Irish-Language Mass at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral

 

presented by:
the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral,
in association with
the New York Irish History Roundtable,
Sir Patrick Charities, and Glucksman Ireland House – NYU

On Saturday, March 12, 2011, at noon, on Mott Street between Prince and Houston streets, for the fourth consecutive year, the New York Irish History Roundtable, Sir Patrick Charities, Glucksman Ireland House-NYU, and the Basilica of Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral will celebrate an Irish-language Mass.

The Mass will be concelebrated by Fr. Aidan O’Driscoll of County Cork. There will be Irish liturgical music by Cantor Paddy Connolly with accompaniment by Jared Lamenzo on the Cathedral’s historic 1868 Erben organ. There will be readings in Irish by New York University’s Pádraig Ó Cearúill and Clare Curtin, longtime member and former trustee of the New York Irish History Roundtable.

Following the Mass, the Washington Square Harp & Shamrock Orchestra will entertain the crowd with live ceili music. We will have the Ridgewood (New Jersey) Irish Dance Troupe with us again this year. And, last but not least – with thanks to Patrick Allen, KHS – Da Nico Ristorante of Little Italy provided a buffet at last year’s celebration and we hope to have them with us again this year. 

So, we will enjoy the Mass, followed by ceili (great music), craic (great conversation), dancing, Irish soda bread, food, and beverages. Come and join us to celebrate the Feast of Saint Patrick!

There is absolutely no charge to attend. Free-will contributions will be gratefully accepted.

IRISH LANGUAGE MASS AT SAINT PATRICK’S OLD CATHEDRAL

Saturday, March 13th, 2010, at 12 p.m., at Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mott and Prince streets in Manhattan.

This Mass is co-sponsored by The New York Irish History Roundtable, NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House, and Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral, on the corner of Mott and Prince streets in Manhattan.

As in previous years, we will have readings and liturgy in the Irish language. The mass will be celebrated by Fr. Aidan O’Driscoll of County Cork. There will be Irish liturgical music by Cantor Paddy Connolly and accompaniment by Jared Lamenzo on the Cathedral’s historic 1868 Erben organ.

After the Mass, the Washington Square Harp & Shamrock Orchestra will entertain the crowd with live ceili music, Ridgewood (New Jersey) Irish Dance, directed by Susan-Daly Stanek, will also perform, and refreshments will be provided.

Come and join us to celebrate the Feast of Saint Patrick! There is no charge to attend.

Roundtable Event Saturday, December 5

Irish Immigrants & County Associations in

NYC, 1946-61

Saturday, December 5, at 2-3:30 p.m.

Mother Seton National Shrine (Our Lady of the Rosary Hall),

7 State Street (between Pearl & Whitehall Streets)

opposite Battery Park, Manhattan

Dr. Miriam Nyhan will discuss the unique presence and important roles of Irish county associations in New York City during the years following World War II. The discussion will be based on her extensive research using oral interviews and archival research, and on her analyses of these special associations, their yearly activities, and their enthusiastic participants.

The post World War II era saw a massive exodus of migrants from the island of Ireland. In fact, between 1946 and 1961 approximately 500,000 emigrated: the equivalent of approximately 17% of the population. In New York, county associations played an important role in the Irish communities that greeted the new migrants. These societies provided a means by which immigrants from particular counties could reunite, socialize, and provide contacts or assistance. For many newly arrived migrants, a county association meeting or event was the first port-of-call in the search for permanent housing, jobs, or a familiar accent. Each county, through these organizations, became a guardian to those it represented, and provided invaluable safety valves to the needs of its county-people. The annual calendar of the associations was structured around key events which punctuated the year, with St. Patrick’s Day representing the highlight. As a general rule, larger counties had larger and more vibrant associations – but demographics were not the only indicator of the association strength.

Dr. Miriam Nyhan will discuss the significance that county associations had for post-war immigrants from Ireland. Starting from a premise that we can only understand that wave of immigrants by looking at the Ireland people left and the New York they arrived in, she will clarify the many roles counties associations fulfilled. To widen the focus, experiences of Irish immigrants and county associations in post-war London will also be discussed.

Miriam Nyhan is Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at Glucksman Ireland House, New York University. She received her M.Phil. from University College, Cork and her Ph.D. from the the European University Institute. Dr. Nyhan is the author of ‘Are You Still Below?’ The Ford Marina Plant, Cork 1917-1984. She has served as a historian for Henry Ford & Son Limited, (Ford Ireland) and is currently Glucksman Ireland House’s oral historian.

Reception to follow.

There is no fee to attend, but

A $3 donation for refreshments in suggested.

All are Welcome!

Second Annual Irish- and English-Language Mass a Rousing Success!

On March 14th, an Irish- and English-language Mass was held to

St. Patrick's Old Cathedral

celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick at Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral, New York’s first Cathedral. This Mass, just like the first one, held in March 2008, was extremely well-received by the Irish-American community. The 2009 event brought even more people into the historically-significant edifice, as it was filled almost to capacity.

This event was co-sponsored by the New York Irish History Roundtable, Glucksman Ireland House at New York University, and by Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral.

Washington Square Harp & Shamrock Orchestra

As our guests filed into the church, piper Lisa Farber played the bagpipes. The readings were done in both Irish and English. Father Andrew O’Connor and Professor Padraig O Cearuill of Glucksman Ireland House-NYU handled the Irish readings. Irish-language vocalists Patrick Connolly and Dawn Doherty sang beautifully, and Jared Lamenzo played liturgical music on the church’s historic pipe organ, built by Henry Erben in 1868.

After the Mass, a party was held in front of the church, complete with traditional Irish music played by the Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra, refreshments, and camaraderie.

Father Andrew O’Connor of Holy Family Church in The Bronx, Monsignor Donald Sakano, pastor of Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral, and Father Gavin Reilly were concelebrants of the Mass.

Google Your Family Tree – Unlock the Hidden Power of Google

Google Your Family Tree

On Saturday, March 21, at 2 p.m., in the McNally Amphitheatre at the Fordham University Law School at Lincoln Center (at 140 West 62nd Street, Manhattan), technical guru and professional genealogist Dan Lynch will present a lecture on unlocking the hidden power of the Google search engine, based on the material in his new book, GOOGLE YOUR FAMILY TREE. Copies of this book, highly-praised by reviewers, will be available for purchase. Details about it are at: http://googleyourfamilytree.com/index.html

Dan’s PowerPoint presentation will include examples from his own Irish research and provide tips for use in genealogy, history, and additional fields. He is a former vice president of business development for Ancestry, Inc. Dan Lynch now runs Mattatuck Consulting, a firm specializing in Internet marketing solutions. He is a frequent lecturer at local and national genealogy conferences.

This program is free and open to all. There is a suggested donation of $3.00 for refreshments.

For more information on this program, visit: http://www.irishnyhistory.org/announ.htm

Come to the Irish-Language Mass at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral – Saturday, March 14th, 2009, at 12 Noon!

Old St. Patrick's Cathedral

Come celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick at New York’s First Cathedral!

In honor of St. Patrick, an Irish- and English-language Mass will be
celebrated at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mott Street in Manhattan,
between Prince and Houston streets, on Saturday, March 14th, at 12:00 p.m.

Father Andrew M. O’Connor of Holy Family Church in the Bronx will
celebrate the Mass, with Msgr. Donald Sakano, pastor of the Old Cathedral,
as a concelebrant. Readings will be done in English by Father O’Connor and in Irish by Padraig O’Cearuill, Language Lecturer of Irish Studies, NYU. The Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra, led by Mick Moloney, Global Distinguished Professor of Irish Studies and Music, NYU, will perform traditional Irish music. Jared Lamenzo will play the beautiful and historic 1868 Henry Erben pipe organ. More information and photographs of this organ are online at http://www.jaredlamenzo.com/erbenrenewal.

After the Mass, a party celebrating the Feast of St. Patrick will be
held in front of the church, with traditional Irish music and refreshments.

This event is co-sponsored by the New York Irish History Roundtable, Glucksman Ireland House at New York University, and by St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral.

There is NO CHARGE to attend the Mass or after-party!

The historically-significant Old Cathedral was the seat of the Diocese (and then the Archdiocese) of New York from 1815 to 1879. The architect for this Gothic building was Joseph-François Mangin, who also designed Manhattan’s City Hall.

For more information, visit: http://irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu/object/ne.oldstpatricksmass

Give the Gift of Roundtable Membership!

Do you know someone who is interested in the special history and experiences of the Irish in the New York-New Jersey area?

For $25 you can give a gift membership to anyone! These are special memberships that include a holiday card sent by the Roundtable to the gift recipients on your behalf.

Each card will name you as the presenter, and each membership will include full benefits of the Roundtable, including newsletters, the next issue of New York Irish History, (our annual scholarly journal) and all special notifications we send out. The card will include information about our website and our weblog.

To send a Roundtable gift membership to someone, just click on the link below and follow the instructions on that page:

www.irishnyhistory.org/giftmember.htm

For memberships ordered before December 15, cards will be mailed out before Christmas. For memberships ordered later and before December 25, cards will be mailed before New Year’s Day.

And thank you for your past support of the Roundtable.

We send best wishes for Christmas and the New Year to you.

Hugh O’Rourke, President
John Ridge, Vice President for Local History
Jim Garrity, Vice President for Family History
Nancy Shea, Treasurer
Bob McGrath, Membership Secretary
Frank Naughton, Recording Secretary

Researching Genealogical Resources in Ireland Long-Distance

SAVE THE DATE!!

SUNDAY, September 28, 2008, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m
Fordham Law School Auditorium
140 West 62nd Street, Manhattan

In their only New York City area appearance, two internationally-acclaimed experts on genealogical research in Ireland—Dr. William Roulston, Research Director of Ulster Historical Foundation in Belfast, and Dr. Brian Trainor, the Foundation’s retired Research Director and the former Director of the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland—will present an information-packed afternoon on researching genealogical resources in Ireland long-distance. The seminar is open to members of the New York Irish History Roundtable and the public.

Drs. Roulston and Trainor will give four lectures that focus on genealogical resources in a variety of repositories in the thirty-two counties of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. They will introduce us to many of the lesser-known resources. The afternoon will begin with a general introductory lecture, followed by specialized talks. The lectures are “Introduction to Irish and Scots-Irish Family History Research,” “The Three Cs: Church Registers, Census Records and Civil Registration Records,” “Gravestone Inscriptions,” and “Not Always at the Bottom of the Pile.” Time will be allotted for questions after each lecture.

The seminar will take place on SUNDAY, September 28th, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., in the McNally Amphitheatre of Fordham Law School at Lincoln Center, 140 W. 62nd Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues. Take the A, B, C, D, or 1 subway line to 59th Street-Columbus Circle. The price of admission is $15 for members and $20 for non-members.

Ulster Historical Foundation, established in 1956, is one of the principal genealogical research agencies in Ireland and a leading publisher of quality historical, educational, and genealogical books.

Roundtable May 3rd Program Reminder

 

Just wanted to remind readers about the Roundtable’s upcoming program on Saturday, May 3.  Christopher Finan will speak about the role of noted New York Irish Americans in the struggle for free speech in the United States.  Full information is available at the earlier blog entry.

New York Irish & the Fight for Free Speech

A Lecture by Christopher Finan

Sponsored by

the New York Irish History Roundtable

Saturday, May 3, 2008, at 2:00 p.m.

New York Genealogical &

Biographical Society

122 East 58th Street, Manhattan

Irish Americans have played prominent roles in the fight for free speech in the United States, and many of the most important and controversial battles for free speech in the United States were fought in New York City. For example, Irish nationalist Jeremiah O’Leary, a New York attorney and ardent supporter of Irish nationalism, was one of the Americans prosecuted for criticizing United States’ participation in World War I. O’Leary was publicly excoriated by President Woodrow Wilson for his pro-Irish and anti-War statements. O’Leary’s pro-Irish publication, the Bull, was suppressed by Postmaster General Burelson, and O’Leary himself was arrested and indicted for his characterizations of the military draft as part of an effort supporting the British colonial empire.

Similarly, Margaret Higgins Sanger, the daughter of an Irish immigrant stonecutter and a New Yorker, was prosecuted by special agent Anthony Comstock, acting on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service, for mailing copies of her avant-garde women’s rights magazine, The Woman Rebel. Another Irish New Yorker, Governor Alfred E. Smith, helped bring an end to the Red Scare that followed the war and vetoed legislation that would have restricted the rights of Socialists and other critics of the status quo. And State Senator James J. Walker, later Mayor of New York City, led the forces that defeated a book censorship bill. “No woman was ever ruined by a book,” Jimmy Walker said during the debate. (Of course, some of the most vigorous Irish American defenders of American free speech were Irish and were appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court – Frank Murphy, William Brennan and Anthony Kennedy – but they lacked the good fortune of a New York background.)

Too little attention has been paid to the Irish American contribution to the fight for free speech, an issue in which the New York Irish can take pride in the achievements of their forebears. This unique program will focus on these achievements.Christopher Finan is a longtime supporter of the Roundtable and president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. He is currently chair of the National Coalition against Censorship and a trustee of the Freedom to Read Foundation. He is the author of Alfred Smith: The Happy Warrior, and lives in Brooklyn.

Admission to this event is free. There is a suggested donation of $3.00 for refreshments.