Tag Archives: emigration centennial

Willie’s emigration centennial: Day 3 of 12

HIS KERRY ROOTS…

William Joseph Diggin was born in County Kerry, Ireland, on January 12, 1894. He was the third child born to John Diggin and the former Johanna Behan. As their first son, he was by custom named after his paternal grandfather, who died five years earlier.

The Diggin family leased a small house and five-acre farm near Ballybunion village since at least 1864, according to property records. John and Johanna were raising seven children at the house by the time the census enumerator knocked at the door on March 31, 1901.

Diggin was a common name in Kerry, shared by some 50 families in the county. It derives from the Irish dubh ceann, or black-headed people, which refers to their hair color. William soon acquired the nickname Willie.

The family lived in Lahardane townland, from the Irish leath ardan, which means half the hill. The rural community, still there today, is located midway on the western slope of Knocanore Hill, an 880-foot peak isolated from Kerry’s taller mountains to the south.

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Early 20th century view of Ballybunion village with Knocanore Hill in the background. National Library of Ireland

A Dublin entomologist exploring the hill in August 1897 described the abundance of wildflowers on Knocanore’s slopes as “a mine of wealth to the insect-hunter” because it attracted so many species to collect. He wrote of orange Hawkweed, purple Knapweed and blue Scabious, which drew “butterflies of the coloured kinds, especially the Peacock, the Small Cooper and the Grayling.”

Willie could see a broad expanse of the Atlantic Ocean from his home on the hill. He would have heard stories about the Killsaheen, a mythical village the old people said occasionally emerged from beneath the waves near the coast. As family and others from north Kerry continued emigrating to America, it is easy to believe that Willie also dreamed about or dreaded crossing the sea himself one day.

A hike to Knocanore’s height provides more sweeping views of northwest Kerry, where two rivers empty into the sea. To the south is the shallow Cashen, a favorite of salmon fishermen. To the north is the broad, deep Shannon, its wide mouth formed by the Loop Head peninsula of County Clare. Ireland’s verdant interior stretches toward the east. 

In 1908, when Willie was about 14, the Irish Independent wrote that Knocanore’s summit offered “one of the finest views” in Kerry, “embracing three counties and extending from the Aran Islands to Limerick City, and away to the far-off Killarney Mountains.” 

These views are much the same today, though there is more development near Ballybunion village. The hilltop is one of my favorite places in Ireland.

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June 2012 image looking southwest from the top of Knocanore Hill toward the Cashen (left) and the Atlantic Ocean. 

Tomorrow: MAJESTY AND MISERY

Willie’s emigration centennial: Day 2 of 12

QUEENSTOWN…

Nineteen-year-old Willie Diggin boarded the RMS Baltic at Queenstown on May 2, 1913.

The port near Cork city in southern Ireland was the main disembarkation point for the country’s emigrants since famine times in the middle of the 19th century. The Cork Examiner reported:

Having presented their tickets at the agent’s office, and their luggage safely stowed away, they have now to wile away the anxious interval till the arrival of the steamer. The time is usually spent in strolling about the streets of the town. True also to the national attachment to religion, our emigrants seldom fail to enter the church which they meet on their ramble, and offer there a rude but earnest prayer for those whom they leave behind, while they invoke a blessing on their journey.

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Late 19th century image shows emigrants taking ferry boats to ships in the Queenstown harbor. National Library of Ireland

Willie was joined on his journey by 29-year-old John Stack. Both men hailed from Lahardane townland near Ballybunion in north Kerry, and each of them had family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It is unclear exactly when the men arrived in Queenstown, but the last week of April and first days of May 1913 were “unsettled, cold and rainy,” according to an annual report.

The Baltic was part of the White Star Line, which lost the Titanic at sea the previous spring. The sunken liner made its last port-of-call at Queenstown, and it surely was impossible for Willie and the other emigrants to avoid talk of the disaster so close to the first anniversary.

By 1913, conditions for crossing the Atlantic were greatly improved from the mid-19th century “coffin ships” that carried famine refugees in their dark, crowded holds. A third-class passenger like Willie slept in four- or six-berth staterooms, with access to a reading room, a smoking room and a dining room served by stewards.

Even so, the lower decks hardly compared to the “spacious, airy and exceptionally comfortable” first-class accommodations described in a 1907 White Star brochure.

Willie and John were among 468 passengers to embark at Queenstown in May 1913, joining 1,480 who boarded the ship earlier in Liverpool for the short trip across the Irish Sea. The total of just under 2,000 passengers left about a third of the Baltic unoccupied for its fifth transatlantic crossing of the year.

The manifest shows Willie stepped aboard with $50, or about $1,100 in today’s money. He stood 5-feet, 7-inches tall, with blue eyes and black hair. He answered “no” when the shipping agent asked whether he was an anarchist or a polygamist.

Tomorrow: HIS KERRY ROOTS

Willie’s emigration centennial: Day 1 of 12

AN INTRODUCTION…

I never met Willie Diggin. My maternal grandfather died 18 years before I was born.

Growing up, I learned two basic facts about the man. He was an Irish immigrant from County Kerry, just like his wife, Nora, my grandmother. He died at a young age while operating a streetcar in downtown Pittsburgh in December 1941, right after the Pearl Harbor attack and days before Christmas.

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Undated photo of Willie Diggin, probably from the early 1920s.

Not much was said about Willie during my 1960s boyhood up until Nora died in 1983. Another 15 years passed before I began thinking about him while pursuing Irish citizenship through registration of foreign birth.

That document in hand, I traveled to Ireland for the first time in May 2000. I met relations in Dublin and drove to Cobh, formerly Queenstown, to stand on the dock where Nora and Willie emigrated in September 1912 and May 1913, respectively.

On my trip I also visited the small house near Ballybunion village where Willie was born in 1894. It is owned by a relation who has welcomed me inside on several occasions.

Hanging next to the front door is an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus bearing Willie’s name and that of his parents and 10 brothers and sisters. It is dated May 6, 1922, during the Irish civil war.

I have also walked along the Shannon estuary where Nora was raised near Ballylongford and Carrigafoyle Castle. The feeling of connection to my Irish roots stirs deep in my DNA every trip back to north Kerry.

But I really did not begin to understand Willie’s life until I discovered a newspaper clipping about his death. Some preliminary research resulted in my January 2009 story for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which published the original news story.

My heart sank a little reading the brief because as a reporter I’ve written dozens of similar items about the abrupt public deaths of men and women not usually in the news. Get a few details in the paper, but keep it short. You always know there’s more to people’s lives than the circumstances of their death.

This was an understatement. Though my story fleshed out more details about Willie than the 1941 news brief, it was far from a complete picture of his life. Fortunately, several readers gave me new leads about Willie as more genealogical and historical records was becoming available online.

My introduction to my grandfather was just beginning.

Four years later, I have compiled a biography of Willie titled, “His Last Trip: An Irish-American Story.” Over the next 11 days I am sharing more details about this man I never met, but whom I finally have gotten to know.

Willie was not a famous person or a hero in the popular sense. Like tens of thousand of other Irish emigrants, he was a decent, hard-working fellow who established the foundation of a new life in America for his family and future generations. He never got to see those fruits.

In that regard, his life deserves to be celebrated at this centennial of his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

Tomorrow: QUEENSTOWN