Irish America

Window on The Past

Window on the Past:
Wall Street’s Forgotten Financial News Genius

By Paul M. McCarthy
October 6, 2017

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Etched against the burgeoning lower Manhattan skyline, a lone figure rowed his tiny skiff toward the white-capped inner port. This was no fitness buff; his dark suit and bowler hat rose and dipped rhythmically from one ship to another, visits to each brief and businesslike. The year was 1868. The solitary oarsman was John J. Kiernan, an innovative pioneer in the field of … [Read more...] about Window on the Past:
Wall Street’s Forgotten Financial News Genius

Window on the Past:
The Georgia Healys

By Ray Cavanaugh, Contributor
June / July 2017

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In antebellum Georgia, the Healy children, born legal slaves to an Irish immigrant father and his black common-law wife, had to be smuggled out of the state to avoid being sold into slavery. Several would go on to become some of the first mixed-race high-ranking members of the Catholic Church. Nineteenth century Georgia saw a remarkable phenomenon called the Healy family. The … [Read more...] about Window on the Past:
The Georgia Healys

Window on the Past: Victoria
& the Battering Ram (Photos)

By Christine Kinealy, Contributor

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Sean Sexton’s photographic archive, considered the finest privately-held collection of Irish photographs in the world, provide a poignant photo-history of evictions in the final decades of the 19th century. These images created a wave of sympathy for Irish tenants and embarrassed the British government into making legislative changes.  In 1900, Queen Victoria visited Ireland … [Read more...] about Window on the Past: Victoria
& the Battering Ram (Photos)

A Window on the Past

By Katherine Hartnett, Editorial AssistantDecember / January 2008

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This book is lovingly dedicated to my son, Max George, whose great-grand-father Edward Conway immigrated to America in 1900 at the age of 18. Arriving at Ellis Island from Ballina, Ireland, he had two dollars in his pocket and listed his occupation as “laborer.” By 1915, he was already living the American dream – he had a family, owned a home, and in one photo, a derby hat sits … [Read more...] about A Window on the Past

Window on the Past

By Yvonne Moran, Contributor
April / May 2001

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A step into the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in Manhattan is a step back in time. Housed at 97 Orchard Street, one of the first tenement buildings in New York City, the museum is the only one of its kind in the United States. It showcases the ordinary lives of four immigrant families who lived in the building at various times. And the next family to "move into the … [Read more...] about Window on the Past