Dreamer, Patriot, Adventurer, Romantic, and Honorable Irishman

"There's a town, little town in the old County Down
It's the spot I was born in and reared.
And wherever I roam its my own its my own native home
Little Town in the old County Down"
Anon

This story is not designed as a definitive account of the part played in the industrial history of the United States of America by the people of the ancient kingdom of Mourne in County Down, Ireland. Rather, I have tried to bring to life something of their world and struggles during a few tumultuous years in one industry and in one city of this fair land of the United States of America. While many of their bones may lie with other immigrants in a graveyard filled not with the common span of humanity but the young victims of uncontrolled exploitation and hardship, I felt it important to leave some testimony of them.
 

An Honorable Irishman


Henry Joseph "Harry Joe" Doyle
1878 - 1965

I feel qualified to do this by relating something of the history of my paternal grandfather Henry Joseph "Harry Joe" Doyle.  In his lifetime from 1878 to 1965, Harry Joe played out his allotted role as dreamer, patriot, adventurer, romantic and above all honourable Irishman.
His life spanned the age of oil lamps to television, from a day out to the next village on a horse drawn bus, as a middle class honeymoon, to the age of interplanetary space exploration. At the time of his birth his own Christian names demonstrate the submergence of Ireland into the Anglo dominated world where the sun could not physically set on the Empire. He lived through world revolutions and two World Wars to see his native land re-emerge as a proud Republic and member of the European Community and the United Nations.
Politicians and establishments may subvert at times the path of behaviour and idealistic concepts of any country and the ambitions of its people. I maintain the intertwined history and establishment of our two republics cannot be separated from the sojourns of the Irish here and the presence of their descendants. Their particular history, character and ambitions while of no more intrinsic value than that of any other race is never-the-less one, in which I can take fierce personal pride.
 

Fiona Jones, New Jersey, USA. March 2003.