Tag Archives: Dungloe

Detailing the US deaths of Donegal’s ‘Tunnel Tigers’

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In April I visited the Donegal Tunnel Tigers Memorial on the grounds of St. Crona’s Church in Dungloe, County Donegal. The statue and information panels honor nearly six dozen emigrants from the county who died in overseas in tunnel and mine accidents. The list includes seven men who were killed in the United States, a small subset of the Irishmen who died below the American landscape in the 19th and 20th centuries.

A few details about these seven workers from US newspapers and other sources are found below the monument photo. They are listed in chronological order with each man’s age and place of birth and death.

The monument was dedicated in 2019.

James O’Donnell, 29, B: Crolly, D: Butte, Montana

Killed with eight other miners on November 3, 1891. The cage in the Anaconda mine shaft was overloaded with 18 to 20 men.[1]“Hurled To Eternity”, Butte (Mont.) Daily Post, November 4, 1891.

Hugh Carney, 42, Glebe, B: Mountcharles, D: Butte

Was dislodged from the cage being lowered into the shaft at the Diamond mine on January 6, 1909. Seven other miners were in the cage when the door, said to be bolted, was torn off. Another man sustained right hand and arm injuries. The accident occurred about the 400 level of the 1,600-foot shaft.[2]“Falling Of Gate Remains Mystery”, The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, January 9, 1909.

Philip Boyle, 34, B: Calhame, Annagry, D: Butte

Lost his footing on a wall plate  of the Modoc mine shaft and plunged 50 feet to the sump on December 22, 1912. He had arrived from Ireland in October and only begun to work at the silver and copper mine a week earlier. He left a wife and newborn son that he had not yet seen in Donegal. “A cablegram conveying the sad news to the young mother was sent last night, bringing sorrow at the happy Christmastide.”[3]“Killed Before He Could See Newborn Babe”, The Butte (Mont.) Miner, December 23, 1912, and “Misses His Footing, Plunges To Death”  The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, December 23, 1912.

  • Neil Doherty, 26, B: Mullaghderg, D: Butte 

Shortly before midnight June 8, 1917, fire broke out more than 2,000 feet below ground in the North Butte Mining Company’s Granite Mountain/Speculator shaft. A total of 164 (some accounts say 168) miners died as flames, smoke, and poisonous gas spread through the labyrinth of underground tunnels.[4]Michael Punke, Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917, [New York: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group), 2007] Contemporary newspaper accounts list Doherty’s age as 46.

  • John J. McGuinness, 39, B: Molville, D: Butte

Also died in the June 1917 Speculator fire. In 2000, Stewart Norris of Molville visited Butte and located the weather-beaten wooden marker over the McGuinness grave at the Holy Cross Cemetery. Norris made arrangements for a stone marker, according to a newspaper report. The contemporary story says McGuinness was 49.[5]“Irish visitor finds grave of friend’s grandfather, who died in Speculator fire” The Montana Standard (Butte), November 12, 2000.

Up to one quarter of Butte’s residents were from Ireland at the turn of the 20th century. They came from Mayo, Cork, and Kerry in addition to Donegal. Irish leader Eamon de Valera visited the town in 1919.

Neil Doherty and John J. McGuinness were listed among the “Identified Mine Dead.”

Cornelius Boyle, 28, B: Dungloe, D: New York City

On Friday, April 13, 1928, he was struck by a dislodged boulder while working on a subway tunnel under the East River between 53rd Street, Manhattan, and Long Island City, Queens.[6]“Bayonne Man Crushed To Death” Bayonne (NJ) Evening News, April 14, 1928.

Niece McCole, 32, B: Keadue, Burtonport, D: New York

The memorial panel says he was killed in 1932 in New York, though it is unclear if this was the city or state. I could not find coverage of this fatality in US and Irish newspaper databases. A coal miner named Niece McCole is mentioned in a 1906 story about Pennsylvania mine owners blocking unionized labor from their properties.[7]“Whistles Will Blow But No Union Men Will Respond To The Summons”, Buffalo (NY) Courier, April 2, 1906.

References

References
↑1 “Hurled To Eternity”, Butte (Mont.) Daily Post, November 4, 1891.
↑2 “Falling Of Gate Remains Mystery”, The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, January 9, 1909.
↑3 “Killed Before He Could See Newborn Babe”, The Butte (Mont.) Miner, December 23, 1912, and “Misses His Footing, Plunges To Death”  The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, December 23, 1912.
↑4 Michael Punke, Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917, [New York: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group), 2007]
↑5 “Irish visitor finds grave of friend’s grandfather, who died in Speculator fire” The Montana Standard (Butte), November 12, 2000.
↑6 “Bayonne Man Crushed To Death” Bayonne (NJ) Evening News, April 14, 1928.
↑7 “Whistles Will Blow But No Union Men Will Respond To The Summons”, Buffalo (NY) Courier, April 2, 1906.

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 1

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. Over the next few weeks I will publish some of my travel photos, plus links to the correspondent’s original reporting and my work about them. MH

***

“(Traveling into County Donegal we) entered upon great stone-strewn wastes of land seemingly unreclaimed and irreclaimable. Huge boulders lay tossed and tumbled about as if they had been whirled through the air by the cyclones of some prehistoric age, and dropped at random when the wild winds wearied of the fun. The last landmark we made out through the gathering storm was the pinnacled crest of Errigal. Of Dunlewy, esteemed the loveliest of the Donegal lakes, we could see little or nothing as we hurried along the highway, which follows its course down to the Clady, the river of Gweedore.” — William Henry Hurlbert, Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American

Hurlbert was born in Charleston, South Carolina, educated at Harvard, and worked as a New York City newspaperman in the second half of the 19th century. He visited Ireland early in 1888 and published a book about his travels before the end of the year. Passages about his travels in County Donegal are found here on pages 77 to 124. My 2018 Ireland Under Coercion, Revisited serial placed his journey in historical context. I followed Hurlbert’s footsteps to Killone Abbey in County Clare in 2018.

The village of Dunlewy seen at the right side of the same-name lake in County Donegal. April 2025.

The Dungloe River at the edge of Dungloe town. April 2025