Hello Listers, I was wondering if anyone knew what an/the “American-Irish” newspaper was? I found a transcription of interest on the following page - and was wondering if the death would have occurred in America, or in Ireland. Perhaps it was to inform family and friends in America. Would the paper have been published in America or Ireland? The death transcriptions seem to be for all over Ireland, but I also noticed other places eg San Francisco. <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyirish/IRISH%20DEATHS%201887.html> Thank you for any comments, Estelle (in Australia) _________________________________________________________________ Get the latest news, goss and sport Make ninemsn your homepage! http://windowslive.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=813730

I believe this should be "The Irish-American" newspaper, which was published weekly in New York City between 1849 and 1915. The webpage Estelle referred to in her email can be reached from the main page at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyirish/Index%20of%20American%20Irish%20Newspaper.html That page has a short description of "The Irish-American" newspaper and implies that all the links on that page contain material from that newspaper, including the page Estelle found - despite the confusing fact that on several of those pages, the name "American Irish" is used! The newspaper's title naturally gives rise to a little confusion, since there were many generically Irish American newspapers in the US (for example, The Boston Pilot) - newspapers aimed at the Irish living in "America" (the US usually). But this particular newspaper was called *The* Irish-American and was published in New York City. Patrick Lynch (b. 1811 Co. Kilkenny, Ireland) was the founder of "The Irish-American". When he died in 1857, his step-son Patrick J. Meehan (b. 1831 Co. Limerick, Ireland) took over as editor. Upon his death in 1906, he was succeeded by his son Thomas F. Meehan (b. 1854 Brooklyn, New York, USA), who ended publication of the newspaper in 1915 and went on to other publishing jobs. The papers of Thomas F. Meehan are at Georgetown University. There is a brief history of the newspaper and a description of Meehan at http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/cl213.htm. Links there have more information about the contents of the Meehan collection at Georgetown. "The Irish-American" newspaper is also mentioned in an article about Catholic newspapers in the US at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11692a.htm. That article concentrates on Catholic newspapers in the US and has a brief history of them. Other Irish American newspapers are also mentioned in that article (search for the word Irish on that page). "The Irish-American" newspaper itself is on microfilm at several repositories in the US. The last time I checked, it was at the New York Public Library (19 reels), Villanova University (Philadelphia area - 4 reels), Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia) and the New York State Library (which might offer interlibrary loan). This is certainly not a complete list. The newspaper's name again causes problems - it is a hard search term to use because the words "Irish American" are so ubiquitous. (I often search on Meehan or Lynch also, but there are still difficulties.) Earlier this year, I made a post to the Galway list (see http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IRL-GALWAY/2009-03/1236015561) about the Kentucky Irish American newspaper (published in Louisville KY). In that post, I included some ideas for locating microfilm copies of local Irish American newspapers. Quite a few Irish American newspapers were published in the US, especially in the latter half of the 1800s and early 1900s. Some of them had wide circulation among the Irish in the US, and perhaps outside the US - way beyond the locations where they were published. So don't think an Irish American newspaper published in New York City has nothing in it about your ancestors who lived in other places (like Chicago or California, or even Australia). These papers published obituaries of people who died in Ireland - usually prominent people or relatives of people who were prominent locally, even though the connection might not be stated. Many Irish American newspapers also carried ads placed by people looking for their relatives or friends who had emigrated to the US - often years before the ad appeared. These ads were often placed by newly arrived immigrants searching for their brothers, sisters, husbands or friends with whom they had lost contact. Either they had an earlier address and did not find them in there, or they had no idea where to look in such a large country. So they placed an ad in one of the Irish American newspapers that had national circulation. One of my relatives did this, and in a census a year later, I find the two families (the seeker and the "lost" family) living next to each other. So I have proof that the ads actually worked! Some people on the Tipperary list are probably familiar with the "Search for Missing Friends" series of books (now online) that index the "Information Wanted" ads that appeared in the Boston Pilot (another Irish American newspaper). Similar ads from the New York based newspaper "The Irish-American" are indexed in the book "Irish Relatives and Friends" (comp. Laura Murphy DeGrazia & Diane Fitzpatrick Haberstroh). Those same compilers covered ads puslished between 1825 and 1844 in "The Truth Teller" (another New York based Irish American newspaper - New York's first Catholic newspaper) in their book "Voices of the Irish Immigrant" (2005). The latter book by DeGrazia and Haberstroh also has an interesting introduction that includes background about "The Truth Teller" and its founders - William Eusebius Andrews, George Pardow and William Denman. Ads from all these sources often include former place of residence in Ireland, approximate year of emigration and sometimes name of ship and last known address in the US. Often, Irish booksellers in an area with a large Irish population might serve as contact for the person placing the ad (they also sold the paper and forwarded ads for publication to the newspaper's office). A relative of mine who lived in Paterson, New Jersey (Bernard O'Neill, originally from County Derry, Ireland) was a bookseller and is mentioned as contact person in several ads for people with connections to Paterson who appear in "Irish Relatives and Friends". Irish American newspapers featured many things of interest to the Irish community besides these ads, including news from Ireland (e.g., the death announcements Estelle found) and local news of interest to the Irish community (often Catholic, but not necessarily - the content usually depended on the focus of the founder or editor). Obits of local Irish Americans in Irish American newspapers sometimes went into much more detail than the regular local newspaper and are worth looking for, especially in large cities, where the coverage in the main papers is often limited to a single line in a "Deaths" column. I have an interest in Irish-American newspapers in the US, including their founders, publishers and editors, and a particular interest in "The Irish-American" and the Lynch and Meehan families, along with their friend and fellow publisher Patrick Martin Haverty (also based in New York City). The Meehan and Haverty families lived next door to each other in Jersey City, New Jersey - just a short ferry ride from New York City. The book "More Irish Families" by Edward MacLysaght (1960) says this about Haverty on p. 139 - "Patrick Martin Haverty (1824-1901), the Galway born American publisher of many Irish historical and musical works, who took part in the Young Ireland movement at home and in the Civil War in America, has been described as the "best known Irishman in America"." I made a post to the Tipperary list last year about several former members of the Young Ireland movement who later lived in Jersey City, New Jersey, including Meehan, Haverty and Thomas Clarke Luby. That post is at http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/IRL-TIPPERARY/2008-10/1223682266. Several of the Young Irelanders are very well known, and a lot has been written about them - particularly the famous nine who were sentenced to death, but later transported, and ended up as prominent men in the places where they eventually settled - see http://www.erinsweb.com/ww_irish_trivia1.html for a list of those and their eventual positions as generals, governors, etc. If anyone knows of other Young Irelanders who ended up in the New York-New Jersey area, I would like to hear from you. Geralyn Wood Barry in Oregon, USA Estelle Daniels wrote: > Hello Listers, > > I was wondering if anyone knew what an/the “American-Irish” newspaper was? > > I found a transcription of interest on the following page - and was wondering if the death would have occurred in America, or in Ireland. Perhaps it was to inform family and friends in America. Would the paper have been published in America or Ireland? > > > The death transcriptions seem to be for all over Ireland, but I also noticed other places eg San Francisco. > > > <http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyirish/IRISH%20DEATHS%201887.html> > > Thank you for any comments, > > Estelle > > (in Australia) >