US man needs help in American pioneer quest

US man needs help in American pioneer quest

6 November 2013

THEY came to escape the famine but many died in the place that promised survival. Virginia was not a traditional stop-off for Irish emigrants, but when its government decided to build a major new railroad in the 1850s nearly 2,000 were hired for work along the 17 mile route.

Joining the American slaves, the immigrants’ back-breaking work through steep terrain was dangerous and slow, and many died from overwork, cave-ins, sunstroke or diseases such as tuberculosis and dysentery.

Kevin Donleavy is an American historian involved in researching the Blue Ridge Railroad as part of a project entitled Clann Mhór. He has collected the names of all the Irish rail workers, their wives and children, and hopes to communicate with their descendants for his new book The Irish in Early Virginia, 1600-1850.

And among the Virginian immigrants of particular interest is a gun-toting priest from Down who narrowly escaped the hangman’s noose.

As part of his research Kevin stopped off in Down District this week, trying to trace the roots of two immigrants named Crickard and Downey from the Downpatrick area, possibly near Finnis. So far he is making headway with the Crickards but wants to know more about the Downeys.

“The men who came over here heard about this work in Virginia maybe through churches, maybe through famine organisations,” said Kevin.

“One of those who came was a Daniel Downey, a priest, who stayed with another Irish man by the name of Crickard.

“They showed up in Virginia together. What brought them here?

“Certainly if Daniel Downey had not showed up nobody would have built a church at Staunton in Virginia (St. Francis of Assisi). The majority of people in Virginia were Protestant.”

Appearing to act as a counsellor to the beleaguered Irish working on the railroad, the popular and energetic priest became known for building the church out of his own money. However, he was about to become much more famous.

“He found out that one of his parishioners, a 20 year-old man, had got his housekeeper pregnant,” Kevin explained.

“He says to the fellow — ‘You have got to marry this girl’. This guy says ‘I’m not going to do that’. And when the priest asks why not, he replies: ‘Because my wife wouldn’t like it’.

“The priest then whips a pistol off his hip.”

A shot is heard, the young Irishman is found dead, and Father Downey is charged with his murder. And following four trials and several hung juries the priest, who claimed it was an accident, got off.

Despite this, in 1858 Bishop McGill reportedly suspended Downey from the priesthood

until he was willing to go to

Rome for rehabilitation. Downey refused because he believed that the Bishop’s support of the southern Confederacy in the American Civil War was a greater crime than his and wrote the Bishop to this effect.

Kevin, hoping the tale might spark the interest of local Downeys, was also in Downpatrick on Monday for the annual commemoration of executed United Irishman Thomas Russell.

Interested in the links between the United Irishmen and historic Virginia, he explained: “Charlottestown is a university town and the University of Virginia was established by Thomas Jefferson 1819.

“James Dinsmore from Antrim and banished United Irishman John Neilson were involved in its construction.

“The connection with Downpatrick is that Thomas Russell’s stone was paid for by Mary Ann McCracken who was a legatee of John Neilson the architect.”

To contact Kevin in relation to his Blue Ridge Railroad project email him on kdonleavy@embarqmail.com. For more information visit www.ClannMhor.org