This photograph of my grandmother Ella Theresa Shea was taken in 1880 when she was 14 years old. She was crowned the Queen of the May at the traditional May Day Festival in newly-opened Golden Gate Park. Ella was born in San Francisco on May 18, 1866, the second of nine children, to James Shea (born James Sheahy), from Barlogue Lough Hyne, Co. Cork, and Anna Shipsey of Cape … [Read more...] about Photo Album: The Queen of the May
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The Sporting Life
From King Kelly to Mark McGuire, Ron Kaplan traces the Irish influence in baseball. Irish ballplayers have helped to shape baseball ever since the game took its first foundering steps on the playing fields of New York and New Jersey over 150 years ago. Their impact is still felt. While no official organ of the game keeps records of ethnicity, one only has to glance through … [Read more...] about The Sporting Life
Forever Hamill
Pete Hamill, not unlike Cormac, the hero of his novel Forever, lives in the Five Points area of downtown Manhattan where the streets teem with immigrants just as they did back in the founding days of the city when Hamill's hero emigrates from Northern Ireland. (On the day of our interview Hamill had yet to see Gangs of New York which is also set in the Five Points -- see … [Read more...] about Forever Hamill
The Journey to America
This excerpt from Pete Hamill's novel Forever takes place aboard a ship bound for New York. ℘℘℘ Holding a lantern, Mr. Partridge showed Cormac the next deck, and for the first time he saw the deck of the emigrants. They lived in four rows of bunks hammered together from rough plank, with no bedding supplied by the ship, jackets serving as pillows, coats as blankets. All slept … [Read more...] about The Journey to America
First Word: The Hands That Built America
"Oh my love, it's a long way we've come." – U2, "The Hands That Built America" ℘℘℘ I'm glad I read Pete Hamill's book Forever before I saw the movie Gangs of New York. While I enjoyed the movie, the real story of the Five Points and the beginnings of New York City, which really was the foundation of what America was to become, is far more interesting. Hamill in his … [Read more...] about First Word: The Hands That Built America