Irish America

Irish America

Irish immigration

Canada Recognizes Irish Famine Memorial

By Michael Quigley

May/June 1996

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The Irish in Canada have won a major victory over the Canadian Government on how the national historic site at Grosse Ile should be developed. The small island in the St. Lawrence River, 48 kilometers downstream from Quebec City, once served as a quarantine station, and is the burial site of thousands of Irish immigrants who died of cholera in 1832, and of typhus, ship fever, … [Read more...] about Canada Recognizes Irish Famine Memorial

The Hands that Built America

By Kara Rota
June / July 2010

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Between 1845 and 1855, some 1.8 million left Ireland for Canada and the United States. Those who were lucky enough to survive the brutal journey to the New World were motivated by the hope of new possibilities, including the promise of employment. Ten thousand Micks They swung their picks To build the new canal But the choleray was stronger’n they And killed ’em all … [Read more...] about The Hands that Built America

A Postcard from Prince Edward Island

By Patricia Harty, Editor-in-Chief
October / November 2004

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The unique Irish / Scottish heritage of PEI, off the coast of Nova Scotia, is preserved in music and dance and in the faces of the people. ℘℘℘ "An always but never known place" is how Australian writer Thomas Keneally described his first visit to Ireland. That about describes how I felt a few hours after landing on Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada's smallest province (about … [Read more...] about A Postcard from Prince Edward Island

Pittsburgh Couple Finds Ancestors Are in the Same Boat

By Marian Betancourt, Contributor
October / November 2003

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On their first date ten years ago in a French restaurant in Pittsburgh, John Kudlik and Susan Showalter, both part Irish, discovered they had something in common. John, a historian, is the great-great-grandson of Daniel Dowd, a farmer who came to America on the Jeanie Johnston in 1849. When he told Susan his family was from a town in Country Kerry called Ballymacelligot, she … [Read more...] about Pittsburgh Couple Finds Ancestors Are in the Same Boat

The Fading of
The Green at NYPD

By Marian Betancourt, Contributor
August / September 2003

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"The Irish were part of the problem and part of the solution," said former New York cop and current college professor Hugh O'Rourke, PhD. O'Rourke spoke at the First Annual Irish Heritage Day at the New York City Police Museum, a literal slip of a building in lower Manhattan in late April. The official New York police department was set up in 1845. Coincidentally, 1845 was … [Read more...] about The Fading of
The Green at NYPD