“The Potato Famine in Ireland Photo.” AllinIreland.WordPress (web log), January 18, 2015. Accessed September 13, 2017. https://allinireland.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/the-potato-famine-in-ireland/.
Pugliese, Phil. “Irish Fled Famine in Old Country for New World and Hope.” The North Adams Transcript. March 17, 1987.
This article was chalk full of information. Not only did the author address why and how the Irish immigrated to North Adams in the 1840s and 50s, he also talks extensively about what they did once that settled here. It all started with the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s, which caused massive devastation and loss of life in Ireland. People soon set their sights on North America, so much so that “American manufactures advertised in Irish newspapers offering to pay the passage of any man willing to come and work”. Thousands started to travel to the US many through the way of timber ships sailing for Canada, as that was cheapest. Most of the Irish who came to the Berkshires first stopped in New Brunswick and then either caught a boat to Boston or simply walked. Of all the immigrant groups to settle in the Berkshires, the Irish did so some thirty years earlier, giving them a sense of superiority above the rest. Once the men had settled in the area, they took up jobs in the local timber and cotton mills. Many also worked on the Hoosac Tunnel which would connect the eastern coast with Troy N.Y. 200 Irish men where killed in its construction, either from “cave ins”or “nitroglycerin blasts”. This newspaper article also talks about the Irish’s church. Once their were a significant number of Irish families in North Adams, around late 1850s early 1860s, they decided they needed to have an actually church and not just preform services out of a parish members house. So they bought a building from local Methodists and soon had their own Priest sent from Pittsfield. Soon however, they out grew the space and so they decided to build their own church on Eagle St. located right off Main St. So after working twelve hour days in the factories the men proceeded to build a massive church named Saint Francis of Assisi. Sadly this church was torn down last year after being abandoned for about a decade.
This seems a good source Kaitlyn. I was a bit lost at times as an understanding of the chronology/timeline of the Irish in Massachusetts as presented in the article was unclear. Maybe soon, once it becomes more evident through your research, you can provide that sort of thing.
You provide a good deal of interesting information — now to the process of developing the context.
The interesting thing here addresses a question I asked of Susannah in comments on her blog. You identify the Irish as early immigrants which gave them a feeling of exceptionalism – I think it also may have made townspeople, faced with new and stranger immigrants, more amenable to the more familiar Irish.
How does this article inform your research (and it certainly does) and why is the church so important to community – obvious but will certainly be a part of your analysis. Good work.