Category Archives: Irish War of Independence

From the archives: ‘Mrs. Brophy’s late husband’

James Brophy. Of Dublin? Or New York?

James Brophy died in Dublin on Feb. 12, 1921, the civilian casualty of a stray bullet in Ireland’s War of Independence. About the same time, an Irish immigrant of the same name disappeared from his family in New York City.

When newspapers America reported the death of Mr. Brophy in Dublin, Mrs. Brophy of New York urged U.S. diplomats and Irish police to investigate the case of her missing husband. The coincidence offers a glimpse of early 20th century Irish lives on both sides of the Atlantic, when handwritten letters crossed each other at sea and personal identification was more vague than today.

I wrote “Mrs. Brophy’s Late Husband” for The Irish Story in December 2016. It offers a unique view of Ireland’s revolutionary period and Irish America from the perspective of people at the edges of history. Such stories “humanize and enrich history by reminding us that the study of the past should include the study of the lives of ordinary people, their attitudes, beliefs, motives, experiences and actions,” Bill McDowell wrote in Historical Research: A Guide for Writers of Dissertations, Theses, Articles and Books.

This story has been a reader favorite in the past. I hope new audiences might enjoy it, too. MH

The ‘worst year that was ever remembered’

This post is reprised from January 2021 with minor revisions. The referenced letter is from the Joan Diggin Collection, part of the University of Galway’s ‘Imirce’ project of Irish emigrant letters and life stories from North America. Joan was my aunt. MH

***

On Jan. 24, 1921, widowed farmer John Ware wrote a hand-written letter from Killelton townland, Ballylongford, a rural community in County Kerry where the River Shannon empties into the sea. The letter was addressed to his same-name, bachelor son, a streetcar motorman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a noisy, smokey industrial city of more than a half million people; a hub of Irish immigrants, including two of his sisters, with a brother on the way. The sender was the father of my maternal grandmother, the recipient her older brother.

The 87-year-old father began the letter by thanking his 35-year-old son for an earlier postal order for £3, equivalent to about $175 today.[1]Bank of England Inflation Calculator through November 2025, and XE Corp. GBP to USD conversion on Jan. 20, 2026. Such remittances from immigrants were vital to the Irish economy and perpetuated still more departures.

Your prosperity in America is a great consolation to me. Your generosity and kindness since you left home.

John Ware in US Army uniform, World War 1.

John Ware the younger left home in 1910. Sisters Nora (my grandmother) and Bridget followed him to Pittsburgh in 1912 and 1916, respectively. He was naturalized in 1917, entered the U.S. Army as as private in April 1918, and shipped to France two months later. John survived the Great War and returned to Pittsburgh in February 1919.[2]See: An Irish-American’s most perilous summer, 1918.

The father reported that another son in Ireland had just welcomed a baby girl to his family three weeks earlier. A third son had sailed from Queenstown four days before he wrote the letter, also destined for Pittsburgh.

We all felt so happy he [was] able to get away giving to the present state of the country. That state of the case in Ireland at present is very bad.

War in Ireland

Ireland was in turmoil in January 1921. Two years had passed since Irish separatists established Dáil Éireann in Dublin. The Irish Republican Army’s guerrilla war against the British adminstration in Ireland had escalated steadily since summer 1920. IRA attacks were typically followed by military and police reprisals.

There was a policeman shot in Listowel a week ago. There is a fear there will be great damage done the town of Listowel through envy.

District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan

District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan was shot multiple times at close range mid-afternoon Jan. 20, 1921. He was only a few yards from the Listowel barracks. The victim was accompanied by his 5-year-old son.[3]”Listowel D.I. Shot Dead In Sight of Barracks”, The Kerryman, Jan. 29, 1921.

In Pittsburgh, John Ware may have read the next-day, front-page newspaper coverage of the O’Sullivan killing,[4]”Irish Official, 5 Constables Slain in Trap … Second Inspector Slain”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 21, 1921. which occurred about eight miles from his father in Killelton, Ballylongford. Pittsburgh papers reported several of the shootings and fires deliberately set to houses, creameries, and other businesses that occurred in North Kerry since fall 1920,[5]Dwyer, T. Ryle, Tans, Terror and Troubles: Kerry’s Real Fighting Story 1913-23, Mercer Press, Cork, 2001. See Chronology, pps. 21-29. one episode only a few weeks earlier:

At Listowel, in the marshal law area, crown forces  were fired on by civilians while arresting men wanted. They returned the fire, killing one and wounding two who were captured and sent to a hospital. Five arrests were made.[6]”Three Die In Fighting”, Pittsburgh Daily Post, Jan. 3, 1921.

These and other episodes of violence against civilians, but not IRA attacks on military and police, were cataloged by the Dáil in “The Struggle of the Irish People,” presented in May 1921 to the U.S. Senate.[7]“The Struggle of the Irish People”, Address to Congress of the United States, Adopted January 1921 Session of Dáil Eireann. Attacks on people and property in Listowel and Ballybunion, pps. … Continue reading The burning of Ballylongford “has still not been forgotten locally” a Kerry author wrote nearly a century later.[8]O’Callaghan, Tony, The Kerry Coast, Tony O’Callaghan, Blennerville, Co. Kerry, 2016, p. 31.

Agricultural distress

War violence was not the only trouble John Ware mentioned in his letter from Kerry:

The past year in the country is the worst that was ever remembered. The most of the year was all raining, the farm produce was never before so bad.

Farming in Kerry in the early 1920s.

His assessment is confirmed in Kerry newspapers of autumn 1920, which reported the impacts of a “late spring” and “continuous wet weather” that created a “black outlook not only for the farmers but for the people in the towns as well.”[9]”Kerryisms”, The Liberator (Tralee), Oct. 7, 1920. Government reports also recognized the decline in agricultural activity that year, though quantifying it was complicated by the war and relied on estimates and summaries. “In 1920 it was not found practicable to obtain particulars of either crops or livestock on all farms.”[10]Farming Since the Famine: Irish Farm Statistics 1847-1996, Central Statistics Office, Ireland, 1997, p. 31

John Ware in Kerry did not mention his two daughters in Pittsburgh, who worked as household servants and perhaps also sent remittances. He concluded the letter to his son with wishes for a Happy New Year, a year that would soon bring a truce to the fighting and end with the treaty that created the Irish Free State.

References

References
↑1 Bank of England Inflation Calculator through November 2025, and XE Corp. GBP to USD conversion on Jan. 20, 2026.
↑2 See: An Irish-American’s most perilous summer, 1918.
↑3 ”Listowel D.I. Shot Dead In Sight of Barracks”, The Kerryman, Jan. 29, 1921.
↑4 ”Irish Official, 5 Constables Slain in Trap … Second Inspector Slain”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 21, 1921.
↑5 Dwyer, T. Ryle, Tans, Terror and Troubles: Kerry’s Real Fighting Story 1913-23, Mercer Press, Cork, 2001. See Chronology, pps. 21-29.
↑6 ”Three Die In Fighting”, Pittsburgh Daily Post, Jan. 3, 1921.
↑7 “The Struggle of the Irish People”, Address to Congress of the United States, Adopted January 1921 Session of Dáil Eireann. Attacks on people and property in Listowel and Ballybunion, pps. 15-17, 20, and 28-30. Presented in the U.S. Senate on May 2, 1921, and recorded in Senate Documents, Vol. 9, 67th Congress, First Session, April 11-Nov. 23, 1921, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1921.
↑8 O’Callaghan, Tony, The Kerry Coast, Tony O’Callaghan, Blennerville, Co. Kerry, 2016, p. 31.
↑9 ”Kerryisms”, The Liberator (Tralee), Oct. 7, 1920.
↑10 Farming Since the Famine: Irish Farm Statistics 1847-1996, Central Statistics Office, Ireland, 1997, p. 31

Brayden on Irish journalists and state propaganda

Chicago Daily News correspondent William H. Brayden interviewed or mentioned several Irish journalists in his 1925 reporting about the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. His 16-part series, later consolidated as a small book, also discussed propaganda and the press. I’ve linked to Dictionary of Irish Biography profiles of the journalists and other figures of Irish history mentioned in Brayden’s work. Learn more on Brayden in my series introduction.

Desmond FitzGerald

Brayden described Desmond FitzGerald, the Free State’s minister of external affairs as “the best propagandist ever in Ireland.”[1]William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], … Continue reading In 1919, FitzGerald became director of publicity for Dáil Éireann. In that role, he lobbied international journalists for fair coverage of Ireland and produced the Irish Bulletin to counter anti-Irish narratives published in the London press and British government propaganda.

Desmond FitzGerald

“[The Bulletin’s] offices were raided again and again, and he and his assistants were perpetually ‘on the run,’ ” Brayden recalled. “Yet the little sheet never failed to appear, and when Mr. Fitzgerald was in jail his assistants carried it on.”

The best of those assistants, according to Brayden, were Frank Gallagher and Robert Brennan. They remained ardent republicans after the civil war instead of joining FitzGerald in the Free State government. “I may perhaps be allowed the confession that they are all friends of mine and that I like them all and wish they were not divided,” Brayden revealed in his reporting.

Brayden praised FitzGerald’s influence on the direction of Free State policy. “He has a real sense of the importance to the new state of its world contacts and the ministry could not be in more suitable hands.”[2]Ibid., 25.

Propaganda and publicity

The Publicity Department was essentially a re-labelling of the Propaganda Department established within the Sinn Féin party for the December 1918 general election campaign.[3]See  John Neary, “Early Public Diplomacy in Ireland” in Public Diplomacy in Ireland and Japan. [Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024], pp. 73-82. In 1925, the three-year-old Irish Free State government continued to mature through the distinctions and differences between revolutionary propaganda and elected state publicity. Brayden continued:

“It was probably the propaganda aspect of the Free State’s ministry of external affairs that led to the attachment to it of a government publicity department. Whether any state should have a publicity department for supplying information to the press is a debatable point. Many states either openly or otherwise find that publicity is an essential. But from the first the Free State publicity department , though conducted by men of the highest skill in journalistic work, was a target for criticism. It proved extremely useful to newspaper men in dealing with the welter of alarming and contradictory statements about Ireland which in the last few years were published in the newspapers of the world. But it was not easy always to distinguish between publications called for in the interests of the state as a state and publications in the interest of the particular political party which at the time is governing the state.

… even amongst Free Staters a distinction was seen. The government had all the press of Ireland behind it. The republicans had nothing but a small weekly sheet. The big battalions of the press did not need the assistance of state publicity. Nor indeed did they welcome it, for the severest critics of the publicity department were always found in the newspapers that were saying the same thing and, if it be not an impertinence to add, were not always saying it so well.”[4]Brayden, A survey, 24.

Brayden also nodded to the earlier work of journalist Arthur Griffith. The Sinn Féin founder used his writing before the armed struggle of 1919-1921 to emphasize the importance of Ireland’s economic independence. “In one after another of his newspapers–a new one started when the old was suppressed–[Griffith] poured forth articles on Ireland’s economic needs and the natural resources with which they could be met,” Brayden wrote in his 1925 series, three years after Griffith’s death. “One of the first acts of the new state was to establish a ministry of industry and commerce. This is now the busiest of all the Free State government departments.”[5]Ibid., 17.

Keane in Kilkenny

Braydon called on Edward Thomas Keane, “a veteran among Irish journalists” and editor of The Kilkenny People. Keane helped establish the pro-Parnellite newspaper in 1892, then later became a supporter of Sinn Féin. The paper was suppressed for over two months in 1917, then again in 1919, when Keane was imprisoned. Braydon reported that Keane was unable to claim any compensation for the second episode under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.[6]Ibid., 28-29.

Nevertheless, the visitor described Keane as “a strong supporter” of the treaty. “He thinks it gives the country a real freedom.” Keane “confessed himself an optimist” about the local economy under the three-year-old Free State government.

During his visit to Kilkenny, Braydon also met the woman manager of “an excellently equipped stationery and news store” that sold several Irish American papers. She “complained bitterly that about £20 worth of an issue of one of them had been seized and confiscated by the Free State police,” Brayden reported. He surmised the state’s objection must have been confined to the one issue, since “the current numbers were prominently displayed in the store.”

Unfortunately, Brayden said he could not learn the reason for the seizure, and he did not name the paper. I was unable to locate the incident in the Irish Newspaper Archives.

Downey in Waterford

Thirty-five miles to the south, Brayden “found somewhat less optimism in Waterford” than in Kilkenny. Poverty and unemployment were high after a series of crippling strikes. Here, Braydon interviewed Edmund Downey, owner of the Waterford News since 1906.

The paper had been suppressed for four months in 1918 by the British military, and “still harder hit under the Free State” as an opponent of the treaty. “His premises were burned out, and, according to his testimony, the national army did the burning,” Brayden wrote.[7]Ibid., 30.

The fire occurred in August 1923. At the time, the Northern Standard described the Waterford News as “markedly republican.” Damages were estimated at £20,000. The News was later awarded £4,750 after a trail in which Downey testified against the state.[8]“Extensive Damage To Newspaper Premises”, Freeman’s Journal, August 28, 1923; “Big Fire At Waterford”, Northern Standard, August 31, 1923; and “Waterford Burning”, Freeman’s Journal, … Continue reading

During their conversation, Brayden and Downey debated 1925 changes to the Irish poor law system, which had preceded the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century. Workhouses and similar institutions were abolished, with relief service transferred to new county-level boards. “According to him the new system is more costly than the old and less efficient,” Brayden reported. The correspondent declared that he personally regarded the changes “as one of the important reforms of the latest Free State legislation.”

Finally, Brayden also made a few references to his earlier reporting for the Chicago Daily News. A story about his visit to Cork noted that he had not been to the city since March 1920, to cover the murder of Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain. Brayden also described Patrick J. Hogan, the Free State’s minister of agriculture, as “one of the most effective of the pro-treaty speakers” in his Daily News reporting of the January 1922 Dáil debates on whether to accept the measure.[9]Brayden, A survey, MacCurtain, 31; Hogan, 7.

***

This is the sixth and final installment of my series about Brayden. See earlier posts and all my work on American Reporting of Irish Independence.

References

References
↑1 William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 24.
↑2 Ibid., 25.
↑3 See  John Neary, “Early Public Diplomacy in Ireland” in Public Diplomacy in Ireland and Japan. [Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024], pp. 73-82.
↑4 Brayden, A survey, 24.
↑5 Ibid., 17.
↑6 Ibid., 28-29.
↑7 Ibid., 30.
↑8 “Extensive Damage To Newspaper Premises”, Freeman’s Journal, August 28, 1923; “Big Fire At Waterford”, Northern Standard, August 31, 1923; and “Waterford Burning”, Freeman’s Journal, April 7, 1924.
↑9 Brayden, A survey, MacCurtain, 31; Hogan, 7.

Our midsummer’s blogiversary break

This post marks my 13th blogiversary. Thanks to email subscribers as well as regular and occasional visitors. I’m taking off most of July. … Below are four freelance pieces about American journalists in Ireland, all published this year. Also linked below is my ongoing exploration of William Brayden’s 1925 series on partitioned Ireland for the Chicago Daily News. Enjoy. MH

Ireland Beautiful–How A 1925 American Photobook Boosted Irish Tourism
History Ireland (Dublin)

The US Press and the American Commission on Irish Independence, 1919
New Hibernia Review

When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922
The Irish Story (Dublin)

Richard Lee Strout: A Young American Reporter In Revolutionary Ireland
American Journalism

Revisiting William Brayden’s 1925 ‘survey’ of Ireland
From the blog. More posts coming later this year.

A 1920s map of partitioned Ireland from a US newspaper. Note that Queenstown has not be changed to Cobh, Kings county has not be changed to Offaly.

Revisiting William Brayden’s 1925 ‘survey’ of Ireland

Journalist William H. Brayden produced in the summer of 1925 what he called “a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people.” The country’s violent revolutionary period had ended two years earlier. As Brayden set about his assessment, an intergovernmental commission considered whether to adjust the border that partitioned the six-county Northern Ireland from the 26-county Irish Free State, today’s Republic of Ireland.

Cover of booklet that collected Brayden’s 16-part series.

Brayden’s reporting appeared in 16 dispatches to the Chicago Daily News[1]“Ireland No Longer Distressful Country”, June 16; “Tenants In Ireland Now Owners of Land”, June 18; “Irish System Of Law Rules in Free State”, June 20; “Make Irish Schools Fit Needs Of … Continue reading and other US papers that subscribed to its foreign news service. The Chicago daily republished the completed series as a 45-page booklet.[2]William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925]

This summer I will explore various aspects of Brayden’s reporting from Ireland, including the Irish Boundary Commission and other political issues. He detailed economic, social, and cultural conditions as he traveled from Dublin to Kilkenny, Cork, Limerick and Belfast. I am working from this digitized copy of Brayden’s booklet, but also reviewed the original Daily News series on microfilm. The Roman numeral section headings in the booklet correspond to the 16 installments in the series. The booklet was lightly edited to remove teases to upcoming subjects and publication notes.

I will collect my posts about Brayden on the site’s American reporting of Irish independence landing page. Reader input is welcomed. Now, let’s begin with a look at Brayden.

William John Henry Brayden (1865-1933)

Brayden was born in Armagh city (County Armagh, Northern Ireland). He worked briefly on the Ulster Gazette and then on the Leinster Leader in Naas, County Kildare, before joining the national Freeman’s Journal in Dublin in 1883. He eventually became the FJ’s editor, and in that role makes a brief appearance in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Brayden was born into a Church of Ireland and unionist family. He converted to Catholicism as a young man and supported Irish home rule.[3]See “Brayden, William John Henry” by Felix Larkin, Dictionary of Irish Biography, October 2009.

William Brayden, undated image published at the time of his death in December 1933.

Brayden worked as a correspondent for the US-based Associated Press and the Chicago Daily News during Ireland’s revolutionary period, 1912-1923. His byline appeared regularly in US newspapers. Notably, he reported the May 1919 arrival of the American Commission on Irish Independence in Dublin.

Their “oratory of the American pattern outclasse[d] the home product” and made a strong impression on the locals, Brayden reported. None of the Sinn Féin republicans or Irish Parliamentary Party moderates who welcomed the trio could match “the ringing eloquence and the modulated rise and fall of striking appeal which the Americans displayed to the crowds that listened to them spellbound.”[4]“American Orator Beat Irish Brand”, (Baltimore) Evening Sun, May 15, 1919.

It does not appear that Brayden ever visited the United States, at least according to limited biographical material. He is not profiled in several early twentieth century “who’s who” collections of American journalists. Brayden’s name does not surface in digitized US arriving passenger manifests or passport application lists.

In this regard Brayden is similar to his peer James Mark Tuohy (1857–1923), another Irish-born, former Freeman’s Journal journalist who became a correspondent for the New York World at the turn of the twentieth century. “Although he never set foot in the United States, he was dean of the corps of American newspaper correspondents in London,” the New York Times declared in its obituary of Tuohy. Other Irish-born journalists who covered their country’s revolutionary period spent significant time in the United States, including John Steele (1887-1947) of the Chicago Tribune and Francis Hackett (1883-1962) of the New Republic.

In December 1931, Brayden began writing for the Washington, DC-based National Catholic Welfare Conference News Service. He died two years later, just three days after filing what appears to have been his last story.[5]“590 Are Registered at Peking Cath. Univ.” The Catholic Transcript, Dec. 14, 1933.

Series opening

The Daily News did not advertise Brayden’s series before its June 16, 1925, debut, unlike the promotional treatments US papers gave to similar work by correspondents sent to Ireland during the revolution. Chicago’s Irish immigrant population had peaked at 74,000 in 1900 and dropped to 57,000 by 1920, tied for third largest with Boston. The US Immigration Act of 1924 further slowed new arrivals, but Chicago retained a robust American Irish Catholic identity.

Brayden’s first story appeared on the front page above the fold; a box of baseball scores and horse racing results to the left, a lurid tale about the shooting deaths of two Chicago gangsters who also were big opera supporters on the right. The single-column headlines declared:

Ireland No Longer
Distressful Country
—

Remarkable Changes Effect-
ed by New Governments
Under Home Rule.
—
Many Signs of Progress

An italicized editor’s note described Brayden as the paper’s “capable and experienced Dublin correspondent.” It said the series would detail “how the people of Ulster [Northern Ireland] and those of the Free State are improving their opportunity to govern themselves.” Brayden’s opening sentence posed this question:  “What is Ireland doing with the home rule that, after long conflict, it has won?”

His series sought to answer this question as it unspooled in Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday installments through July 23. The stories were not accompanied by any photographs, though the Daily News and other papers by then regularly featured black and white images of events and places, including overseas, and “head shots” of individual news makers.

Other papers that subscribed to the foreign news service either published the full series, such as the Buffalo (NY) News, or only select stories. The Kansas City Star described Brayden’s series as “a very illuminating analysis of the many problems which have confronted the new governments, and of the thoroughly practical ways, considering Ireland’s unique adventure, in which these problems are being met and solved.”[6]“ ‘More Business, Less Politics’ is the Slogan of the Irish Nation”, Kansas City Star, Aug. 10, 1925.

Considering Brayden’s long experience in Irish journalism and the critical post-revolutionary period that he detailed, his 1925 “survey” is worthy of revisiting a century later.

References

References
↑1 “Ireland No Longer Distressful Country”, June 16; “Tenants In Ireland Now Owners of Land”, June 18; “Irish System Of Law Rules in Free State”, June 20; “Make Irish Schools Fit Needs Of People”, June 23;  “Show Irish Capacity For Efficient Rule”, June 25; “Building Industries In Irish Free State”, June 27; “Power For Ireland From River Shannon”, June 30; “Ireland Now Deals With Other Nations”, July 2; “Irish Free State Is Able To Pay Its Way”, July 7; “Kilkenny Busy Spot In Ireland’s Trade”, July 9; “Cork Is Recovering From Its War Wounds”; July 11; “Limerick Is Lively: Its Outlook Bright”, July 14; “Irish Bank Deposits Mark of Prosperity”, July 16; “Home Rule In Ulster Unlike Free State’s”, July 18; “Belfast Is Hard Hit By Business Slump”, July 21; “New Ireland’s Place In Arts And Letters”, July 23. The first story began on the front page; all others on page 2.
↑2 William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925]
↑3 See “Brayden, William John Henry” by Felix Larkin, Dictionary of Irish Biography, October 2009.
↑4 “American Orator Beat Irish Brand”, (Baltimore) Evening Sun, May 15, 1919.
↑5 “590 Are Registered at Peking Cath. Univ.” The Catholic Transcript, Dec. 14, 1933.
↑6 “ ‘More Business, Less Politics’ is the Slogan of the Irish Nation”, Kansas City Star, Aug. 10, 1925.

Remembering CUA library donor John K. Mullen of Galway

John Kernan Mullen of Ballinasloe, County Galway, helped to fund the Catholic University of America (CUA) library that bears his name. The cornerstone was laid April 25, 1925, on the Washington, D.C., campus.

Mullen emigrated to America in 1847, when he was nine. “He began working in a flour mill in Oriskany Falls, N.Y.,” according to a CUA profile. “At 20, Mullen went West, leasing a flour mill in Denver, Colo., and soon after buying several more mills. By 1911 he had built the first grain elevator in the state, established the Colorado Milling and Elevator Company, and operated 91 elevators, warehouses and mills in Colorado, Kansas, Utah and Oregon.”

He became a millionaire.

In 1924, Mullen pledged $500,000 to CUA to build a library, which opened as the John K. Mullen of Denver Memorial Library in September 1928. Since then the library has been open to the public. My work has benefited from access to the Mullen Library and CUA’s Special Collections, which are held in a different building. See the library’s online centenary exhibition.

There is no doubt of Mullen’s business success and generous philanthropy, especially to the Catholic church. He might have been motivated by having escaped the Great Famine.

His political views about Ireland’s struggle for independence are more of a mystery. He surely knew that Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, CUA’s rector from 1909 to 1928, had been an ardent Irish nationalist and national vice president of the Friends of Irish Freedom during the country’s revolutionary years. Exiled Fenian John Devoy attended the 1925 cornerstone ceremony. Coverage of the event in his Gaelic American newspaper mentioned only Mullen’s financial gift.[1]”Cardinal Lays Cornerstone Of Library, Gaelic American, May 2, 1925.

Mullen died in August 1929 in Denver. US Catholic newspapers and secular press obituaries also were silent as to Mullen’s views about his homeland. The digital Irish Newspaper Archive contains no coverage of his death or funding the library.

Bust of John K. Mullen on the main stairway landing between the library’s lobby and second floor.

This plaque is located inside the library’s front door.

References

References
↑1 ”Cardinal Lays Cornerstone Of Library, Gaelic American, May 2, 1925.

Following US correspondents in Ireland, Part 3

My April 4-14 trip to Ireland allowed me to explore several places visited by American journalists in their late 19th or early 20th century travels to the country. Below are a few more of my travel photos of these places, plus some of the correspondents’ original reporting and my work about them. This is the last post of this series. MH

My travel to County Donegal allowed me not only to follow the 1888 journey of American correspondent William Henry Hurlbert  (See Part 1), but also three other US journalists who trekked to Dungloe during Ireland’s revolutionary period. Ruth Russell of the Chicago Daily News, 1919; Savel Zimand of Survey Graphic magazine, 1921; and Redfern Mason of the San Francisco Examiner, 1922, came to interview Patrick Gallagher, leader of the successful Templecrone Co-operative Agricultural Society Ltd. See “When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922,” published earlier this year in The Irish Story.

Dunleavy, Holan, McGarvey, and Sharkey. 

“The Cope” today remains a thriving enterprise, with 12 retail businesses in four locations: Dungloe, Annagry, Kincasslagh, and Falcarragh. I was welcomed to Dungloe by Patrick J. Dunleavy, chairman of the Cope’s board of directors, who gave me a detailed driving tour of the Rosses region. Mark Sharkey, CEO; and Emma McGarvey, business support manager, hosted us for a lovey lunch at the Caisleain Oir Hotel, Annagry. Our wonderful meal came from award-winning chef Cathal Armstrong, who also owns Restaurant Eve in greater Washington, D.C. The warm hospitality of all these people matched the fine April weather. It was a highlight of my trip. Thank you.

***

“I arrived at Dungloe on a cold and rainy morning. And as the station is about three miles from the center of the village, I sent my luggage up by donkey cart and set out walking. Wild beauty was all around me. In ten minutes the rain stopped. The sky cleared and the wind freshened over the blue and golden hills.” — Savel Zimand, from  “The Romance of Templecrone”, Survey Graphic, November 26, 1921.

The Letterkenny and Burtonport railway extension opened in 1903 and closed in the 1940s. The Dungloe station has been converted into a private residence, seen at right from a small bridge over the former railroad right-of-way, at left, now used as a hike and bike trail.

“… If [Gallagher] had not been a co-operationist for Ireland he might have been a capitalist in America. He took me up the main street, making plain the signs of growing industry: the bacon cured in Dungloe, the egg-weighing, the rentable farm machinery. After viewing the orchard and beehives behind the cooperative store, I remarked on the size of the plant and its suitability for the purpose. — Ruth Russell, “Building The Commonwealth”, The Freeman, May 26, 1920. Magazine story based on 1919 reporting for the Chicago Daily News.

Early 20th century view, looking down Main Street in Dungloe.

Looking up Main Street, Dungloe, April 2025.

“[Gallagher] rises. ‘Come down to the harbor with me. I want to show you something.’ We stroll to the waterfront. From the rocks juts a pier on which men are working. ‘We have to thank America for that,’ says Gallagher.” — Redfern Mason, Rebel Ireland. Self-published booklet based on his 1922 reporting for the San Francisco Examiner.

These two storage buildings were erected as part of the cooperative in the early 20th century. They are located on the Dungloe waterfront, seen on the right at low tide. The pier related to this enterprise was erected in 1923 with funding from the American Committee for Relief in Ireland. The pier was destroyed by several storms in the 1990s. It has since been replaced, seen below at left.

Following US correspondents in Ireland, Part 2

My April 4-14 trip to Ireland allowed me to visit several places that American journalists wrote about during their late 19th or early 20th century travels to the country. Below are more of my travel photos, plus some of the correspondents’ original reporting and my work about them. MH

***

“It is seldom that reporters can sit in a hotel room and by peeping through drawn blinds see revolutionary history being made, as I am doing today and did yesterday.” — Arthur S. Draper of the New York Tribune, “Fierce Fighting Rages in Fire-Swept Dublin” in the Tribune, April 30, 1916 (Dateline April 29, 1916)

London & North Western Railway (LNWR) logo on the facade of the former hotel. Click image to enlarge.

“We watched the bombardment from a window on the third floor of a hotel. Naval boats, swinging in close to (the Liffey) shore, sent shells screaming into the city, bringing the rebel strongholds crashing down with loud roars. … Soldiers were posted in large force along the quays and in the warehouses across the street from our hotel, answering the sharp volleys of the sniping rebels.” — Wilbur S. Forrest of United Press, ”Shells Rout Rebels” in the Washington Post, April 30, 1916. (Dateline April 29, 1916)

Draper and Forrest were among the 14 correspondents embedded on a British naval destroyer that steamed for Dublin in April 1916 at the outbreak of the Rising. The the London and North Western Hotel is the lookout referenced in their stories. It was located on the Liffey riverfront next to the London and North Western Railway Company train station and steam packet terminal. After a long dormancy, the hotel property was reopened in 2022 as part of the Salesforce Tower campus, seen below. The station and terminal remains vacant.

Read “When a boatload of reporters steamed to the Easter Rising.”

The former London and North Western Hotel seen in April 2025. The red brick structure at left is part of the former railway and steam packet terminal, now abandoned. The dark glass at right is part of the Salesforce Tower, which incorporates the former hotel. The building faces the River Liffey across the street.

Looking upward to a rooftop skylight from the main stairwell of the former hotel lobby. I was unable to access the upper floors, where reporters watched the fighting in 1916.

Note stained glass designs at top of the arched windows, seen from the exterior.

West side of the former hotel. Note that a large arched window bricked over above the door.

Zoom presentation on Michael J. O’Brien

This event is concluded. I will make the recording available at a later date. MH

As historiographer of the American Irish Historical Society, County Cork-born Michael J. O’Brien focused on Irish contributions to colonial America. In 1919, as the Irish War of Independence heated up, he published A Hidden Phase of American History: Ireland’s Part in America’s Struggle for Liberty. The book was deployed to help make the case for why America should support Ireland’s struggle for liberty. When US Senator John Sharp Williams, a Mississippi Democrat, attacked the Irish in a widely reported speech, O’Brien was drafted to issue the reply.

My zoom presentation, “Michael J. O’Brien: Defending Ireland’s Record in America,” begins at 6 tonight, USA Eastern time. Thanks to the Irish American Heritage Museum, Albany, N.Y., which has stepped up to save this presentation after a new round of turmoil at AIHS. More about that in a future post.

Four great stories about American journalists in Ireland

Below are four recent stories about American journalists in Ireland. The six correspondents highlighted in these pieces visited the country between 1919 and 1925. Their work drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic. My research in this subject area continues. Suggestions and comments are welcome. MH  

Richard Lee Strout: A Young American Reporter In Revolutionary Ireland After spending a year interning at London newspapers, Strout stopped in Ireland on his way back to America. He arrived in Dublin a day before Bloody Sunday, 1920. Published in American Journalism, the peer-reviewed quarterly of the American Journalism Historians Association.

When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922: Correspondents from the Chicago Tribune, Survey Graphic magazine (New York), and the San Francisco Examiner traveled to the northwest corner of County Donegal to write about Patrick Gallagher, a cooperative leader. Published in The Irish Story (Dublin).

When the Irish ‘exposed’ a New York Herald reporter In June 1919 the Irish American press praised Truman H. Talley for publicizing a report that criticized the British administration of Ireland. A few months later, the same papers called him a British propagandist.

Could Maine potatoes have relieved Irish hunger in 1925? Milton Bronner of the Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicated a three-part series of stories and photos about privation and poverty in the rural west of Ireland.

Visit my American Reporting of Irish Independence page.

On a lonely road in Connemara, south of Westport, 2019.