Readers Forum : Letters

Dear editor

In your excellent editorial: Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears (December 2007/January 2008), you write: "And so we dedicate this issue to a country where dreams can still come true.

And as we pay tribute to those on our Business 100 list we put forth the hope that today's immigrants, Irish and otherwise, who languish on the sidelines waiting for proper documentation, will eventually get through the process and have a shot at keeping the American dream alive."

I would like to pay tribute to the story of some of those pre-Ellis Island and pre-Business 100 List Irish immigrants who responded to the opportunity of this country and successfully took a shot at the American dream and built this country.

To them, and to those on your Business 100 list, I dedicate the following essay, a celebration of Irish success in middle-America, beginning in New York City in mid-19th century which has made all of our current success possible.

The Journey Home

From a pest house in New York City, my great-grandparents, Jeremiah and Ellen Lyons, had the first glimpse of their new home, America. Forced to flee famine and oppression, they left Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland in 1845.

Filled with hope for a better life and $1,500 sown in Jeremiah's underwear, they made the crossing. But when Jeremiah caught the cholera on board ship, he was isolated from his wife and two young daughters, Bridgit and Margaret. Upon arrival at the docks, unknown to Ellen, Jeremiah was placed in a pest house along the shore line.

There he was nursed by anonymous caretakers. For three months Ellen searched every shanty and shack in New York City until, in the words of the story recited at every family reunion:

One day a man said, "Well, yes, but it just couldn't be him,"

"He was so old and bearded and thin."

If she wished she may come in and look,

There were no records on the book,

He seemed to be traveling alone,

His memory was gone, and without name or home.

Thus she found her Jerry, lying on a bed of straw,

His face was drawn in a look of awe.

What had happened in the past there was no telling-

He raised his head and whispered "Ellen."

The money had disappeared. After Ellen nursed her Jerry back to health they joined with other recent arrivals to build the railroads from New York to Chicago. Near that windy city, with a growing family - including my grandfather, Will - they became successful farmers and later moved farther west to Iowa and finally Dakota Territory where they spent the autumn of their lives with their pioneer sons and daughters.

Ellen and Jeremiah brought with them, and passed to their children, and their children's children, a passion for education and a strong commitment to exercise the civic virtues of their new country.

They were the real radicals in America's history. These people lived in their adopted land, not as victims of the oppression they had fled, but as confident and contributing citizens who saw that their own fulfillment was in helping to build this country, its schools, farms and businesses. When I reflect on their odyssey, I realize that the journey to my home began in a pest house in New York City where the kindness of strangers gave my first American relatives a taste of the goodness and greatness of its people.

Robert F. Lyons

Kennebunkport, Maine

Note: Robert Lyons grew up in South Dakota, where his Irish ancestors homesteaded. He teaches Irish Studies in OSHER Lifelong Learning Institutes at Tufts University, Boston, and University of Southern Maine, Portland. He and his wife, Nona Lyons, have lived much of the past seven years in Ireland and now reside in New England.

The Demise of St. Brigid's Church

I am writing to you in response to an item on Irish television's Nationwide. The program's presenters Michael Ryan and Mary Kennedy aired the concerns of the parishioners of St. Brigid's "Famine Church" in Manhattan, which is going to be demolished because the New York archdiocese wants to sell the site to a developer. St. Brigid's was built by New York's Irish immigrants who fled the famine that devastated Ireland in the 1840s.

The people of the parish want St. Brigid's to be converted into a museum, which would encapsulate the history of the Irish in New York over the past 160 years. Apparently, the church hierarchy does not agree and is pursuing a case through the courts to enforce the sale.

They [the hierarchy] refused to speak to Nationwide or make any response. Nationwide is now requesting that the Dublin government and other influential people and corporations support the parishioners' efforts to preserve St. Brigid's and mount an appeal if the current case goes in favor of the archdiocese.

I urge readers of your magazine to join this good cause. As it is a presidential election year in '08, it might be possible to get local politicians to use their influence. Maybe even Hillary Clinton?

Joseph Patrick Muldoon

County Derry

Note: The court, in fact, ruled in favor of the Archdiocese on November 15. The Committee to Save St. Brigid's filed a Motion to Appeal and the Archdiocese agreed to keep the Temporary Restraining Order in place. For more information or to join the campaign to save St. Brigid's go to www.savestbrigid.com.