UPDATE MARCH 2, 2012: The Irish Mission at Watson House Project intends to use the historical Mission premises for the permanent exhibition of Irish women’s emigration, a center to study the records which we plan to digitize, a family research center and a space for a regular series of symposia on Irish immigration and Battery Park area heritage. The exhibit was opened on … [Read more...] about The Mission Girls
History Archives
1969: A Crazy Year for Irish America
It is fitting that the 1969 Nobel Prize for literature went to the Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. After all, in works such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame, Beckett alternated between tragedy and comedy, drama and farce. The same could be said about 1969. It has now been 40 years since that eventful year which gave us Woodstock, the moon landing, the Manson … [Read more...] about 1969: A Crazy Year for Irish America
International Relief Efforts During the Famine
The Irish government designated 17 May 2009 as the first National Famine Memorial Day. On that day, Irish people throughout the world remembered and honored the victims of Ireland’s Great Hunger – which to this day remains one of the most lethal famines of the modern era. Out of a population of eight-and-a-half million, over one million people died, and approximately two … [Read more...] about International Relief Efforts During the Famine
The Human Cry: An Appreciation of Francis Bacon
If, in 1964, you were to have asked me which two things excited me most, aside of course from ‘The Siren Call of Sex’ as the poet Philip Larkin put it, I would have answered, the Ronettes and the paintings of Francis Bacon. Oh, and the fact that I was leaving Hull College of Art intent on a life of painting, so three things. The first Francis Bacon paintings I saw were in … [Read more...] about The Human Cry: An Appreciation of Francis Bacon
The Irish in Early Baseball
By David L. Fleitz, Contributor
More than two dozen sons of Irish immigrants, who played in the 1880-1920 period, are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Many other great Irish players have made their mark on the game as well. The Irish potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s was probably the greatest human tragedy of the 19th century. The famine sparked a massive wave of emigration to … [Read more...] about The Irish in Early Baseball