IRISH-IN-UK-L Archives

From: "Jean R." <>
Subject: [Irish-in-UK] Kate MURPHY, Co. Fermanagh -- 1897 Irish Fair,Grand Central Palace, Manhattan
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:58:56 -0700

SNIPPET: 1897 Irish Fair -- Kate MURPHY was just one of thousands of
visitors to attend the 1897 Irish Fair at the Grand Central Palace in
Manhattan. For several weeks people from all over the metropolitan region
had come to see the handsome displays that the Irish societies had assembled
in an attempt to present in capsule form something of Ireland's rich
cultural heritage.
One exhibit in particular, though, seemed to attract most of the attention.

Irish soil, directly imported from the old country, had been laid out in
sections, one for each of Ireland's 32 counties, to allow fairgoers to
symbolically "set foot" in Ireland. In an age when relatively few Irish
immigrants ever journeyed home again to see the old country, stepping on
even a small piece of Ireland took on an almost mystical significance for
many, particularly the elderly Irish immigrants who anxiously sought out the
counties of their birth.

Eighty-year-old Kate MURPHY, overcome by the emotion of the experience of
stepping once again upon the ground of her native County Fermanagh, knelt
down in prayer, oblivious to the crowds and the newspaper reports around
her. The flash of photographers' equipment surprised and startled this
"simple-hearted creature" to such an extent that the light stunned her into
awestruck silence as if it had been some sort of sign from heaven. Only
reluctantly did she leave the exhibit, clinging all the time to the fence
surrounding it, and looking back as if bidding a long farewell.

A lingering homesickness was something that many immigrants would carry with
them all their lives, but it was rarely so publicly and poignantly expressed
as in the case of Kate MURPHY. The Irish societies' exhibits at the Irish
Fair were calculated to take a nostalgic look back at the Ireland the
immigrants had left behind, and like their memories, it was a curious
mixture of real and fanciful notions. But immigration in the 19th century
was cruel in its finality, and faced with little chance of ever returning to
Ireland, the Irish in America created the organizations that would try to
create, in a small way, a surrogate Ireland in America.

-- Excerpt, "The Irish in America," M. Coffey & T. Golway

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• [Irish-in-UK] Kate MURPHY, Co. Fermanagh -- 1897 Irish Fair,Grand Central Palace, Manhattan by "Jean R." <>