Transatlantic: An Irish American History Podcast

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands Irish women worked as domestics. The "Irish Bridget" is one of the most recognisable stereotypes of Irish America, but what was life really like for these women, who were the subject of such extensive cariacture and discrimination?

In this episode, Fin and Damian are joined by Dr Catherine Healy, Historian-in-Residence at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum and an expert on Irish domestic service. In the show we explore the reality of their hard working lives, and try and recover something of their lived experiences, both positive and negative. As well as discussing what these women did and the types of places they worked, we chat through things like vulnerabilities that came with live-in service, the prejudices they endured, and the pride they took in earning their own money and supporting families back in Ireland.

You can find Catherine's Website here: https://catherinehealy.org/

The link to Catherine's Book: Irish Domestic Servants in Transatlantic CUlture, c. 1870-1945

Epic: The Irish Emigration Museum
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Damian and Fin return after the summer break to talk over their summer and whats coming in Transatlantic in the coming months. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is little known that the term United States of America may have been coined by the Irishman, Stephen Moylan. Although a little klnown figure in Ireland, he played a key role in the American revolution. His life story is remarkable. Born into a Catholic family in Cork his experiences in Ireland would form his transformational impact he on US history.

In this episode, Fin & Damian speak with historian Victoria Pearson a PhD researcher in Ulster University. The Moylan family is her particular area of expertise and she explains Stephen Moylan’s remarkable journey, his formative early life in Cork and his place in the revolutionary generation of 1776.
Dr Pearson’s article, Am I My Brother’s Keeper: The Moylan Family and the American Revolution, will feature in a special edition of History Ireland, out in July/August to mark America 250.

Victoria also appears in the upcoming TG4 documentary, The Lost Irish Heroes of the American Revolution, presented by Cormac Ó hEadhra. It will be broadcast in Ireland on 4 July and will also have an international release.

You can also listen back to this previous transatlantic episode, where Damian and Fin discuss Irish involvement in the American Revolution more broadly: https://shows.acast.com/transatlantic/episodes/who-did-the-irish-support-in-the-
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The individual experiences of ordinary Irish emigrant women in the late 19th and early 20th century can be difficult to reach, with many spending years working long hours in domestic service or on factory floors. But there is a group of these women who left a greater mark in the written record and--sometimes--even left behind their own words. They were the "radical" activists--Irish American women who took the decision to raise their heads above the parapet in an overwhelmingly patriarchal world to fight for the causes they believed in.

In this episode, Fin and Damian are joned by Dr Tara McCarthy, the expert on Irish American women's activism during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Tara takes us through the background of these women, explains their origins, and highlights the incredible stories of a number of these remarkable individuals. Along the way she charts the importance of the Irish nationalist struggle for the growth in activism, discusses efforts to improve the lot of women in the workplace, and shares the strategems employed to progress the cause of female suffrage. All in all, this is a must-listen show if you want to discover more about the major contribution Irish American women made to activism in the United States during this critical period.

Book: Tara M McCarthy, Respectability & Reform: Irish American Women’s Activism, 1880-1920 Syracuse University Press

Dictionary of Irish Biography: Fanny Isabel Parnell

New York Irish History Roundtable Profile of Marguerite Moore

New York Historical Society Profile of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Transatlantic Podcast. Episode 8. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America?

National Park Service Profile of Leonora O’Reilly

Freedomsway.org Profile of Mary Kenney O’Sullivan

Dictionary of Irish Biography: Hanna Sheehy Skeffington

National Park Service Profile of Maud Malone

National Park Service Profile of Margaret Foley

Gilder Lehrman Institute Profile of Mary Elizabeth Lease
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George Galphin was a married man in his late 20s when he left Armagh for a new life on the American Frontier in 1737. Across the four decades that followed Galphin built an extraordinary personal empire on the frontiers of colonial South Carolina and Georgia. At the heart of his success were his connections with the indigenous Muscogee (Creek) people, amongst whom he lived. In this episode, Fin and Damian are joined by Dr Bryan C. Rindfleisch--an expert on Galphin's life--to discuss this fascinating Ulster Scot emigrant, the people that surrounded him, and the world he inhabited.

Bryan outlines for us what life was like on the frontiers of Empire in the 18th century American south-east, and how Galphin found success as the key-go between in the lucrative deerskin trade with Native American peoples. He traces Galphin's Irish origins and how his transatlantic ties influenced him, not least through his efforts to support increased Ulster emigration to the Frontier. We also delve into some of the intimate relationships that were central to Galphin's life, particularly with women such as Metawney, the powerful Muscogee woman who made his career possible, and the enslaved women he held in bondage and with whom he fathered children.

Book: Bryan C. Rindfleisch George Galphin's Intimate Empire: The Creek Indians, Family and Colonialism in Early America

Discover Ulster Scots: The Scotch Irish of Savannah

Website of The Muscogee Nation

National Park Service History of The Muscogee Nation

Silver Bluff Audubon Center and Sanctuary

Initial Archaeological Investigations at Silver Bluff Plantation
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