Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands Irish women worked as domestics. The "Irish Bridget" is one of the most recognisable stereotypes of Irish America, but what was life really like for these women, who were the subject of such extensive cariacture and discrimination?

In this episode, Fin and Damian are joined by Dr Catherine Healy, Historian-in-Residence at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum and an expert on Irish domestic service. In the show we explore the reality of their hard working lives, and try and recover something of their lived experiences, both positive and negative. As well as discussing what these women did and the types of places they worked, we chat through things like vulnerabilities that came with live-in service, the prejudices they endured, and the pride they took in earning their own money and supporting families back in Ireland.

You can find Catherine's Website here: https://catherinehealy.org/

The link to Catherine's Book: Irish Domestic Servants in Transatlantic CUlture, c. 1870-1945

Epic: The Irish Emigration Museum

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It is little known that the term United States of America may have been coined by the Irishman, Stephen Moylan. Although a little klnown figure in Ireland, he played a key role in the American revolution. His life story is remarkable. Born into a Catholic family in Cork his experiences in Ireland would form his transformational impact he on US history.

In this episode, Fin & Damian speak with historian Victoria Pearson a PhD researcher in Ulster University. The Moylan family is her particular area of expertise and she explains Stephen Moylan’s remarkable journey, his formative early life in Cork and his place in the revolutionary generation of 1776.

Dr Pearson’s article, Am I My Brother’s Keeper: The Moylan Family and the American Revolution, will feature in a special edition of History Ireland, out in July/August to mark America 250.

Victoria also appears in the upcoming TG4 documentary, The Lost Irish Heroes of the American Revolution, presented by Cormac Ó hEadhra. It will be broadcast in Ireland on 4 July and will also have an international release.

You can also listen back to this previous transatlantic episode, where Damian and Fin discuss Irish involvement in the American Revolution more broadly: https://shows.acast.com/transatlantic/episodes/who-did-the-irish-support-in-the-

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The individual experiences of ordinary Irish emigrant women in the late 19th and early 20th century can be difficult to reach, with many spending years working long hours in domestic service or on factory floors. But there is a group of these women who left a greater mark in the written record and--sometimes--even left behind their own words. They were the "radical" activists--Irish American women who took the decision to raise their heads above the parapet in an overwhelmingly patriarchal world to fight for the causes they believed in.

In this episode, Fin and Damian are joned by Dr Tara McCarthy, the expert on Irish American women's activism during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Tara takes us through the background of these women, explains their origins, and highlights the incredible stories of a number of these remarkable individuals. Along the way she charts the importance of the Irish nationalist struggle for the growth in activism, discusses efforts to improve the lot of women in the workplace, and shares the strategems employed to progress the cause of female suffrage. All in all, this is a must-listen show if you want to discover more about the major contribution Irish American women made to activism in the United States during this critical period.

Book: Tara M McCarthy, Respectability & Reform: Irish American Women’s Activism, 1880-1920 Syracuse University Press

Dictionary of Irish Biography: Fanny Isabel Parnell

New York Irish History Roundtable Profile of Marguerite Moore

New York Historical Society Profile of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Transatlantic Podcast. Episode 8. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America?

National Park Service Profile of Leonora O’Reilly 

Freedomsway.org Profile of Mary Kenney O’Sullivan

Dictionary of Irish Biography: Hanna Sheehy Skeffington

National Park Service Profile of Maud Malone

National Park Service Profile of Margaret Foley

Gilder Lehrman Institute Profile of Mary Elizabeth Lease

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George Galphin was a married man in his late 20s when he left Armagh for a new life on the American Frontier in 1737. Across the four decades that followed Galphin built an extraordinary personal empire on the frontiers of colonial South Carolina and Georgia. At the heart of his success were his connections with the indigenous Muscogee (Creek) people, amongst whom he lived. In this episode, Fin and Damian are joined by Dr Bryan C. Rindfleisch--an expert on Galphin's life--to discuss this fascinating Ulster Scot emigrant, the people that surrounded him, and the world he inhabited.

Bryan outlines for us what life was like on the frontiers of Empire in the 18th century American south-east, and how Galphin found success as the key-go between in the lucrative deerskin trade with Native American peoples. He traces Galphin's Irish origins and how his transatlantic ties influenced him, not least through his efforts to support increased Ulster emigration to the Frontier. We also delve into some of the intimate relationships that were central to Galphin's life, particularly with women such as Metawney, the powerful Muscogee woman who made his career possible, and the enslaved women he held in bondage and with whom he fathered children. 

Book: Bryan C. Rindfleisch George Galphin's Intimate Empire: The Creek Indians, Family and Colonialism in Early America

Discover Ulster Scots: The Scotch Irish of Savannah

Website of The Muscogee Nation

National Park Service History of The Muscogee Nation

Silver Bluff Audubon Center and Sanctuary

Initial Archaeological Investigations at Silver Bluff Plantation

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The Gaelic Athletic Association is one of the defining organisations in modern Irish history. Founded in 1884, it became the bedrock of community life across Ireland and played a significant role in the country’s political and cultural story. Its importance was starkly illustrated on Bloody Sunday in 1920, when Crown forces attacked spectators at a match in Dublin.

In this episode, we turn to the history of the GAA in the United States. Bennett Burke, Public Relations Officer of the United States Gaelic Athletic Association, joins Fin and Damian. Their conversation traces the story of Gaelic games in America from their earliest beginnings to the present day. They discuss how the games took root, the challenges they faced, and the role the GAA played in the lives of Irish emigrants and their descendants across the US and North America.

The USGAA governs Gaelic football, hurling, and camogie in the United States (except metro NYC), Mexico, and the Caribbean. Visit https://usgaa.org/usgaa-interactive-map/ to find a club near you

US GAA Homepage

New York GAA Homepage

The "Mayo Curse"

Video Footage of the 1947 All Ireland Football Final in New York

Michael O'Hehir speaks about "Just give us five minutes more" during the 1947 All Ireland radio commentary

Paddy Bawn Brosnan & the American Civil War: The Famed Gaelic Footballer's Links to Kerry's Greatest Conflict

New York Make History with Shootout Win Over Leitrim

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Today a little over 2,500 people live in Leadville, Colorado. But in the late 19th century tens of thousands of people flocked here, trying to eke out a living during the great silver mining boom. A huge number of those people were Irish. Nicknamed "Cloud City" because of its incredible altitude--over 10,000 feet up in the Rockies--there were few more difficult places to live. The harsh climate, shanty accommodation and terrible working conditions sent many to an early grave, with the least fortunate consigned to an unmarked pauper's burial ground. In this episode, Fin and Damian are joined by Professor Jim Walsh of the University of Colorado, Denver, who has worked tirelessly to recover these pauper's names --and their lives.

Jim describes for us what life was like for Irish men and women in Leadville during the 1880s and 1890s, sharing their stories and outlining their shocking life expectancies. He also traces the links that tie Leadville to Irish mining communities from Waterford, Tipperary and Allihies in West Cork, and Irish American ones in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region and Butte, Montana. We also discuss the ongoing work of identifying the names of those interred in the pauper's cemetery, an effort that has led to the creation of the deeply moving Leadville Irish Miners' Memorial.

Professor Jim Walsh University of Denver, Colorado

Leadville Irish Miners' Memorial

The Lost Irish Miners of Leadville: PBS Documentary

Biographies of Leadville People

Molly Brown House Museum, Denver

Transatlantic Episode 14. The Irish in Pennsylvania Coal Country

Irish Stew Podcast Season 3 Episode 3: Unearthing Diaspora History

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The coastal area of South Carolina and Georgia, known as the "Lowcountry", may not be the first place that springs to mind when it comes to Irish America. But the historic cities of Savannah and Charleston have long, rich histories of Irish immigration that have forged connections which endure to this day. In the case of Savannah, that immigration was so large it saw the Irish population reach a percentage of the city's total white population that was comparable to New York. In this episode Professor David Gleeson makes a return to Transatlantic to discuss Charleston and Savannah's story and offer insights into a part of the U.S. he knows extremely well. We chat about their colonial origins and 18th century Ulster-Scots migrations, the expanding Irish Catholic communities of the 19th century, and the political and cultural legacies of the Irish in Savannah and Charleston in the 20th and 21st centuries. Along the way David introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters and uncovers some of the very specific regional ties the Lowcountry maintained with Ireland.

Dr David Gleeson is a Professor of History in the School of of Humanities and Social Sciences at Northumbia University Newcastle. The leading historian of the Irish in the southern United States, among his many publications are The Irish in the South, 1815-1817 and The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America.

You can hear David's previous episode on Transatlantic, discussing the Irish in New Orleans in Episode 10, here.

Savannah St Patrick's Day Parade

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The U.S. entry into World War II in 1941 led to the deployment of tens of thousands of American troops to Ireland, just as it had during World War I. But this time they were concentrated only in Northern Ireland, which had remained part of the United Kingdom. The American arrival led to an unparalleled explosion in Northern Ireland's population. In this episode we are joined by Dr James O'Neill to discuss the U.S. military's return to the island. We cover the who, when and why of their presence, and move beyond the military to explore their social impact--covering everything from chewing gum and buying rounds to interactions with local women and racial segregation.

Dr James O'Neill is Collections Officer at the Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum in Belfast's Catheral Quarter, which is dedicated to exploring the story of the Second World War in Northern Ireland. Jim is also the leading historian of the Nine Years' War (1593-1603) in Ireland; you can find his books on that here and here. 

Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum

Transatlantic Episode 3: 1917- The American Invasion of Ireland

War and Navy Departments Washington D.C., 1942: A Pocket Guide to Northern Ireland

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The St. Patrick's Day Parade is the centrepiece of celebrations of Ireland's patron saint the world over. But how did it start--and just who started it? In this episode Fin and Damian are joined by noted historian of the Irish aboard, Dr Cian McMahon, who is currently working on a new history of the Parade. In a far-reaching episode we discuss the Parade's origins, influences and legacy down to contemporary times. Among the nuggets Cian discusses are the misconceptions that ihe Parade's origins are as a Catholic Irish American event, and the idea that Dublin's Parade has been increasingly "Americanised."

Cian T. McMahon is Professor of History at the Department of History and Honors College at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He was the co-editor of The Routledge History of Irish America and is the author The Coffin Ship: Life and Death at Sea during the Great Irish Famine and The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity: Race, Nation and the Popular Press, 1840-1880.

Listen to Cian discuss his Coffin Ship book with Fin on the Irish History Podcast here

Read about some early St. Patrick's Day horrors in Temple Bar, involving a giant St. Patrick, a pint, and a plastic bag: https://www.thejournal.ie/st-patrick-temple-bar-pub-6968056-Feb2026/ 

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