March 16, 2026: Immigrant Eyes: Rejecting Fear by Finding My Irish Roots
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" wrote Emma Lazarus.
For some, this hope, this dream offered new life. America was a beacon of possibilities and those who found it were forever grateful. My family was one of those.
The Road to Derryronane Along a lonely road on a soft (rainy) summer’s day in County Mayo, Ireland, I stood where my great grandmother Winnifred Gavaghan had left her home on her journey to America as a teenager. Her only treasure, still preserved, was a handful of linen napkins she brought with her. She’d never see her home or family again.
I promised my grandmother, Margaret, that we’d go back together one day. When the time came, she was too old, so I did it for her. With a few friends I drove around Ireland and eventually found myself in the county seat of Swinford. It was the only town name I’d heard of growing up. The only link to the past.
First stop, the parish priest who welcomed me and helped me find Winnifred’s birth certificate in the church records. What would gram think of that?! All she wanted was a picture of the peat bogs where her mum might’ve worked. I was on a roll and went to the pub next door. I knocked and asked if there were any Gavaghans living nearby. “Why you be lookin’ for the Gavaghans?” I was asked, with a tinge of suspicion or was it curiosity? I told them about my grandmother and he smiled and helpfully said, “Oh no, you won’t find any of them here, but if you go up the road to Derryronane…”
We only had a day, so we jumped in the car and were off. And so, down a winding road, past the high hedgerows and a few overlooking cows, I finally came to a small house. I felt lost so I figured I ought to stop and ask directions. An older, distinguished gentleman stood with curiosity. “Hi”, says I. “Are there any Gavaghans living nearby?” Shyly but with curiosity he asked, “Why you be lookin’ for the Gavaghans now?” “Well, my grandmother’s mom was Winnifred…” “Auntie Winnie?” he interrupted. And there it was. Remarkably, I’d just met my gram's cousin, Tom Gavaghan.
Wow! Wait until I tell my gram! My friend had a camcorder and asked if she could film him. He was kind, if shy, and stood as still as he could to help out. “Oh no” I told him, “It’s a movie camera. You can actually say hi to your cousin Margaret” “Hello Margaret” is all got, but it was enough.
Later, he told us to go up the rose path by his house (I swear I could hear a faint echo of a harp!) and find a house where I would meet more of the Gavaghans. I looked over the soft fields as I walked, thinking I’d catch a glimpse of a young Maureen O’Hara! OK, I’d been kidding my friends that I’d meet her on this trip and it just so happens that my grandmother’s favorite movie was The Quiet Man.
There was a house next to a run-down shack. I knocked. Who should answer the door but Margaret Gavaghan! What? Tom just met Tom and now I was meeting Margaret too! I was welcomed home. “No one has been home in all these years” she said as she invited us in. Next thing I knew, the family photo albums came out and she started giving me pictures. Some were of my gram’s cousins and there was this 1905 picture of my great, great, grandmother Margaret Dunleavy and her husband, Anthony Gavaghan. Nobody knew who the three kids in the photo were. All I knew is that I couldn’t wait to show my gram.
My Gram’s Mum There’s so much more of my Irish adventures, but I’ll tell you about coming home and visited my gram. I was so excited, but thought, in the ways we’d always kid each other, that I’d start by telling her I didn’t get the picture she wanted. “No luck,” I told her. “Couldn’t find a thing.” I couldn’t wait, so I hooked up the VCR (yes, it was a few years ago) and told her I had a tape I’d like to show her. She sat and I knelt down beside her. Soon we were watching the countryside in Mayo.
“This is your mom’s countryside” I told her and then Tommy Gavaghan came on the screen. “Would you like to meet your cousin”? I smiled. “Hello Margaret.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her raise her hand and wave back. Time and space had evaporated. It was before cell phones and the internet and it was her first connection with her Irish family. How much we’d progressed since Winnifred had left! I’ll never forget that moment.
And then, we saw the run-down shack. “That’s your mum’s front yard and her house” I told her. She was transfixed, transported in her mind back in time. I’ve no idea what she thinking about, but as I glanced up, she wasn’t noticing me anymore. I played the tape a few more times and then she told me she didn’t need to see it anymore. Not to worry, she said, “It’s all right here” as she pointed to her head and then her heart. Oh yes, she named the three kids in the photo and I wrote back to Margaret to tell her the news. Funny how memories live on.
Immigrants I traveled to Ireland with romanticized and sentimental memories from childhood. It’s not Ireland. I know that. But the memory, the link to that poverty-stricken past has meaning. To quote Otto Frank, “To know where we’re going, we have to know where we come from.” I’m lucky enough to know.
My Irish immigrant ancestors, like others, helped build our country. One of them served in the Irish Brigade in Cuba during the Spanish American War. His medals were a family treasure, carefully preserved. He had barely arrived in America back then but was filled with gratitude and felt duty bound to serve his new country.
My other side of the family was from Poland. My grandfather almost made it to the big leagues (or so we were told and imagined). My brother and I used to play catch with him and we held a certain Polish American ballplayer in high esteem during my New England childhood: Yaz.
You’re Not Irish A colleague once dismissed all this by telling me he was sick of Americans and their sentimental stories and that I had no right to claim Irish heritage. He was from Northern Ireland, and I couldn’t help but think how Identities separated and defined people there. But here he was wrong. He missed the point. It’s not that we’re Irish but that as Irish we were welcomed here. Because I could trace my past and know why they left I’m more grateful and proud of my American identity. That identity is constantly enriched and challenged by others who become part of the Republic.
Diversity strengthens us and continually expands what’s possible. You belong because you’re here.
Hate and Fear It’s never easy for immigrants and refugees who have left so much behind. Many can’t tell the sentimental tale that I can. Some don’t want to think about it. Sometimes they bring their own prejudices with them and sometimes they adopt prejudices they hear when they arrive. There are some who reject immigrants, and there are some immigrants who learn that to reject other immigrants or potential immigrants might be their ticket out of the hate they are facing. This systemic hate can be confronted, or it can be exploited.
I was sitting at a business in Keene and looking up at the large 19th century poster proudly displayed and framed in their waiting room. I was uncomfortable. It was an image of an Irish cop as a monkey leering at white women. Although the stereotype no longer works for the Irish, I’m painfully aware and angry about how it’s applied to others. Immigrants have constantly been portrayed as apes and monkeys, rats, less than human, a threat. The habit is deeply rooted in our enslaving history and white nationalism. It still has the power to undermine us.
We recently saw President Trump courting white supremacists and posting images of a former president and the first lady as monkeys. It was disturbing and appalling, but sadly, not surprising. Steven Miller and many in the media continue to embrace the fake white replacement conspiracy lies, rooted in the post defeat resurrection narrative of the traitorous Confederacy. They sometimes use beliefs and arguments straight out of Nazi Germany.
The Quota In 1924 the race-based immigration quota act was passed that severely limited who could come to America. The law, written in part by a member of the KKK and supported by Boston’s upper crust brahmin Immigration Restriction League, mostly closed the door to non-white and non-Christians. It was done cleverly by limiting which nationalities (not “races” or religions) were deemed acceptable.
Below: Louis Dalrymple depicts European immigrants as “rats”. Judge magazine, 1903. New York Public Library.
Hitler and more recently Steven Miller praised the law, overturned in 1964, as models of racial purity. White nationalists using racism to judge human worth is problematic. It's also worth noting that it’s a myth that America was an open-door sanctuary for immigrants from 1921-1964. Racists don't care much about facts. On the other hand, myths reflect aspirations and offer another view of what's possible in America.
My Turn On this St. Patrick’s Day I’m sentimental and grateful. I think of my ancestors and all the others who’ve found sanctuary here. Of how many serve and have served in our armed forces to defend our values. I’m attaching a link to the song, “Immigrant Eyes” that remind us to not take it for granted says grandfather’s emigrant eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYBaSvR2R0o
And yet, our promise and the arc towards freedom are constantly being challenged. We see our leaders exploiting the worst in us, see diversity as a threat, and try to divide us by pointing out, not celebrating our differences. They're trying to overturn the Constitution and end the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship. It’s fundamentally un-American and self-defeating.
As we struggle to find the “better angels of our nature”, I’m inspired by our revolutionary idea that America is a place for all. Together we build and enrich our lives and protect each other’s human rights. We learn the destructiveness of identity-based hate and find ways to overcome it.
But there are those who reject this and attack education that might teach lessons of connectivity and mutual reliance.
And so, like those who came before us, we can and must renew our hope and confidence and create opportunity by pushing fear and hate away.
We must rely on each other and learn more about our diversities. Mostly, we must retain hope grounded in action. Like our immigrant ancestors we need to re-envision America through grateful immigrant eyes.
We can’t let our ideals disappear. We must reclaim our revolutionary ideas built by immigrants and rooted in human dignity and freedom, not exploitation. It will require a lot of work. We can and must offer hope again, free ourselves from fear, and re-light the lamp that stands beside the golden door.
