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Tag Archives: Irish in Connecticut

A Talk in April! – Journey Home

05 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, History, Ireland Pilgrimage, Irish in Waterbury, New Haven Irish Catholic Immigrants, Old Saint Joseph Cemetery, Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City

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Early Irish History, Irish in Connecticut

It appears that this topic and blog that I thought might have become a closed parentheses has opened back up for me. I have been invited to speak about my Irish work and writing for a special program hosted by the Mattatuck Museum, of Waterbury, CT. The event, History and Hops, will be held at Blackstone Irish Pub in Milldale/Southington, CT, from 2 to 3 pm on April 15! I’ve been working hard on a PPT presentation that I hope will be of interest to a range of people. I’ll speak about my own journey over more than 20 years of studying Irish history and learning to do genealogical research, ultimately bridging the origins of the earliest Irish settler group in Waterbury and nearby areas to the actual places from which they came in Ireland, and meeting so many wonderful people along the way. While I’ve shared reams of photos here from my five extended pilgrimages to Ireland, I have intentionally kept information on this blog general. In this talk I will bring my personal story home, having “found my self” through this work in a way I never imagined. (I’ll also have copies of Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City for sale.)

Hoping that some subscribers to Maher Matters who live within traveling distance may join us on April 15! Please register through Mattatuck’s website or from this link:

https://1340a.blackbaudhosting.com/1340a/History-and-Hops–History-of-Irish-in-Waterbury

All good wishes, Janet

©2023 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

All Rights Reserved

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

Immigrant Prejudice in America

17 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City

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Irish in Connecticut

Those who have enjoyed Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City, will likely also enjoy the blog of Silas Bronson Library Director, Raechel Guest. Her recent essays on prejudice in nineteenth century Connecticut may be found from this link to her Waterbury Thoughts. Guest is deeply immersed in Connecticut history, with a focus upon Waterbury. I have been very impressed with her work.

In June I will be in Ireland on an artist residency. I hope that it will be possible to return attention to this blog when there is new excitement and topics to share here. Thank you to all who continue to find me, subscribe and purchase my recent book.

©2016 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

17 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Janet Maher in Connecticut Irish, Free shipping, Irish in Waterbury

≈ 7 Comments

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Irish in Connecticut

boyGreen&BrownStkCprt.vsm4     Top o’ the morning to you!

It is six months since the release of Waterbury Irish, which has sold more than 900 copies! Thank you to all who have purchased it! I hope you have enjoyed it.

In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, for the next month Waterbury Irish and my first book, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley will ship for free within the United States from their Etsy site!

My multifaceted journey has been blessed with connections, reconnections and help from many people whose families were part of the vital history that these books address. May the spirits of Saint Patrick, Saint Columba, and all our Irish forebears enlighten the paths they have set us upon. Good luck, good health and happiness to those who find this site at Saint Patrick’s Day and beyond!

©2016 Janet Maher / Sinéad Ni Mheachair

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ConnecticutIrish
http://www.waterburyirish.com

Waterbury Irish Event on November 14!

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Janet Maher in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

American Mahers, AmericanCivilWar, Book Signing, Irish in Connecticut

PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Attention

Further Info, Contact Bilal Tajildean, 203-757-2279

JOHN BALE BOOK COMPANY HOSTS WATERBURY IRISH BOOK DISCUSSION

On Saturday, November 14, 2015 John Bale Book Company will host author, Janet Maher, and the director of Prospect Library, John Wiehn, for a discussion about her recent History Press publication, Waterbury Irish: From the Emerald Isle to the Brass City from 2:00 to 3:30 pm. This is part of the Bale Lyceum Series, designed to provide interesting conversation after a High Tea lunch. The Lyceum and the lunch both take place in Bale’s second floor rare book room at 158 Grand Street, Waterbury, CT. It is a cozy and comfortable atmosphere, great for enjoying a lunch with a friend or for bringing several friends. There is a $10 charge for the High Tea Lunch (noon to 1:30), and a $10 charge for the book discussion.

Waterbury Irish is the second scholarly book that Waterbury native, Janet Maher, has obsessively researched and written about the history of the Irish immigrations into New Haven County, Connecticut. Exhaustive reading about Ireland and Irish-Americans and two research trips to Ireland have also informed her work, as has friendships she developed with others interested in exchanging information about Irish genealogy since 2006. She has produced and/or restored massive numbers of her own original photographs and historic photographs from her and others’ collections, and completely transcribed and re-mapped a Naugatuck cemetery. Throughout her long project her quest has been to find bridges between the early New Haven county Irish settlers and their specific origins in the “Old Sod,” then following their progress through generations. She has attempted to recreate a sense of the former communities on both sides of “the pond” such that all who share common ancestral origins may glean a beginning point for their own further research forwards, backwards and sideways.

Primarily an artist, Maher directs the Studio Arts program at Loyola University Maryland, where she is an associate professor. For Waterbury Irish she enlisted the help of John Wiehn to work with her in expanding her research with stories about local Waterbury residents into the modern era. Past state president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Wiehn has served in all elected offices and been involved with the AOH for more than 20 years. He reached out to his AOH friends to share some living knowledge of Waterbury Irish individuals and shared some information gleaned from newspaper clippings he saved through the years. He also created the index for the book.

As the two Irish-interested friends grew up in different eras and different parts of Waterbury–one having remained all his life there, the other having left Connecticut at 25 years old–each had a different base of contacts and family to bring into this part of the project. Maher also “cold called” the current mayor and city clerk for their stories and continued to research the included families and their times, weaving all into her text that came to include politics, sports, the famous (and infamous), enlivened with myriad family memories.

Come to John Bale Book Company with your own stories and photographs to share with all in attendance. Waterbury Irish may be purchased at this event. Start your Christmas shopping for ancestral Irish friends and family here!

Waterbury Irish, and Maher’s first book, From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley, may also be purchased from her shop on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ConnecticutIrish/

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

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 Irish, Early Irish Catholics in Connecticut, Famous Irish Individual, Old Saint Joseph Cemetery, Waterbury

≈ 4 Comments

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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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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

 

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From the Old Sod to the Naugatuck Valley

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