Transatlantic: An Irish American History Podcast

During the 1820s the Peter Robinson Emigration Scheme saw large numbers of families leave Munster the begin new lives in Upper Canada. Two hundred years later, the headstones these families left behind in Peterborough County, Ontario and in Cork, Limerick and Tipperary are helping to tell their stories in a unique, innovative and intrguing way. Fin and Damian are joined by Dr John Tierney, Director of the Historic Graves Project and Patrick Leahy of the Douro Heritage Group in Ontario to discuss their incredible transatlantic Carved in Stone community heritage project, which is using archaeology and history to explore the graveyards that linked these people across the Atlantic.

The episode begins with John explaining how Historic Graves works, and his long experience of collaborating with local communities in Ireland to record their graveyards. Patrick then takes us through the story of Irish settlement in Douro, Ontario and some of the stories of those who crossed to Canada. The remainder of the show is given over to discissing how their transatlantic collaboration came about, their ongoing work on both sides of the water, and the incredible insights that is bringing for our knowledge of these communities, their origins, and their maintained connections with home.

Historic Graves Website

Historic Graves Youtube Channel

Duoro Heritage Group Facebook Page

Ballyhoura Development Peter Robinson Emigration Page

Carved in Stone Ballyhoura Development Project Page

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Irish America's relationship with African Americans in the mid-19th century has long been a focus for historians, particularly those trying to understand racism and Irish opposition to emancipation. But what if part of the answer lies not in New York or Boston, but in Ireland itself? In this episode, Fin and Damian are joined by Dr Ian Delahanty, Associate Professor of History at Springfield College, Massachusetts. Ian's award-winning work has shed new light on some of the origins of Irish attitudes towards slavery, abolition and emancipation, and how they changed over time. As he explains, if we want to better understand them, we have to begin not in the United States, but in Ireland.

In this episode, Ian takes us back to the years around the Great Famine to explore Ireland's abolitionists, the influence of abolition on Irish politics, and how the tensions that resulted began to shape the views some Irish nationalists developed on abolition and emancipation during the 1840s. These political attitudes were carried across the Atlantic with Famine emigrants and nationalist leaders into a United States on the brink of war over the issue of slavery. We cross the Atlantic to follow that story, discussing how the political scenario in America shaped these pre-existing attitudes during the 1850s, and finally explore the major impact and influence the Civil War had on how Irish America came to view the question of emancipatiing enslaved African Americans.

Our discussion is based on Ian's book, Embracing Emancipation: A Transatlantic History of Irish Americans, Slavery and the American Union, 1840-1865 published by Forduham University Press. It was awarded the Lawrence J. McCaffrey Prize for the best book on Irish America in 2024.

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Maine may not be the first place we think of when it comes to large Irish communities, but in the years after the Great Famine, the port city of Portland became home to a significant Irish population. The communities they developed began a strong connection between the city and Ireland that endures to this day, especially with the place most connected with its immigrants— Galway. In this episode, Fin and Damian are joined by historian, genealogist and author Matthew Jude Barker, the expert on the Portland Irish, to explore their story.

As well as discussing what brought the Irish to Portland, in this episode Matt tells us about the neighbourhoods they made their own during the 19th and early 20th centuries. We explore events like the impact events like the "Great Fire" of 1866 and "Rum Riot" of 1855 had on their lives, and how they navigated local politics and nativism. Along the way we meet people like the McGlinchy brewing family, some of the women who made their living as domestic servants, and the remarkable story of Bishop James Augustine Healy, who became the first African American Catholic bishop in the United States.

Matthew's latest books are a two volume set on the story of the Portland Irish, Becoming American: Portland, Maine's Irish and the Making of Immigrant America 1840-1861 andThe Blue and the Green: The Irish of Portland Maine During the Civil War Era 1861-1870. You can purchase them here.

Maine Irish Heritage Center

Matthew's Website

In the intro to this week's show Damian mentioned a three-week online course he will be running this October for the Celtic Junction Arts Center. If you would like to find out more about the course, or sign up, you can do so via this link.

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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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