Top of the morning!

mwiggenhorn · ‎03-17-2019

Today, everyone is Irish! I actually am, having a great-grandfather who immigrated to New York with his brothers in the 1830's. They were tailors from Buncrana, County Donegal. They arrived with nothing and went on to be extremely successful. Most of the brothers stayed in New York but my ancestor, William Devlin, ended up in Louisiana - first in St Mary Parish and then New Orleans. To celebrate their success, they paid for a window in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Here's a picture of it

martina_plaschka · ‎03-17-2019

That is a beautiful family history!

I have no Irish roots, I'm sure, but a great-great-granduncle of mine was chancellor of Austria after WW2. Austria was the small remainder of the Austro-Hungarian empire and had been occupied by Nazi forces. The country was occupied for 10 years from 1945 to 1955 by the allied forces - Russia, the US, UK, and France. Nobody knew what to do with it. My relative and others fought for a neutral status modelled on Switzerland, and it took them 10 years to achieve it. He was known to be a huge wine drinker, and the Austrians joked that he should just drink the russians under the table. Which he did.

So finally after 10 years the last hold-out, Russia, agreed, and the state treaty of Austria was signed by all.

So when I have a glass of red wine, I feel that I do my duty to my fatherland in the family tradition. Hasn't had much of an influence, as far as I can tell.

mtngigi · ‎03-17-2019

Mary W wrote:
Today, everyone is Irish! I actually am, having a great-grandfather who immigrated to New York with his brothers in the 1830's. They were tailors from Buncrana, County Donegal. They arrived with nothing and went on to be extremely successful. Most of the brothers stayed in New York but my ancestor, William Devlin, ended up in Louisiana - first in St Mary Parish and then New Orleans. To celebrate their success, they paid for a window in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Here's a picture of it

I've been to St. Patricks and must have seen that window - it's beautiful, as is the whole church.
To celebrate your family, here, have a cold (green) one on me. 😄

Happy St. Patricks Day!

richard_wein · ‎03-18-2019

Virginia F wrote:
Mary W wrote:
Today, everyone is Irish! I actually am, having a great-grandfather who immigrated to New York with his brothers in the 1830's. They were tailors from Buncrana, County Donegal. They arrived with nothing and went on to be extremely successful. Most of the brothers stayed in New York but my ancestor, William Devlin, ended up in Louisiana - first in St Mary Parish and then New Orleans. To celebrate their success, they paid for a window in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Here's a picture of it

I've been to St. Patricks and must have seen that window - it's beautiful, as is the whole church.
To celebrate your family, here, have a cold (green) one on me. 😄

Happy St. Patricks Day!

That photo reminds me of a joke about an Irishman in a pub who asks what the Pope's favourite drink is. The answer he gets is "creme de menthe". So he orders a pint of creme de menthe.

lysis10 · ‎03-18-2019

I should probably be embarrassed that I didn't know it was St Patty's Day but yesterday was my first real full day off nothing to do so I just wanted to tinker with my gaming room buildout. OMG it's looking so cool. I just got to build the computer, install the NAS, and open the 65" TV box and I'm done. Like this loft is gonna be so manly and awesome. And then I'm going to murrica and sit in my sloth for a full week playing Witcher 3 and ordering pizza.

allpurposewriter · ‎03-18-2019

Probably why the Irish say, "If I don't see you through the week, I'll see you through the window."

They must have done hell of a lot of sewing to afford that baby.

mwiggenhorn · ‎03-18-2019

They had - eventually - a men's clothing store in NY. One of the brothers became the Chancellor of the City of New York. My great-grandfather was a rice and sugar planter and, after he moved to New Orleans, a real estate investor. I wish I knew more of the story, though, about how they found such great success.

colettelewis · ‎03-21-2019

I'm late to the party. A wonderful story Mary, thanks for sharing and the window is gorgeous. (At the moment, in view of the Brexit fiasco, I'm thanking my lucky stars for my Irish conncections and my Irish passport, for which I forgot to thank St Patrick on his day!)