Tragedy and triumph in Irish transportation

I’ve come across two historical transportation stories.

This month marks the 125th anniversary of the Armagh train tragedy, which remains Ireland’s largest rail disaster. The Belfast Telegraph explains:

The train was packed as it pulled away from the station at 10:15 am, but around three miles out of the city a nightmare unfolded as the train was trying to pull up the slope out of Armagh, but was pulled back by its weight. A decision was taken to decouple the front four carriages, move them to Hamiltonsbawn, and then to return for the remaining eight carriages. Stones were placed behind the wheels of those carriages, but they rolled backwards, crushed the stones and began to build up speed as they continued back down the slope. The runaway carriages crashed into another train, resulting in the loss of 89 lives. All denominations suffered – Catholic, Church of Ireland, Methodist and Presbyterian.

June 1889 rail disaster at Armagh.

June 1889 rail disaster at Armagh.

This August will mark the centennial of the death of John Phillip Holland, builder of the first successful submarine, known as the Fenian Ram. His experimentation began in Drogheda, County Louth. In America, a later design became the U.S. Navy’s first commissioned submarine, according to this story in The Irish Times.

He died in August 1914, relatively poor, and just weeks before HMS Pathfinder became the first ship to be sunk by a torpedo fired by submarine – and nine months before a German U-boat set its sights on the Lusitania.

Mother-and-baby home shame erupts in Ireland

Lurid headlines are erupting from Ireland about infant and child deaths, illegal adoptions and vaccine trials at mother-and-baby homes operated by Catholic-run institutions in the early to middle 20th century.

Here we go again, as if earlier scandals of priest sex abuse of children and the Magdalene laundries weren’t bad enough. This could be worse.

The story is evolving. Here’s a sampling of headlines and commentary:

Ireland Mother-and-Baby Home Inquiry May Delve Beyond Deaths, U.S. News & World Report.

The examination is expected to be part of a larger investigation called for by politicians and Catholic Church officials into the Catholic-run institutions, and comes in the wake of the recent discovery that nearly 800 babies died at the St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam between 1926 and 1961.

Ireland Investigating Complaints Against Unwed Mother Homes, The New York Times

Charlie Flanagan, Ireland’s minister for children, said in a radio interview on Tuesday that it was important “that a light be shone on these dark periods.” He added, “I believe that Tuam should not be looked at in isolation because over the last century we have had mother-and-baby homes right up and down the country.”

Discovering home truths in a society that failed mothers and their babies, The Irish Times 

The surprising thing about the Tuam disclosures is that we are surprised. Modern Ireland has an amazing capacity for self-induced amnesia. The systemic abuses that took place in industrial schools, mental hospitals, county homes and laundries were well documented but largely ignored.

Learning from the past can be a disturbing process. It involves an examination of failures and the acceptance of hurtful conclusions. It means making amends for past societal wrongs. It should establish why certain things happened, rather than heap blame on those who implemented policy. An examination of current discriminatory practices would also help. As a society, we have an uncomfortable road to travel.

Ireland was no country for young women but for men another story, Irish Central 

What Ireland did with the help and instruction of the religious orders in the twentieth century was to remove love and responsibility from each man’s actions, by replacing them with judgment and condemnation.

The society they created together is what we’re looking at now. We know now that tens of thousands of Irishmen abandoned the women they impregnated and the child that was the result, over and over again, for most of the the 20 century.

They did this without injury to their livelihoods or reputations. They discovered they could walk between the raindrops, so they did.

 

Pittsburgh AOH Division 15 update

During a recent visit to Pittsburgh I was able to spend more time with the Ancient Order of Hibernians archive at the Heinz History Center. In an earlier post I reported there was a critical gap in the Division 15 (Hazelwood) meeting minutes from 1925 to 1935.

I believe I’ve found the missing record.

A separate box from the Division 15 records contains “unknown meeting minutes from 1924 to 1935.” These “unknown” minutes begin at Nov. 23, 1924. One book of the Division 15 minutes ends at Oct. 26, 1924. The “unknown” minutes end before another Division 15 book begins.

The “unknown” minutes contain numerous references to Manus Gallagher, a division officer holder mentioned frequently in the Division 15 records. Gallagher helped my grandfather obtain U.S. citizenship.

St. Stephen's Church in Hazelwood after the November 1924 fire.

St. Stephen’s Church in Hazelwood after the November 1924 fire.

The “unknown minutes” also contain numerous references to St. Stephen’s and Father Daniel J. Devlin, parish priest of the Hazelwood church from the late 19th century until his death in 1935. The Dec. 28, 1924, entry makes reference to the November 1924 church fire at St. Stephen’s and the AOH division agreeing to donate $500 for the rebuilding fund in $100 installments. Father Devlin’s thank you note to the division is mentioned in the next passage.

I did not find any references to my grandfather’s February 1935 streetcar accident. I had thought the division might vote to offer some financial support, as it often did with other sick or injured members. The minutes also did not make any reference to the 1928 candidacy of Al Smith, the nation’s first Irish-Catholic presidential nominee.

I notified the History Center staff about my belief that the “unknown” minutes belong with the rest of the Division 15 records. I hope they will adjust their finding aid.

Obama finally ready to nominate Irish ambassador

After a record-setting 18-month gap, the Obama administration finally ready to nominate an Irish ambassador. The nominee will be St. Louis trial lawyer Kevin O’Malley, according to several news reports:

Read The Irish Times story, or Irish Central.

Former Ambassador Dan Rooney stepped down in December 2012.

B.C.’s Irish Institute exchange fellows visit D.C.

In a forlorn corner of Dublin, a sign at the entrance of a youth diversion community center warns against bringing alcohol inside the building. At a similar youth center in a low-income neighborhood of metro Boston, the sign at the front warns against bringing in guns.

That’s just one of many differences between the criminal justice system in Ireland and the United States, as detailed by 13 professionals in the fields of law enforcement, youth justice, and law visiting Boston from Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Irish Institute at Boston College hosted the exchange fellows, who spoke to Irish Network-D.C. on 3 June before returning home.

Youth justice worker Ashling Golden of Dublin made the observation about the two signs. She said programs that divert young people from the criminal justice system have resulted in youth crime dropping to seven in 100 from 13 in 100. Such programs, she said, are much less expensive than imprisonment.

Sgt. Gavin O’Reilly of An Garda Síochána said gun crimes are on the rise in Ireland. He observed that Boston and other American police agencies seem to do a better job of sharing information across agencies, but added the relationship between law enforcement in the Republic and the Police Service of Northern Ireland is improving. O’Reilly also said the U.S. does a better job of engaging third-party partners from the community to help police deal with troubled youth.

Maura McCallion, division head for the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, told me that while many Catholic and Protestant youth in the north have fallen away from the practice their religion, they still hold tightly to those community identifications. And that continues to cause problems in the flash points of Belfast and other parts of Ulster.

Columnists spar over undocumented Irish in America

An opinion column in The Irish Times by freelance writer Colm Quinn has drawn quite a sharp response by IrishCentral founder and editor Niall O’Dowd.

On the surface, both pieces are about the status of some 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in the US. But the deeper issue in Quinn’s column is about the state of Irish America.

“When it comes to Ireland’s view of itself in the psyche of the United States, it seems we are still stuck in the 1960s, when “Irish” America reigned supreme,” Quinn writes. “The reality is the US has moved on. Irish America is now mainstream and any expectation of special treatment because of the past is misplaced.”

O’Dowd never directly tackles this larger issue. He disputes that Irish leaders and their political peers in Washington, D.C. are seeking special treatment for the undocumented emigrants. But he spends far more column inches in an ad hominem attack on Quinn.

I generally like O’Dowd’s stuff. He’s better than stooping to such tactics. He might have acknowledged that Quinn mentions one his own beefs: that the U.S. has failed to appoint an ambassador to Ireland for over two years.

Quinn’s contention that, “In 2014, an Irish-American is a lot more American than Irish” is too simplistic. That’s been true for decades and misses the point of whether there’s still a special relationship between residents and leaders of the two nations.

And he doesn’t help his credibility by referring to U.S. “midterm elections in October.” Election Day is Nov. 4.

Take a deep breath lads, then try making another run at these issues in the future.

 

 

“The Kerry Girls” launches at Listowel Writers’ Week

I’m longing for Kerry because I’m missing the 43rd Listowel Writers’ Week. What could be better than strolling the narrow streets of that lovely town along the Feale, hopping from one poetry reading to the next author’s talk, then gathering with friends at the Listowel Arms bar?

Kerry Girls launch

One of the events I’m missing is the launch of a book called “The Kerry Girls: Emigration and the Earl Grey Scheme” by Kay Maloney Caball. Fom a post on her My Kerry Ancestors blog:

“This is the true story of 117 Kerry girls sent out to Australia in 1849/1850 from Workhouses in Dingle (20), Kenmare (25), Killarney (35) and Listowel (37), under the auspices of the Earl Grey ‘Orphan’ scheme. The majority of these Kerry teenage girls were not in fact ‘Orphans’ as many had one parent alive. Their emigration has become known as the ‘Earl Grey scheme’ after its principal architect, Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord John Russell’s Whig government at the time of the Great Irish Famine.”

Here’s an interview with Kay posted in Irish Genealogy News. We wish her much success with the book.

Independents, Sinn Féin win big in Irish elections

Independent and Sinn Féin candidates have surged into local offices in Ireland and appear to being gaining ground in European elections.

Some results of the 23 May elections are still being tabulated.

“Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and his Labour Party coalition partners have suffered a huge slump in support … as voters kicked back against the long years of painful austerity measures, The Wall Street Journal reported at the weekend.

Here’s more reaction from Irish Times‘ columnist Stephen Collins:

The 2011 general election marked the end of Fianna Fáil dominance, which had lasted almost 80 years. If the [latest] local election results are the harbinger of things to come, they could mark the end of party politics as we know it. More than 40 percent of the votes in the local elections went to Independents, smaller parties and Sinn Féin, while in Dublin that trend was even stronger with over half the vote drifting away from the three parties that have dominated politics since the foundation of the State. … (T)he scale of the slump in the vote of both Coalition parties, the substantial breakthrough by Sinn Féin right across the country and the sheer scale of the swing to Independents of all hues could presage political instability on quite a scale in the years ahead.

Of 949 contested seats, 45 remained to be filled as of 26 May, according to this election summary by the Irish Independent. Here’s the summary for Kerry, where all 33 seats have been decided.

Some races are still being decided. Image from http://www.breakingnews.ie/

Some races are still being decided. Image from http://www.breakingnews.ie/

 

 

Wounded U.S. military to play golf in Ireland

Twenty-five wounded U.S. soldiers will be treated to a 12-day golf trip to Ireland in September. I learned about the charitable event while covering a Capitol Hill press event about the economic impact of golf in America.

The Ireland trip is sponsored by the Salute Military Golf Association, which seeks to “provide rehabilitative golf experiences and family-inclusive golf opportunities for post-9/11 wounded war veterans.” Eleven wounded veterans made the inaugural trip last year.

This year’s tour, Sept. 13-20, includes Ballybunion Old Course, Tralee Golf Club and four other courses.

For those looking for regular golf tours of Ireland, please consider contacting Niall Leogue, president of Caddie Tours in Vienna, Va, just outside Washington. Niall was one of the featured businesses at Irish Network DC’s recent Members’ Business Show (post below). Here’a link to the golf page on Niall’s website.

irelandgolf

Irish Network DC hosting first business show

Irish Network DC is holding its first members Business Show in Washington on 22 May. Details are available here.

“Learn more about the industries, services and markets represented within our membership while building new connections and socializing with your Irish Network DC friends.”