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Michael Donlon (1876-1909) was born in Galway, Ireland, but by 1909 he was living with his uncle on Pratt Street in Meriden, Connecticut. He had been working as a porter at the Meriden railroad station for about three years at the beginning of 1909. On January 2 of that year, he was moving one of the baggage trucks towards the north end of the station to meet the New York to Boston express train which was due to stop in Meriden at 2:12 pm. As the train was nearing the station, he noticed a woman and child on the tracks in the path of the oncoming locomotive. According to witnesses  ... [ more ]

The Irish Heritage Society of Milford had its beginning in March 2006, when Martin Hardiman and Christopher McEnerney, who had worked together on the Milford St. Patrick's Day Parade, discussed the possibility of forming an Irish Club in Milford. They placed a small article in the local newspaper announcing that a meeting would be held, inviting anyone interested, and over 80 people attended in response. The organization's purpose is to bring about the association of individuals of Irish descent or relationship, in whole or in part, for the purpose of conducting educational and benevolent activities of all kinds, including  ... [ more ]

St. Francis of Assisi School was designed by James Murphy, who was born in 1834 in County Tipperary, Ireland. In 1852, he emigrated to the United States . Soon after his arrival, Murphy entered the Brooklyn, New York firm of Patrick C. Keely, another Irish immigrant, as an apprentice. Keely was already an established architect specializing in ecclesiastical design. Eventually, Murphy became a partner in the firm, which operated as Keely & Murphy. In 1875, the partnership was dissolved and Murphy established his own practice. Murphy continued to specialize in church design ... [ more ]

New Haven pastors assumed spiritual responsibility for the growing numbers of Irish Catholics in the Naugatuck area, then called Salem Bridge. In 1847, Waterbury pastor Father Michael O'Neil began visiting Naugatuck to offer Mass at private homes as well as the Naugatuck Hotel. The town soon passed to the care of Derby priests, but reverted again to Waterbury in 1859. Local men bought Water Street property for a church site, which they deeded to the Diocese. At first named for St. Anne, the Naugatuck church was dedicated by Bishop Francis P. McFarland on ... [ more ]

The Knights of Columbus Museum has been renamed the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center which commemorates Fr. McGivney's extraordinary life. Docent-led group tours are available at no cost but donations are accepted. The building still houses the Knights of Columbus Museum and special exhibitions are still mounted during the year. The McGivney Center was created in response to Pope Francis' approval of a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the intercession of Father McGivney and ... [ more ]

The first generation of Coyles came to New Haven from Ireland in the 1850s. They settled in The Hill neighborhood in southwestern New Haven, which was home to many Irish families in the middle of the nineteenth century. They were a close-knit family who worked mostly in the building trades. Charles proved to be more ambitious than his relatives and he eventually became a lawyer and real estate developer. He began by buying and selling houses ... [ more ]

The first generation of Coyles came to New Haven from Ireland in the 1850s. They settled in The Hill neighborhood, located in the southwestern quadrant of New Haven, which was home to many Irish families in the middle of the nineteenth century. They were a close-knit family who worked mostly in the building trades. Charles proved to be more ambitious than his relatives and he eventually became a lawyer and real estate developer. He began by buying and selling houses in The Hill and eventually started building houses, including these three homes ... [ more ]

Charles T. Coyle, an Irish-American lawyer and real estate entrepreneur, entered into one of the biggest real estate ventures in New Haven in 1907 when he purchased the entire square from Cold Spring Street to Canner Street between Whitney Avenue and Livingston Street from the Henry Whitney estate. This area was built out and fully occupied within four years. The block includes Coyle's own home at 569 Whitney Avenue, and ... [ more ]

Canals were a transportation dream of the early Republic. George Washington called them "fundamental to nationhood" and was president of a canal company in Virginia. By 1790 canal companies had been founded in 8 of the original 13 states. On the heels of the completion of the Erie Canal in New York State, a group of New Haven businessmen met in 1821 with the goal of constructing a canal in Connecticut to facilitate trade. Ground was first broken on July 4, 1825. It was completed in 1835. The canal was dug by hand by mostly Irish laborers ... [ more ]

Established on March 17, 1878, the Knights of St. Patrick (KOSP) has a long and distinguished history in the New Haven area. The organization's goal is to honor Irish heritage and to continue to promote it within the community. The KOSP, as the founders established, continues to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with an Annual Banquet held on March 17. The KOSP is one of four New Haven area Irish organizations that organizes and promotes New Haven's Annual St. Patrick's Day Parade ... [ more ]

The St. Patrick's Day Parade of Greater New Haven has become one of New England's premier Irish events. It is the largest, single-day spectator event in the State of Connecticut. The Parade was recognized by the Library of Congress in 1999 as the 6th oldest parade in the nation and an outstanding example of American folk life. Large crowds (an estimated 325,000 spectators in 2012), annually attend the parade. Parade day begins with Mass and small reception at St. Mary's Church. A Parade Ball is held on Saturday evening one week prior to parade day ... [ more ]

The Soldiers Monument, 9th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in New Haven, is significant historically because it honors a Civil War regiment primarily made up of Irish- Americans. Its dedication on August 3, 1903, was held in connection with a national convention of the American-Irish Historical Society of the United States. The monument's cost of $4,500 was paid for with $3,500 subscribed by the Ninth Regiment Veterans Association and $1,000 provided by the State of Connecticut  ... [ more ]

In 1832 Father James McDermot, a priest of the Diocese of Boston, which encompassed all of New England, was sent to assist the pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Hartford. Fr. McDermot's special duty was ministry to the Catholics in the western part of the State of Connecticut including New Haven, Bridgeport, Norwalk, Derby, Waterbury, Meriden, and Middletown. Later that year he became the resident pastor in New Haven while continuing the pastoral care of the Catholics in the western Connecticut. At that time, there were about two hundred Catholics in New Haven ... [ more ]

Winchester Repeating Arms was one of the largest and most important American firearm manufacturers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It originated in New Haven, moved briefly to Bridgeport and returned to New Haven to establish itself in this location in 1870. The company grew rapidly and it employed over 600 workers in 1887 and about 1,000 workers by 1900. Many of them were Irish and they lived nearby in the residential neighborhoods that sprang up around the plant ... [ more ]

Rev. James Smyth of New Have offered the first Catholic Mass in Seymour to six Irish immigrants in 1844. The first St. Augustine's Church (now the rectory) was dedicated in 1856. Ground is broken for a new church in 1888 and it is formally dedicated on May 18, 1890. The new church has a capacity of 600 and it cost $13,000. The congregation at that time was a mix of Irish, Polish and German. A tolling bell is placed in the bell tower in 1895 and an organ is purchased in 1910. The church interior sees the installation of ... [ more ]

The Jones farm began in 1848. Philip James Jones, a Welsh-Irish immigrant, purchased the land from the Jeremiah Shelton family and engaged in general farming. He sold beef, lamb, eggs, and apples from his horse-drawn cart to the city folks of Derby.  His son, William Henderson Jones, joined him in farming and he eventually established a dairy farm. Philip James and William built the oldest extant farm buildings in what is now the Christmas yard area ... [ more ]

Waterbury has drawn a steady stream of Irish immigration from its earliest history as a city. By the turn of the twentieth century six Ancient Order of Hibernians divisions met in Waterbury and the 1896 City Directory also listed two Ladies' Auxiliary Divisions.  When Monsignor William Slocum, Rector of the Immaculate Conception Church and benefactor for all Waterbury Catholic institutions died unexpectedly in 1907, the 2nd, 3rd and 5th divisions met and consolidated into the ... [ more ]

St. Patrick's Church is in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Waterbury. Like most of Waterbury's neighborhoods, Brooklyn was virtually a self-sustaining community with its own stores, two churches, taverns, bakeries, factories, and schools. As early as the 1860s, Irish immigrants began settling in Brooklyn, followed by the Polish and Lithuanians in the 1890s. St. Patrick's was founded in the area where new Irish immigrants lived and was Waterbury's second Catholic church ... [ more ]

This tunnel was dug by Irish railroad workers as part of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad. It allowed the line to hug the river as it worked its way through northeastern Connecticut. Work on the tunnel required Irish laborers equipped with picks and shovels to slowly chip their way through solid rock in order to create the passageway. The tunnel was completed in 1837 and remains the nation's oldest railroad tunnel still in use ... [ more ]

St. Mary Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church in New London began in the 1840s, serving Irish workers from a storefront on Bank Street. Soon, St. John's parish was formed and a chapel was erected on Jay Street. In 1855 a new church, St. Patrick's, was consecrated on Truman Street ; the original church on Jay Street was used for Sunday-school purposes. St. Patrick's parish acquired a large lot at the corner of Washington and Huntington Streets in 1866 and the following year work began on a new church. The parish was renamed St. Mary Star of the Sea in 1874 and ... [ more ]

John McCurdy (1724-1785) was born in County Antrim in Ireland, the son of a Scottish Presbyterian clergyman. He was the third generation descended from one of five brothers who fled English persecution in Scotland to settle in northern Ireland in 1666. He probably learned his business skills in Belfast, before emigrating to New York in 1745, where he was known as a merchant by 1747. He purchased this house from Amos Tinker in 1753 when he moved to Lyme. McCurdy was active in many forms of maritime trade, including ... [ more ]

Several mills, beginning with the Spraque Mill in 1856, attracted immigrant labor to the area. Many Irish, French- Canadians and Poles settled in the village of Baltic and they formed a substantial Catholic community. By the late 19th century they were able to build several parish buildings, including the Second Empire style St. Mary Convent, erected in 1888, Immaculate Conception Church (1911) and Academy of the Holy Family (1914) ... [ more ]

The house is the birthplace of Captain Edmund Fanning, an explorer and sea captain known as the 'Pathfinder of the Pacific.' Fanning become the first American captain to circumnavigate the globe, in 1797-1798, aboard the Betsey, with a crew from Stonington. He made a fortune trading seal skins for goods in China--silk, spices and tea--which he then sold in New York City. He discovered three Pacific Islands, known collectively as the Fanning Islands, Fanning, Washington, and Palmyra ... [ more ]

The house, along with a 135 acre farm, was purchased by the Catholic Diocese of Hartford in 1921 with the intention of establishing a new parish in the Ashford area. The Diocese assigned Father William J. Dunn, Connecticut native and son of Irish Immigrants, to this daunting task. There were only about 100 Catholics around Ashford at the time and they were a multi-ethnic mix of Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, Italians, French-Canadians and Irish ... [ more ]

The small, but growing Catholic parish in Ashford decided to build a church for themselves in the early 1930s. Their energetic priest, Father William Dunn (son of Irish Immigrants), convinced summer resident Paul Chalfin to design the new building. Chalfin was not an architect, but he was an architectural designer whose best known building is the Villa Vizcaya in Miami, Florida, which is listed in National Register of Historic Places, He created a church with classical proportions and detail that is punctuated by a tower with an onion dome ... [ more ]

St. James' Roman Catholic church had its beginning here in the labors of Father McCabe, a Franciscan monk from Ireland, who was the pioneer priest of this county. Jesuit missionaries from Boston had visited this region occasionally, passing through perhaps two or three times a year, and saying mass in the towns on the way. The mission of Father McCabe extended beyond this county as far as Colchester. He began his work here in 1851 ... [ more ]

The first Irish Catholics, a group of only four men, arrived in Moosup in 1833. The first Mass was celebrate in a private home, but by 1859 there were enough Catholics in the area to fund the construction of the first All Hallows Church. All Hallows was named for All Hallows College in Dublin from which many of the early priests in the area had graduated. The first church on this site was replaced by the present building in 1901. The original steeple was destroyed in the hurricane of 1938 ... [ more ]

The John Flynn house is one of the oldest buildings within the Woodstock Hill Historic District entered into the National Register in 1999. Born in March, 1749/50, John Flynn was the grandson of Irish immigrants. He served as a Private and Trumpeter in Captain Samuel McClellan's Company from the town of Woodstock during the Revolutionary War. He was among the men who marched from Connecticut to aid Boston in the Lexington Alarm of April 1775. He also served in ... [ more ]