Tag Archives: Irish Railroad Workers Museum

Best of the Blog, 2021

Welcome to my ninth annual Best of the Blog, a roundup of the year’s work. As always, I am grateful to readers, especially email subscribers and those who share the work on social media.

I also want to thank the librarians and archivists who helped my research. The pandemic kept me from returning to Ireland for the second consecutive year, but I was able to visit the Dioceses of Pittsburgh (Pa.) Archives, and the Catholic University of America Archives and Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

These institutions provided requested digitized material: University of Pittsburgh (Pa.) Archive Service Center; Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse (N.Y.) University Libraries; Archdioceses of Baltimore (Md.) Archives; New York City (N.Y.) Public Library; Memphis (Tenn.) Public Library; Johnstown (Pa.) Area Heritage Association, Cambria County (Pa.) Library, and Dioceses of Altoona (Pa.); Princeton (N.J.) University Special Collections Library; National Library of Ireland, Dublin; and Trinity College Dublin. Apologies if I’ve missed any organizations.

Thanks again for visiting the site, and best wishes for the holiday and 2022. MH

Centenary series:

I added 30 posts to my American Reporting of Irish Independence centenary series, which explores journalism and the Irish revolutionary period, mostly from this side of the Atlantic. This year’s highlights of 1921 included:

  • Posts about the American Committee for Relief in Ireland, including two U.S. delegation visits to Ireland, and the U.S. tour of an Irish White Cross leader.
  • U.S. mainstream and Irish-American press coverage of the truce, treaty, and partition of Northern Ireland.
  • A 10-part “revisited” series on the book, A Journey in Ireland, 1921.

Freelance work & presentations:

I published five pieces on five websites beyond this blog:

Cardinal Gibbons

  • A sixth piece is accepted by a U.S. state history magazine for publication in 2022.

I made two virtual presentations:

  • June 2: American Conference for Irish Studies, “Irish Diaspora Witness Statements at the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland.” See my Nov. 15, 2020, story for the Irish Diaspora Histories Network.
  • March 20: Irish Railroad Workers Museum (Baltimore), “Cardinal Gibbons and Ireland.” See my story for the Catholic Review (Baltimore), linked above the photo of Gibbons.

Five other favorites:

Guest posts:

Contributions are welcome. Use the contact form on the Guest Posts landing page, or message me on Twitter at @markaholan.

The archives:

Annual “Best of the Blog” posts since 2013, plus my (almost) monthly roundup of contemporary Irish news, “Catching up with modern Ireland,” are available in the Roundups section.

Join my March 20 presentation on Cardinal Gibbons

UPDATE:

Thanks to those who attended the virtual event, and to the Irish Railroad Workers Museum, Baltimore, for the invitation. See my story about Cardinal Gibbons in the Catholic Review (Baltimore): Cardinal Gibbons, who died 100 years ago, was committed to Ireland

ORIGINAL POST:

James Gibbons was born in Baltimore in 1834 to Irish immigrants. The family moved back to County Mayo, where the future Cardinal Gibbons witnessed the Great Famine as a teen. On return to America, he regularly sent humanitarian aid to Ireland as he ascended the church hierarchy.

Cardinal Gibbons

Through most of his career, Cardinal Gibbons was circumspect about Ireland’s frequent bids for freedom from the British crown and London parliament. But from 1919 until his death, March 24, 1921, he supported several key American Irish efforts to help Ireland’s War of Independence. His speech at the Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia was “one of the most decisive steps of his life,” one contemporary said.

My “Cardinal Gibbons and Ireland” virtual presentation for the Irish Railroad Workers Museum (Baltimore) begins at 11 a.m. Eastern (3 p.m. Ireland), Saturday, March 20. Free registration here. (Link removed). You are very welcome to join us.

The cardinal’s photo on the front of The Gaelic America after his appearance at the February 1919 Irish Race Convention. (Click image to enlarge.)

On our eighth blogiversary & first pandemic

The blog is eight years old and has published just under 800 posts. Thank you email subscribers, social media followers, and readers who find their way to the site via search engines. Thanks also to my guest contributors.

We’ve had seven consecutive months of record site traffic and July is on pace as well. Some of the activity since March no doubt has been driven by COVID-19 quarantine on both sides of the Atlantic. I’m happy if I’ve helped readers pass some of their time inside; I know researching and writing the posts is helpful to me.

All-time most popular post: Yeats, Kennedy, ‘Vietnam’ and ‘The Second Coming’

Prior to the pandemic, the past year was especially gratifying to me for two reasons:

First, last August I celebrated my 60th birthday with my wife during a two-week trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland. Angie is the blog’s biggest supporter and a great quarantine mate. I love her.

Second, I presented my research on “Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland” at the American Journalism Historians Association’s annual conference in Dallas; the Newspaper & Periodical History Forum of Ireland conference in Belfast; and the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore. Find the Russell monograph at my “American Reporting of Irish Independence” series landing page, which features more than 60 posts about the period, plus a list of source material.

As for the island of Ireland, I can’t wait to go back. The last birthday and the pandemic have created a growing realization of how limited and precious is our time here. Enjoy each day. Stay safe.

From a birthday walk in Innisheer, August 2019.

Ruth Russell in revolutionary Ireland talk coming March 7

Thank you Irish Railroad Workers Museum. Angie & I enjoyed giving the presentation. Thanks to all who attended and asked great questions. MH

***

I am presenting “What’s the matter with Ireland?” at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 7, at the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore. The free talk is based on my research and writing about journalist Ruth Russell, who reported from revolutionary Ireland in 1919, then became active in the Irish cause in America.

Please register in advance. The museum is located at 918 Lemon St., a group of five alley houses where many Irish immigrants lived from the mid-19th century. It is near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Ruth Russell in 1919

Russell worked for the Chicago Daily News, then a leading U.S. provider of foreign news. Her reporting from Ireland was syndicated across America, including the Baltimore Sun. What’s the matter with Ireland? was the title of her 1920 book based on that reporting.

I presented my research at 2019 annual conferences of the American Journalism Historians Association and the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland. Here is my five-part monograph:

My wife Angie Drobnic Holan, PolitiFact.com editor-in-chief, will join me to read selections of Russell’s work. We also will recreate portions of Russell’s December 1920 testimony before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland.

The Irish Railroad Workers Museum and Shrine at 918 Lemon St. in Baltimore.

3-way tie predicted in Irish elections as counting continues

UPDATE:

Sinn Féin candidates have swept to a spectacular general election victory with nearly 25 percent of first round votes, “reshaping Ireland’s political landscape as party leaders begin to turn their attention to how the next government might be formed,” The Irish Times reports.

ORIGINAL POST:

Exit polling in Ireland indicates Feb. 8 polling will result in an unprecedented three-way tie between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, and Sinn Féin.  Ballot counting was underway Sunday, Feb. 9.

“It may be many days before we know fully what Saturday’s vote means in terms of the allocation of Dáil seats and many weeks before we know what that in turn means for the formation of a viable government,” says Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole. “But this we know and know full well: that old system is finished and it is not coming back any time soon. This is not just a change election – it has changed Irish elections themselves for the foreseeable future.”

I will monitor the outcome and publish a more detailed post soon.

***

Ruth Russell Talk is March 7 in Baltimore

I’m giving a talk about American journalist Ruth Russell’s 1919 reporting trip to revolutionary Ireland on Saturday, March 7, at the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore.

The talk is based on my five-part monograph about Russell’s life. I presented this research at the 2019 annual conferences of the American Journalism Historians Association, in Dallas, and the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland, in Belfast.

Register for the free event, which begins at 11 a.m. The museum is located at 918 Lemon St., near downtown Baltimore. Here’s my earlier post about the museum, which is worth visiting anytime.

The Irish Railroad Workers Museum and Shrine at 918 Lemon St. in Baltimore.

‘Born at Sea’ talk is Sept. 15 in Baltimore

September 2018. IRWM photo.

Thanks to Luke McCusker of the Irish Railroad Workers Museum for inviting me to make this presentation, and for those who attended. Contact me via the “Leave a reply” function if interested in a talk on this subject, or my other Irish work. MH  

***

I am giving a talk about “Ireland’s Famine Children Born at Sea” this Saturday, Sept. 15, at the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore.

The presentation is based on my story in the Winter 2017/18 issue of the National Archives & Records Administration’s Prologue magazine. It includes additional research since the piece was published earlier this year.

Register for the free event, which begins at 11 a.m. The museum is located near downtown Baltimore at 918 Lemon St., a group of five alley houses where many Irish immigrants lived from the mid-19th century.

Here’s my earlier post about the museum, which is worth visiting anytime.

The Irish Railroad Workers Museum and Shrine at 918 Lemon St. in Baltimore.

‘Born at Sea’ talk coming Sept. 15 in Baltimore

I’m giving a Sept. 15 presentation at the Irish Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore about “Ireland’s Famine Children Born at Sea.” It is based on my story of the same headline in the Winter 2017/18 issue of the National Archives & Records Administration’s Prologue magazine.

The talk will including additional research that I’ve done since the story’s publication earlier this year. Register for the free event, which begins at 11 a.m. The museum is located near downtown Baltimore at 918 Lemon St., a group of five alley houses where many Irish immigrants who worked for the nearby B&O Railroad lived from the mid-19th century.

Here’s my earlier post about the museum, which is worth visiting anytime.

The Irish Railroad Workers Museum and Shrine at 918 Lemon St. in Baltimore.