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Tag Archives: Early Irish History

Two Exciting Upcoming Irish History Events!

17 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by Janet Maher in Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Early Irish History, Irish in Connecticut, Maher, Meagher

©2016 Janet Maher, Ancient Meachair Chieftain Cap Interpretation

©2016 Janet Maher, Ancient Meachair Chieftain Cap Interpretation

Two exciting Irish History events are around the corner in Tipperary, Ireland and in Hamden, Connecticut. First, for those lucky enough to be within driving distance of the ancient home of Clan O’Meachair, be sure not to miss National Heritage Week events in Tipperary – particularly on its last day, Sunday, August 28 in Roscrea!

The Sean Ross Heritage Group has organized a series of events that will take place from from 14:00 p.m. to 16:30 p.m., focused upon the importance of Sean Ross Abbey, once the inauguration site of the O’Meachair chieftains. Guest speakers, guided walks, and music will accompany family picnics.

The illustrious historian and author, George Cunningham, will speak about the O’Meachairs as having been priors of Sean Ross Abbey, Monaincha, and of the significance of this site in Roscrea’s ancient history. See his lovely images and text about the Monastery of the Island of the Living HERE.

I’ve sent on my own contribution and hope it makes its way across the pond in time! It’s an interpretation of the chieftain hat illustrated in Joseph Casimir O’Meagher’s Some Historical Notices of the O’Meaghers of Ikerrin. The original, found in a bog in 1692, was “a gold cap or morion, which may have served as a crown, and been used at the inauguration of the O’Meagher…Its ornamentation was undoubtedly Irish, and was identical with some earlier golden articles—lunnulae and fibulae—found in Ireland, and consisted of embossed circles, some parallel and others arranged in angles of the chevron pattern.” (pg. 13) It may be that this cloth version of a crown will be placed upon the head of this year’s chosen O’Meagher/Maher at the event, passed to another in 2017. I only wish I could be there for all the fun! Hoping that folks will share their memories of the day to post here.

For more information email mdobbin at eircom dot net. Download a pdf guide for all the Tipperary Heritage events.

NEXT: Coming September 8 to New Haven County, Connecticut—William J. Duffney Lecture at Quinnipiac University! 

William J. Duffey, Postal and Irish Historian

William J. Duffney, Postal and Irish Historian

On September 8 at 4 p.m. Bill Duffney will speak about The Quakers and Irish Famine Relief at Quinnipiac University Mount Carmel Campus, in the Student Center, Room 225. Registration is required, and a link for that is included on the Quinnipiac Calendar.

“Using original correspondence, The Quakers and Irish Famine Relief outlines the selfless efforts made by the Society of Friends (Quakers) on behalf of the starving Irish during the Great Hunger. The personal vignettes found within their letters bring us closer to the perspective of the people in their place and time. Political and social history, and maritime and postal history collide in unexpected ways.

Bill Duffney is a retired musician, educator and postal historian, who has travelled extensively in Ireland. Bill served for several years as the editor of the Connecticut Postal History Society Journal. Today, he maintains the website, Connecticut Philatelic Projects, and is a member of the American Philatelic Society, U.S. Postal Classics Society, and the Boston Philatelic Group, among others.”

Sure to be a great lecture! Good luck Bill!

©2016 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

Waterbury Irish!

14 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Irish in Waterbury, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants, Uncategorized, Waterbury

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, New Haven County Connecticut, Waterbury Irish

©2015 Janet Maher, Home Ec, photograph from personal collection

©2015 Janet Maher, Home Ec, photograph from personal collection

Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City is scheduled to be published by the History Press in the first week of September! More details will appear, as well as a link to a Facebook page, in upcoming weeks. For those who are within driving distance to New Haven, Connecticut, please come to my talk-with-images on Tuesday night, June 16 for the Irish History Round Table at 7:30 p.m., Knights of Saint Patrick Hall, 1533 State Street, New Haven.

©2015 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

Happy Thanksgiving, and a New Blog

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut, Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Ireland, Irish in Waterbury

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Early Irish History, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, Irish in Connecticut, Janet Maher, John Wiehn, Waterbury Irish

Love Letter ©2014 Janet Maher

Woolen Mill# 10: Love Letter ©2014 Janet Maher

It’s hard to believe that I have not written here since June of this year, and for that I apologize. I do still intend to complete the series of essays about my magical pilgrimage to Ireland, however, the rest of my life intervened and I had to shift gears.  For now, those who wish to continue to read my posts, please check out a new blog that I have just begun. It’s called “Trusting the Process: Getting There From Here,” and I hope it will be a means through which I can address more topics. Ireland is still at the top of my list and, especially so as I try to complete a new book by the end of the year. This one, to be titled, Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City,” is in collaboration with a friend I made years back while researching “From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley.” John Wiehn is the current president of Connecticut’s Ancient Order of Hibernians and is the director of the Prospect Library. With Mark Heiss, he produced the postcard series book, Waterbury, 1890-1930. He has been very helpful in finding some great old photographs and in gathering info on some of the topics that will be contained in Waterbury Irish, which should be published next May by the History Press. This book will not only condense and complete the work of “From the Old Sod,” but it will resurrect a history of Waterbury, Connecticut that has long been eclipsed and relatively few people recall or perhaps even know about. In my recent art exhibition I included the above image which is the last of a series from my earlier Naugatuck focus. This one evolved into what I felt to be a love letter to the ending of a project and an emotional nod to my hometown and my past.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and thank you for all the attention you have paid this blog since it began in 2011!

©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

Pilgrimage to Ireland, Part 3: North Tipperary, Clonmacnoise &

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by Janet Maher in Clonmacnoise, Ireland Pilgrimage, Mahers, Meaghers, Pilgrimage, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Ancient Irish Art & Artifacts, Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish Midland Ancestry

 

©2014 Janet Maher, View from Margaret & Alfie's

©2014 Janet Maher, View from Margaret & Alfie’s

During the first days before my clothes arrived I learned to drive on the left side of the road and navigate with increasing ease through the country. My second AirBNB hosts proved to be the ideal support system. Margaret O’Farrell and Alfie McCaffrey were very helpful in following up on my lost luggage and with my puzzling through various technology issues—getting my phone to transition properly, figuring out if my throw-away phone from three years ago might work with a new chip, trying in vain for my GPS to kick back in (which it never did) and even helping me arrange visits with people I was trying to meet while my phone was in limbo. After three days I felt that I was leaving new friends. In Lorrha, Northern Tipperary, this couple has been renovating a large, stately home with their own tender loving care. Like so many a place in which good personally-grown food and fascinating, friendly conversation is a staple, Margaret and Alfie’s kitchen is at its heart. (Pay the extra to have dinner with them at night, which became extend visits in our case, lasting until 11:30 or so.)

©2014 Janet Maher, Old Farm, Lorrha, Tipperary

©2014 Janet Maher, Old Farm, Lorrha, Tipperary

Outside, chickens and roosters wandered as they will among the grass, flowers and trees, joined by their two dogs, with additional sound effects from a drove of pigs in the back. Frisky fellows, the pigs sometimes rule the roost, getting out from their pen and requiring hours of tracking and coaxing back to their own digs. From the kitchen porch, which runs the entire width of the house, it is possible to see the *Devil’s Bit section of the Slieve Bloom Mountains—the landmark for things Maher/Meagher. We had the most enjoyable breakfast looking in its direction on my last day, shared with a friend of Margaret and Alfie who had volunteered to help repair the woodshed roof. Pure bliss to eat outside amid so much beauty and such excellent company!

While navigating the way back and forth to their home in the woods (follow the signs for Birr and Portunma), I was able to venture north into Offaly County and into and around Roscrea, my primary destination on the first part of this Maher-related journey. Alfie had recommended also seeing Birr Castle, with its impressive Science Center, including a 72-inch long reflecting telescope built in 1845, and its note-worthy gardens. I came into Birr too late on the day I was venturing in those parts to do more than a drive-by, so this is now on my list for a hoped-for Next Time. At the end of my journey the following week I learned that the castle, owned by the Earls of Rosse, had once been owned by Meaghers. (More research needs to go into verifying that.)

* The Small Gap of Ely, in the parish of Barnane-Ely was written about by Joseph Casimir O’Meagher in 1890. (The O’Carrolls ruled over Ely, with close ties to the O’Meaghers of neighboring Ikerrin Barony.) He explained the nickname for the dip in the mountains with the following tale: “The Devil, driven to frenzy by his want of success among the inhabitants of Ikerrin, took a bit of their mountain in revenge, but finding it too heavy was obliged to drop it in the ‘Golden Vale,’ where it became the Rock of Cashel, afterwards famous as the residence of the Kings of Munster, and the site of one of the finest cathedrals in the west of Europe. The rock would about fill the gap in the mountain. Another story is that he dropped the bit in Queen’s County, and that the Rock of DunaMase was thus formed.” (Some Historical Notices of the O’Meaghers of Ikerrin, pg. 127.) (That there is a large cross at the top of this mountain was a surprising parallel, I thought, to that of the locally famous one in my hometown in Connecticut, of the same vintage, recently restored to great success and celebration. Had I more time I would have taken a hike to the top of the Devil’s Bit—#2 on my Next Time list.)

©2014 Janet Maher, Alfie , feeding his rooks

©2014 Janet Maher, Alfie, feeding his rooks

Another place that was closed during my visit, but seems worth a tour if staying so nearby was Redwood Castle, especially for those with Egan or Kennedy roots. (With that in mind, I include here an image of a place I passed on the way out of Limerick. For those with Killduff roots, here is a photo of a former Killduff Castle, now on the grounds of  St. Anthony’s Nursing Home, Pallasgreen, Limerick.)

©2014 Janet Maher, Killduff Castle, Limerick

©2014 Janet Maher, Killduff Castle, Limerick

Clonmacnoise (Cluain Mhic Nóis) was part of my reason for staying in North Tipperary, as we had not ventured into that area on my last trip to Ireland with my husband.  I wanted to see the place that had been mentioned so often in my studies about Ireland’s ancient history. This settlement, which dates to just before the death of its mid-6th century founder, St. Ciarán, grew to be the most desirable conquest for invaders over the centuries. Wealthy monasteries throughout Ireland were targets for their valuable ceremonial objects, and Clonmacnoise was also known as the primary site of achievements in literary and artistic high craft production during the centuries of religious rivalry in the country and in relation to Rome. Its location on a high ridge overlooking the Shannon River made it a major intersection of trade and travel.

There had been distinct roles with which Gaelic families were associated. Those that included members of high-ranking religious status had their own ecclesiastical settlements, centered upon a family church around which an extended community worked and lived. The once vast settlement of Clonmacoise contained not only a cathedral and a round tower, but a nuns’ church, and ones associated with St. Ciarán and the surnames Kelly, McLaughlin, Dowling, McLaffey, Connor, and Finghin. There are also remains of several other kinds of buildings, a castle, a sacred well, four high crosses, and other many other artifacts, including a section of an ogham stone and more than 600 portions of ancient grave slabs.

©2014 Janet Maher, Clonmacnoise Cross

©2014 Janet Maher, Clonmacnoise Cross, replica

Three of the high crosses have been removed for their protection from their original location to an on-site museum. Replica ones have been in their places to weather outside since 1992-93. Portions of three additional high crosses from the site are preserved in the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, along with such masterful art objects as the Crozier of the Abbots and the Shrine of the Stowe Missal. The Cross of the Scriptures (replica shown here) is considered to be one of the best of Ireland’s historic crosses of this extensively decorated kind. It honors the King of Meath and King of Tara, thus High King of Ireland (879 to 916), Flann Sinna mac Maelshechnaill. At the turn of the 14th century the Gaelic clans regained control of Clonmacnoise from the Anglo-Normans, and power shifted to the MacCoghlans until the 17th century—a time of devastation in Ireland as the formerly Catholic England and Ireland were re-envisioned by King Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell.

On the day I visited Clonmacnoise I was met with a powerful silence and stillness. Although there were far more people wandering the site with me than I expected, we all seemed to be held in a trancelike quiet as we individually absorbed an awe-full sense of the former importance and immensity of this place, now a relic of itself. Ireland’s Office of Public Works has done an exceptional job in stabilizing this and many other irreplaceable sites, touchstones to the country’s stature and nobility in the ancient world.

©2014 Janet Maher, Clonmacnoise

©2014 Janet Maher, Clonmacnoise Ruins

 

©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

Coming to Ireland!

12 Monday May 2014

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Mahers, Meaghers, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants, Pilgrimage, Waterbury

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, New Haven County Connecticut, Patrick Maher

©2014 Janet Maher, St. Patrick's Church Window, Vox Hiber Hi Ocum

©2014 Janet Maher, St. Patrick’s Church Window, Vox Hiber Hi Ocum

When I speak with my friend, Jane Lyons, owner of the amazing web site, From Ireland, she reminds me what an unbelievable work of fate and luck our meeting is. That I have been studying a particular subset of Irish immigrants into New Haven County, Connecticut, and have found several of the specific places from which they arrived, and that Jane has been studying the same from her end is one phenomenon. That we have become friends, that she flew all the way from Ireland to attend my first book signing, and that I could bring her to the primary cemeteries in Waterbury and Naugatuck and point to the specific graves that link back to her neck of the woods is another. That I will be spending the last part of my huge Irish research trip with her and that we will be scouring together the area that I have honed in on is a true miracle! What were the odds back in 2006 when I was just learning how to do Irish research that I would be, essentially, collaborating across the ocean with the person who set me on my path and showed me the way? Although I am no longer on her massive listserv, Y-IRL, she has been at my home in America, we talk on the phone, and I will be at her home in another week! (Although I thanked them in my book, I thank again the members of Y-IRL who gave me so much welcome advice all those years ago.)

On this trip I am thrilled that I will also be meeting people I feel to be friends that I met “in real time” when my husband and I were in Ireland three years ago. I will also be lucky enough to meet some new friends that I have only conversed with through email. This is truly a dream! While it is a bit unnerving to anticipate driving on the left side and managing my way to and through so many places alone (until I get to Jane’s), I am grateful for my husband’s support in this “obsession” which is clearly not yet over. He’ll hold down the fort—and water my garden—while I proceed upon this once-in-a-lifetime experience. I am eternally lucky on so many fronts!

Last week several of us attended a visit to Waterbury Connecticut’s third Catholic Church — from 1880, St. Patrick’s. I’m including here a photo of a portion of one of its majestic windows, the bottoms of which include The Lorica of St. Patrick all the way around in Gaelic. This image illustrates Patrick’s dream in which an angel showed him a scroll upon which was written “The voice of the Irish call you.”

As the voice of the Irish is calling me loud and clear, I wish you all well in the big spirit of it all!

©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

The Irish of Waterbury!

01 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut, Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Famous Irish Individual, Old Saint Joseph Cemetery, Waterbury

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Connecticut, Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, Irish in Waterbury

flagB&Wcprt I am very happy to announce that I am writing a new book about the Irish of Waterbury! My partner will be John Wiehn, the director of the Prospect Library in Connecticut. Our work will be published by The History Press in their American Heritage series, with a proposed release date of Saint Patrick’s Day, next year. John and I will be doing a scanning session this coming Monday, May 6, at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Hall in Waterbury from 3 to 7 pm. Come to 91 Golden Hill Street between those hours if you are interested in being part of our project. We are seeking your great images and stories about your Irish and Irish-American ancestors who found their way to the former Brass Capital of the World and made their mark upon it!

©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Exhibition, History, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants

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Tags

Early Irish History, Irish in Connecticut, Irish in the Civil War

©2011 Janet Maher, Saint Patrick, Maynooth, Ireland

©2011 Janet Maher, Saint Patrick, Maynooth, Ireland

A most happy upcoming Saint Patrick’s Day to all! May your days be full of warmth, wisdom, and good cheer! I’m excited to be able to say that I’ve booked my trip to Ireland in May and am beginning to plan the adventure/pilgrimage. If possible, I may post along the way and share photos here. We’ll see if that develops. If not, I’ll be sure to share my thrills upon return.

Heads up to folks in Connecticut! Robert Larkin, member of the Connecticut Irish-American Historical Society and Cheshire Historical Society, and scholar of the Connecticut Irishmen’s involvement in the American Civil War, with particular emphasis on the Connecticut Ninth Regiment Volunteers, will be giving two excellent talks this Monday and Tuesday.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, Monday, March 17,  he’ll speak about  the Connecticut Ninth at the Mary Taylor United Methodist Church on the Milford Green, 168 North Broad Street, at 7p.m.  This talk will be sponsored jointly by the Milford Historical Society and the Orange Historical Society. Captain Lawrence O’Brien’s artifacts (uniform, sword, writing desk, etc.) will be on display along with other items.

On Tuesday night, March 18, at 7:30 he will be speaking for the Irish History Round Table at the Knights of Saint Patrick Hall, 1153 State Street, New Haven. He “will describe where the population who claim Irish heritage is the largest (USA, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Argentina and Mexico). The talk will feature statistics as well as selected stories about interesting and famous personalities, including military men, politicians, and entertainers.” Both events are free and open to the public. 

He tells me that at the Knights of Columbus Museum, 1 State Street in New Haven, an exhibit about the Civil War is currently in the planning stage. Although it will not open for another year, initial discussions have focused on possible three dimensional items to include. “As Sgt. James Mullen of the Ninth CT was the first Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, and Lt. Col. John G. Healy of the Ninth CT was the first Grand Knight of Council No. 20,” he is hopeful that information and artifacts from this regiment will be included in the exhibition. He welcomes anyone’s suggestions for other “three dimensional” items to include.

Gach mian leis go maith a thabhairt duit! All good wishes to you!

©2014 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

 

Researching Irish Family History in Connecticut

29 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, History, Naugatuck, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Early Irish History, Irish Catholic History, Irish Genealogy, Irish in Connecticut, Janet Maher, Naugatuck Connecticut, Naugatuck Valley Genealogy Club, New Haven County Connecticut

©2011 Janet Maher, View from Rock of Dunamase, County Laois, Ireland

©2011 Janet Maher, View from Rock of Dunamase, County Laois, Ireland

Recently I presented a talk for the Naugatuck Valley Genealogy Club that I’d like to post (in part and expanded) here. I hope it may be helpful for researchers at any stage of experience.

Many years ago I worked at a public library. This was where I first encountered people actively looking up information in city directories. It seemed to me like such an odd thing to do, as if they were stalkers! I remembered this ironically when poring over the archives of Naugatuck Historical Society city directories myself. Preserved moments in this format initially helped me locate primary people throughout decades of time as I began to envision a larger picture. Now I feel much more poetic about this and other kinds of research we do in the world of genealogy, which is ultimately about honoring our ancestors while learning about who we, ourselves, really are. One thing is certain. Our stories are not simply lying in wait for us—neither physically nor virtually, details all neatly in place somewhere—unless we or one of our relatives already did actual research and published it. The pieces of our stories, however, may be lying in wait everywhere.

Genealogical research is often referred to as a puzzle, but, as an artist by primary profession, I’ve come to think that the process is actually more like making art. Those who do puzzles usually have a reference image already printed on a box cover to which they can compare their progress. In doing genealogical research, by contrast, we have no idea what might be revealed until we finish collecting all the unknown elements and eventually become able to put them together in some logical, beautiful way. That is a creative process. In many ways, I feel as if what I have accomplished in this area has been the most difficult and most rewarding work I have done in my life to date. It has, however, required all my skills acquired over a lifetime as an artist, and those of a hitherto-unrealized professional scholar to uncover what I have. These experiences and struggles joined in opening a new world to me. I feel that this work has been entirely worth doing, and is important for posterity—not typically the feeling I have after mounting an art exhibition! The work would probably never have been done if I had not decided to commit to a challenge that seemed to have fallen intentionally into my lap, then simply roll up my sleeves and begin.

©2006 Janet Maher, Maher-Martin graves, St. Francis Cemetery, Naugatuck, CT

©2006 Janet Maher, Maher-Martin graves, St. Francis Cemetery, Naugatuck, CT

Simultaneous to creating a beautiful product, family historians and genealogists search for TRUTH. This is where genealogy takes a turn from the act of art-making. In this type of endeavor we need to be careful about accuracy, which leads us into the scientific method. Even as novices we need to approach our project as if we would actually become experts about our particular area of research. (Thank you to the person who once told me—received, albeit, in utter disbelief—that I would become an “expert” on the Mahers!) This means that not only must we gather information from far and wide, but that we must spend the extra time trying to be as thorough and accurate as possible. It is important to find some way to keep our notes in order, to look for multiple sources of the same information, and to document EVERYTHING. Anyone should be able to find the information we present by retracing our foot- and endnotes to our sources, so they can decide for themselves if we were correct in our findings and hypotheses. (This is decidedly NOT like art-making, where we create as we will and call it complete as we feel.)

We develop our research methods along the way. One friend introduced me to her system of keeping three-ring binder notebooks for every family or person, including clear slip sheets that protected documents and were able to contain varied sized pieces of paper. This seemingly small tip was extremely helpful, affording me not only practical advice but also hinting at how vast an undertaking this project might end up becoming. (Forewarned is forearmed!) We all eventually end up with many different kinds of computer files, physical boxes of stuffed folders, overflowing shelves, data in family tree software, as well as, publicly and/or privately, trees on Ancestry.com. In addition to good storage systems, I highly recommend investing in a good magnifying glass. It will become the handiest of tools!

©2012 Janet Maher, portrait of the author's great grandfather

©2012 Janet Maher, portrait of the author’s great grandfather Maher, born in America to Irish immigrants

We typically start with very little information beyond the knowledge of our immediate family. Like artists, we dare to face a blank beginning and trust that something good will result, worth the time we’re willing to invest into a long and complicated process. As we sense how some information relates to other information, more and larger questions emerge. We may find that we need to pause and go off on what could seem to be a wide range of tangents. We might, for example, need to study more about an aspect of history in order to better understand the context for a small but important fact that we found. We will likely read a mountain of books about topics we never dreamed would some day become fascinating to us.

We often work on different parts of the amorphous overarching story at different times, allowing some parts to rest until other aspects come into the mix that will allow earlier topics to develop further. This multi-faceted activity requires an all-consuming focus (generally unavailable) that will allow for a larger view to develop over myriad tiny details. It is an organic, intuitive process that requires open-ended time and a fair amount of wandering in wonder. As in art, in the world of genealogy we know that our wanderings are simply part of the path toward other discoveries and that the work is also part of the satisfaction.

We try to picture our ancestors alive in order to holistically grasp who they were or might have been. We imagine ourselves as flies on their walls. What would they reveal if the veils between us suddenly dissolved? We try to speak with whomever is alive, available and willing to share stories about the time and place that our ancestors inhabited. This, if it is possible, is the most important gift. The concrete memories that another person has, the little details that would rarely be found in an archive, best illuminate the humanity of the people with whom we are hoping to connect through our research.

It is only recently that someone told me that into the twentieth century the last of my family’s first generation Irish-American ancestors pronounced our surname in Naugatuck in the Irish way, with two syllables, not in the way I was taught to do, with one! That is one of many treasures living people have made possible for me along this journey.

©2012 Janet Maher, presumed Leary-Farren families, Naugatuck, CT

©2012 Janet Maher, presumed Leary-Farren families, Naugatuck, CT

We look for everything that pertains to individuals in our various tree branches—vital records, baptism and marriage data, voting registrations, bits about them in newspapers, yearbooks, military and land records—anything that might provide more clarity. I am interested in also finding every person’s tombstone. What is inscribed on it? What does it look like and what might that say about the person? Who is buried nearby?

Importantly, for Irish-Catholic immigrants and their descendants, the witnesses at weddings and baptisms may be invaluable for helping to establish connections between people. While many Connecticut church baptism and marriage registries were microfilmed and can be viewed at the Archdiocese of Hartford, some were not filmed and several early books have long been lost. Whether or not one would be allowed to look at records in a rectory is a gamble. The Immaculate Conception Basilica in Waterbury, for example, will not allow this. To see early Immaculate Conception records one must make an appointment at the Archdiocese (and bring your magnifying glass along!).

Data helps to inform photographs, and so can images help to inform data. There are many articles about estimating dates of old photographs through the fashions of the time and types of photography produced. One book I recommend is Joan Severa’s Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900, which provides a broad study of cultural, photographic and clothing history. Since childhood I’ve had an artist’s sense that if I stared at certain photographs long enough and puzzled over them, eventually they would start to reveal themselves to me. Similarly, as I learned in adulthood more about my family’s history, certain characters from the past who peered out from old photos seemed to will me to find them and give them a chance to live again through my researching and chronicling of their life stories.

©2010 Janet Maher, Three Women (including the author's gg grandmother)

©2010 Janet Maher, Three Women (including the author’s great-great grandmother, from Ireland)

In order to try to identify unmarked photographs we may need to learn more about an entire community. Who else might have ended up in photographs that were saved over the decades? Who made up the extended families? What groups were individuals involved with? Where did everyone live? Who were their neighbors? The earliest Irish settlers of Naugatuck, Connecticut, were a very tight and interconnected community. Studying their neighborhoods and intermarriages became illuminating, combined with an in-depth focus upon the first Catholic cemetery, where so many of them ended up buried together.

©2010 Janet Maher, Woolen Mill, ca 1870s-80s, Naugatuck, CT

©2010 Janet Maher, Woolen Mill, ca 1870s-80s, Naugatuck, CT

Tools for Irish and Other Research in Connecticut

In Connecticut it is necessary to become a member of a genealogical organization recognized by the various departments of Vital Records (such as the Connecticut Society of Genealogists) in order to be able to do independent research. The Connecticut State Library website clearly explains what is allowed to be accessed. Do not assume that finding an immigrant’s death record will neatly provide the person’s parentage or his or her townland in Ireland. If one is lucky, however, a county might be listed and a mother’s maiden name. The early records usually do not include parents’ full names, and the birth place listed is usually, simply, Ireland (hence the title for Irish genealogist Jane Lyon’s premier web site — From Ireland).

Early in my years of researching in Connecticut I would plan to stay over in hotels or with very generous friends and family members. I was primed for (mostly) standing up throughout the days taking notes in various vital records offices, always prepared with cash to purchase certain ones (at $20 a pop!). I eventually learned that it is possible to rent microfilm from Utah that can be read at one’s nearby Latter Day Saints Family History Center. Thankfully, I happen to have one about 45 minutes away from where I live, and after renewing a film three times it remains on semi-permanent loan there. This allowed me to look at some Connecticut and Irish data when I cleared time to go out there, without the pressure of having the reels sent back within a few weeks.

Like places in Connecticut include: New Milford Public Library, and Family History Centers in Goshen, Newtown, Southington and New Haven. In these offices one can sit and study to heart’s content or until the places close, then come back again another day. In some, digital copies of the records can be saved to a thumb/flash drive and taken home.

Newspapers and microfilm can also be accessed at the Connecticut State Library, some of which can be checked out three reels at a time via interlibrary loan. See their web site for a list of what is available in their collection (in addition to clicking on other links I’ve provided here). You can also purchase a card to easily use their copy machine and not need a pocketful of change. By researching in these ways to find index information, it is then possible to go to a Town Hall and purchase copies of the necessary documents—a much more convenient way to go about things.

All town libraries have some kind of local history collection, and the main Silas Bronson Library branch in Waterbury is a good size. This library also has nineteenth century newspapers on reel that can be researched. With a library card you can access Heritage Quest from home via most libraries, and, likewise in some libraries, Ancestry.com. (At some point you will likely bite the bullet and pay for your own subscription.)

In Middletown the Godfrey Memorial Library is a treasure-trove of a collection, and they offer an online subscription membership, as does the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston. I have also found the publications of the Irish Genealogical Society International, based in Minnesota, to be quite good. Their Sept back issues that focused upon Irish counties were very helpful when I started out.

I had a subscription for a few years for Newspaper Archive, which has three Connecticut papers in its database, one of which is the Naugatuck Daily News. (Some of these may also be available on Ancestry.com.) The early papers were full of excellent tidbits about people visiting each other between cities and states and other human interest events that may help tie people together in one’s research.

Boston College hosts a database of October 1831 – October 1921 Missing Friends postings in the Boston Pilot Newspaper by Irish nationals and immigrants trying to find one another. This can prove to be of help in one’s research, as can finding evidence of ancestors in the Emigrant Savings Bank.

©2011 Janet Maher, Saint Brigid's Well, Kildare, Ireland

©2011 Janet Maher, Saint Brigid’s Well, Kildare, Ireland

Research about Irish immigrants is especially difficult if critical documents do not exist. Given all of the above, one might still not find important missing pieces. While learning how and what to research in America, it is necessary to simultaneously attempt to comprehend the history of Ireland, particularly in the era that a known family member had lived there. Historical clues might suggest possible reasons for a family or individual’s emigration and even, perhaps, why they might have kept “a low profile” once they arrived in their newly adopted homeland. Maybe there was a good reason that one’s ancestors cannot be definitively found in a passenger-list database.

It is important to know that the earliest decades of Anglo settlement in America were vehemently anti-Catholic (the majority religion of the Irish people), and to recall that religion was the primary weapon used by the English monarchy against the Irish over the centuries. Those who sought their own freedom claimed territory that was already inhabited by Native Americans, a variation on Ireland’s own colonization. Colonial America was predominantly Puritan, as was Oliver Cromwell, who succeeded in devastating Ireland in the seventeenth century. Some members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans came into early Connecticut, which was predominantly Congregationalist, where a few other Protestant sects were also allowed in. Religion ruled the day for our earliest ancestors, whatever their persuasion.

The eventual overt entry of Irish Catholics into a very settled Connecticut society pre-Irish Famine and throughout the 1850s was no small thing. How this played out in all the different towns varied, particularly during the pre-Civil War era of the Know-Nothings. The earliest Irish Catholics, while bound and determined to establish and feel free to practice their religion in America, also likely tried to assimilate as quickly as possible and not make waves among the established ruling class. They sought to be considered Yankees, first and foremost. They often would seek to marry an American, which might help ensure future economic stability, as such alliances with Protestants, other non-native or Anglo-Irish residents had done in Ireland. That so many early Irish-Americans nonetheless died unmarried might have been partly attributed to their difficulty in finding an established or otherwise suitable spouse who was also Catholic or who was not still prejudiced against either the Irish or Catholicism.

Catholic laborers in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries had significantly less means in both Ireland and America than those with aforementioned ties, unless they had finally been able to become educated, enter the merchant, health care or teaching professions, or become part of the wave of Catholic middlemen—i.e. sub-leasing rent collectors. Those who were once noble had been stripped of their ancestral lands. Some sought, or were forced into military service in other countries. Some were able to rise into some level of public service, although information about such individuals is not as difficult to find. There are no bounds to the kinds of details that factored into the quality of life that Irish were able to lead both in their homeland and once they emigrated, particularly in their ability to acquire and retain property.

Many emigrated as outlaws, slaves, or indentured servants and began their American chapter in relative obscurity. Many who worked in the coal mines, quarries, laying railroad tracks, building roads and bridges, or other grueling physical jobs likely experienced life in conditions far worse than those which they had left in Ireland. Working extremely hard, earning very little money, many died quite young, some from the infectious illnesses that spread quickly through communities. (Tuberculosis appeared amid many of the families I have studied.) There may have been few or no records at all generated about many of the early Irish in America, especially if they lived and died here between the census years.

I’ve spent some time studying databases that contain indexes about Irish men and women who were considered convicts—even for such actions as stealing food during times of starvation. It could well be that someone’s elder siblings and/or parents were convicted of crimes, killed or deported, lost in such ways to the genealogical winds.

Whether we find what we need or not, in this collaborative endeavor, I, for one, am grateful for the wonderful people I’ve become involved with over the last seven years. Some have helped me learn to do this kind of research and others have been willing to share their families’ stories with me. All have helped to build a picture of early Irish New Haven County through our various perspectives and lenses, and I am bound now, in turn, to offer guidance to others. There will always be more to learn and to do in our time available, even as life pulls us in so many other directions. I have returned 180 degrees back to my studio practice, although I suspect that I will never entirely leave this research. It may simmer quietly on the back burner, so to speak, forever. I, however, am somehow altered due to what I have learned about my own lineage. For that grounding I will be forever grateful.

I have honed in on a particular area of Ireland and am interested in scouring that location in the way that I have New Haven County and the Naugatuck Valley. I am even more interested in revisiting my new-found Irish friends and meeting in person potential future ones. I have untangled some of the origins of Kilkenny-based Meagher families who have Connecticut connections, and even found Maher links to the original Sisters of Mercy in America and New Zealand. However, I can’t help but still hope to learn more about my TEN southern Irish immigrant direct ancestors with two intermarried other lines—not only all there is to learn about the illusive Meaghers!

May those who read this have much success in finding all you still seek and true Irish luck in also finding happiness and friendship along the way!

©2013 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

NEHGS Announcement and Upcoming Presentation in Naugatuck!

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Naugatuck, New Haven, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants, Ordering From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, Saint Francis Church, Tombstone Transcriptions

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Early Irish History, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, Irish Catholic History, Irish in Connecticut, New Haven County Connecticut, Saint Francis Cemetery

Civil War Monument and Headstones, Saint Bernard Cemetery, New Haven, CT ©2007 Janet Maher

Civil War Monument and Headstones, Saint Bernard Cemetery, New Haven, CT ©2007 Janet Maher

Thank you to the New England Historic Genealogical Society for announcing the publication of my book, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley: Early Irish Catholics in New Haven County, Connecticut, in their current issue of American Ancestors. They are among several locations that own a copy for their library. I have begun to receive emails with questions about the cost and content of my book, so I’d like to take this opportunity to provide that information again here, as well as to announce my upcoming talk for the Naugatuck Valley Genealogy Club on Saturday, October 12 at the Naugatuck Historical Society, in Connecticut. This will follow a brief business meeting at 1 p.m., and it is open to the public.

My talk and Power Point presentation will include selections from the 363 images of people, places, details and maps included in my 400-page book, and I will discuss methods of finding illusive information when doing this kind of research.

From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley explores the history of Ireland through the perspective of religion and centuries of discord that led millions of Irish Catholics to leave their native land. It traces the origins of the Catholic Church in Connecticut, then to several Irish families whose personal stories extend to the present. It includes complete transcriptions and section maps of the first Irish Catholic cemetery in Naugatuck, Saint Francis. My research of particular families in the Naugatuck Valley has led me to the location in Ireland from which many of the early settlers and priests originated. More general information may be found throughout this blog (where the info is more specifically Maher-related) and on my Irish-oriented Pinterest site.

My book, which lists for $65.95, will be discounted for those interested in purchasing a signed copy on that day. Whether or not you can attend the talk, mention this blog posting to purchase it for $60 with free shipping in the U.S. throughout the rest of this year. (Makes a great Christmas present!) Send your check to me at P.O. Box 40211, Baltimore, MD, 21212, and let me know if you would like it inscribed.

Table of Contents 

Acknowledgments

I: Background Ireland; Arrival of the Normans; Conquest of Ireland; Rebellion; Thomas Francis Meagher; Some Potential Connections Between New Haven County and Ireland

II: Catholicism in New England; Catholic Churches; Christ’s Church, Saint Mary’s Church, New Haven; Immaculate Conception/Saint Mary’s Church, Derby; Catholic Schools in Early New Haven; Early New Haven County Cemeteries; Early Catholic Waterbury; Catholic Schools in Waterbury; Old Saint Joseph Cemetery

III: Catholicism in Naugatuck; The First Catholics; Saint Anne and Saint Francis Churches

IV: Vignettes of Selected Families: The Butlers; The Brennans; The Martins; The Conrans; The Learys; Some New Haven Mahers; Adelaide Maher Quigley, Thomas Maher, Matthew Maher, Michael O’Maher; Anthony Meagher, John Maher, Jeremiah Maher; Ireland and America Letters; Josephine Maher and Family

V:  Saint Francis Cemetery Transcriptions: Sections A & B; Sections C, G & Portion of H; Sections F & Portion of H; Sections E & Portions of D, H; Section H; Modern Section; Tombstones That Cite A Location in Ireland

Conclusion

Appendix: Selected Additional Photographs

Notes

Image Identification

Bibliography

I welcome anyone who has read and (I hope!) feels positive about my book to comment here, or add to the lovely review that one reader wrote on Amazon.com. Thank you all for continuing to follow and read this blog, and I look forward to sharing my labor of love with any who can show up on October 12!

©2013 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

DNA Testing #2

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Janet Maher in DNA testing

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Early Irish History

©2010 Janet Maher, Woolen Mill #2, digital print with drawing on wood, w/acrylic, 8"

©2010 Janet Maher, Woolen Mill #2, digital print with drawing on wood, w/acrylic, 8″ diameter x 3/4″

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From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley

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