Sweater Patterns & Aran Yarns

On the western shore of Ireland across Galway Bay, tales from the Árainn Isles drift and bobble on the Atlantic like an empty currach. For centuries those tarred wooden vessels, about eighteen and a half feet long, have carried fishermen out to sea and back, but not always as planned. On occasions of noticeable weather and unpredictable seas, fishing expeditions sometimes overturned, launching true and tragic stories into the wild ocean waves. Over the years, these tales of drownings have flowed in ever-widening circles from the three small Aran Islands until pooling among the current tide of tourists.

With native islanders descending from an unrecorded era, the Aran women may have begun the art of knitting before the Book of Kells began to circulate. Whether then or later, they looked to seafaring symbols, such as the weave of a fishing basket filled with abundant life from the sea.

Some say the well-known cable knit design signifies the fisherman’s ropes along with the ongoing desire to pull the wearer safely back to shore. Others recognize the patterns as coming from the earth in a burst of blackberries or the zigzag of a bird’s wing or the honeycomb of a bee. Perhaps some on the island had hopes for success and treasures as expressed in designs of diamonds, while others fashioned a motif of moss to symbolize the outcroppings of vegetation among the windswept rocks.
Indeed, unruly winds and water buffeted parts of the craggy coastline into the smoothness of marble.

Although remarkably beautiful, such terrain does not bode well as pastureland, and so the islanders built up the soil with seaweed and compost to produce grassy patches where their small flocks of sheep could graze. Corn began to grow in the up-built soil, and wildflowers sprang forth in hundreds of species from the wild Burnet Rose to the Blue Moor-grasses.
Into this harsh but amazingly serene scene came centuries of saints and seekers. Monasteries cropped up, and stone churches flourished. Soon, the women incorporated these religious symbols into their knitting along with stitches to represent the Trinity. Some caught symbolic threads further back than Christianity, going to the biblical roots of the Tree of Life as found in the book of Genesis. Others fashioned a ladder stitch reminiscent of the Hebrew patriarch, Jacob, who climbed toward heaven accompanied by angels. Some even say the unique sweaters began, not for the local fishermen, but as fine cardigans or pullovers knitted by mothers and grandmothers for an angelic child’s First Communion.
Characteristically though, Aran sweaters can be known by the wool. Without bleaching or scouring away the natural oils, the women would set their wooden wheels to spinning the lanolin-soaked wool into coarse yarn to be knitted into warm socks and, later, water-repellant sweaters. The tightly twisted yarn gave more insulation, heft, and pattern than hand-loomed garments, and surely no factory-made sweater could compare with the quality and intricacies knitted into 100,000 hand-made stitches.
Tradition also has it that the younger women handcrafted matchless designs for their sweethearts to approve and wear on their wedding day. For those boxy sweaters, the sleeve length came slightly shorter than usual to avoid getting the heavy wool wet around the wrists when the young man went out to sea. And, yes, many say that each fisherman’s family wove the yarn into an intricate means of identification until the stories bloomed like wildflowers in the minds of novelists, poets, and playwrights. And the shopkeepers came, and the tourists came, and the exporters came, spinning their fanciful yarns.
If truth be told, the tale might lose a bit of embellishment when reduced to the plainness of poverty that gave rise to a highly prized and marketable product. In the wake of government motions and economic trends, the cottage industry reportedly began in the late 19th century when mainlanders set up schools to teach the islanders new patterns of income. By the 20th century, the women had begun to switch their favorite stitches from hand-knitted socks to sweaters, but they still handled the yarn themselves until most of the local wheels ceased spinning in the 1970’s.
Nevertheless, the Aran women passed on patterns with designs as individualized and lively as their own family stories. Continuously, they adapted their work, too, as often done in hard times or war years when metal could not be spared for needles. Living on the windswept islands, eking vegetables from the scanty soil, the islanders had always known how to make do, and so the women knitted with whatever they found at hand. Sometimes they fashioned needles from bicycle spokes or goose quills or willow rods, occasionally dropping stitches as they knitted a new sock or fishing cap or sweater.
As for unraveling the mystery of identifiable family patterns, the famous Aran sweaters may have been fabricated from stories, and not the other way around. Yet the heritage still proves true. Does it matter that part of a history began less than a half-century ago? And what historical record consists only of aged customs and dry but provable facts? In the telling, most people drop a detail or two, carefully inserting others with pride and distinctive patterns as tightly woven and beautiful as any good Irish yarn.

Mary Sayler

The Battle of the Crater

On July 30, 1864, four tons of dynamite exploded beneath the Confederate trenches outside Petersburg, Virginia. It had been placed there by a team of Irish coal miners serving in a Pennsylvania regiment. The audacious plan blew a massive hole in the rebel line, opening the way for a Union charge that could very well end the war.  From this auspicious start, however, the ensuing Battle of the Crater turned into a stunning Union defeat.

The Battle of the Crater was the product of mounting fear and anxiety in the Union in the summer of 1864.  Despite the fact that the Union Army was now in capable hands, with Gen. William T. Sherman closing in on Atlanta and Grant driving Lee’s army south of Richmond to Petersburg, Union morale was sagging.  The war was now more than three years old and victory seemed no closer than it had in 1861.  And the carnage – Grant’s aggressive drive against Lee had produced an astonishing 50,000 Union casualties.  Yet despite losing 30,000 men, Lee’s army was still intact.  Indeed, part of it was still on the move.  In early July a detachment of Confederate cavalry under Jubel Early struck terror into the hearts of northerners when it made a surprise sprint to the north, coming within five miles of the White House before turning back.
So as the massive armies of Lee and Grant stood opposite each other, hunkered down in miles of trenches outside Petersburg, there was a palpable sense of urgency in the air.  The time had come, many believed, for bold action.  The result was one of the most outlandish military maneuvers of the war.
It began when Col. Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania overheard some of his men declare, “We could blow that damn [Confederate] fort out of existence if we could run a mine shaft under it.”  This was no idle boast, for these men – mostly Irish and Irish American – were coal miners from Skuylkill County.  Pleasants, an engineer, considered the idea.  With the Confederates so heavily entrenched outside Petersburg, the only options were suicidal frontal assaults or a long, agonizing siege that might last more than a year.  If his men could blow a hole in the rebel line, the Union army could pour through before the Confederates knew what hit them.  Petersburg would fall, Lee’s army would be surrounded, and the war would be over.
General Ambrose Burnside, in command of the IX Corps which included the 48th Pennsylvania, found the idea irresistible.  It offered him a chance for personal redemption, since he had presided over the devastating Union defeat at Fredricksburg in late 1862.  With the strike of a single match, he might go from goat to hero.
With approval from his superiors, Gen. George Meade and Gen. Grant (both, incidentally, of Ulster stock), work began on June 25.  The miners were left to their own devices, since the Army’s engineers dismissed the project as impossible.  They managed to scrounge up spare lumber and made their own tools.  In less than a month they dug a 511-foot tunnel (with two 40-foot side galleries) the led directly beneath the Confederate line.   One potential hitch – ventilation – was solved when they rigged up a coal mine vent system that worked perfectly.  Lastly came the explosives – four tons of them.
While the Pennsylvania miners dug their tunnel, a regiment of African American soldiers trained to lead the assault.  They were eager to make a good showing, both to disprove white fears that blacks made poor soldiers and to play a role in the defeat of the slave South.
Everything was in order until the night before the scheduled detonation.  At the last minute, Grant and Meade overruled Burnside’s decision to use black soldiers.  They feared charges of racism that would come if the operation failed and the black troops became cannon fodder.  Unnerved by the sudden change in plans, Burnside lost his zeal.  He subsequently assigned a regiment of exhausted troops commanded by an officer known for drunkenness and incompetence to lead the charge.
At 4:30 a.m. a massive explosion erupted under the Confederate line, “bursting like a volcano at the feet of the men,” one officer later recalled.  It hurled 100,000 cubic feet of earth into the air, leaving behind a hole 170 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep.  Nearly 300 Confederate soldiers were killed, while hundreds more fled in confused panic.  The Pennsylvania coal miners had done their job and it seemed for a moment that Petersburg would fall within the day.
It was an extraordinary sight to behold – so much so that the Union soldiers hesitated at first, transfixed by the scene.  When they finally pushed ahead, they headed into the crater instead of around it, and soon became snarled in a leaderless, chaotic mass.  For Confederate soldiers now returning to their positions, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.  By day’s end more than 4,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured.
Despite the flawless work of the Pennsylvania miners, the great Union victory and Burnside’s redemption were not to be (he was relieved of his command).  “It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war,” wrote a distressed Ulysses Grant to a colleague.  “Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have.”  He wouldn’t see it again and instead had to settle in for an eight-month siege of Petersburg.  It ultimately led to victory, but it left Grant ample time to ponder one of the great “what ifs” of the epic conflict between the states.

By Edward T. O’Donnell

William T. McGonagall

William T. McGonagall was born in Edinburgh in 1825. This Scotsman of Irish descent led a rather routine existence as a mill worker until 1877 – the year of his epiphany, when he experienced “the most startling incident in [his] life” and “discovered [himself] to be a poet.”
Rev. George Gilfillan was the recipient of McGonagall’s debut, “An Address to the Reverend.” Having read the offering, the holy man reportedly said, “Shakespeare never wrote anything like this.”
This quip proved rather accurate commentary, for McGonagall would attain distinction due to a consistently vivid display of distorted rhythm, inept word choice, butchered syntax, and appalling levels of effusion.
About two-hundred McGonagall compositions are on record; the most enduring is “The Tay Bridge Disaster,” a poem commemorating the collapse of the Tay Rail Bridge, in which ninety train passengers perished:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

There was a German poet, Theodor Fontane, who tried to piggyback on the Scottish catastrophe. But no amount of noble sentiment could ever contend with McGonagall’s couplet:

And the cry rang out all round the town,
Good heavens! The Tay Bridge has blown down.

Years later, many readers daunted by ultra-sophisticated modernist verse would find something refreshing in McGonagall’s clumsy directness. The poet also had perseverance and, when the fallen bridge was fully replaced, he was right alongside the construction crew to memorialize the event. “An Address to the New Tay Bridge” sings praises of a structure:

strong enough all
windy storms to defy.

So many poets have dissipated their talent with liquor. As for McGonagall, he not only abstained from such poisons, but even launched one-man campaigns to curb drinking. He would enter area pubs to recite anti-alcohol poems and speeches to all misguided inebriates.
Though his impassioned rhetoric did nothing to divert one drop of booze, the patrons were said to have much enjoyed the performances. However, such enjoyment did not necessarily imply admiration, for McGonagall was frequently pelted with “eggs and vegetables.”
McGonagall’s artistry transcended the constraints of the written word. He often acted at the local Giles Theatre, where he would pay the proprietor for the honor of performing the eponymous role in Macbeth. When the scene arrived for his character’s murder, McGonagall, who had paid good money for his spotlight, would simply “refuse to die.” This absurd refusal was an ongoing crowd favorite.
In 1892, McGonagall’s ambition took him to new terrain, as he trekked sixty miles through a virulent storm to see Queen Victoria; legendary bard Alfred Lord Tennyson had just died, and McGonagall desired to personally ask Her Majesty for the distinction of Poet Laureate.
Though this effort proved unsuccessful, fortune came two years later when representatives of Burmese king Thibaw Min bestowed a “White Elephant” knighthood upon the poet. Sir McGonagall boasted of his privileged status until his passing in 1902. Dying penniless, he was sent to an unmarked grave.

By Ray Cavanaugh

John Henry Abbott

In 1944, Jack Henry Abbott entered this world on a U.S. Army base in Michigan. He was the result of a five-dollar exchange between an Irish-American G.I. and one Chinese prostitute. It was a rather unglamorous debut for young Abbott, whose hardships were only beginning. Surrendered right after birth, he was shuffled through various foster care venues. By age ten, he was spending time in detention facilities.
While incarcerated for a forgery conviction, twenty-one-year-old Abbott mortally stabbed his opponent in a brawl. Several years later, the sly inmate escaped and proceeded to embark on a bank-robbing spree. Soon overtaken by federal authorities, Abbott was hauled back to prison, where the belligerent soul was a frequent guest of solitary confinement.
Impulsive criminal though he was, Abbott also became a voracious reader and took up writing. Then came 1980; Norman Mailer was the ubiquitous figure of American letters, riding the glory of his Pulitzer-winning ‘Executioner’s Song, which profiled a convicted killer who demanded execution instead of a life-sentence.
Having somehow procured Mailer’s contact info, Abbott began sending letters to the famous writer, telling him that the ‘Executioner’s real-life protagonist was largely a poseur and that he, Abbott, could supply a more realistic account of life behind bars. Mailer was so enticed that he told the inmate to write a full-length manuscript.
The result was ‘Belly of the Beast, in which Abbott addresses topics ranging from foreign relations, to spiritual inquiry, to the cultivation of marijuana. As one would expect, he also speaks of life in a maximum-security prison – the transactions, tensions, hierarchies, grim triumphs and appalling degradations, as well as the literal and figurative opiates by which many inmates pursue an illusory escape.
Though many disagreed with Abbott’s arguments, the general opinion of his lyrical intensity ranged from stellar to riveting. Such feedback fueled Mailer’s decision to lobby for the convict’s parole, telling reporters that “culture is worth a little risk.”
Parole was granted, much to the dismay of several prison officials. Six weeks later, Abbott wanted to use the bathroom at a Manhattan café. A twenty-two-year-old waiter told him the bathroom was only for staff use. So Abbott grabbed a steak knife and sunk it into the young man’s chest. The attack was fatal.
During his brief freedom, Abbott had been the glamorous bad-boy of New York literati. It is quite possible that the café waiter was the first person to tell him no. Following a manhunt, Abbott and his terminal fury were returned to prison.
Backlash came immediately, branding Abbott as the worst sort of psychopath, one who fills his remorseless void with self-pity and indignation. The prostitute’s son had really made quite a stir, though he profited not one dime from his book, having been sued by his victim’s kin for a sum exceeding one-million times that of the 1943 transaction through which he had been conceived.
In 2001, Abbott was denied parole. The following year, having confronted the fact that he would most likely die in prison, he chose to expedite the process. His limp body was later found hanging from his own shoelace.
As sociologist Francis Glamser wrote: “Dying in prison is the ultimate confirmation of a wasted life.” One could assume Abbott realized as much, before his great escape at the end of the knotted lace. The convict’s final literary endeavor was his suicide note. Its content remains undisclosed.
Mailer continued to face widespread outrage from those who blamed him for having enabled Abbott’s slaughter of a young man. Before his death in 2007, Mailer remarked on the issue as, “another event in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about.”
As for Abbott, he had always been close-lipped on the subject of regret. He did, however, write another book, in which he somehow blamed society for his return to prison…
…When Norman Mailer said “culture is worth a little risk,” this was probably not what he had envisioned.

By Ray Cavanaugh

Irish Society Thrive In Latin America

Estancia Santa Susana Ranch. Los Cardales, Argentina

Irish emigrants have notably contributed to the development of the countries in which they settled. Through work and social integration, they have brought respect to themselves and enhanced the reputation of their homeland in almost every corner of the globe.

So it should come as no surprise that Argentina is populated with Irish descendants. In the late 19th century, estimates of 40- 50,000 Irish immigrants were in Argentina. Most of them settled in the Argentine pampas and worked primarily as shepherds and sheep-farmers.
Today in Latin America some 300,000 to 500,000 are estimated to have some Irish ancestry, most of them living in Argentina, with lesser numbers in Central America, Uruguay and Brazil. There are estimates upwards of 300,000 Argentineans who claim Irish ancestry. In a country with a population of 35 million that is, almost three per cent of the entire population.
But let’s consider the logistics and formidable obstacles of immigrating to Argentina. First was the problem to cross the Atlantic from their areas of residence in the Irish Midlands, Wexford, Clare and a few other counties in Ireland.  The emigrants would have to use a combination of coaches and carts or the Grand Canal boats to reach Dublin. From there they would have to book passage aboard a sailing ship.
Sailing ships were used up to the early 1850s and steamboats thereafter, with an average journey of six to eight weeks. Some chartered ships sailed directly from Dublin to South America, though the majority purchased passage tickets through established companies with scheduled departures from Liverpool. Tickets cost was significantly higher than the one to North America.  The cost was an annual wage of an Irish laborer, which is a reason few were able to pay their way. In fact tickets were advanced by Argentinean employers in return for work.
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean would pale in comparison to the linguistic barrier. Only a few educated Argentines spoke English and the Spanish language was almost completely unknown in Ireland.
For the newly arrived Irish immigrants the Catholic religion was an opportunity to easily adapt to the larger society. While Admiral William Brown is well known of the Irish emigrants to Argentina other Irish men and women were also extremely influential in Argentine society. Fr. Anthony Fahy (1805-1871) worked successfully to isolate his flock and to maintain their identity as English-speaking Catholics, distinct from the native parishioners. It should be noted that many Protestant Irish settlers preferred to join the Presbyterian congregation and thus followed their pastors.
There is a proud and active Irish community in Argentina, writes Dick and Lois Miner fresh back from a visit there. They were greeted and entertained at the Estancia Santa Susana, a ranch run by the descendants of Francisco Kelly. The ranch name is homage to his wife, Susana Caffrey. The working ranch occupies 1200 acres and is mainly dedicated to agricultural activities and the raising of horses.

Estancia Santa Susana occupies 2965 acres in the district of Campana, Buenos Aires province near the town of Los Cardales. Visitors are welcomed to the ranch by “gauchos” and “paisanas” (countrymen and women.)
The distinctive seal of Estancia Santa Susana is a guided tour of the Spanish-colonial style compound. After touring the museums (picture bottom left) a bell tolls announcing the day’s meal at banquet facilities (Picture center left.) Grills prepare different cuts of Argentine meat and may be observed, while roasting over a wood fire.

Irish Diaspora in South America

‘Diaspora’ (from the Greek word ‘to scatter’) is defined as any group migration or flight from a country or region that has been dispersed outside its traditional homeland. The phrase is more widely used to describe Irish emigrants and their descendants around the world.
The dark side to this story is most he time the Diaspora is forced as with the Irish in the 17th century, when Oliver Cromwell sent many Irish rebels into slavery in Caribbean tobacco plantations. Many of the Wild Geese who had gone to Spain continued on to its colonies in South America. In the 1820’s they helped liberate the continent.
According to scholars the term ‘Irish Diaspora’ first appears in a 1954 book ‘The Vanishing Irish.’ It wasn’t until a more recent address by President Mary Robinson, in her 1995 address to the Joint Houses of the Oireachtas. Reaching out to the 70 million people worldwide that claim Irish descent she said “The men and women of our Diaspora represent not simply a series of departures and losses. They remain, even while absent, a precious reflection of our own growth and change, a precious reminder of the many strands of identity which compose our story.”

The Ford-McDonnell Wedding

On July 13, 1940, two of Irish America’s most powerful families – the Fords and the McDonnells – were joined through marriage.  Henry Ford II, grandson of the fabled automaker Henry Ford, was to marry Anne McDonnell, daughter of Wall Street rainmaker James Francis McDonnell.  No expense would be spared in an event that came as close to a royal wedding as 20th century America would ever get.  As Stephen Birmingham wrote in his classic, Real Lace, “If it was not the wedding of the century, it certainly was the last of the great weddings in America before World War II.”
The father of the bride, James Francis McDonnell, was the son of a Famine refugee named Peter McDonnell who hailed from County Longford and arrived in New York around 1850.  The elder McDonnell turned out to be one of the fortunate ones of his generation.  He established a successful business and sent his son James Francis to Fordham.  By then the McDonnell’s were among the many thousands of Irish Americans — known disparagingly to their working-class counterparts as “lace curtain” – who were determinedly clawing their way into middle-class respectability.  When young James Francis graduated from Fordham in 1900, he headed for Wall Street.
By 1916, now a millionaire, McDonnell had his own major merger wedding.  But in that era, his marriage to Anna Murray of Brooklyn, daughter of Irish American tycoon Thomas E. Murray, commanded headlines only in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  Still, there was no denying that he’d just become a member of the FIF’s – “first Irish families.”
The Murray family into which James Francis had just married had come into its fortune by virtue of the genius of Thomas E. Murray, Sr.  He had only a few years of formal education, but was born with ambition and an extraordinary gift for mechanical invention.  A job at an electrical power company in Albany, NY led eventually to a career as one of the nation’s foremost experts in electricity and an irrepressible inventor of new machinery and parts for electrical generators.  By the time of his death, he’d registered over 1,100 patents (second only to Thomas Edison) and amassed a fortune.
James Francis McDonnell grew even more wealthy in the years following his marriage.  He and Anna built a mansion in New York and another out on Long Island at Southampton.  They also had fourteen children.
The source of Henry Ford II’s fortune needs little explanation.  He, too, was the descendant of an immigrant who fled Ireland during the Famine.  I great grandfather had settled on a farm outside Detroit.  His son, Henry, hated farming and loved mechanical things, so he headed for Detroit. There, like Thomas E. Murray, Sr., he found work as an engineer with an electric power company.  But his fascination with automobiles led him to quit and found the Ford Motor Company in 1903.  The rest, as they say, is history.
And so when it was announced to the press that the grandson of Henry Ford and granddaughter of Thomas E. Murray, Sr. were engaged to be married in the summer of 1940, it became THE story, a welcome distraction from the winds of war across the Atlantic.   For weeks leading up to the event, the press covered it like a royal wedding, devoting miles of column space to every detail of the preparations.  One of the biggest pre-wedding stories was the announcement that Henry Ford II would convert (or re-convert, as some Catholics with an eye toward history liked to point out) to Catholicism so that the wedding could take place with the full blessing of the Catholic Church.
The event took place in Southampton and more than eleven hundred of America’s most powerful and influential people – FIFs and non-FIFs alike — were invited.  Hundreds more curious onlookers stood on the sidelines trying to catch a glimpse of the new couple.  None other than Monsignor Fulton Sheen, the charismatic radio priest, performed the ceremony and in typical dramatic fashion, declared the marriage “unbreakable” (he was wrong).  The reception, on the lawn of the family estate, was a gala affair for the record books.
Unlike the James Francis McDonnell–Anna Murray wedding of 1916, this one made headlines everywhere.  A photograph of the elderly Henry Ford dancing with his new granddaughter–in-law was published in papers around the world.
What accounts for all this attention is not simply the money involved, but the fact that Irish Catholics in 1940 were beginning to enjoy an increasingly positive image in American society.  To cite just one example, Hollywood had begun to make movies that starred hero priests and patriotic Irishmen – from Boys Town (1938) and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), to Going My Way (1944), The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945) and Fighting Father Dunne (1948).  Of course, Al Smith’s presidential election campaign only twelve years earlier (and Kennedy’s campaign 20 years later) showed that not everyone was convinced. Still, the times were clearly changing.  Once seen as subversive and dangerous, the Irish were now more and more at home in America.
But the money did help, too, and the FIFs – the Kennedys, Murrays, Cuddahys, McDonnells, Farrells, and Smiths – reveled in the moment.  For if the new image of the Irish in popular culture told America that Irish Americans were wholesome, respectable, and patriotic, the McDonnell-Ford wedding announced that they were also rich and powerful.

Ed O’Donnell

George M. Cohan Pens WWI Soundtrack

On April 7, 1917, George M. Cohan scribbled fast and furious.  Ever since he’d awoken that morning to discover that Congress had declared war on Germany, he’d been hard at work on a patriotic song.  By the early afternoon the fa med song and dance man had composed another hit – “Over There” – and America had a war anthem.
George Michael Cohan was already famous by 1917.  Born in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island to parents who performed on the vaudeville circuit, he was only weeks old when he made his first appearance on stage.  Not long after he learned to  walk, Cohan joined the act that soon became known as “The Four Cohans” (including his older sister and parents).   By the 1890s they were nationally famous and commanded top billing and fees.  Young George proved a natural on stage and with the pen.  He was only 16 when he published his first song.
By the turn of the century he was writing, producing, and starring in his own musicals.  But none did very well until Cohan formed a partnership with Sam Harris.  Their first musical, “Little Johnny Jones,” opened in late 1904 and became a smash.  It featured two hit songs “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”  More hits followed, including ‘Forty Five Minutes From Broadway’ in 1906 (from the play of the same name) and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” (from the show “George Washington, Jr.”).  By 1911, the Cohan-Harris partnership was by far the most successful on Broadway.  In that year alone they had no fewer than six hit shows and owned controlling interests in seven theaters.
Cohan’s flag-waving hits made him rich and famous.  They also helped identify Irish Americans as an intensely patriotic lot.  The Irish in America were rising fast economically, socially, and politically at the turn of the century and the result was, in the words of historian William V. Shannon, a “more than life-size patriotism.”   Many non-Irish Americans might not have considered the Irish their equals, but they did admire their Americanism in an era marked by a huge influx of newer and stranger peoples from places like Italy and Russia.
Of course, this robust patriotism was not the same as jingoism.  Indeed, when World War I broke out in 1914, many Irish Americans voiced loud opposition to any U.S. intervention.  This stance reflected both an adherence to longstanding and widely shared American isolationist principles and a commitment to Irish nationalism.  The more the Kaiser took it to the British, the better the chances for Irish independence.  The failed Easter Rising of 1916 and subsequent summary execution of the leaders by the British only intensified Irish American hostility to the idea of an Anglo-American alliance.  And the American Irish were not alone in this view.  President Woodrow Wilson won re-election in 1916 on the slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War.”
Nonetheless, once the same Woodrow Wilson announced that America would join the Allies in a fight to “make the world safe for democracy,” Irish Americans (and Americans in general) threw their support behind the war effort.  Tens of thousands joined the armed forces and several became well-known heroes – Medal of Honor winner William Donovan and Fr. Francis Duffy, “the fighting priest.”
Fueling their enthusiasm and that of the nation at large was Cohan’s rousing call to arms.  It came to him in less than an hour while traveling by train from his home on Long Island to Manhattan.  “I read the war headlines and I got to thinking and humming to myself ,” he later remembered.  “Soon I was all finished with the chorus and the verse, and by the time I got to town I had a title.”
Cohan published the song immediately and days later singer Charles King helped popularize “Over There” when he delivered a stirring rendition at a Red Cross fundraiser in New York.  Soon thereafter singer Nora Bayes made a recording that marched right to the top of the charts and stayed there for seventeen weeks.  Stores found it impossible to keep their shelves stocked with recordings or sheet music.  In contrast, no one seemed much interested anymore in that popular song of 1915, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier.”
“Over there” helped to get five million Americans into uniform and countless more to fill factories, sell Liberty Bonds, and volunteer at the Red Cross. The American Expeditionary Force under Gen. John Pershing eventually arrived in Europe and helped tip the balance in favor of the Allies over the Central Powers and bring “the war to end all wars” to an end by November 1918.
Cohan continued to write songs, manage his theaters, and perform in musicals, but his star began to fade in the late 1920s.  He enjoyed a revival of sorts in the 1930s as a performer and even landed the lead in “Ah, Wilderness,” the only comedy written by that other Irish American icon of the stage, Eugene O’Neill.  In 1940, with war once again raging in Europe, Congress awarded Cohan a gold medal (NOT the Congressional Medal of Honor as is often said) for his patriotic songs.  Cohan died in 1942, but not before seeing James Cagney star in the film tribute to his career, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”  According to his friends, he loved ever flag-waving minute of it.

Edward O’Donnell

ReJoycing Bloomsday

James Joyce’s love-hate affair with Dublin was uneasy at best. His dislike for his hometown was no secret, yet Ireland’s capital often became the bones of his works. Characters played out past friendships, and it was by no accident that Ulysses’ Leopold Bloom schlepped his way through Dublin on June 16th, 1904. As it was on this very day that Joyce and his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, took their first walk to the village of Ringsend. But was it fate or simply coincidence that he wrote, “Today 16 of June 1924 twenty years after. Will anybody remember this date?” Little did he realize that Bloomsday would be born.

Every year, cities from Los Angeles to Tokyo play host to Joyce’s work, but nowhere are the festivities more lively than in Dublin itself. Fans in Edwardian dress spread about the city in search of nutty gizzards to copycat Bloom’s breakfast and hunt out the address where he finally rolled into bed. But it wasn’t until 1954 that June 16th came to be known as Bloomsday. On the thirtieth anniversary of Ulysses’ setting, a small group of Dublin writers set out in horse-drawn cabs to retrace Leopold Blooms steps. It was an easy challenge to undertake as Joyce made no effort to rename the city’s pubs, streets, or bridges. Joyce wanted to “give picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.” It was because of this attention to detail that fans from across the world come to relive the epic story and take away with them a taste of Joyce’s Dublin.
But, in hindsight, considering the religious state of 1950’s Ireland, it is ironic that literary circles embraced the controversial novel. Ulysses was first published as a series in the American journal, The Little Review, but its publication was brought to a halt when a court banned it as obscene. No printer in America or England was willing to produce the novel and for a time it looked as if Ulysses would never see the light of day. But one year later, Joyce’s friend and American expatriate, Sylvia Beach, offered to publish his work and sell it at her bookshop, Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. On February 2nd 1922, as Joyce celebrated his fortieth birthday, the first edition of Ulysses was ready for distribution.

Outside of France, the novel remained an underground masterpiece until the US and UK lifted the bans in 1934. Curious minds found ways to bag the book while some bookstore owners, like New Yorker, Frances Steloff backed the Irish underdog. Her store, Gotham Book Mart, challenged the censors over the years and she supplied Ulysses to U.S. readers. Joyce, himself, occasionally ordered books directly from Steloff.

In Ireland, Ulysses was never officially banned but the content was met with embarrassment. For many, Joyce’s merciless depiction of Dublin life and the novel’s sexual innuendo was hard to stomach. It was as a result of this mind-set that Joyce turned his back on his homeland in 1912. At the time, his publisher, George Roberts, destroyed the entire first edition of Dubliners because of its realistic portrayals, and with it triggered the writer’s voluntary exile.

Although Joyce may have rejected Dublin, the Irish continue to celebrate him, simply because he was one of their own. They credited his brilliance by featuring him on their former ten-pound note and turned his old residence, Martello Tower into a national landmark. And since its centennial celebrations in 2004, the city has turned the festivities into a weeklong event. If you happen to be on other side of the Atlantic from June 9th it would be worth your while to join in on the Bloomsday festivities. The James Joyce Centre in North Great George’s Street runs a program of tours, readings and shows, and traditionally kicks off the festival with the re-enactment of Ulysses’ Paddy Dignam’s ‘wake’. And without a doubt, the Centre’s Bloomsday Breakfast is a highlight for fans as the Centre serves up Leopold Bloom’s breakfast of freshly roasted gizzards. But, whether it’s retracing the entire 18 miles of Bloom’s adventures or simply enjoying lunch at Joyce’s old watering hole, Davy Byrne’s pub, it is best to map out what Ulysses settings you can to choose from.

By Pat-Ann Durcan

Billy the Kid Claims His First Victim

On August 17, 1877, young William Henry McCarty became a killer and outlaw. Attacked by a barroom bully in Arizona, the seventeen-year old killed the man with his pistol and fled to nearby New Mexico where he tried to start a new life as a ranch hand. But he would soon find himself embroiled in a bitter and bloody rancher feud, a conflict that propelled him to national infamy as “Billy the Kid,” the most notorious outlaw in the west.
Billy the Kid was born William Henry McCarty in New York City to Irish immigrant parents Catherine and Michael McCarty on September 17, 1859. Like many of their fellow Irish immigrants, the McCarty’s lived in poverty in a run down tenement on the Lower East Side. When Billy’s father died soon after his birth, he and his mother headed west, eventually landing in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
There in 1873 Billy’s mother married another Irishman, a miner named William Antrim. Her death the next year from a long bout with tuberculosis hit Billy hard and set him on a downward spiral. He accompanied his step-father to a silver strike in Arizona, near a place called Globe City. His step-father alternated between abusing and ignoring Billy, leaving him to fall in with a rough crowd in the mining town. By age sixteen, Billy was known as a violent and reckless young man who possessed little regard for authority. Shortly after his arrest for stealing laundry, he set out on his own, supporting himself as a ranch hand, cattle rustler, and gambler.
Up to this point the 17-year old’s offenses were relatively minor, given the rough and lawless character of life in the 1870s southwest. But that changed one afternoon in August 1877 when Billy got into an altercation with a fellow rowdy named Frank Cahill. “Windy” Cahill was a big man—considerably larger than the slight Billy­—who delighted in taunting others. No one remembers what Billy said in response to one of the burly Irishman’s barbs, but it prompted Cahill to attack. He threw Billy to the ground and began to pummel him. Somehow Billy managed to pull his gun and fired into Cahill’s stomach. When Cahill died the next day, Billy was long gone.
Now an outlaw, he headed for New Mexico and again fell in with cattle rustlers and horse thieves. But as was common in the wilder days of the west, men like Billy were often hired by ranchers (sometimes the very ones they stole from) to protect their herds from other rustlers or rival ranchers imposing on their grazing and watering areas. Billy was hired by a wealthy English rancher named John Henry Tunstall, a man then embroiled in a bitter struggle with an Irishman named James Dolan. Dolan and his partner William Murphy held a monopoly on the local beef market in Lincoln County and were notorious for paying prices for beef that kept ranchers on the verge of ruin. When Tunstall, the largest rancher in the county set out to break the monopoly, he found that Dolan controlled all the local politicians, judges, and businessmen. Worse, Dolan hired rustlers to harm Tunstall’s cattle and drive him out of business. Tunstall’s response was to hire his own men, including Billy.
The simmering feud between Dolan and Tunstall erupted into a conflict that came to be called the Lincoln County War when Dolan had his men assassinate Tunstall on April 18, 1878. When the local sheriff, a man under the thumb of Dolan, refused to arrest any suspects, Billy and a group of Tunstall’s men took matters into their own hands. Only days after the assassination, they hunted down and killed two of the suspects. Three weeks later they killed Brady in an ambush. Another suspect was shot soon thereafter. Dolan’s men got revenge a few weeks later when they gunned down three men in Billy’s group and Tunstall’s business partner. Billy narrowly escaped.
The Lincoln County War cooled after that episode. Billy laid low in Fort Sumner, New Mexico (not far from Lincoln) until arrested by a posse sent by the governor of the New Mexico territory. Billy soon escaped and rejoined his friends in the hills near Fort Sumner. In late December 1880 Sheriff Pat Garrett found them and arrested Billy, charging him with the murder of Sheriff Barry. A jury found Billy guilty and sentenced him to hang, but he again escaped the day before going to the gallows, killing both his guards in the process.
By now Billy’s exploits had become the stuff of sensational stories in newspapers across the country.

Journalists often exaggerated the details and weaved in copious amounts of fiction into their dispatches, turning Billy ­— a nondescript ranch hand caught in the midst of a brutal range war ­— the nation’s most famous outlaw. And for good measure, they gave him a catchy nickname, “Billy the Kid,” a moniker that was derived from Billy’s youth (he was only 21) and boyish face.
Sheriff Garrett eventually caught up with Billy on July 14, 1881 and killed him with a bullet in the heart. Garrett was heralded for ridding the west, in the words of the New York Times, of “probably the most noted desperado on the Pacific coast … [and] one of the most dangerous characters this country has produced.” That hyperbole indicated the myth making yet to come as novels, ballads, movies, and oral tradition turned William Henry McCarty into a national icon.
Ed O’Donnell is the author of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History

150 Years of Belleek

The village of Belleek, the most westerly village in Northern Ireland, lies quietly along the banks of the Lough Erne. Visitors are lured by the town’s picturesque beauty, thriving shopping district, and abundance of outdoor activities. The gentle rolling emerald landscape is made for walking and the waters are filled with trout and salmon that entice anglers of all ages. Still, what draws most people to the village is Belleek Pottery, the home of the world’s finest parian china for the last 150 years, and one of Ireland’s greatest treasures.
Accounts differ greatly has to how the pottery began. One legend states that in 1849, John Caldwell Bloomfield, who had just inherited Castle Caldwell and the surrounding village of Belleek, was attempting to whitewash a cottage “using the flaky white powder he dug up from his backyard” (Antique). The pearl-like luster of the finished product inspired a geological survey… and in the soil were found all the necessary ingredients to create a china unlike the world had ever known.
Another legend hints towards a far more grim beginning. Bloomfield inherited Caldwell, “at a time when the surrounding population was still reeling from the devastation of the Potato Famine.” During the course of the next six years, potato plants withered and died, resulting in the starvation deaths of “over a million men, women and children.” As the new owner of Belleek and Castle Caldwell, Bloomfield may have been inspired by the words of Daniel O’Connor to the British House of Commons in 1847 when O’Connor urged “Ireland is in your hands, in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. I solemnly call upon you to recollect that I predict with the sincerest conviction that a quarter of her population will perish unless you come to her relief” (History Place). Bloomfield, knowing he had to provide some type of economic haven for his people, commissioned a geological survey to see if the land could support a working pottery (Funding).
The actual truth may reside in the mists of time, but what is certain is that a survey was done and the soil surrounding Belleek village was found to be abundantly rich in minerals. Bloomfield was thrilled with the results and immediately formed a partnership with London architect Robert Williams Armstrong and Dublin merchant David McBirney. Together the three men were able to get a railway line built to Belleek to supply the necessary coal for the kilns. Production focused mostly on domestic items, like “pestles, mortars, washstands, hospital pans, floor tiles, telegraph insulators and tableware” (Belleek) The quality and craftsmanship of these items was superb because Armstrong insisted on hiring the best potters available. He single-handedly recruited 14 craftsmen from Stoke-on-Trent, the epicenter of England’s pottery production (Belleek).
Over the next few years, the quality of the clay continued to improve, and by 1863, the pottery finally produced its now famous parian china. In order to ensure that Belleek would remain synonymous with high quality, the company established “standards for its porcelain–and each piece became subject to Armstrong’s approval. Rejected pieces were then destroyed—a policy the company continued over the next 150 years. Indeed, even in the early 21st century, Belleek continued to throw away some 20 percent of its production”
In 1872, Belleek displayed a variety of goods, including tableware, statues and a Chinese tea urn, at the Dublin Exposition and won two gold medals. Interestingly, Belleek received the ultimate nod of approval when Queen Victoria ordered a tea service for herself and as royal gifts for those she favored. Not surprisingly, the British nobility quickly followed suit and Belleek started appearing in homes as far away as India.
So, what is it about Belleek that collectors find so appealing? Well, first you need to understand parian china, a white biscuit porcelain whose name is derived “from its close similarity to the white marble mined on the island of Paros in the Aegean Sea.” Instead of being molded into shape by hand (think of a potter’s wheel), parian china is actually a liquid dough that is poured into a mold and then allowed to dry for several days before it is fired in the kiln. The process results in china that is thin, durable, and translucent… perfect for tea services and decorative objects such as Belleek’s famous baskets, lamps, and vases.
Today, 150 years later, Belleek continues to “produce its famous lines of seashell designs, basket weaves, and marine themes,” but it has also adapted to the demands of a new millennium by creating a line called Belleek Living, which according to the official website is a “cutting edge design with a relaxed modern style…a range of quality ‘designer’ giftware that reflects how we live today.” Still, whether you prefer the more traditional woven baskets or the newer sleek and modern dinnerware, an Irish home is just not complete without a piece of Belleek, which is probably why giving Belleek as a wedding present is such a long held tradition. And, legend has it that “if a newly married couple receives a piece of Belleek, their marriage will be blessed with lasting happiness.” Now, who can argue with that?

By Marjorie McKinstry-Miller

Next Page »