Maggie O’Neill’s in Drexel Hill played host to a well-attended fund-raiser for the Duffy’s Cut project last Saturday.
The upstairs bar was full of folks who want to help the brothers Bill and Frank Watson continue excavations at the site where 57 Irish immigrant railroad workers died in 1832, less than two months after their arrival in the country. Research suggests they were afflicted by cholera, and that at least some of them were murdered by local residents, possibly fearful of the spread of the disease.
The site is in a patch of woods in Malvern, along an Amtrak line about 30 miles west of Philadelphia.
Members of the Watson Highlanders greeted guests with the skirl of bagpipes, later replaced by the tunes of Karen Boyce McCollum and friends.
The money will go toward continuing the excavation of the site and to repatriate two small bones of the only woman victim, Catherine Burns, to her native Tyrone.
Last week’s fund-raiser pulled in $2,150.
Here are some pictures from the event.
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