Take a moment to remember the Irish weren’t exactly welcome here. Our country has hosted Irish people from its very beginning but in the mid-1800s, the Irish came by the millions and the welcome mat was not exactly dusted off for them. Most were day laborers and forced to live in Shanties if they stayed in the urban centers. Few had money to proceed further. My own relatives lived in just such a community in NYC but by the next generation, their children were off and running. That is the beauty of this country. There is opportunity to be found, as there was then. Their lot in life was hard….leaving their beloved, rural country to come to the urban squalor that awaited them after sailing over a month on a coffin ship. My 2nd great grandparents came on the Western Empire which left Liverpool at the end of March 1853, arriving in NYC at an east side dock in May of 1853. That was before Castle Garden and the Barge Office and Ellis Island. They had at least 7 children and only lost one to disease and one to crime. They themselves died at what would be considered an early age….my Great grandfather being 56 and his wife, at the age of 58. His death certificate cites exhaustion as the cause of death and I can believe that they used up every ounce of their strength by the time sweet death came for them. And yet, they left behind the familiar to seek and embrace this country. I would say their coming proved to be a success. God bless them and may they forever rest in peace.
Jim Sullivan 