Ballykilcline rising : from famine Ireland to immigrant America / Mary Lee Dunn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dunn, Mary Lee.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Irish Americans--Vermont--Rutland--History--19th century.

Irish Americans.

Immigrants--Vermont--Rutland--History--19th century.

Immigrants.

Irish Americans--Vermont--Rutland--Biography.

Quarries and quarrying--Vermont--Rutland--History--19th century.

Quarries and quarrying.

Rent strikes--Ireland--Ballykilcline--History--19th century.

Rent strikes.

Famines--Ireland--Roscommon (County)--History--19th century.

Famines.

History.

Rutland (Vt.)--History--19th century.

Rutland (Vt.).

Ballykilcline (Ireland)--History--19th century.

Ballykilcline (Ireland).

Ireland--Emigration and immigration--History--19th century.

Ireland.

Emigration and immigration.

United States--Emigration and immigration--History--19th century.

United States.

Ireland--Roscommon (County).

Ireland--Ballykilcline.

Vermont--Rutland.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xxii, 218 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2008]

Summary:

In 1847, in the third year of Ireland's Great Famine and the thirteenth year of their rent strike against the Crown, hundreds of tenant farmers in Ballykilcline, County Roscommon, were evicted by the Queen's agents and shipped to New York. Mary Lee Dunn tells their story in this meticulously researched book. Using numerous Irish and U.S. sources and with descendants' help, she traces dozens of the evictees to Rutland, Vermont, as railroads and marble quarries transformed the local economy. She follows the immigrants up to 1870 and learns not only what happened to them but also what light American experience and records cast on their Irish "rebellion."

Dunn begins with Ireland's pre-Famine social and political landscape as context for the Ballykilcline strike and then carries the story forward to the United States. Many of the immigrants resettled in clusters in several locations, including Vermont, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, and New York. In Vermont they found jobs in the marble quarries, but some of them lost their homes again in quarry labor actions after 1859. Others prospered in their new lives. Readers who have Irish Famine roots will gain a sense of their own "back story" from this account of Ireland and the native Irish, and scholars in the field of immigration studies will find it particularly useful.

Contents:

1 The Story of Ballykilcline 1

2 Shifting Ground in Roscommon 36

3 Resettling in Rutland 71

4 To Battle with a "Two-Edged Sword" 96

5 Family Paths 108

6 Quarry Actions-Striking Again 135

7 Still Standing in the Gale 151

Table 1 U.S. Census Searches for the Ballykilcline Immigrants

Table 2A Literacy of Ballykilcline Immigrants per U.S. Censuses

Table 2B Analysis of the Census Literacy Data

Table 3 Assets of Quarry Men Either from Ballykilcline or Married to Women from Ballykilcline

Table 4 Assets of Immigrants from Ballykilcline Who Had Become Farmers by 1870.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-202) and index.

ISBN:

1558496599

9781558496590

1558496580

9781558496583

OCLC:

183179323