Irish America
Irish America
Annie Burke shares memories of how her father, Jim Burke, helped her overcome childhood respiratory illness. My son, Jim, has been after me to write down some of the remembrances of my father I’ve shared with him over the years. Before it’s too late, I’m sure he’s thinking. He keeps referring to an old, faded photograph of a group of refinery workers. It’s one of the few I … [Read more...] about Sea Voyages With Father
My grandfather John Bernard “Barney” Hynes and his brother, Thomas J. Hynes emigrated in their early teens from Lochrea, Galway, Ireland to Boston, Massachusetts in 1875. They were children of the famine – sent to America by their parents because there was no future for them in Ireland. Barney got a job with the Elevated Railroad Company, and Tom went to Harvard where he spent … [Read more...] about family album | The Road to Bright City
Chicken today, feathers tomorrow. That’s how my mother described life with my father, James McQuilan Stewart, a Belfast-born charmer whose love of literature led to my career as an advertising writer. In this 1923 photo, he looks every inch the winner. He arrived in New York in the early 1920s, bringing with him an excellent head for figures, a great sense of humor and the … [Read more...] about Chicken Today, Feathers Tomorrow
When photographer Dorothea Lange, best known for her haunting series of images from the Depression era, chose Ireland as her subject in the 1950s, she was not very happy with the way the finished product was presented in Life magazine. She was, however, deeply pleased with the way her photographic series portrayed the people and the land of Ireland. Lange had put pressure on … [Read more...] about Dorothea Lange’s Ireland
In this photograph taken in 1925, my mother Kathleen (far left), her mother and father Sam and Ellen Bell, and 10 other siblings pose as they leave their home in Crossgar, County Down. They journeyed to the United States and settled in Chicago, where, after only four years, my granddad died, leaving Grandma Ellen to raise a family of 11. Ellen was a woman of tremendous faith … [Read more...] about Photo Album: “Give Me a Wee Step”
