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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Photo Album: Reaching For The Sky
Who could guess the financial disaster brewing in New York City, 1929, when my father, Mick Connolly gathered a few friends on his tenement roof to capture the joy of a baptismal celebration several floors below. The third of his seven children, Mary Elizabeth, was being feted with a large gathering at East 97th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan after a May ceremony held … [Read more...] about Photo Album: Reaching For The Sky
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Home at Last
We lost my mother, Mary Ellen Smith, née O'Connor last April, 2002. She was 86 years old. She emigrated from Ireland in 1929 when she was almost 14 years old from the Derries, Co. Mayo, a small village near Ballinrobe. At that time she came to the States with her older brothers James and Pat, 15 and 16 respectively.
Mom settled in with her mother's sister Aunt Mary Weimer, née … [Read more...] about Photo Album:
Home at Last
Photo Album: All in the Family
1972: The Noone Family, Brooklyn. Little did Luke Noone and Mary Ellen Doherty dream when they left Ireland that they would leave a legacy of five children, 20 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren – a total of 55 good-looking, God-fearing Narrowbacks (as Luke often referred to his family). Luke emigrated from Curramaeigh, Kilkerrin, Co. Galway in 1922 at 20 years of … [Read more...] about Photo Album: All in the Family
Photo Album: From the USA to Ireland
This passport picture of Peter Dolan and his son Andrew was taken in 1924 and was used when Peter took his then eleven-year-old son from Chicago to Ireland to be raised in what must have been at the time a rare incidence of emigration from the USA to Ireland. Dolan had been born in Croghan, Co. Roscommon in 1867. He emigrated to the USA around 1889 via Canada, moved to Chicago … [Read more...] about Photo Album: From the USA to Ireland