the things that used to be. So simple, unmarred and pure. They try to paint a picture. And true to say the second generation share their love of their land and try so hard to see it as it was back then. No rattle of TV or buzz of telephone or watching of the loudly ticking clock is here. T'will get done when time is right, without worry or tightening of the heart. A spirit lives on, long after a family moves on to do "better" things. But so many return, and see, with eyes anew in the twilight of their lives, what they always had but could not see. Such a well-kept secret, this beauty is. And a heady drink to sip at for those, like me who know the speed of city life. My children too will know these things, I will make it my task to teach them. We must not let beauty go or change. Dear Ireland, a haven, a way of life which eludes so many. I dream of you on winter nights. You share that same moon and stars but are a million miles away. I wish I was there. I walk the roads and pass each house. I smell the air and hear the silence. And dream and dream of all that is you until I stand, feeling your peace, on your sacred land. -- Eileen McGovern

Co. Wicklow is called the "Garden of Ireland." Wicklow is a seaside resort and county town with a pleasant harbour area. In centuries past, Wicklow was repeatedly attacked in squabbles between O'Byrnes, O'Tooles and the English. Fitzwilliam Square has a granite obelisk commemorating Wicklow-born captain of Brunel's "Great Eastern," which laid the first cable across the Atlantic. Memorial in Market Square commemorates Wicklow men who fought in 1798. Black Castle was begun by Maurice Fitzgerald in 1176 and frequently was attacked over the following five centuries, now in ruins. Also view remains of 13th c. Franciscan friary in grounds of presbytery. Norman doorway in south porch of the Church of Ireland. There is a Maritime Museum in Arklow with 1,000 items relating to the town's nautical history, may be only open June through September.. Avoca, beautifully set village. See Tom Moore's tree, near Meeting of the Waters, when the poet is said to have spent many hours in contemplation. There are Forest walks and horseback riding! Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Moore's poem - "There is not in this wide world a valley so sweet As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet; Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart. Yet, is was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene Her purest of crystal, and brightest of green; 'Twas not the soft magic of streamlet or hill, Oh, no! it was something more exquisite still. 'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near, Who made each dear scene of enchantment more dear; And who felt how the best charms of Nature improve When we see them reflected from looks that we love. Sweet Vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest In they bosom of shade with the friends I love best, Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease, And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace." Look for waterfalls in Co. Wicklow and pastures with black-faced sheep are ushered by the slender-faced Wicklow Collie. There are three fine beaches. Bray is one of Ireland's biggest and longest established seaside resorts. The Avondale Estate is where Charles Stewart Parnell, great 19th century Irish leader lived in the 1779 house, which has been fully restored. Although he was a Protestant landlord, he favored Home Rule, was born at Avondale, near Rathdrum in 1846, the year that saw Ireland broken by the Great Famine. Avondale is an elegant "Big House" of its time, set on 500 acres of tranquil and pleasant woods and gardens. There is a wonderful ruined church at Baltinglass which, together with the cloister, is all that remains of the important 12th century Cistercian monastery. There is evidently an agricultural museum in Glenealy with machinery dating from the early 19th century, and veteran cars, believe you may have to make arrangements to see. >From the time of the Norman conquest 800 years ago, the families which ousted the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles from their traditional lands, settled, discarded their rough colonial ways and, in succeeding generations, opened their hearts and minds to the land and culture which surrounded them.

Fascinating piece! Does anyone know what the criteria was for imbecile? I know I've read various old newspaper accounts in the US where the term was used as was "dim-witted" but I wonder if it was used loosely or some type of description met it. Margaret

Before the 1840s, emigration was well established in Ireland though the desinations were usually to the east, to Scotland, northern England and southern Wales rather than the United Sates. In the 1840s, America became the "promised land." The Great Potato Famine permanently seared the psyche of those who it affected, notably the million who survived by fleeing. (Incredibly, nourishing foodstuffs the poor could not access had continued to be exported out of Ireland during this time). There were also memories of vile treatment on the "coffin" ships, unseaworthy hulks that were pressed into service for quick profit. One noted philanthropist, Vere FOSTER, travelled on such a ship, the "Washington," in 1850, so that he might write the report that led to miniumum standards being set for such transports. His subscription of 10,000 pounds of his own money to assist passages was the best way he felt he could help alleviate the suffering. The land could no longer sustain its teeming population so exodus was the only solution. By 1900 four million Irish had crossed the Atlantic and after initial privations and denigration had become a significant factor in east coast and midwest local and national politics. In his book, "The Famine Ships," Edward Laxton writes that throughout the Famine period of the late 1840s the "Illustrated London News" caught the mood and despair of the Irish people. This news-magazine was a weekly publication and in its heyday was highly influential and powerful, regularly reminding Queen Victoria and her government of Ireland's plight. With its full page drawings, pictorial layouts and lively reportage, it offered the Victorian equivalent of today's visual news media. One ILN artist, James MAHONY, who lived in Cork and toured the country, produced illustrations which undoubtedly helped highlight the dreadful fate overtaking Ireland.. Per "A Short History of Ireland," by Sean McMahon, the pictures in the "Illustrated London News" of ragged people searching for healthy potatoes, of famine funerals, soup kitchens, evictions and emigrant ships have left a permanent impression of misery. If folk memory of (reusable) coffins with sliding bottoms, roads heaving with hungry people barely able to walk, mass graves and the potent superstition of the hungry grass is added to this it is easy to understand how the famine years seem to be with the Irish still. If England was execrated for its apparent attempted genocide, an equally imprecise class, that of "landlords," was only a little lower down on the hate register. No official figures were kept until 1849, but police records show that during the following five years, 250,000 people were formally and permanently evicted from their holdings. Per Mr. McMahon, evidence shows that it was often the farmers (many of whom were Catholic) who treated the needy worst o! f all, bringing cases against wretches who stole turnips, for example, and disapproving of the magistrates' clemency. Many landlords, in fact, bankrupted themselves in their attempts to care for their needy tenants; others, those who gained the lasting reputation for their class, ignored the plight of their dependants.. Not all the country was stricken equally. East Ulster and Leinster provinces were affected least because of their mixed husbandry, though they were not free of the epidemics of typhus and relapsing fever and cholera. The Society of Friends (Quakers) emerge as the heroes of the Famine period, providing relief and in spite of appalling conditions getting it to the places of greatest need It was their success that forced the government to acquiesce in a change of tactic, substituting direct action for "hands-off."

In 1908, referring to Ireland, L. Paul-Dubois wrote: "In the following phenomenon we have another grave sign of racial decadence: I mean the marked increase of mental disease during the last fifty years. In 1851 Ireland had 5,074 lunatics and 4,906 imbeciles making a total of 9,980 persons of unsound mind, or 1.52 per 1,000 of the population. In 1901 she has 19,834 lunatics and 5,126 imbeciles, or a total of no less than 25,050, say 5.61 per 1,000, whereas in England there are only 4.07, and in Scotland 4.53 per 1,000. Attempts have been made to discover local or special causes for the sad prevalance of mental disease. Some have specified alcohol, or the over-use of tea, especially tea that has been left to stew, according to the custom of the Irish peasant. Others denounce the dullness of life in the pastoral districts, the isolation, the physical inaction and intellectual void amid which the peasants drag out their lives on the cattle-breeding latifundia. And here, indeed, we have a fact worth noting, namely, that it is in the district more especially devoted to grazing, namely, Munster, that the percentage of the mentally unsound reaches its highest level (6.57 per 1,000). The counties in Ireland most subject to the scourge are Waterford, Meath, Clare, Kilkenny, King's County (Offaly), Tipperary, Wexford, all of them cattle-grazing districts. On the other hand, it is the towns, Belfast, Dublin, and Londonderry, in which the smallest proportion of mental disease is to be found. But such subsidiary causes as these cannot overshadow the true fundamental and essential cause, namely, the degeneration of the race caused by extreme poverty and emigration."

These literary cousins - Edith OEnone Somerville and Violet Martin ("Martin Ross") - were friends and close collaborators on their stories. Violet Martin was called "Ross" because that was the name of her first home in Co. Galway. Violet died in 1915; Edith Somerville lived on until 1949, maintaining a vigorous literary output to the end. Somerville and Ross are buried close together in Castletownshend's little churchyard - a cross for Ross, a plain stone for Somerville marking their graves. These Victorian ladies wrote a collection of funny stories of Irish life, primarily, living most of their lives at Castletownshend, Skibbereen, Co. Cork. Castletownshend, a sleepy little old-world village on the shore of Cast Haven on the southern coast, had an air of quiet reserve; a sense of walled gardens and tennis courts, and yachts sheltering in the harbour. Castletownshend was unusual for an Irish town of the time; instead of containing just one big house it contained at ! least three: Drishane, home of the Somervilles; Glen Barrahane, the 19th century seat of the Coghills; and Castle Townshend where the Townshends lived. To make it even cosier, intermarriage during the 18th and 19th centuries meant they were all related to one another. It was, in short, a nest of cousins and landed gentry , a most civilized and homely place for growing families. Linking the houses together was Main Street and two sycamores near the bottom known locally as the Two Trees and accepted by all as the focal point of the village. Edith Somerville cleverly illustrated several of the books which tended to show both sides of Ireland - grave and gay, tragic and comic. Their writings recalled "the golden days when the old ways of life were unquestioned." This feudal order was to be broken down during the second half of the century and both Violet Martin and Edith Somerville always mourned it and their "light-hearted days." Behind their work runs a theme of a ra! ther idealized harmony between landlord and tenant. Generally, they kept to the Ireland they knew best, blending two landscapes, the Galway-Connemara of the Martins, and the rocky inlets of West Cork, Roaring Water Bay, and the relationship between aristocrat and peasant was often central to the fabric of their stories. Often photographed together in their lovely hats and dresses and with their dogs, Candy and Sheena, they had a working friendship that has no easy parallel in Irish literature - the three Bronte sisters, writing and pining together in their parsonage in Haworth, on the Yorkshire Moors, comes to mind, but the Bronte's eventually wrote separately. Certainly, the Brontes did not have an excessive delight in existence, a wild sense of humor, which was characteristic of the literary firm of Somerville and Ross. Their literary guide was Maria Edgeworth, a friend of their mutual great-grandfather, Charles Kendal Bushe, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Excerpts, "Ireland of the Welcomes" July-August 1984

Waterford, the site of the Irish rebellion, has a colourful maritime history. The early Viking invaders gave the town its original name, Vradaford, recalling its network of watery inlets, reminiscent of their own homeland in Scandinavia. By the 1400s, Waterford's maritime trade had become so extensive that the town was nicknamed Rich Waterford. The River Suir widens to more than a mile as it flows 10 miles from the city centre out to the Atlantic, and the fame of its boatyards spread far. In the early 1500s, Henry VIII, one of the strongest of the English Monarchs, commissioned the boatyards of Waterford to build two ships for the Royal household. Legend has it that, a century later at Waterford, Oliver Cromwell coined the phrase, "by hook or by crook." Hook Head lies on one side of the estuary, a crook-shaped promontory at Brownstone Head. Just before landing his troops, Cromwell allegedly vowed: "By the Hook or by the Crook we will be victorious by tonight." He m! eant no matter on which side they went ashore or how they carried out their attack, a rapid conquest was assured. Waterford's appearance has changed little over the past 150 years. The lively quays beside the Suir in Waterford remain the very heart of this attractive town. One much-loved feature, Reginald's Tower, has survived 1,000 years, having been built by the Vikings in the year 1003. The old tower saw the Normans invade in the 11th century, followed by the English armies in the 16th century, and later witnessed the departure of countless emigrants during the Famine years. During the Famine, Waterford was the home port for nearly 250 ships. A great number were named after owners' or captains' wives, mothers, daughters and sisters, such as "Juliet," "Louisa," "Catherine," "Margaret," "Ann Henry," "Ann Carr," "Ann Kenny," "Victoria,", "Eliza," "Ellen," "Lavinia" and "Sophia," -- all vessels of the 40-strong fleet which sailed with the Famine emigrants from Waterford to America. "Day after day our quays are crowded with people seeking for American ships, and no sooner is a ship's departure for that prosperous land announced than she is filled," reported the "Chronicle" as the Fame took hold. In one week in the spring of 1846 ten ships sailed with passengers for Canada. The rate slowed down during the following year, with around three ships leaving every week through the summer months. But the pace of departures picked up in 1848 as the potato-failure and the reality of the doomed insurrection were recognized. The busiest of the famine ships operating from Waterford that year was the "Harmony," which took passengers to New York sometimes, though more often to New Orleans and Boston. After one spring voyage, she tied up at Boston on May 27, 1848. On tht day in the space of two tides there arrived at Boston three emigrant ships from Liverpool, plus the "Gulane" from Limerick; the "General Scott" from Cork; the "Princess" from Donegal and the "Lord Fitzroy" from Galway. The armada from Ireland was in full flow. Waterford's famous, hand-made Waterford crystal, admired all over the world was first produced in 1783 when George and William Penrose opened their glass factory. Recognising the profits to be made in shipbuilding, the Penrose family opened a shipyard, too. The shipping movements are now few, but the hotels, busy shops and converted warehouses, look out on the ancient cobble-stones and weather-beaten bollards, the view across the wide river unbroken by any buildings. Reginald's Tower, the walls as robust as ever, has been converted to a small museum, an ancient witness to so much history and bloodshed, heartache and grief. -- Excerpts, "The Famine Ships," Edward Laxton (1996)

GAELTACHT Bartley Costello, eighty years old, sat in his silver-grey tweeds on a kitchen chair, at his door in Carraroe, the sea only yards away, smoking a pipe, with a pint of porter beside his boot: "For the past twenty years I've eaten nothing only periwinkles, my own hands got them off those rocks. You're a quarter my age, if you'd stick to winkles you'd live as long as me, and keep as spry." In the Liverpool Bar, at the North Wall, on his way to join his children over there, an old man looked at me, then down at his pint of rich Dublin stout. He pointed at the black glass: "Is lu i an Ghaeilge na an t-uisce sa ngloine sin." ("The Gaelic is less than the water in the glass.") Beartla Confhaola, prime of his manhood, driving between the redweed and the rock-fields, driving through the sunny treeless quartz glory of Carna, answered the foreigners' glib pity, pointing at the small black cows: "You won't get finer anywhere than those black porry cattle." In a pub near there, one of the locals finally spoke to the townie: "Labhraim le strainseiri. Creidim gur choir bheith ag labhairt le strainseiri." ("I speak with strangers. I believe it's right to be speaking with strangers."). Proud as a man who'd claim: "I made an orchard of a rock-field, bougainvillea clamber my turf-ricks." A Dublin tourist on a red-quarter strand hunting firewood found the ruins of a boat, started breaking the struts out -- an old man came, he shook his head, and said: "Aa, a mhac: na bi ag briseadh baid." ("Ah son: don't be breaking boats."). The low walls of rock-fields in the west are a beautiful clean white. There are chinks between the neat white stones to let the wind through safe, you can see the blue sun through them. But coming eastward in the same county, the walls grow higher, get grey: an ugly grey. And the chinks disappear: through those walls you can see nothing. Then at least you come to the city, beautiful with salmon basking becalmed black below a bridge over the pale-green Corrib; and ugly with many shopkeepers looking down on men like Bartley Costello and Beartla Confhaola because they speak in Irish, eat periwinkles, keep small black porry cattle, and on us because we are strangers. -- Pearse Hutchinson

LITTLE HUNGER I drove to Little Hunger promontory looking for pink stone in roofless houses huddled by the sea to buy to build my own. Hovels to live in, ruins to admire from a car cruising by, the weathered face caught in a sunset fire, hollowed with exility; whose gradual fall my purchase would complete, clearing them off the land, the seven cabins needed to create the granite house I planned. Once mine, I'd work on their dismemberment, threshold, lintel, wall; and pick a heartstone from a rubble fragment to make it intregral. -- Richard Murphy

Fwd with permission. Hope someone can help and contact them directly. Thanks Don Kelly ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brown, Larry (DCPP)" <LxBm@pge.com> To: <donkelly@grovenet.net> Cc: <lwbldb@charter.net> Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 7:37 PM Subject: Passports > Dear Sir: > > My wife and I have been searching for her Irish relatives that came > over to the United States in 1856. They located in Pennsylvania, living in > Crawford County and finally in Mercer County. The family name was York. > William the father born 1820 in Ireland, Elizabeth his wife born in 1823, > Ireland. Daughters Margaret, born 1849 Ireland, Elizabeth born 1851 > Ireland, Sarah, born 1855, Ireland and Divina, born 1859 in Pennsylvania. > They came to America on the ship "Andrew Foster" out of Liverpool, England. > We have located this family in the 1860 Census in Pennsylvania and also in > the 1870 Census of Pennsylvania. By 1880 the father William does not show > up. His wife is living with a daughter and her husband. We can find no > later records. We suspicion that the family might have returned to Ireland > after the death of the Father. > > Our question is whether or not there would be Irish Passports for > this family when they migrated to the United States and what documents would > they need to return to Ireland after 1880. > > Any help would be most appreciated. > > Very truly yours, > > Larry W. Brown > 7400 Cristobal Avenue > Atascadero, California 93422 > 805 466-9435 > > home e-mail address lwbldb@charter.net > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.371 / Virus Database: 206 - Release Date: 6/13/02

>From another list, but too important not to share -- > NEW YORK (AP) -- The Rev. Chris Keenan walked into a Manhattan > firehouse 10 months ago to find his sad premonition proven true: > His friend of 38 years, Fire Department chaplain Mychal Judge, was > killed at the World Trade Center. > > Very quickly, "Father Mike" became a Sept. 11 icon, a candidate > for canonization. And just as swiftly, Keenan emerged as a > candidate to replace the martyred Judge -- a thought that left the > would-be successor "anxious and afraid." > > How to follow a putative saint? How to handle all the grief and > loss? > > Barely two months later, the 60-year-old Keenan found that > "serenity and peace" had replaced his fears. In a ceremony at fire > headquarters, he received FDNY chaplain's shield No. 24 -- becoming > the department's Friar Tuck, as he wrote in a letter to friends. > > The Franciscan priest was soon pulling a rake through the rubble > at ground zero, working nights with a group of retired firefighters > desperately hunting their sons' remains. > > Now eight months on the job, Keenan views his change of heart as > a kind of destiny. Keenan has embraced the family of 11,000 > surviving firefighters, hundreds of fire widows, and 1,335 > fatherless children. > > "Who has it better than me, being with awesome people like > them?" he asks with a smile. "It's an honor and a gift, it truly > is." > > It's also an odd match. Keenan was never a fire buff, couldn't > tell the difference between an engine and a ladder truck. A > suburban kid, he had no knowledge of the city's firehouse culture. > > And Keenan was unsure if he was ready for the hectic job of > chaplain, handled by a seven-member team representing various > faiths. > > At the Franciscans' 31st Street friary, Keenan performed quieter > work with the dispossessed: helping homeless children in city > shelters, working the daily bread line. > > But it turned out the chaplain's job in the post-Sept. 11 world > was changed, and had little to do with fire. > > "It's the morgue, and notifications, and wakes, and funerals," > he says, reciting the sad litany of duties. "Burn units, counseling > centers, meetings with the 343 families who lost firefighters. > > "It's like fires are a footnote." > > Born at a Salvation Army hospital in Manhattan, Keenan grew up > in New Jersey. Like his Irish immigrant father, he worked as a > Teamster. But Keenan found his vocation during talks with a local > Franciscan working his first parish: Mychal Judge. > > Judge was a fastidious soul, a dandy in a brown friar's robe and > sandals, a man who loved the spotlight. > > Even in death he was at center stage: Killed by a falling > object, he was the first official victim of the terrorist attacks > on the trade center. A photo of rescue workers carrying Judge's > body away from the site was compared with the Pieta; a contingent > of New York firefighters delivered Judge's fire helmet to Pope John > Paul II in the Vatican. > > Keenan's style is more casual. His gray hair shows no glint of > hair spray, a Judge staple. On a warm July day, Keenan wears shorts > and a short-sleeved shirt, his sandals the only sign of his order. > > One of Keenan's first forays as chaplain was to ground zero, > where he labored three nights a week. He occasionally uncovered > small bits and pieces of lost lives: a worn Polaroid of a woman, an > ID card. He watched in awe as the workers toiled around the clock, > day after week after month, digging. > > "They brought meaning to absolute, confounding devastation," he > says, his eyes welling up. "I don't know how to explain it." > > When Keenan leaves ground zero, it never fully leaves him. At a > recent lunch with his niece and nephew, he and a waitress began > crying as the children studied a Fire Department patch with the > twin towers intact on the New York skyline. > > "You hit those moments," he explains in measured tones. "It's > just really tough." Keenan was not entirely unprepared for > emergency work. > > While in Boston in the early 1980s, he volunteered to counsel > terminally ill young people -- the first wave, it turned out, of > the AIDS crisis. > > "I journeyed with over 200 people from diagnosis to death," > Keenan recalls. "It's an incredible resource, to know how to deal > with that absolute devastation." > > As his early work among AIDS patients indicates, Keenan's career > is far from typical. > > He earned a doctorate. He was ordained by future Cardinal Joseph > Bernardin. He took Lamaze classes with an unwed mother, and cut the > umbilical cord after attending the birth of a friend's child. > > He traveled the country, never dreaming of returning to his > native New York. > > But when his parents became ill, he moved into the midtown > Manhattan friary in September 1997. He discovered a love for the > city -- "I'd had such a culturally deprived existence" -- and a > love for his outreach programs. > > He's feeling the same way about his new job. > > Keenan has befriended the firefighters across the street at > Engine Co. 1/Ladder Co. 24. > > Although his rank is technically deputy chief, Keenan considers > himself the FDNY's oldest "probie" -- the department's term for its > rookies, probationary firefighters. > > Recently, the firehouse guys gave Keenan the traditional probie > hazing: They dumped a bucket of water on the priest from a second > floor window. > > "There could be no better replacement for Father Mychal," says > firefighter Jimmy Hosford. > > His ascension to the chaplain's job brings Keenan full circle > from his Jersey days with Judge. "He got me in the business," > Keenan says. "I used to tell him he had to live with his mistake." > > Up the block is a sign -- literally -- of Judge's new status. At > the corner of Seventh Avenue and 31st Street, a signpost designates > the block as "Father Mychal F. Judge Street." > > Keenan is certain that his predecessor would support his > decision to become chaplain. > > "I know Mike would say to me, 'Chris, don't worry about filling > anyone's sandals, particularly my own,'" Keenan says. '"Listen to > these people in such a way that you hear what they're saying, so > you know how to respond.'" > > Keenan pauses briefly, channeling his late mentor. > > "`Enjoy them,'" he says, "`as much as I did.'" > ------- > Jay Dooling (JayDooling@IrishAires.org) > Irish Aires - 90.1FM KPFT in Houston > http://IrishAires.org > Irish Aires Email List > http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Irish_Aires/emaillis.htm > > >

THE OULD PLAID SHAWL Not far from old Kinvara, in the merry month of May, When birds were singing cheerily, there came across my way, As if from out the sky above an angel chanced to fall, A little Irish cailin in an ould plaid shawl. She tripped along right joyously, a basket on her arm; And oh! her face; and oh! her grace, the soul of saint would charm: Her brown hair rippled o'er her brow, but greatest charm of all Was her modest blue eyes beaming 'neath her ould plaid shawl. I courteously saluted her -- "God save you, miss," says I; "God save you kindly, sir," said she, and shyly passed me by; Off went my heart along with her, a captive in her thrall, Imprisoned in the corner of her ould plaid shawl. Enchanted with her beauty rare, I gazed in pure delight, Till round an angle of the road she vanished from my sight; But ever since I sighing say, as I that scene recall, "The grace of God about you and your ould plaid shawl." -- Francis A. Fahy

A VISIT TO BRIDGE HOUSE (for Austin Clarke) An old house with trees and twisting river. >From here you watch Ireland grow older And calmly note down each change and failure. The poor, the church, the newly rich, The subterfuges of the state, desecration Of the beautiful, both made and nature's: Who would have thought the Muse could carry Such burdens and retain her youthful beauty? April, and the sky broods, awaiting rain. Beyond the bridge, your light invites me To a book-walled room and talk of greater days. Your gentle voice escorts me in with questions. Happily you recall the past with humorous talk Of Yeats, Russell, Moore and others gone away, All imaged in poses, phrases that slide One into another till past and present are one. Over tea the room recedes to taller talk Of what someone said then -- or when? -- you turn And ask you wife, who tells you definitely, gently. "Well, anyway, he said to me..." you begin again. I think of how your talk and writing differ, The one so soft, dissolving scene into scene; The other clear, concise, alive with light Of Ireland on her most vagrant summer days. I think of your art of giving life to language: >From graft with older wood a strong new tree. A gift like your kingfisher, "seldom seen," Its bright blue arrowing from present to future. Reminded of time, I rise to leave; you stop Reluctantly, though such talk must tire. You come to the door, invite me again, wave And return to living these your youngest years. -- Richard Weber (born 1932)

O YOU AMONG WOMEN When pails empty the last brightness Of the well, at twilight-time, And you are there among women -- O mouth of silence, Will you come to me, when I sign, To the far green wood, that fences A lake inlaid with light? To be there, O, lost in each other, While day melts in airy water, And the drake-headed pike -- a shade In the waves' pale stir! For love is there, under the breath, As a coy star is there in the quiet Of the wood's blue eye. -- F. R. Higgins ( 1896-1941)

On another list, but too important not to share -- > Irish Examiner > > 27/07/02 > > More than 250 families of WTC disaster to visit Ireland > > By Seán McCárthaigh > > MORE than 250 families of police and fire officers killed in the > September 11 terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Centre are > due to arrive in Ireland for a special holiday this year. > > The first beneficiaries of the US-Ireland Alliance, Innisfree > project landed in Dublin yesterday to personally thank members of > the police and fire brigade in Ireland for supporting the > initiative. > > New York widow, Sheila Langone, lost her two sons in the terrorist > attack which killed more than 3,000 people. > > The bodies of police officer, Peter Langone (41) and his > firefighter brother, Thomas (39) were never recovered from the > collapsed remains of the Twin Towers at Ground Zero. > > Ms Langone, whose parents originally come from Kerry, was > accompanied on her first visit to Ireland in almost 20 years by her > daughter, Rosemarie. > > Yesterday, they presented Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne and > Assistant Fire Chief Hugh O'Neill with respective badges from the > New York Police and Fire Department at a special function in > Dublin. > > Both women also spoke movingly about the trauma of the past year. > > "It has been particularly hard for my two sons' wives and their > four children," said Sheila, who admitted she had only visited > Ground Zero once since the attack. > > "I couldn't go there when it was still smouldering. My imagination > did enough for me," she added. > > They also spoke warmly about the reaction and support of friends, > neighbours and complete strangers. > > "It has been the greatest outpouring of love and compassion we have > ever known." > > Both women also expressed disappointment at recent suggestions put > forward for the redevelopment of the Ground Zero site. They > described the various proposals as "dry, dull and ugly." > > The Langones will travel to Waterford, Cork and Kenmare later this > week as part of their holiday. > > The Irish Hotels Federation has arranged accommodation for all the > visitors, while the Car Rental Council of Ireland is offering free > car rentals to the families. > > The Garda Síochana in association with their colleagues in the PSNI > have raised $232,000, which mostly go towards the cost of airline > tickets, while further funds to the Innisfree project have also > been contributed by the Fire Brigade Services. > > Donations can be made to the Innisfree Project at the Bank of > Ireland, Lwr Baggot St, Dublin 2. Sorting code: 90-14-90 A/c No: > 40384731. > > ****************************************** > > >