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April 2020

Who’s Your Granny: Earl Grey & the Scheme That Launched 4,000 Orphans

For Henry, the 3rd Earl Grey (son of Charles, the 2nd Earl Grey for whom the tea is named), it seemed like the perfect solution to two problems he was facing in 1848 as British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. He was hearing from Australia, where the ratio of men to women at the time was 8:1, that they needed more females to join the population. And at the same time he was being inundated with reports on the terrible overcrowding in the Irish workhouses, where conditions were deplorable even amidst a nation of starving people.

Ireland, no stranger to hard times, was facing an unprecedented period of starvation and poverty. What was once designated as “The Famine” has since been more fittingly reclassified as “An Gorta Mor,” or “The Great Hunger.” But no matter what you call it, people were looking for ways out of the unrelenting destitution and death that had become a way of life.

April 24, 2020 by Lori Lander Murphy

Food & Drink

Order Up a Classic Wedge

Are you missing a classic wedge salad from your favorite restaurant?

No worries … easy as pie to make at home, especially if you use Ireland’s favorite blue cheese, Cashel Blue from County Tipperary.

ICEBERG WEDGE WITH BLUE CHEESE-CHIVE DRESSING

SERVES 4

For the dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons chopped chives
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese, such as Cashel Blue, plus more for topping

For the salad

Small head iceberg lettuce, quartered
1/2 cup chopped cooked bacon
1 cup chopped tomato
1/2 cup chopped red onion (optional)
Fresh chopped chives, for topping

April 21, 2020 by Margaret M. Johnson

Genealogy, History

Who’s Your Granny: Owen Kaney, 19th Century Irish Philadelphia Ancestral Character (and an Irish Diaspora Center FB Live Video)

Genealogy, for the deeply rooted, is far more than the mere act of collecting names and dates. At its best, and in its most gratifying moments, it is about the connection to people long gone but without whom we wouldn’t be here to discover them. We don’t just find them in a census, we make their acquaintance. And when we’re especially fortunate, we reincarnate a character who has been languishing for generations in an ancestral attic.

Sometimes, of course, we do feel lucky just to find a name and a date. Elusive ancestors can be a real pain. But when the names and dates lead to photos, and newspaper articles, and old love letters, we’ve hit the jackpot. And I get as excited over other people’s ancestors as I do my own. Take, for example, the fellow in the photo at the top of this article.

His name is Owen Kaney and he was the great grandfather of my stepfather-in-law. Born in Philadelphia on April 22, 1843, to Irish immigrant parents, he is without a doubt a great ancestral character. And I don’t know nearly enough about him; for instance, I haven’t figured out yet where in Ireland his parents were from, and I don’t know much about his life before the Civil War. But I do know that before his death on February 26, 1888, he crammed a lot of living into his 44 years.

April 17, 2020 by Lori Lander Murphy

Music, News

The Pipes and Drums Are Silenced, But They’ll Play Again

For the members of the Philadelphia Police and Fire Pipes & Drums, the most disappointing impact of the coronavirus shutdown came just days after the March 13 shooting death of Philadelphia Police SWAT Cpl. James O’Connor.

No obligation is more sacred to them than playing as a band in tribute to a fallen police officer or firefighter who suffers a line-of-duty death. That solemn tradition was off the table as the pandemic triggered the shutdown of all but essential services, together with the directive to avoid large public gatherings.

Mark O’Donnell is the unit’s Pipe Major. He’s also a Philadelphia Fire Service Paramedic. Under normal circumstances, the band would have turned out in force for a police officer’s funeral. “But it had to be postponed,” he says. “I’ve just never seen anything like this. We’ve always had that tradition.”

April 17, 2020 by Jeff Meade

Genealogy, History

Who’s Your Granny: Old Family Notes May Be More Treasure Than Trash and An Irish Diaspora Center FB Live Video

I just want to begin by clarifying that there is a vast and vital difference between the definition of “hoarding,” and the act of saving really good old family stuff. But, on the other hand, there can definitely be a fine line between that which is considered trash and that which is celebrated as treasure to the hardcore genealogist.

Because anyone who has spent time searching for that elusive paper trail on a mystifying ancestor knows the frustration of not being able to break through the brick wall. Sometimes the records are missing or lost, or records weren’t kept at the time and in the place we’re looking. Sometimes we don’t even know where or when we should be looking. We put aside that ancestor or that line and decide to come back to it later. And then, occasionally, through the miracle of modern technology, we find our family’s answers online in a distant cousin’s tree.

This is one of the reasons I tell researchers to never give up. You never know what’s out there, what’s been hidden away in an attic or a basement that is now ready to see the light. Genealogy has entered an era when people are willing and able to share old photos, stories and even scraps of paper that have been passed down through generations.

April 10, 2020 by Lori Lander Murphy

News

Irish Community Relief Effort: Coming Together While Staying Apart

With the notable exception of those heroic souls who are working through the coronavirus pandemic—from health care professionals to cops and medics to grocery store clerks—all the rest of us are, or should be, keeping a safe distance from each other.

As a consequence of the need for physical distancing, millions have been laid off or furloughed from their jobs. Some people were hanging on by their fingernails as it was, before the outbreak. Now, those same people are—and there simply is no better word for it—desperate.

“We know that people normally have enough to get them through a couple of weeks, a month at most, says Emily Norton Ashinhurst, executive director of the Delaware County-based Irish Diaspora Center. “If you look at studies across America, the vast majority of people living in the United States don’t have enough to pay a $400 emergency expense. So that says, we’re living from paycheck to paycheck, and we recognize that losing that paycheck is going to be tough.”

In the case of the Philadelphia-area Irish community, many of those people aren’t eligible for unemployment insurance, government food assistance or other benefits because of the types of visas they hold—or simply because they are undocumented. They’ve slipped through the cracks.

April 8, 2020 by Jeff Meade

Food & Drink

Baking With the Best

Social distance. Work from home. Shelter in place. Self-quarantine.

The new normal appears to be upon us, whether we like it or not. As much as I would prefer to be out and about, I do find solace in my kitchen, and this new confinement has given me the time to bake some brown soda bread recipes that I generally make only a few times a year.

For anyone who knows Irish food, brown soda bread literally goes with everything from breakfast and brunch to lunch and dinner, so having a loaf or two on hand now can be a welcome addition to your food supply.

This recipe comes from Paula Stakelum, head pastry chef at Ashford Castle in Cong, County Mayo, so expect greatness!

April 6, 2020 by Margaret M. Johnson

Genealogy, News

Who’s Your Granny: Old Photos and an Irish Diaspora Center FB Live Video

I had these two great aunts – we’ll call them Edith and Gladys Melton (because those were their names) – who lived to be 94 and 92, respectively. They were at least half Irish, their mother was a Riley who had not one but two lines going back to Miles Riley who came to Virginia from County Cavan in 1634. They lived their entire lives in the small town in western Pennsylvania where they were born, in the one-time schoolhouse that had been their childhood home, where they grew up with their eight siblings. They were of a different era, one in which people designated them “old maids” or “spinsters.” They took care of their mother until she died at the ripe old age of 94, they were career girls who worked for over 40 years at the G.C. Murphy five and dime store in town, their front door was always open and their kitchen was always welcoming.

But this isn’t a story about my great aunts. It’s a story about their photos.

Make no mistake about it, they loved pictures. When they were younger, they loved being the subject of them, and as they grew older they made sure no one left their house without smiling for the camera. They collected, and hoarded, photos. It’s difficult to imagine in the instaworld of today that there was once a time when images were not so easily shared, and who got to keep the only portrait of Granddaddy could ignite a family feud to rival that of the Hatfields and McCoys. But, oh, there was indeed such a time. And it was no secret that these two sisters were sitting on a vast collection of family photos that had been hidden away from the world for almost a century.

April 3, 2020 by Lori Lander Murphy

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