Since today is the 100th anniversary of the tragedy of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory I thought I would share something I wrote for a school assignment a year ago. The fire was one of many instances that helped the union movement gain such power in the early part of the last century and is good as a reminder since the unions are under such attack right now.
This is written as a first person journal entry that was to be in a person that reflected my personal heritage. In doing some digging in my family I found that I had much more of an Irish ancestry in my family tree then I first thought. We have a strong Irish heritage on both sides of my family, so this is written with that voice.
March 24, 1911
When I found the news of my coming blessing, a little babby to love, I decided to put down these words of our family’s past and future. I will keep this journal reverently for you my little angel, so you will know my life before you were even in it.
My name is Moira O’Neal, Kelly as was, and I was born in a tenement in the Lower East Side of New York in the year of our lord, 1892 the youngest of six. My Nana was forced to leave the old country, hopefully for a better life in America, when the potato blight carried off her entire family, except for me mam, who was safely in her belly. The year was 1850 and she was one of thousands who came here packed like animals in leaky ships to escape the poverty, discrimination and finally the famine that left so many dead that the bodies were left to rot where they fell. Funny how she came to America to escape all of the things that she suffered at home only to face them here as well.
My Nana’s life was one of struggle and hardship. The Irish were not wanted in America, and there were often clashes with the Negro’s for the most menial and meanly paid jobs. One of the most violent as told to me when I was growin’, was called the Draft Riots of 1863. Many Negro’s were murdered by gangs of Irish youths and they terrorized the city. It almost made me ashamed of me Irish blood it did. Me mam grew up dirty, hungry, and poorly clothed, but it was never as bad as what those poor blighter’s of the five-points endured. Altho’ even that area has cleaned up since they burned down the Bowery in 1852. And thanks to the good sisters of The Church of the Transfiguration, mam was able to learn to read and write, knowledge she passed on to me. In her turn, her mam regaled us with tales of County Cork and the green of home, as always was ta’ Nana, until the day she died.
My Da deserted us to go work on the railroad out West, when I was still in the cradle. He left me mam with six children, all needin’ tending. And tho’ she did her best, the Good Lord choose to take four of her babby’s home to Jesus. Me mam was not alone in her sorrow, as many children died before their sixth birthday in the overcrowded and dirty tenements. Our home was no different, one smelly room with no plumbin’ and teemin’ with vermin of every sort. But me mam was unique and with her ability to read and write was able to get a job cookin’ in a fancy house uptown. It was grinding hard work, but better than 70 hours a week in the factories like her mam had to endure for pennies. She was lucky to work she was, as many places would not hire Irish, and posted signs saying “No Irish Need Apply.”
The area where I grew up was the same one me mam called home since she was a lass. We are a close-knit lot, and I know all me neighbors. We watch out for each other in a city that would take advantage of us in a heartbeat. Many of me friends, as was, shifted through the streets begging and mischief making as was the only way to feed rumblin’ bellies many times. This closeness of community is most telling because even though I have lived in America me whole life, you’d never know it, me accent is as thick as ever me Nana’s fresh off the boat.
This is a hard life, to be sure, but it is not without its joys, like a pint, down the pub after a hard days labor or the solace of the church on a Sunday, list’n to the Father talk of better times in the afterlife. But, the greatest joy was meeting your Da. Your Da arrived in New York the year I was born, a lad of three, and was one of the first Irish who passed through Ellis Island. We married three months after he first clapped eyes on me at St. Pat’s and have moved into a two-room flat in the old neighborhood, like a palace it is. Happy is not a strong enough word for what we are. Your Da, Sean, works down the docks, but unlike the evil stories told about Irish, he is not a drunkard and brings his money home to me.
He is so excited to meet you my little angel, as am I. We are moving up in life, as seems to be for all Irish in this bright new century. Maybe one day will see an Irish-Catholic President, but those are just pipe dreams. Altho’ it seems we are fittin’ in better all the time we still expect you to work hard. I am ecstatic that I was able to find good employment recently; your mam’s reading and writing skills are going to help us better our situation. I start tomorrow at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and though this place is a sweatshop filled with newer immigrants from Russia and Italy, I will be working in the office and not on the floor, for a much better wage. I swear we will give you all the best, my love. Until next time my little angel, rest easy.
[This Journal entry was found under a floorboard of an apartment undergoing renovations. It is the first and last entry of a journal for her child, who was never born. Moira O’Neal was killed in the tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911 that killed 142 people, and was buried at St. Patrick’s, the church where her and Sean met and fell in love. After Moira’s death Sean O’Neal rose to be one of the many Irish beat cops to walk the New York Street’s until his death in the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918. He never remarried.]
As They say, we are doomed to repeat the past if we do not remember it and it is important to not forget the voices and those who lives were cut short due to avarice and greed. For a much more cogent and scathing analysis of this event please visit the Rude Pundit.
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