St. Patrick's Day is coming!
Being LDS, it may be surprising that I love a holiday that most Americans associate with drinking funny-colored beer. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, do not drink. I do not drink. So, March 17 doesn't mean getting sloshed on beer and artificial green dye for me.
But I do love St. Patrick's Day! And it does mean more than wearing green and avoiding pinches and decorating with the ubiquitous leprechaun to me (though I have been known to hide tiny leprechaun-ish surprises late at night on St. Patrick's Day for friends to find). And why should I?
Why wouldn't I?!
I've loved this holiday since childhood because I'm about a fourth Irish and it's a day to celebrate my Irishness.
I love it because it honors a real man who had the courage to return to the land where he had been enslaved on a mission of mercy to share the Gospel as he knew it.
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| The Rock of Cashel, supposedly where Patrick converted the King of Munster |
A man who had an impact on a nation that would become the light and hope of Western Civilization in the early Middle Ages, preserving and sharing the knowledge of the ancient world with the nations of Europe.
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| Chi Rho page from the Book of Kells |
I love it because I celebrate a remarkable people with a rich heritage of language and arts and preserving who they are in the face of adversity, a people from whom I received an inheritance of imagination and humor and perseverance.
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| From IrelandsEye.com |
Now, as to highlighting a single Irish ancestor, how can I pick a favorite?
I've already introduced you to the Careys (Close to Home). And there's their ancestors, the families of Dwyer, Cullinane, Harrigan, Kennedy, Cunningham, Duane, Hickey, Allen, Kirby, Leddin, Gleeson, Morrissy, and Kiely, along with all those who are mine but whose names I do not know. They are all mine, a part of my heart, as well as my genes. They came from Counties Limerick and Tipperary, in Munster, the southwest of Ireland. They faced starvation in the Great Famine and left the land they loved--great-great-grandparents John Joseph Carey (and his mother Johanna (Cullinane) Carey), Mary Ann Harrigan, Maurice Hickey, and Margaret Leddin. They came to a country where they weren't always welcome and worked hard to become hard-working, educated, and respectable.
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| John Joseph Carey Sr. |
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| The house that Maurice Hickey left behind in Lough Gur Relatives Tom and Nora Hickey still own the house. |
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| Beneath the bushes and yellow flowers is the foundation of an even older house where generations of the Hickey family lived |
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| Margaret (Leddin) Hickey |
To learn more about these families, visit my mother's website on the Carey, Harrigan, Hickey, and Leddin families.
I love my Irish ancestors but since I'm supposed to highlight an ancestor, I think I'll share the experience of great-great-grandma Mary (Harrigan) Carey's arrival in America since it's a good example of that independent rebel spirit I'm so familiar with. I'll also share a modern connection, the first visit of family to Mary's brother's grave.
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| Mary (Harrigan) Carey |
At the age of seventeen, Mary arrived at Castle Garden. She was destined for her sister Anne (Johanna) (Harrigan) Lynch's farm in Iowa. But then, before she was processed through, she just happened to see some her cousins, fun cousins...and here they were in New York City. Imagine being a teenager in a new land, headed for a farm, with one chance to see the great, bustling city of New York. Do you sigh and wish that your sister would let you have a little time there?
Well, that's what Mary didn't do. Over the fence she went. Records show her as "lost at sea." On the contrary, Mary was having the time of her life. My mother wrote that according to family stories, "They gave her a glorious week while her sister was looking for her."
Anne eventually caught up to her. Away they went to Clinton, Iowa, where "she worked very hard, mainly for thanks." Fortunately, she had another cousin, this time in Chicago, and so she ran away and stayed with Mrs. Lawson, her relative. There, she met her husband, John Joseph Carey.
As rebellious as she may have been as young woman, she expected behavior that was becoming to a family of respectable Irish immigrants who sought to defy the stereotypes. She seems to have been a formidable force in her adulthood.
Her granddaughter Dolores Carey Gonczo said, "Grandma ruled the roost - every year all the boys that worked, married or unmarried, bought a new front parlor carpet, and the year-old one went into the back parlor. The Carey boys had to be in by 9 p.m., and the man next door used to set his watch by the boys rounding the corner and sprinting on home.
Another event I remember (or was told about) is that she dictated that each one could only get married in chronological order. But my Father and Mother (who was German) decided to get married before John and Mae Hickey were married (John was two years older than my Dad), and that, coupled with the fact that my father was marrying a German girl, Grandma came to the wedding - but, she came in after the wedding party had gone down the aisle and sat in the back pew. Hence, she was the first one to congratulate them! She would never give the neighbors anything to talk about.
...But she was a lovely lady, and I do mean lady. I, too, had heard that she was much higher class than her husband, and many a time, sitting at her feet in the Morris chair, she would regale us with stories of Ireland, and the fact that "we are all descendants of Brian Boru on one side of her family and the King of Munster on the other side of her family." "
Another granddaughter, Ruth Wheelock Matheny, said, "My mother said that she was violently opposed to the use of makeup by her daughters. When they were young ladies, she would still stand by the front door with a damp cloth and swipe the face of anyone wearing even powder! They were a happy family, though, who made their own fun."
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| Another photo of Mary |
When I think of Mary Harrigan, I think of a special moment I had while I was living in Virginia. Mary had a brother Patrick who left for America. What became of him was a mystery to Mary and her family. One daughter wrote, "Pat fought in Civil War with the Confederate army. No word was ever received from him. Mother often thought perhaps he was the father of Dr. Harrigan who looked much, very much like the Kennedy men."
His fate was discovered later. My mother found a muster roll for him.
In the remarks, it says, "Died at Richmond March 1862." She now we knew. He died at the age of 28 in the Civil War.
In 2010, I was living in Yorktown, Virginia. My daily commute took me past a Union soldiers' cemetery, over the famed Revolutionary battlefield, and across a Civil War trench. Williamsburg and Jamestown were an easy drive from my apartment. History was on my mind a lot there. While I spent most of my time exploring the colonial and revolutionary sites, the Civil War had left its mark and I began to think of my family's involvement. On my father's side, there were a number of Union soldiers and I looked up the information I had on each of them to see if any had a connection to Virginia. I remembered that my mother's family had a Confederate soldier, so I looked over my mother's research too.
Richmond! Patrick died in Richmond, only an hour away from Yorktown! If he died there, maybe he was buried there. But it was a good-sized city. Where to start?
The Union cemetery down Cook Road on my way to the Coast Guard Training Center made me wonder if the Confederates had a cemetery of their own. I searched for Confederate cemeteries in Richmond and discovered that there was a cemetery (Oakwood) in Richmond with a restoration committee. I decided to take a chance and see if any of the committee knew of a Patrick Harrigan.
One of the members graciously answered me: "I did find a Patrick Harrigan, Company B, 1st Virginia Battalion, born 1-13-1834, died 3-16-1862, at Hollywood Cemetery in Section SS B, Lot 308. Since he was a Virginian, I was able to go to the Virginia Regimental Series for the 1st Virginia Battalion by Robert J. Driver and Kevin C. Ruffner. This is the information they show on him: 'Harrigan, Patrick, Pvt, Co. B, Enlisted Covington 5/14/61. Absent sick in Richmond Hospital 7/19/61 until he died 3/62.'"
Hollywood Cemetery is a large cemetery with a tall, gray stone pyramid dedicated to the Confederate dead and a smaller black dog statue guarding one of the graves. It took work to find the area where Patrick was buried--the sexton's office was closed when I was there. There is no marker. But I found approximately where his body is at rest.
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| The Confederate Memorial Hollywood Cemetery (photo taken by me) |
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| The Black Dog Hollywood Cemetery (photo taken by me) |
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| The area where Patrick Harrigan is buried in an unmarked grave |
It was a special moment. I was aware that I would have been the first family member to visit and that his immediate family would not have known of his death and would not have mourned. I thought of what I knew of mourning in the 1860s. I wore my best black dress (complete with black wool coat, gloves, and hat--it was cold) as would have been done back then. I brought a rose and left it as close to the grave as I could. I cleaned all the trash in the area.
And then, I said, "I found him, Mary."
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| My rose for Patrick |
Next week's challenge from No Story Too Small: "Week 12 (March 19-25) – Same. What ancestor is a lot like you? What ancestor do you have a lot in common? Same name? Same home town?" My family tree is full of variety. I have saints and sinners. I have kings, peasants, and all sorts of people in between. I have lot of different choices for stories. But which one is a lot like me? Hmm, I'll have to reflect...
