Irish America

Irish America

History Archives

Canada Recognizes Irish Famine Memorial

By Michael Quigley

May/June 1996

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The Irish in Canada have won a major victory over the Canadian Government on how the national historic site at Grosse Ile should be developed. The small island in the St. Lawrence River, 48 kilometers downstream from Quebec City, once served as a quarantine station, and is the burial site of thousands of Irish immigrants who died of cholera in 1832, and of typhus, ship fever, … [Read more...] about Canada Recognizes Irish Famine Memorial

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield
Found her Voice in Ireland

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In Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield: The Abolitionist "Black Swan", Professor Christine Kinealy (Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute, Quinnipiac University) shares the inspiring story of a female Black Abolitionist who became a singing sensation and found her voice on tour in Famine era Ireland. Born into slavery, Elizabeth became known in her lifetime as the Black Swan: she broke … [Read more...] about

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield
Found her Voice in Ireland

Remembering Alice James

By Fernando G. Carneiro

September 1992

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When William of Albany, as he came to be known, left County Cavan in 1789 in search of the American dream, he could never fathom that his grandsons would become America's foremost novelist and philosopher respectively. But aside from Henry and William James, this extraordinary clan had in its midst an equal and perhaps a tad superior (as claimed by a majority of Jamesian … [Read more...] about Remembering Alice James

Angel of the Camps

By Kathleen Kellogg

September 1992

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In 1867, the two young Cashman sisters sailed from Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, to America and took the newly completed transcontinental railroad to San Francisco. With the shortage of women on the frontier, these two beautiful Irish girls were expected to be the center of masculine attention, and that marriage and family would soon follow. One of the sisters soon fell in … [Read more...] about Angel of the Camps

Patrick Ronayne Cleburne: The Stonewall Jackson of the West

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History has largely forgotten Patrick Ronayne Cleburne. Perhaps this is not surprising. Like many Irishmen throughout history, he fought on the losing side of a foreign war and, as we know, history is written by the victors. However, since Americans are presently given to Civil War retrospectives, it is fitting that we remember one of the Confederacy's greatest military … [Read more...] about Patrick Ronayne Cleburne: The Stonewall Jackson of the West