Irish America

August September 2010 Issue

Corner of Ireland in America: Mt. Holly, North Carolina

By Joe Dougherty, Contributor
August / September 2010

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  In a time long forgotten, six Irish families came to the foothills of North Carolina. The men were miners and they came to work the gold mines on the banks of the Catawba River near what is now the town of Mt. Holly in Gaston County. The families, four headed by the Lonergan brothers, the other two being the Cahills and the Duffeys, came from Cork, Dublin and Tipperary … [Read more...] about Corner of Ireland in America: Mt. Holly, North Carolina

The Mighty Quinn

By Niall O'Dowd, Publisher
August / September 2010

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 The remarkable Quinn Bradlee has a new memoir that offers a moving account of living with disabilities. How do you make your mark when your parents, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, are among the most famous  figures in Washington lore and you have been born with a significant disability that makes many basic things in life difficult? You surpass them with a tale so full of … [Read more...] about The Mighty Quinn

The Legacy of Church-run Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland

By Aliah O'Neill, Contributor
August / September 2010

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In the wake of the Ryan and Murphy reports*, both released in 2009, often the memories of the children, women and workers involved have taken a sideline to the question of who is to blame for systemic abuse. But while the Irish public attempts to heal from this broken past and demand justice, more stories are on the verge of disappearance: those of the unknown women and babies … [Read more...] about The Legacy of Church-run Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland

The Pioneer of Wall Street: John J. Kiernan

By Aliah O'Neill, Contributor
August / September 2010

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All but forgotten today, John J. Kiernan, a pioneer in the financial news industry and inventor of ticker tape news, yields only a handful of hits in a search of the New York Times archives. But in his day, Kiernan became one of the most influential and wealthy men on Wall Street, giving Charles Dow and Edward Jones, founders of The Wall Street Journal, their start at his news … [Read more...] about The Pioneer of Wall Street: John J. Kiernan

Butte: Montana’s Irish Mining Town

By Kara Rota, Contributor
August / September 2010

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Many of the 1.8 million Irish who emigrated to Canada and the U.S. between 1845 and 1855 found employment in the dangerous but lucrative mines that played a vital role in building American industry. A new documentary, Butte, America, shows how over the following decades, the American Industrial Revolution swallowed entire families who lived in mining  communities, as the often … [Read more...] about Butte: Montana’s Irish Mining Town