Remembering CUA library donor John K. Mullen of Galway

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John Kernan Mullen of Ballinasloe, County Galway, helped to fund the Catholic University of America (CUA) library that bears his name. The cornerstone was laid April 25, 1925, on the Washington, D.C., campus.

Mullen emigrated to America in 1847, when he was nine. “He began working in a flour mill in Oriskany Falls, N.Y.,” according to a CUA profile. “At 20, Mullen went West, leasing a flour mill in Denver, Colo., and soon after buying several more mills. By 1911 he had built the first grain elevator in the state, established the Colorado Milling and Elevator Company, and operated 91 elevators, warehouses and mills in Colorado, Kansas, Utah and Oregon.”

He became a millionaire.

In 1924, Mullen pledged $500,000 to CUA to build a library, which opened as the John K. Mullen of Denver Memorial Library in September 1928. Since then the library has been open to the public. My work has benefited from access to the Mullen Library and CUA’s Special Collections, which are held in a different building. See the library’s online centenary exhibition.

There is no doubt of Mullen’s business success and generous philanthropy, especially to the Catholic church. He might have been motivated by having escaped the Great Famine.

His political views about Ireland’s struggle for independence are more of a mystery. He surely knew that Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, CUA’s rector from 1909 to 1928, had been an ardent Irish nationalist and national vice president of the Friends of Irish Freedom during the country’s revolutionary years. Exiled Fenian John Devoy attended the 1925 cornerstone ceremony. Coverage of the event in his Gaelic American newspaper mentioned only Mullen’s financial gift.[1]”Cardinal Lays Cornerstone Of Library, Gaelic American, May 2, 1925.

Mullen died in August 1929 in Denver. US Catholic newspapers and secular press obituaries also were silent as to Mullen’s views about his homeland. The digital Irish Newspaper Archive contains no coverage of his death or funding the library.

Bust of John K. Mullen on the main stairway landing between the library’s lobby and second floor.

This plaque is located inside the library’s front door.

References

References
↑1 ”Cardinal Lays Cornerstone Of Library, Gaelic American, May 2, 1925.

Following US correspondents in Ireland, Part 3

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My April 4-14 trip to Ireland allowed me to explore several places visited by American journalists in their late 19th or early 20th century travels to the country. Below are a few more of my travel photos of these places, plus some of the correspondents’ original reporting and my work about them. This is the last post of this series. MH

My travel to County Donegal allowed me not only to follow the 1888 journey of American correspondent William Henry Hurlbert  (See Part 1), but also three other US journalists who trekked to Dungloe during Ireland’s revolutionary period. Ruth Russell of the Chicago Daily News, 1919; Savel Zimand of Survey Graphic magazine, 1921; and Redfern Mason of the San Francisco Examiner, 1922, came to interview Patrick Gallagher, leader of the successful Templecrone Co-operative Agricultural Society Ltd. See “When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922,” published earlier this year in The Irish Story.

Dunleavy, Holan, McGarvey, and Sharkey. 

“The Cope” today remains a thriving enterprise, with 12 retail businesses in four locations: Dungloe, Annagry, Kincasslagh, and Falcarragh. I was welcomed to Dungloe by Patrick J. Dunleavy, chairman of the Cope’s board of directors, who gave me a detailed driving tour of the Rosses region. Mark Sharkey, CEO; and Emma McGarvey, business support manager, hosted us for a lovey lunch at the Caisleain Oir Hotel, Annagry. Our wonderful meal came from award-winning chef Cathal Armstrong, who also owns Restaurant Eve in greater Washington, D.C. The warm hospitality of all these people matched the fine April weather. It was a highlight of my trip. Thank you.

***

“I arrived at Dungloe on a cold and rainy morning. And as the station is about three miles from the center of the village, I sent my luggage up by donkey cart and set out walking. Wild beauty was all around me. In ten minutes the rain stopped. The sky cleared and the wind freshened over the blue and golden hills.” — Savel Zimand, from  “The Romance of Templecrone”, Survey Graphic, November 26, 1921.

The Letterkenny and Burtonport railway extension opened in 1903 and closed in the 1940s. The Dungloe station has been converted into a private residence, seen at right from a small bridge over the former railroad right-of-way, at left, now used as a hike and bike trail.

“… If [Gallagher] had not been a co-operationist for Ireland he might have been a capitalist in America. He took me up the main street, making plain the signs of growing industry: the bacon cured in Dungloe, the egg-weighing, the rentable farm machinery. After viewing the orchard and beehives behind the cooperative store, I remarked on the size of the plant and its suitability for the purpose. — Ruth Russell, “Building The Commonwealth”, The Freeman, May 26, 1920. Magazine story based on 1919 reporting for the Chicago Daily News.

Early 20th century view, looking down Main Street in Dungloe.

Looking up Main Street, Dungloe, April 2025.

“[Gallagher] rises. ‘Come down to the harbor with me. I want to show you something.’ We stroll to the waterfront. From the rocks juts a pier on which men are working. ‘We have to thank America for that,’ says Gallagher.” — Redfern Mason, Rebel Ireland. Self-published booklet based on his 1922 reporting for the San Francisco Examiner.

These two storage buildings were erected as part of the cooperative in the early 20th century. They are located on the Dungloe waterfront, seen on the right at low tide. The pier related to this enterprise was erected in 1923 with funding from the American Committee for Relief in Ireland. The pier was destroyed by several storms in the 1990s. It has since been replaced, seen below at left.

Following US correspondents in Ireland, Part 2

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My April 4-14 trip to Ireland allowed me to visit several places that American journalists wrote about during their late 19th or early 20th century travels to the country. Below are more of my travel photos, plus some of the correspondents’ original reporting and my work about them. MH

***

“It is seldom that reporters can sit in a hotel room and by peeping through drawn blinds see revolutionary history being made, as I am doing today and did yesterday.” — Arthur S. Draper of the New York Tribune, “Fierce Fighting Rages in Fire-Swept Dublin” in the Tribune, April 30, 1916 (Dateline April 29, 1916)

London & North Western Railway (LNWR) logo on the facade of the former hotel. Click image to enlarge.

“We watched the bombardment from a window on the third floor of a hotel. Naval boats, swinging in close to (the Liffey) shore, sent shells screaming into the city, bringing the rebel strongholds crashing down with loud roars. … Soldiers were posted in large force along the quays and in the warehouses across the street from our hotel, answering the sharp volleys of the sniping rebels.” — Wilbur S. Forrest of United Press, ”Shells Rout Rebels” in the Washington Post, April 30, 1916. (Dateline April 29, 1916)

Draper and Forrest were among the 14 correspondents embedded on a British naval destroyer that steamed for Dublin in April 1916 at the outbreak of the Rising. The the London and North Western Hotel is the lookout referenced in their stories. It was located on the Liffey riverfront next to the London and North Western Railway Company train station and steam packet terminal. After a long dormancy, the hotel property was reopened in 2022 as part of the Salesforce Tower campus, seen below. The station and terminal remains vacant.

Read “When a boatload of reporters steamed to the Easter Rising.”

The former London and North Western Hotel seen in April 2025. The red brick structure at left is part of the former railway and steam packet terminal, now abandoned. The dark glass at right is part of the Salesforce Tower, which incorporates the former hotel. The building faces the River Liffey across the street.

Looking upward to a rooftop skylight from the main stairwell of the former hotel lobby. I was unable to access the upper floors, where reporters watched the fighting in 1916.

Note stained glass designs at top of the arched windows, seen from the exterior.

West side of the former hotel. Note that a large arched window bricked over above the door.

Zoom presentation on Michael J. O’Brien

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This event is concluded. I will make the recording available at a later date. MH

As historiographer of the American Irish Historical Society, County Cork-born Michael J. O’Brien focused on Irish contributions to colonial America. In 1919, as the Irish War of Independence heated up, he published A Hidden Phase of American History: Ireland’s Part in America’s Struggle for Liberty. The book was deployed to help make the case for why America should support Ireland’s struggle for liberty. When US Senator John Sharp Williams, a Mississippi Democrat, attacked the Irish in a widely reported speech, O’Brien was drafted to issue the reply.

My zoom presentation, “Michael J. O’Brien: Defending Ireland’s Record in America,” begins at 6 tonight, USA Eastern time. Thanks to the Irish American Heritage Museum, Albany, N.Y., which has stepped up to save this presentation after a new round of turmoil at AIHS. More about that in a future post.

Following US correspondents in Ireland, Part 1

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My April 4-14 trip to Ireland allowed me to visit several places that American journalists wrote about during their late 19th or early 20th century travels to the country. Over the next few weeks I will publish some of my travel photos, plus links to the correspondent’s original reporting and my work about them. MH

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“(Traveling into County Donegal we) entered upon great stone-strewn wastes of land seemingly unreclaimed and irreclaimable. Huge boulders lay tossed and tumbled about as if they had been whirled through the air by the cyclones of some prehistoric age, and dropped at random when the wild winds wearied of the fun. The last landmark we made out through the gathering storm was the pinnacled crest of Errigal. Of Dunlewy, esteemed the loveliest of the Donegal lakes, we could see little or nothing as we hurried along the highway, which follows its course down to the Clady, the river of Gweedore.” — William Henry Hurlbert, Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American

Hurlbert was born in Charleston, South Carolina, educated at Harvard, and worked as a New York City newspaperman in the second half of the 19th century. He visited Ireland early in 1888 and published a book about his travels before the end of the year. Passages about his travels in County Donegal are found here on pages 77 to 124. My 2018 Ireland Under Coercion, Revisited serial placed his journey in historical context. I followed Hurlbert’s footsteps to Killone Abbey in County Clare in 2018.

The village of Dunlewy seen at the right side of the same-name lake in County Donegal. April 2025.

The Dungloe River at the edge of Dungloe town. April 2025

BULLETIN: McIlroy masters the Masters

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Rory McIlroy, of Holywood, Northern Ireland, has become only the sixth golfer to will all four of the sport’s major tournaments and the first from Europe to join the elite Grand Slam club. His playoff victory at the Augusta National course in Georgia was has first major tourney win in 11 years. The Journal.ie reports reactions from political leaders on both side of the Irish border.

McIlroy, 35, earns $4.2 million of the $21 million purse … plus the famous green jacket, said to be “priceless.” … The British Open, another major, returns to the Royal Portrush course in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, in July.

New(ish) Dublin museum focuses on Irish literature

DUBLIN–The Dublin Writers Museum opened in 1991 inside an 18th-century Georgian townhouse at 18 Parnell Square. It was dedicated to the county’s literary giants, including Samuel Beckett,  Brendan Behan, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, James Joyce, Patrick Kavanagh, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker,  Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, and others. Sure, Trinity College on the south side of the Liffey held the globally famous Book of Kells, but DWM displayed Joyce’s typewriter, Beckett’s telephone, and Behan’s press credentials.

The COVID 19 pandemic closed the museum in March 2020. Even before then, complaints had begun to mount that it did not feature enough women authors or living writers. An assessment commissioned by Fáilte Ireland, the national tourism development agency, concluded later in 2020 that DWM “no longer meets the expectation of the contemporary museum visitor in terms of accessibility, presentation and interpretation.” It never reopened.

Plaque outside Newman House.

Simultaneously, discussions had been taking place since 2010 between the National Library of Ireland and University College Dublin for a creative alliance between their two unique assets – NLI’s Joyce collection and UCD’s historic Newman House property at 86 St. Stephen’s Green. Built in 1765 as a private residence, it was transformed in 1854 into the  Catholic University of Ireland , precursor of UCD, under the rectorship of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Joyce studied there from 1899 to 1902.

A panel in the new museum recalls the old museum.

In September 2019, Newman House opened as the Museum of Literature Ireland (or MoLI–after the Joyce character Molly Bloom. This was six months before COVID closed the DWM and the rest of Dublin. Now that it has survived the pandemic, MoLI features “dynamic, immersive exhibitions that tell the story of Ireland’s literary heritage from our earliest storytelling traditions to our celebrated contemporary writers.” One room of the new museum is dedicated to the DWM, including the artifacts mentioned above. Other materials that are not on display have become part of the MoLI’s archives.

In March, MoLI named David Cleary as its new director and CEO. He had been director of sales & operations at EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin’s Dockside district. MoLI receives government and private sector support.

In addition to its displays, MoLI offers a gift shop and cafe, including outdoor seating in a lovely courtyard. The courtyard provides access to Iveagh Gardens, described here as “among the finest, but least known, of Dublin’s parks and gardens.” Or, in the words of a popular Irish woman writer affixed to the entrance gate:

The gate between the Museum of Literature Ireland courtyard and the Iveagh Gardens.

Arrived in Ireland as Trump imposes tariffs

UPDATE 2:

The Irish tricolor over Leinster House, seat of the Irish parliament.

The Irish show no signs of animosity toward Americans because of Trump’s tariffs, at least in two days since since I arrived in Dublin. “From Washington DC, then? Well, ye must need a hug,” smiled a friendly usher at St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral.

The Irish Times on Sunday headlined “Mass anti-Trump protests in US cities see Americans express their fear and loathing.” US correspondent Keith Duggan, described Saturday’s nationwide protests as “the first true attempt at a cohesive, national protest voice against the radical agenda of President Trump’s administration since the election.”

Cliff Taylor, one of the paper’s economics writers, warns that Trump’s April 2 tariff announce is a significant turning point. He continued:

Trump’s policies are not an outlier, but a continuation of a protectionist trend in US politics stretching back to his first term – and evident to a greater or lesser extent elsewhere in the world. The US has changed, and this is important for a country such as Ireland, which has hitched its economic wagon to it. And the old world trade order is being upended … The Irish economy is now going to slow noticeably. Uncertainty has a cost, creating a kind of economic paralysis.

And these are the early days.

UPDATE 1:

It’s too soon to fully detail how the Trump tariff’s will impact Ireland. But our Dublin airport taxi driver groaned when I mentioned our flight from Washington, D.C., was only half full. The cabbie has been watching a key economic indicator in his rear view mirror: foreign visitors to Ireland declined 12.2 percent in December 2024 compared to December 2023; fell 25 percent in January, compared to January 2024, and dropped 30 percent in February compared to the same month last year.

These post-Trump election, pre-tariff announcement figures can not yet be considered a trend. But it will be worth watching to see if the tourist decline continues as the weather warms and tariffs hit US and other travelers. The data comes from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office. March figures will not be available until late April.

The General Post Office (GPO) on O’Connell Street in Dublin, epicenter of the 1916 Easter Rising. 4 April 2025.

ORIGINAL POST:

US President Donald Trump has launched a global trade war, with a 20 percent tariff set to hit the European Union, including the Republic of Ireland, while only the 10 percent base rate applies to the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland. The 10 percent tariff difference on the island of Ireland–the only land border between the EU and the UK–is likely to add to the headaches already caused by Brexit. And I mean political as well as economic troubles.

During my November visit to Ireland, a few days after the US elections, the Irish Times headlined “Trump victory thrusts America into the unknown.” I wrote this piece saying, “Trump’s win not not only thrusts America into the unknown, but also Ireland and the rest of Europe and the world.” Now, Trump-fueled global turmoil is being supercharged.

As it turns out, I will be traveling in Ireland over the next 10 days, with stops in Dublin, Donegal, and Kerry. I will report on how the Irish view Trump’s disruption to global trade, in addition to his gutting of US government agencies and assaults on universities, cultural institutions, private business, and other organizations and aspects of American life. Email subscribers should check the website for updates to this post, or watch for new pieces delivered to your inbox. MH

Four great stories about American journalists in Ireland

Below are four recent stories about American journalists in Ireland. The six correspondents highlighted in these pieces visited the country between 1919 and 1925. Their work drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic. My research in this subject area continues. Suggestions and comments are welcome. MH  

Richard Lee Strout: A Young American Reporter In Revolutionary Ireland After spending a year interning at London newspapers, Strout stopped in Ireland on his way back to America. He arrived in Dublin a day before Bloody Sunday, 1920. Published in American Journalism, the peer-reviewed quarterly of the American Journalism Historians Association.

When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922: Correspondents from the Chicago Tribune, Survey Graphic magazine (New York), and the San Francisco Examiner traveled to the northwest corner of County Donegal to write about Patrick Gallagher, a cooperative leader. Published in The Irish Story (Dublin).

When the Irish ‘exposed’ a New York Herald reporter In June 1919 the Irish American press praised Truman H. Talley for publicizing a report that criticized the British administration of Ireland. A few months later, the same papers called him a British propagandist.

Could Maine potatoes have relieved Irish hunger in 1925? Milton Bronner of the Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicated a three-part series of stories and photos about privation and poverty in the rural west of Ireland.

Visit my American Reporting of Irish Independence page.

On a lonely road in Connemara, south of Westport, 2019.

Remembering COVID’s deadly impact on St. Patrick’s Day; Cardinal McElroy praises Irish immigrants

UPDATE:

Cardinal McElroy at St. Patrick Church, Washington, DC, March 17, 2025.

Robert Cardinal McElroy has confirmed his Irish heritage and praised earlier generations of Irish immigrants who contributed to the success of America. The fifth generation San Franciscan did not specify his family’s county of origin as he celebrated his first St. Patrick’s Day Mass as the newly installed archbishop of Washington. He assured the congregation at St. Patrick Church in downtown DC that his heritage has been confirmed by DNA testing.

Cardinal McElroy also gave a shout out to Epic: The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin. He said the museum’s modern story-telling techniques of Ireland’s nineteenth century immigrants was “a beautiful, moving experience.” He said that despite different personalities and backgrounds, the immigrants were “filled with Christian hope,” the belief that God is always with us, regardless of our circumstances. He reminded the congregation that “hope is at the center of our faith and the theme of this Jubilee Year.”

ORIGINAL POST:   

It’s now five years since COVID-19 began spreading sickness and death across the world. The cancelation of St. Patrick’s Day parades and related events in America and Ireland became an early, signal sign of the pandemic’s impact on our daily lives. It was hardly the most important development, to be sure, but it certainly presaged the misery and disruptions that lay ahead. Annual parades did not return in most cities until March 2022. This year, I want to remember all those who suffered, especially the earliest fatalities in March 2020. May God rest their souls.

For something lighter, below are a few links to previous posts with historical perspectives on the Irish holiday in America, and my page devoted to St. Patrick’s churches. Enjoy. MH

Stained glass image of St. Patrick in Harrisburg, Pa. church.