Tag: New York City

#OTD in 1918 – John Devoy claims Roger Casement to blame for the 1916 Easter Rising’s failure.

23/03/2023.Reading time 4 minutes.

New York-based John Devoy, editor of the recently suppressed Gaelic American has claimed credit for being the key individual behind the ‘German Sinn Féiner’ efforts to launch a revolt in Ireland in 1916. The claim comes in a letter, a copy of which was published last month in the USA.   The letter, discovered on the […]

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#OTD in 1916 – First Irish Race Convention is held in New York City. Serves as immediate call for the Easter Rebellion in Dublin.

04/03/2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

The third Irish Race Convention is held in New York City on 4 March 1916 and serves as an immediate call for the Easter Rebellion in Dublin. Previous conventions were held in Chicago (1881) and Dublin (1896). The Irish Race Conventions are a disconnected series of conventions held in Europe and the Americas between 1881 and 1994. The main participants and financial supporters of the conventions are usually Irish-Americans. […]

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#OTD in 1877 – Death of Gaelic scholar, John O’Mahony, founding member of the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States, sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

07/02/2023.Reading time 5 minutes.

THE FENIAN MOVEMENT – The Fenians wanted one simple desire for Ireland – Independence from British rule. The Great Hunger had a massive impact on Ireland. Many in Ireland believed that the government in London, to solve the ‘Irish Problem’, had deliberately did as little as possible to aid the people of Ireland – in […]

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#OTD in 1861 – Death of dancer and courtesan, Lola Montez (Marie Gilbert), in New York. She was born in Grange, Co Sligo.

17/01/2023.Reading time 8 minutes.

Famous both for her self-created ‘Spider Dance’, as well as being the inspiration for the expression, ‘Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.’ Barry Manilow’s 1978 smash hit “Copacabana” tells the story of: ‘Lola, she was a showgirl, with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there”. Girlfriend of bartender Tony at the […]

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#OTD in 1917 – Hanna Sheehy Skeffington travelled to New York with her son, Owen, to speak about her husband’s murder during the Easter Rising.

13/01/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

In an interview with the New York Times, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington says she was determined to come to America to tell people about ‘my husband’s murder’, despite the British government’s refusal to give her a passport. ‘I am not willing to tell how I got here’, she said, before adding that she had been forced […]

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#OTD in 1820 – Birth of author, Mary Anne Sadlier, in Cootehill, Co Cavan.

30/12/2022.Reading time 6 minutes.

Born Mary Anne Madden in Cootehill, Co Cavan, Sadlier published roughly sixty novels and numerous stories. She wrote for Irish immigrants in both the United States and Canada, encouraging them to attend mass and retain the Catholic faith. In so doing, Sadlier also addressed the related themes of anti-Catholicism, An Gorta Mór, emigration, and domestic […]

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#OTD in 1954 – Ellis Island closes.

12/11/2022.Reading time 3 minutes.

Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shuts it doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since opening in 1892. Today, an estimated 40 percent of all Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island, located in New York Harbour off the New Jersey coast and named for merchant Samuel Ellis, who owned the land […]

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#OTD in 1938 – Death of Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary.

11/11/2022.Reading time 7 minutes.

Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in Cookstown, Co Tyrone. She emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1884. Mallon became the focus of one of the best-known episodes in the history of communicable disease when U.S. health officials identified her as a healthy carrier of the organism causing typhoid fever. Mallon, who refused […]

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#OTD in 1918 – John Devoy claims Roger Casement to blame for the 1916 Easter Rising’s failure.

23/03/2022.Reading time 4 minutes.

New York-based John Devoy, editor of the recently suppressed Gaelic American has claimed credit for being the key individual behind the ‘German Sinn Féiner’ efforts to launch a revolt in Ireland in 1916. The claim comes in a letter, a copy of which was published last month in the USA.   The letter, discovered on the […]

Read More

#OTD in 1877 – Death of Gaelic scholar, John O’Mahony, founding member of the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States, sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

07/02/2022.Reading time 5 minutes.

THE FENIAN MOVEMENT – The Fenians wanted one simple desire for Ireland – Independence from British rule. The Great Hunger had a massive impact on Ireland. Many in Ireland believed that the government in London, to solve the ‘Irish Problem’, had deliberately did as little as possible to aid the people of Ireland – in […]

Read More