Fundraiser to benefit the Irish-American Heritage Archaeological Program at UMass Lowell a success

Irish-American Heritage Archaeological Program benefits from fundraiser

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Attendees at Center for Irish Partnership Fundraiser from Left to Right, Co-Director of the Center for Irish Partnerships Prof. Ann Marie Hurley, George McCarthy, Virginia McCarthy and Co-Director of the Center for Irish Partnerships Dr. Stephen McCarthy

Photo by Handout

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In addition, we received an excavation sponsor on Monday night from Eastern Minerals courtesy of Shelagh Mahoney and Joe McNamee.

For more information and up to date news on the Irish-American Heritage Archaeological Program, check out a blog written by St. Patrick’s Parish archivist and historian, Dave McKean, click here .

UMass Lowell students will be teaming up with archaeologists from Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland to dig for Irish history in Lowell. The group has been digging on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Church, once the site of an encampment by the city’s first wave of Irish immigrants. Those early settlers came to Lowell in the 1800s to build the city’s network of canals.

This is the third annual dig conducted by UMass Lowell students under the tutelage of representatives of the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork at Queen’s University in partnership with UMass Lowell’s Center for Irish Partnerships. So far, the digs have uncovered hundreds of artifacts from life in the encampment at St. Patrick’s in the 19th century, including rosary beads, marbles and oyster shells as well as the remains of a shanty believed to have been home to the parish priest during the same time period.

Following the digging in Lowell, the group will travel to County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to participate in a second excavation at the site of the Hugh Cummiskey homestead, the leader of the first group of Irish that walked up from Boston to Lowell in 1822 to dig the canals in Lowell.

The excavation at St. Patrick’s has been going very well. Dr. Colm Donnelly, Director of the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork at Queen’s University who is leading the excavation said “The work that we are doing is building on the historical narrative by bringing an archaeological methodology to play in finding the structures and small things forgotten of the people who lived here in the period from 1822 to 1870.”

The excavation included re-opening a trench that had been excavated in 2011 to try and identify a structure that had been found in the second season of digging. It was determined that the item in question was 4.28 meters deep and would have sat next to the house on the property that belonged to Fr. McDermott.

In addition, the crew continued to find numerous artifacts associated with the period 1822 to 1870 including clay pipes, iron nails, pottery and animal bones. Excavation outcomes will include the dissemination of articles documenting the artifacts and the stories they reveal about the immigrant culture, exhibitions for public viewing, preservation of a National monument and an understanding of how our past impacts our present and the future.

The team will dig daily this week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Lowell.

Next month, the team will travel to Northern Ireland to dig at the site of the former homestead of Hugh Cummiskey, who led the first group of Irish laborers on the 30-mile walk from Boston to Lowell. The group first dug at the site last summer to gain insight into Cummiskey’s life before he immigrated to the United States.

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