I have always been fascinated with family history and have tried to learn as much about my ancestors, all of whom emigrated from Ireland, as I possibly could. It has never been enough to just know where they lived. I also wanted to piece together their history and see places that they once saw. Because all of my ancestors came from County Mayo, I have concentrated my research there, filling notebooks of transcriptions from various parishes. In doing so, I found so many names that are as common in northeastern Pennsylvania as they are in Ireland, I decided to post my records on line for anyone who might want to read through them and perhaps get a start in looking for their own families. Because of poor record keeping, gaps in the registers and some illegible pages, my transcriptions are certainly not a complete rendering of every family who lived in 19th century County Mayo. However, this will be a beginning for some. At one time, about 80% of the people who lived in Wayne, Lackawanna and Luzerne counties were either Irish-born or of Irish descent. There were a number of reasons why the Irish were so attracted to this area. The Great Famine, of course, caused about a million Irish to leave their homeland in the years between 1845 and 1852. The worst year of the Famine was called "Black '47" because the situation had reached crisis proportions, notably in some of the western counties. Both Galway and Mayo were particularly devastated. At that time, northeastern Pennsylvania was largely farm and forest with very few residents outside of entrenched families from the southern part of the state and New England. At the same time, coal was becoming a valuable commodity and there developed an increasing need for miners and laborers. Because the railroads, which soon became a big employer, were in their infancy, a canal system was developed which brought the coal from the Carbondale area to markets in New York and Philadelphia. Again, laborers were needed. There was also a gravity railroad which carried coal out of the region. Irishmen who had settled elsewhere began arriving, having heard that there was steady work available An element of diversity of opportunity evolved, which included some manufacturing, the railroads, hospitality, dry goods and provision shops Tthe company towns that were characteristic of Carbon and Schuylkill counties never really developed. in Scranton. There were more employment options and the mning industry was not the only game in town. New immigrants were recruited from the market towns in Ireland to swell the numbers of workers. Many of these were Irish-speakers. They generally kept to themselves but were known to be a raucous bunch on pay-nights. In Honesdale, Wayne County, there was also a settlement of German foresters who were not loved by the Irish, and who disliked them as well. On Saturday nights, fueled by whiskey, alcohol induced chaos would reign. It was so bad that the local police locked themselves in the county jail and left the warring factions to it. At the time, the Irish were mostly young, or relatively young men. Families were still rare, and there were few available young women of marriageable age. The Irish were also deeply religious, but the community was served by itinerate priests who might not visit for weeks or months at a time.Eventually, siblings, friends and relatives and occasionally parents of the original immigrants began to arrive . The Archdiocese of Philadelphia recognized the need for an established church and pastor in residence. Since the Irish recognized the authority of their priest, things began to settle down because nothing was more shameful than having one's name read out to the entire congregation on Sunday morning. Even those who persisted in Saturday night fighting would never dare miss the 9 o'clock Mass on Sunday. It was a disgrace to the individual and his family, as well. When it became apparent that the American Civil War was not going to be of short duration, the draft was instituted. Miners in many places were exempt because of the need for coal, but there were elements in Wayne and upper Lackawanna County (then part of Luzerne County) who remained incorrigible. With more than a little gentle nudging, such men were encouraged, sometimes forcibly, to join the army. Most accounts give credit to the courage, skill and ingenuity of Irish soldiers. Those who survived and returned to their homes were changed men. One can assume that the combination of necessary military discipline, the dangers of war and a new found maturity and dignity transformed these usually very young men into model citizens. One, Michael Creighton, is honored with a headstone erected by his brother in the Hawley cemetery. His body was never returned from the brutal 1864 Wilderness Campaign and he lies a very long way from his home near Crossmolina. John T. Brown, who was a writer for one of the Philadelphia newspapers, wrote a retrospective of life in the primarily Irish village of Minooka which is now part of Scranton. In Minooka, as well as other towns and villages, the original immigrant was likely to be the oldest son or father of a family. Most were laborers and eventually miners, and they saved money to bring more of the family here to the United States. A famous example would be "Squire" O'Neill, of Maam, Galway, who left his wife and children behind in the late 1870's and brought them here in 1881. The O'Neill family produced three sons who would later become professional baseball players in the major leagues. The most famous was Steve O'Neill. Two other brothers, Mike and Jim, played on the same team for awhile and it is said, since both were Irish-born, that they kept up the infield chatter in Gaelic in order to confuse the opposing team. By 1874, there was a sufficient popuation of Irishmen in Minooka for the diocese to build a church in the village. The first pastor of St. Joseph's was Father John Loughran. Fr. John, as he was called, ruled the population with an iron hand. Because there were no law enforcement agencies in the village, Fr. John was the enforcement, judge and jury in all disputes. Brown recalled that he would take his Saturday evening constitutional with a whale-bone riding crop in hand, dispersing the pay-night frolickers and sending children who should have been home running for cover. He was well-educated himself and encouraged parents to keep their children in school as long as they could possibly afford it, believing that literacy would raise at least some of them out of the mines. He knew that alcohol abuse was a probalem among some of the Irish and established a chapter of St. Matthew's Temperance Society at the church. Minooka sponsored a team in the CTAU (Catholic Temperance Athletic Union) called the Minooka Blues which sent a number of players, besides the O'Neill's to the major leagues. Notable examples were Chick Shorten and Mike McNally, who was the first player to steal home in a World Series game. McNally, Steve O'Neill and Chick Shorten were close personal friends of the famous George Herman "Babe" Ruth and he was a frequent visitor to their homes. McNally was drafted in World War I and while stationed in England, was a participant in a baseball game that was unexpectedly viewed by England's King George. McNally is a common Mayo name, appearing often in the Ballina church registers. There is no doubt that his parents, like so many others, fled the oppression and poverty that were the standard for the Irish for many centuries in their occupied land. How ironic was it to see the then famous American baseball star, child of impoverished immigrants, shaking hands with the king of the country that had governed them with institutionalized cruelty for so many years,? (It might be noticed that McNally is shown standing in respect, but he does not bow. This was not intended to be rude or disrespectful but was a precedent set by American Olympic athletes of Irish birth or descent. The act of bowing would be reserved for the American president only.)  ANY COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS ARE CERTAINLY WELCOME. CONTACT ME AT mamev@verizon.net. |
Many immigrants chose not to talk about their homes or families in Ireland. For them, leaving was so traumatic that they could not bear to share information, even with their own children. In some locations, it was customary to hold a "wake" when a family member was leaving for America. The idea was that those left behind never expected to see their family member again in this life. It was said to be a combination of high spirited playfulness and good wishes for the emigrant as well as a mournful sense of the permanence of the separation.While their descendants know that their ancestors came from Ireland, they often have no idea what county, let alone, what town or village, they called home. At one time, certain names were indigenous to certain areas. Probably, the 17th century marked the beginning of internal movement around Ireland. When the Irish nobility were finally defeated by Elizabethan forcesand the country became a foster child of Great Britain, many changes occurred. government was bright enough to realize that hanging the nobles would make martyrs of them and cause retributary violence among the natives so they were allowed to leave. This was called "The Flight of the Earls" and resulted in the nobility moving to Spain, France, Italy and Germany, leading to the destruction of the clan system. There is an old saying that every Irishman is a king but this is not quite true. Under the clan system there were powerful hereditary chieftains who controlled various territories. They owed their allegiance to the high king of Tara whose position was not hereditary, and paid tribute to him. There were lesser chieftains who owed allegiance to the local "king" who drew upon their septs for soldiers in time of war. Although there were often battles between powerful chiefs, Ireland was governed by Brehon Law which was very detailed in ordering society. Prior to the British conquest of Ireland, society was relatively sophisticated. Genealogists, historians, storytellers and musicians were held in high esteem. The Irish produced jewelry of great beauty and wove linen and wool fabrics of high quality and vivid color. Under Brehon law, the color of one's garment was a key to his standing in society and a person of a lower class was not permitted to wear the colors of the higher classes. Work involved farming, herding, fishing, metalworking and various other crafts. Some young men were of a soldier class, serving as guards for the kings and their domains. The ancient Irish enjoyed competitive sports such as running and hurling, and chariot and horse racing were an aspect of celebrations. Two important holidays or observances were Midsummer Night and Halloween. The tradition of wearing costumes at Halloween dates back to the ancient Celts who believed that the dead returned to earth. In order to fool them and confound any mischief they might have in mind, they sometimes wore the cured hides and heads of animals. In ancient Ireland, there were few urban areas although there were some port cities such as Dublin. Much of the land was forested and there was an abundance of wildlife. Ireland was not entirely Celtic from early times. There were Viking invasions, finally halted by Brian Boru at Clontarf, but many Vikings stayed on as peaceful residents who intermarried with the Irish. The Normans came in the 13th century. Some of the familiy names such as Barrett, Bourke and Jordan appear in the Ballina registers. They were supposed to create pockets of support for eventual British conquest but found , to the disgust of the Crown,that they liked the Irish way of life so much that they became "more Irish than the Irish" adopting their language, customs and even the style of dress. After Cromwell, Irish society was systematically dismantled. With the departure of the "Wild Geese," well trained soldiers who had been defeated in battle, their lands were open to even more unlawful appropriation by the Crown.Irish owned property was siezed from its owners and handed to Cromwellian soldiers or political favorites. Later, large tracts of land became the property of British nobility and the Irish had no alternative but to work for them on small tenant farms.Seemingly exhorbitant rents were charged and as soon as a farmer failed to pay, his cottage was "tumbled" and he was forced with his family to go out on the road. "Bog-trotters"is an unflattering expression which refers to some of the poorest natives of Mayo. These unfortunates were forced off their land and had no choice but to try to cultivate bog land. Surprisingly, many were successful after years of effort. To further destroy the Irish persona, harsh penal laws were instituted that outlawed Catholicism, forced tithing to the official Church of Ireland, forbade the ownership of weapons, and even specified that no Irishman could own a horse worth more than five pounds. Instead of allowing primogeniture, in which the eldest son inherited one's property, the Penal Laws forced the few Irish landowners to subdivide their farms among all of their children, eventually making the parcels worthless for either farming and herding.. The abbeys and churches throughout Ireland were wrecked and the clergy was hunted for bounty by predatory "priest hunters."  By the time that church records began to appear, the harshest of the Penal Laws had been repealed. Reading through the church records causes one to wonder what these people did for a living. Ballina was an urban center which owed its development to James O'Hara, Lord Tyrawley. In 1729, he established a cotton factory there and built two streets. Eventually, a tobacco and snuff factory was built as well as flour and oat mills. In addition, a slaughterhouse processed about 10,000 pigs a year for export to England. The River Moy, which flows from the sea six miles to the north, is famous for its salmon and there was commercial fishing, again with the salmon exported to England. Sadly, throughout the Famine, there was bounty in the country but it was in the hands of those who were profitting from it while the native population starved. In the townlands around Ballina, small farmers worked their rented land and somehow managed. Movements spearheaded by Daniel O'Connell, Charles Parnell and Michael Davitt eventually made life easier for the natives. However, there was a new exodus in the 1870's when the "Little Famine" was caused by the failure of the potato crop once again. Fortunately, this did not have the devastating consequences of the earlier famine because people had learned to diversify and grew many other types of crops. Within households, women continued to spin and weave, and their handiwork was highly prized iin England. Given little choice, they sold their fabrics very cheaply and did not benefit from the high prices demanded by middlemen. Although early census records were destroyed in the 1916 Rebellion, it is possible to locate names on the Griffith's Land Valuation and on the 1901 and 1911 census in addition to church records. Prior to 1892 when Ellis Island opened, very little information is given on the various ships' lists. However, by consulting US census records, it is sometimes possible to match up enough details to verify emigration dates. Because Ballina became increasingly more urban, the population there was larger, probably better off and seemed to fluctuate more than the rural areas around towns like Crossmolina. Among the traditional Mayo names there are also names much more common to other areas of the country, as well as English and Scottish names. Most were atttracted by the variety or work available and some had chosen to move to this area of the country to escape religious, economic or political oppression. It is said that the Mayo accent is unique in its own way because it reflects not just the "music" of the native speech but also incorporates elements of a Scottish accent. Indeed, one of the landlords imported Scots from Ulster, feeling that they had a better work ethic than the Irish who tenanted his farms. Instead, they too became "more Irish than the Irish." |
