Finding strength in our ancestors

The First Word

photos taken for the local newspaper in Walzenburg, Colorado – because we were “real Irish.” 

We traveled south to New Orleans, north to Canada, and as far west as California, and along the way we met a lot of

people who told us they were Irish, though they had never been to Ireland.

I didn’t know the story of the Irish in America when I started out on my journey,

We had been told about the Famine in school and the “coffin ships,” but they didn’t tell us what happened after that. No one mentioned how many died on the journey or that thousands were buried in mass graves on Grosse Île and all along the St. Charles River in Canada. They didn’t tell us that in New Orleans the Irish died of yellow fever building the canals, or that there’s a statue to “Margaret,” an Irish woman who built an orphanage and supported it with a bakery, though she could neither read or write. They didn’t tell us about the Irish who fought in the Civil War, built the railroads, panned for gold and built great education systems.

And no one said that there were 40 million Irish in America, so that I needn’t worry, I would always feel at home.

I didn’t learn all of the history of Irish America on that trip around the country, but it was the beginning of an understanding. And years later, in 1985, when I helped found Irish America magazine, the people I met – who carried Ireland in their hearts and treated us like family – were the ones we had in mind to reach.

At the end of our travels we arrived back in the Bronx and my friends departed for Ireland. I stayed on. I have never regretted that decision. Every July 4th I celebrate what I’ve come to call “my Independence Day.” I love America. I am grateful too that when the going gets rough I can find that place called Irish America and know the support and caring and the comfort of being amongst my own.

Those early Irish ancestors knew, as Brian Moynihan reminds us, “It doesn’t all break your way all the time, so you’ve got to just power through it.” It’s good advice for these uncertain times. This is a great country and the Irish who helped build it were not quitters. We can take strength from that, and from those ancestors who would say to us that it’s a time to look to family and community and “power on through it” together.

On an end note, I would like to say that the support we received from sponsors and advertisers for this issue, given so freely despite the economy, brought a sense of being part of a wider family, and reminded me of all of you across the country who opened your hearts and your homes to four young immigrant Irish girls all those years ago.  

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