John Henry Patterson was born in 1867 in Dublin. His Protestant background imbued him with a deep knowledge of the Old Testament, and he drew spiritual sustenance from historical parallels with the deeds of early biblical warriors. Not unnaturally, he was favorably inclined towards the Zionist aspirations of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, then … Read more
In the 1700s Irish emigrants to America were remarkably diverse, especially in comparison with the apparent homogeneity of the Famine and post-Famine migrants. Although a majority were Presbyterians from Ulster, a third or more were Anglicans (members of the established Church of Ireland), Quakers, Methodists and other Protestant dissenters, as well as Catholics, from all … Read more
Sir,—Pat Marshall’s interesting piece on Major Sirr in your last issue (HI 11.3, Autumn 2003) neglected one aspect of Sirr’s later career: his interest in the Irish language. (Viewers of Pat Murphy’s film Anne Devlin will recall that Sirr is the only major character who speaks Irish on-screen, when talking to an informer.) It extended … Read more
Sir,—Toby Joyce neatly describes (HI 11.2, Summer 2003) the battles of the famous draft riots of 1863, but he fails, I think, to deal candidly with the dynamics of the Irish scene in New York. The Irish working-class realised that many Americans regarded it as ‘papist scum’, one step below the ‘niggers’. Nevertheless the Democratic … Read more
Eneclann Ltd and Origins.net, in association with the National Library of Ireland, have made The Primary Valuation of Ireland 1847–1864, commonly known as Griffith’s Valuation, available on the web. Between 1847 and 1864 the Valuation Office, under the direction of Richard Griffith, carried out the first systematic valuation of property holdings in Ireland. It contains … Read more