Catherine Healy

Dublin

Writer, Researcher and Journalist at Freelance

DFA Historian-in-Residence, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum

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Articles

The secret Irish heroines who sent money home from the US

Mar 8, 2025 | thetimes.com | Catherine Healy
Unfinished business (Philippians 1:3-11)

Dec 6, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Catherine Healy |Mac Loftin |Reggie L. Williams |Victoria Barnett

To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. In 1882, Barcelona’s Catholic bishop laid the cornerstone for the historic Basilica of the Holy Family, best known by its Spanish name: Sagrada Familia. The next year, architect Antoni Gaudi took over the project.
The days are coming (Jeremiah 33:14-16)

Nov 29, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Catherine Healy |Mac Loftin |Victoria Barnett |Reggie L. Williams

To receive these posts by email each Monday, sign up. For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century. Be alert; a righteous branch is springing up before our eyes. A few miles from my home on the South Side of Chicago lie the remains of the old South Works steel mill. For more than a century, South Works employed thousands of people and provided steel beams for the city’s skyscrapers.
The waste warriors saving millions of meals from the bin

Apr 22, 2024 | independent.ie | Catherine Healy

The Irish innovators  redirecting unwanted food to the needy and helping businesses slash the amount they throw away tell their storyEvery day at a huge warehouse in Tallaght, FoodCloud workers unload crates of produce that would have otherwise been binned. It’s one of three Irish depots used by the social enterprise to sort through food donations from businesses before they are matched with charities.
What is the history of the White House shamrock presentation?

Mar 16, 2024 | thejournal.ie | Catherine Healy

ON 17 MARCH 1953, Ireland’s ambassador in Washington, John Hearne, was the first to present a bowl of shamrock to the US president for St Patrick’s Day. According to his official schedule, Dwight Eisenhower spent 15 minutes with the Irish diplomat – a short but presumably pleasant break from the usual barrage of policy briefings. Hearne had left shamrocks at the White House a year before, but the then president, Harry Truman, happened to be away at the time.
The day in 1827 when Irish women convicts broke through their Australian prison gates

Feb 22, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Catherine Healy

Between 1791 and 1867, more than 40,000 convicts were shipped from Ireland to the penal colonies of Australia. Many of the women transported to New South Wales were sent to Parramatta Female Factory, a workhouse that also functioned as a prison, assignment depot, marriage bureau and hospital. On October 27th, 1827, Irish convicts were among the throng of inmates who broke through the institution’s gates in protest at cuts to their food allowance.
The Irishman who walked from New York to San Francisco just to prove his rival wrong

Feb 1, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Catherine Healy

One morning in May 1910, Longford man John Ennis set out to cross the United States on foot. The 67-year-old was already a well-known name in competitive walking, or “pedestrianism”, as it was then called. His latest challenge was to beat a record set by his long-time rival Edward Payson Weston, who had taken 105 days to get from New York to San Francisco a year before.
The Irishman determined to expose the slave trade

Jan 11, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Catherine Healy

In September 1774 James Field Stanfield left Liverpool for the west coast of Africa. The young Dubliner had been hired as a sailor on a ship headed to Benin, a major exporter of enslaved people. Every year, European traders arrived on this stretch of coast and forcibly removed thousands of men, women and children, transporting them across the Atlantic for sale in the Americas.
Irish emigrants were once labelled 'scum' and tormented in the United States

Dec 4, 2023 | thejournal.ie | Catherine Healy

IRELAND IS STILL reeling from the tragic and shocking events of 23 November, with its capital city looking like one under siege for a time. After a dreadful attack outside a school, rumours quickly circulated online, culminating in some of the worst violence to hit Dublin in years. The riots developed in a fog of anti-immigrant sentiment. Protesters rampaged through the streets, attacking gardaí and setting fire to public transport, all in the misguided name of protecting Ireland from ‘others’.
The Galway woman who went to Trinidad a teacher, but died a heroine

Nov 28, 2023 | irishtimes.com | Catherine Healy

When she moved to the Caribbean in 1938, Kay Donnellan could hardly have imagined what lay ahead. The Galway native left Ireland to take up a job at a Catholic girls’ school in Port of Spain, on the British-ruled island of Trinidad. St Joseph’s Convent had a long history of hiring Irish teachers and Donnellan must have seemed an exceptional candidate.