Irish in detroit

**terryh** · February-10-11, 08:31 PM

Corktown and neighborhoods south and West of the old Tiger stadium had Irish enclaves, but where else did they settle in the city? I think there were some prominent police officials and city council members that came up in the old Irish west side.. Many early immigrants worked in industry located on the Detroit river.

And of course they abused alcohol and caused lots of problems!

Any decendents of Detroit Irishmen and women that post on Dyes?

**Kathleen** · February-10-11, 08:45 PM

Mahoney is the name....my great-great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland in the 1850s, settling in Hamilton, Ontario and marrying an Irish lass...their son came to Detroit in the 1880s and married the daughter of German immigrants, which explains why the married couple lived on Hastings Street between [[today's) Lafayette and Monroe Streets. Other family from Ireland lived in the Corktown area, specifically near Porter and 15th St.

**terryh** · February-10-11, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by Kathleen

Mahoney is the name....my great-great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland in the 1850s, settling in Hamilton, Ontario and marrying an Irish lass...their son came to Detroit in the 1880s and married the daughter of German immigrants, which explains why the married couple lived on Hastings Street between [[today's) Lafayette and Monroe Streets. Other family from Ireland lived in the Corktown area, specifically near Porter and 15th St.

Great story and info! There are millions of Americans of German-Irish decent.

**DetroitPlanner** · February-10-11, 09:32 PM

At one time Holy Redeemer was the big Catholic Parish. My grandfather was the organist there. As the irish grew and spread out they generally went up Grand River. Thats why you saw a Dunleavey's bar where the Motor City is now and another out in Farmington Hills.

**Tractor75** · February-10-11, 09:36 PM

My fathers family lived on Porter street next to the convent. They moved around a lot , My mother was from a small town wet of Port Huron.

gdogslim · February-10-11, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by terryh

Corktown and neighborhoods south and West of the old Tiger stadium had Irish enclaves, but where else did they settle in the city? I think there were some prominent police officials and city council members that came up in the old Irish west side.. Many early immigrants worked in industry located on the Detroit river.
And of course they abused alcohol and caused lots of problems!

Any decendents of Detroit Irishmen and women that post on Dyes?

Good call, what about all the other immigrant groups, should we start calling out the mexicans, the jews, the blacks, the germans, the belgians, the polish and every group and the stereotypes????

**Hardhat** · February-10-11, 10:31 PM

Originally Posted by gdogslim

Good call, what about all the other immigrant groups, should we start calling out the mexicans, the jews, the blacks, the germans, the belgians, the polish and every group and the stereotypes????

Geez, relax. If anyone wants to do any such calling out they can start their own thread.

**Carey** · February-10-11, 10:41 PM

In researching the life of my Irish [[by way of Canada) grandfather many years ago, I discovered Detroit in the 19th Century had a secondary Irish neighborhood on the east side, around Mt. Elliott and Jefferson. The parish was Our Lady of Help, on Elmwood Avenue and Congress [[I think that's the MLK athletic complex now).

Luckily, a kid from that neighborhood became a well known columnist for the Detroit News in the pre-World War II era, and he wrote vividly about growing up there, and about the the neighborhood's people, stores and St Patrick's Day parades. Of course, I'm blanking on his name right now, but his books are readily available in the DPL main branch and WSU's Purdy Kresge library. They offer a great view of living in a Detroit neighborhood before the auto age in the 1890s.

Anybody know the name of the guy I'm trying to recall?

In any case, if you check out who lived in that area in city directories from the 1890s, you'll see Irish names closer to Jefferson and more and more German names as you get closer to Gratiot.

**EastsideAl** · February-11-11, 01:10 AM

Originally Posted by Carey

In researching the life of my Irish [[by way of Canada) grandfather many years ago, I discovered Detroit in the 19th Century had a secondary Irish neighborhood on the east side, around Mt. Elliott and Jefferson. The parish was Our Lady of Help, on Elmwood Avenue and Congress [[I think that's the MLK athletic complex now).

This is the same general area that my Irish family comes from, only they were east of Mt. Elliott. They were spread out from Mt. Elliott over to Van Dyke south of Kercheval in a neighborhood that was well mixed but had a lot of Irish in it back then. My grandmother was born on Meldrum near Lafayette [[her family was from Canada too), and my grandfather's family lived on Field and later Van Dyke. They weren't exactly what you would call religious people, but to the extent that they were church-going at all, they were associated with St. Charles Borromeo on Baldwin, where my grandfather went to school for awhile.

I also had Irish family on my grandfather's side who lived or hung out in the 'river rat' neighborhood that spread out along the riverfront roughly from where Sindbad's is today past the Edison plant site out towards Fox Creek. They always had boats and were out on the river and Lake St. Clair a lot.

Eventually my whole family settled out in the Jefferson-Chalmers area and the western part of Grosse Pointe Park [[the "cabbage patch"), which was a very Irish area for a long time. My father was born on Eastlawn and grew up in the area on the Detroit side of Alter Rd. There were actually a lot of Irish on the east side, but they weren't as concentrated in one spot as in Corktown. My grandmother always set great store in mentioning that we were "Eastside Irish" and not "Corktown Irish," which I guess had some supposed shade of class distinction that was lost on us thoroughly Americanized kids.

**JLeurck** · February-11-11, 02:28 AM

My paternal grandmother's name was Leona McKenna. Her father, James, was a butcher, and the son of an Irish couple that immigrated to Canada in the 1850s. Her mom, Caroline, was the child of an English couple who also immigrated to Canada during that same period. James came to the U.S. [[Detroit, specifically) in 1886, and Caroline four years later.

They were a Catholic family who had seven children [[5 girls/2 boys), of whom my grandmother was the fifth. I'm not sure what parish they belonged to early on, but eventually they were parishioners at Saint Leo on Grand River, from where my dad's folks were married in 1925.

The address I find in the 1910 U.S. Census for the McKennas’ is at 855 15th Street. This is prior to the street address renumbering of the early 1920s, so I'm not exactly sure where this was. I'm guessing it was along a no longer existent stretch of 15th St south of MCS. I suppose they could have belonged to Ste Anne's, St Vincent de Paul's, or Most Holy Trinity. By 1928, the Polk Directory has them at 3562 Moore Place, just a couple blocks west of the old [[though new at that time) Olympia.

**RedeemerKid** · February-11-11, 09:07 AM

All four grandparents emigrated from Ireland, met and married in Detroit.

Paternal grandparents lived in a few places but mostly near Livernois and Grand River, belonging to St. Cecilia's parish.

Maternal grandparents lived near Vernor Hwy and Junction belonging to Holy Redeemer parish. I spent a lot of time there as a kid.

**SWMAP** · February-11-11, 10:10 AM

"I suppose they could have belonged to Ste Anne's, St Vincent de Paul's, or Most Holy Trinity."
Likely St. Vincent as at the time you had to belong to the parish if your house was within the parish boundries. Catholic churches in Detroit were built approximately one square mile apart. This from the days when most people walked to church, so everyone was close to a church. But you couldn't pick and choose your church and pastor.

St. Vincent had a convent ghost, thought to be Sr. Appolonia, IHM. Of course the convent is gone now, as is the church.

**JLeurck** · February-11-11, 10:40 AM

Originally Posted by SWMAP

"I suppose they could have belonged to Ste Anne's, St Vincent de Paul's, or Most Holy Trinity."
Likely St. Vincent as at the time you had to belong to the parish if your house was within the parish boundries. Catholic churches in Detroit were built approximately one square mile apart. This from the days when most people walked to church, so everyone was close to a church. But you couldn't pick and choose your church and pastor.

St. Vincent had a convent ghost, thought to be Sr. Appolonia, IHM. Of course the convent is gone now, as is the church.

Do you know what the old street number would convert to after the street numbers changed? I'm not sure just where they lived, thus uncertain about which parish they'd have geographically been assigned. If it is where I think it is, they would have been closest to Ste. Anne's, though if the address is actually on the north side of Michigan Ave, I suppose it could have been St. Boniface. I know someone posted a link at one time to a page that addressed the address conversion - just can't find it!

**Carey** · February-11-11, 10:45 AM

While there were a lot of Irish in Detroit, they never reached the concentrations of the Irish in many other big cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadephia and even San Francisco. I think the prominence of the Irish here in law, the courts and running the archdiocese [[until about 20 years ago) makes it seem like there are more Irish than in reality.

As a percentage of the population, foreign-born Irish in Detroit peaked a long time ago -- they were the top ethnic group in 1850. [[The Germans took over in 1860 and continued as No 1 until 1910, I believe, when the Poles became tops.) Even in Corktown, where the Irish clearly dominated, they never made up more than 50 percent of that neighborhood's population.

**dover627** · February-11-11, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by Carey

In researching the life of my Irish [[by way of Canada) grandfather many years ago, I discovered Detroit in the 19th Century had a secondary Irish neighborhood on the east side, around Mt. Elliott and Jefferson. The parish was Our Lady of Help, on Elmwood Avenue and Congress [[I think that's the MLK athletic complex now).

Luckily, a kid from that neighborhood became a well known columnist for the Detroit News in the pre-World War II era, and he wrote vividly about growing up there, and about the the neighborhood's people, stores and St Patrick's Day parades. Of course, I'm blanking on his name right now, but his books are readily available in the DPL main branch and WSU's Purdy Kresge library. They offer a great view of living in a Detroit neighborhood before the auto age in the 1890s.

Anybody know the name of the guy I'm trying to recall?

In any case, if you check out who lived in that area in city directories from the 1890s, you'll see Irish names closer to Jefferson and more and more German names as you get closer to Gratiot.

Are you thinking of Malcom Bingay?

**Detroitnerd** · February-11-11, 04:06 PM

The Irish first came to Detroit in large numbers with the opening of the Erie Canal 200 years ago.

I'm a little Irish, mostly through Canada, like others, and mostly from Ulster.

**SWMAP** · February-11-11, 04:40 PM

"Luckily, a kid from that neighborhood became a well known columnist for the Detroit News in the pre-World War II era, and he wrote vividly about growing up there, and about the the neighborhood's people, stores and St Patrick's Day parades. Of course, I'm blanking on his name right now, but his books are readily available in the DPL main branch and WSU's Purdy Kresge library. They offer a great view of living in a Detroit neighborhood before the auto age in the 1890s."

I would love to know the name of this journalist/author. Both my Irish grandparents were born and raised in this neighborhood around Congress near downtown. One attended Our Lady of Help school and the other went to a Catholic school nearby where the nuns were German and taught in German. My Grandfather's father came from Ireland in 1856 and his family lived on Iron St. below Jefferson where they ran a boardinghouse. They belonged to St. Peter & Paul parish until Our Lady of Help was built.

**xD_Brklyn** · February-11-11, 05:49 PM

My Irish ancestral parents arrived in Detroit in the 1840s directly from Ireland. Their daughter and my twice-great grandmother was known as the "Angel of Corktown" according to this 1949 article by George Stark in the News--

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2273613/messmore-stark-news-feb-25-1949-pdf-september-30-2010-9-31-pm-6-0-meg?da=y

The article is interesting because it also mentions James McGinnis aka James Bailey of Barnum & Bailey fame and his roots in Corktown.

**terryh** · February-11-11, 07:26 PM

True Carey there was a Maltese community in and around Corktown way!

**kathy2trips** · February-12-11, 12:13 AM

Ever hear of the Knights of Equity? Really interesting: http://www.knightsofequity.com/det_hist.html

**Carey** · February-12-11, 08:18 PM

I did the research I didn't have time for the other day. The author whose name I couldn't recall is George Stark. He wrote for the Detroit News and served in some historian's function for the city of Detroit. He grew up in the Irish neighborhood around Mt Elliott and Jefferson in the 1890s, and wrote about it in his columns that appeared before WW II in the News. His writings are collected in at least one book that is available in the DPL main branch and across the street at the WSU library. His recollections are vivid and interesting, and they really paint a great picture of life in Detroit at the end of the horse-and-buggy era.

**Ray1936** · February-12-11, 09:27 PM

My 6xgreat grandfather, James Trimble, was born in County Antrim, Ireland, in 1707, settled in Pennsylvania, and died in 1792, but any connection to Detroit is as distant as the San Andreas Fault. However, I have a copy of his last will and testament, including his signature. Nice thing to have in the family records, eh?

**Magnatomicflux** · February-12-11, 09:33 PM

That's pretty neat, Ray. Did he specifically leave anything to his 6x great grandson? That would be really neat!

I gotta start digging into that "Ancestors" website.

**Bobl** · February-12-11, 10:36 PM

Grandfather Hughes lived on Field, near Gratiot and Grand Blvd. His business survived the depression, partly because he never purchased power equipment for excavating, owed nothing to the banks, and had an ample supply of Irish immigrant workers. He also gave us three aunts in the IHM order of nuns, who taught at parochial schools attended by some forum members in Detroit. I still remember the wake, and I was only nine years old.

**jackie5275** · February-13-11, 08:49 PM

My grandmother was from an Irish family that originally settled in Pennsylvania. She & my grandfather were from the same town. He came here with some of his brothers to work in the auto industry rather than the coal mining industry. They settled on Harrison near Tiger Stadium which is where my mom grew up. They went to St. Leo's parish.