From the Great Blasket to America

by Michael Carney

  8. Doing All Right in America

  When I lived on the island, I liked to visit the houses of families who had relatives who had emigrated to America. I wanted to find out how they were getting on in America. I wanted to know how they went about emigrating, what happened when they got to America and what kind of jobs they got. I was curious about it all. These evening conversations on the island planted a seed in my head. It seemed to me that emigrating to America led to a better way of life.

  Although I did not really need to leave Dublin – I had a great girlfriend, a good steady job and no major complaints – I also had a family responsibility. My sister Cáit had stayed on the island with my father. My brother Maurice was serving in the British Merchant Marine. Somebody had to make a move on behalf of the others. I was the third eldest. It was up to me to get the ball rolling. I would be the first in my generation of the family to go and I would get the process started for the others to follow. Dublin was fine, but I thought I could do better and my brothers and sisters could too.

  My uncle Tom Carney was one of three of my father’s brothers who had emigrated from the island to Springfield, Massachusetts, in the 1920s.

  Unlike in my father’s day when all you needed was the money for passage on the boat, you now needed lots of documentation to enter America. But emigration was a fairly easy process if you had relatives who were American citizens. You needed an affidavit from your sponsor saying that he or she would be responsible for you for five years after you landed. The affidavit was submitted to the United States Embassy in Dublin. If you were approved, the Embassy sent you a visa by mail.

  In 1946, I wrote to my uncle Tom in Springfield to get my affidavit. His daughter Rita wrote the letters and filled out the forms. A Springfield lawyer named Bill Foley finalised everything. Foley’s family was originally from Ventry. I filed my affidavit in 1947. My visa was delivered to me in early 1948. I was very excited and made my travel arrangements right away.

  At the time I emigrated, I thought that the evacuation of the island was about to happen at any time. Little did I know that it would not happen for another five whole years.

  Arrival in Springfield

  I did not tell my employers at Hughes’ about my plans to go to America until they were finalised. Helen Hughes was still overseeing the place because her husband, Martin, was still out sick with tuberculosis. When I finally told Helen about my plans, she said she was sorry to hear I was going. But she said that, under the circumstances, helping my family out, she understood.

  I had been working at Hughes’ for four years. She said, ‘If things don’t work out, you can always come back here and get your job back.’ It was great to have a back-up plan.

  Some of my Dublin friends, Stephen Roe, Jimmy Vaughn and Liam Quinn, organised a big surprise party – an American Wake – for me at the Morrissey Whelan Dance Hall before I left. They gave me a nice going-away present: some money to get me started in America.

  Then, at the end of April, I went back to the island and to Coumeenole to say my goodbyes to family and friends. We had another American Wake up in my uncle Pats Tom’s place on the island that was vacant at the time. I brought over a keg of Guinness for the occasion.

  I travelled to America on a steamship, the RMS Queen Mary, from Southampton in England. You could go over by airplane by then, but that was far too expensive for me. I took a ferry from Blackrock in Dublin to Holyhead in England. Mary Ward came to the ferry terminal to see me off. As I was departing, I said to her, ‘I hope I’ll see you again.’ She said, ‘Well, we’ll see.’ There were no commitments. As a going-away present, Mary gave me a fine Sheaffer’s pen and pencil set. It was gold and engraved with my name and the departure date. In the box was a note that said, ‘Whether you travel by air or by sea, may you land on the shore of success.’ She asked me to write often.

  Mike Carney sailed aboard the RMS Queen Mary, shown here arriving in New York in July 1947 on its maiden post-war voyage.

  Of course, I got a big goodbye kiss. And we cried too. I told her I might be back again, depending on how it went.

  From Holyhead I took a train all the way across the country to Southampton on the south coast. The trip took all night. We boarded the Queen Mary the very next morning. She was both big and beautiful. She had been a troop carrier in the war and had since been completely renovated. I had a stateroom with two bunks. There was a man from Scotland in the other bunk. He snored like hell and kept me up all night.

  My ship sailed for America on 5 May 1948. We had a good time on board. Spirits were high with anticipation. There was great ‘craic’. But I was also a little sad too. I used to sit down and talk to myself. And sometimes I cried. I hoped I was doing the right thing. There was a big celebration on the ship the night before we landed in New York. We had more than a couple of drinks.

  When we came into New York Harbor on the morning of 10 May 1948, we all went up on the deck to see the sights. There were so many people on the left side of the ship that I thought it would tip over and sink. I looked at the skyscrapers of New York and I thought they must touch the sky. I was amazed at the height of them. Who could have built them? How did they do it?

  I saw the Statue of Liberty and I thought she was going to reach right out and shake my hand. I thought she was trying to welcome me to this country. It was like she was saying, ‘You’ll be well received; you’ll be well taken care of.’ I was overjoyed.

  The famous Ellis Island immigration centre was being phased out at the time. Instead, we had gone through a United States Customs inspection even before we got on the ship back in Southampton. We disembarked at Pier 69 on the Hudson River. It was a very hot day and I wasn’t used to that kind of heat and humidity. I was sweating like never before in my life. I did not think I could stand it.

  I had to show my immigration papers to an officer in uniform. They were all in order. I came with only one suitcase. There was nothing in it but my clothes – my only worldly possessions. I had less than a hundred dollars in my pocket.

  My uncle Tom and his daughter Helen were picking me up. I had never met them before and they had never met me. I wrote to them before I left Ireland, telling them what I would be wearing when I got off the ship, a black pinstriped suit, so they could pick me out of the crowd. Fortunately, they found me in that huge gang of people and gave me a big bear hug. I thought they’d squeeze the life out of me.

  Sporting his new suit, Mike Carney (right) stands with his immigration sponsor, his uncle Tom Carney, shortly after arriving from Ireland.

  We went straight from the pier to Grand Central Terminal on 42nd Street by taxi. From there, we took a train to Springfield. It took about three and a half hours.

  Welcome to Springfield

  To tell the truth, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Springfield when I first arrived. It certainly was not as big and lively as Dublin. In fact, it was pretty quiet by comparison. There was not as much to do, and it certainly did not have the same social life. But the important things were the jobs, and the money, and the possibility of advancement. This was America, the land of opportunity.

  I lived with my uncle Tom Carney at 11 Sherbrooke Street. It was a single-family home; a nice tidy place with three bedrooms. I had my own bedroom on the second floor.

  Boy, was it ever hot! We didn’t have air conditioning in them days. And then there was the cold and snow in the winter. I think it took more than a year to get used to the weather extremes. After my arrival, I bought myself some American clothes – Bermuda shorts! My American family members had a big welcoming party for me at my uncle Tom’s house. All my aunts and uncles and cousins came in and they each gave me ten or twenty dollars. I thought it was great. I thought, ‘I don’t even have to work in this country. Unbelievable!’

  That notion didn’t last very long. I knew I needed to get a job and settle down. I wanted to be something other than a barman when I came to in America. I wanted better pay and benefits. I was concerned about my legs
over time with all the standing on the job, and I didn’t like listening to complaints and taking care of situations when customers got out of line and you had to shut them down. I thought I could do better. It was a great time to be looking for a job in America. The job discrimination against the Irish that my father found when he first came to America was gone. Now, America needed workers.

  My uncle Tom had three daughters. I called him ‘Pop Pop’. He watched out for me. He was my mentor. His daughter Helen was married to a man who worked for the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, A&P Supermarkets. It was a huge company. Billy Keane was his name and he kept track of the inventory in A&P stores. Billy made arrangements for me to get an interview.

  At that time, A&P had twelve stores just in Springfield alone. Their hiring office was downtown on Worthington Street. I was interviewed by a Mr Philip Larkin, an Irishman. Well, fortunately, I got the job. My Irish connection with Larkin certainly did not hurt. But I had never been in a supermarket before in my life. I didn’t know the first thing about them. I was about to learn.

  Bringing the Family to America

  One of the main reasons I emigrated to America was to help my family out and to give them the opportunity to come to America if they wished to do so. So, after I arrived, I became a kind of emigration coordinator, helping my brothers and sisters to come over to America. This involved finding sponsors for each of them and moving all the necessary paperwork along. A sponsor had to be an American citizen and a homeowner and could bring over no more than three persons. The sponsor was responsible for you for a period of five years until you qualified to become an American citizen. Becoming a citizen was optional, but we all did so. We felt that if we were going to take advantage of the opportunities of America that we should be citizens and participate in the political process.

  After me, the next to emigrate was my brother Maurice who was sponsored by our uncle Maurice Carney. He came about six months after I arrived in Springfield. Then came my brother Paddy, also sponsored by my uncle Maurice, and then my sister Maureen, sponsored by my uncle Tom Carney. I paid for Paddy and Maureen to come over and, of course, they eventually paid me back.

  Martin was then sponsored by my uncle Maurice. Then my uncle Tom sponsored Billy. Finally, Maurice Fitzgerald, who was married to my aunt on my mother’s side, Nance Daly Fitzgerald, sponsored Tom. So after three or four years, there were seven Carneys of my generation living in Springfield.

  Maurice went to work at John H. Breck Company, the shampoo factory in West Springfield. Martin worked for H.L. Handy Company, a meatpacker, and eventually as a truck driver with Burke Beverage, a liquor distributor. My sister Maureen got a job with a restaurant.

  Three of my brothers, Paddy, Tom and Billy, went to work for the Springfield Gas Light Company. Paddy was even drafted and required to serve in the United States Army during the Korean War, although he did not actually have to fight in Korea. These were steady jobs and our income was enough to support a pretty good lifestyle, much better than we would have had back on the island.

  We always said, ‘We’re doing all right in America!’ This was one of our favourite expressions. We made a good living in Springfield. Our lives were much improved. We were living the American dream.

  The Name Game

  Our family name in Ireland was ‘Ó Ceárna’. When we came to America, we all dropped the ‘Ó’ in our last name. This shortened and ‘Americanised’ our name. It was common among Irish people. We used to say that we dropped the ‘Ó’ in the ocean when we came over. My great aunt Nellie, the first in our family to go to America, went by the last name of ‘Carney’ when she arrived. When my father went to America, he went by ‘Carney’ during his first stay, but by ‘Kearney’ the second time. The confusion begins.

  When my uncle Tom filled out my immigration affidavit, he spelled my last name ‘Carney’ with a ‘C’ just like he spelled his own name. When my brothers and sister came over, their name was spelled with a ‘C’ too. But later when they became American citizens, all of them except my sister Maureen changed their name to ‘Kearney’ with a ‘K’. Frankly, I didn’t understand it. There are only eighteen letters in Irish and the letter ‘K’ is not one of them. Why would they use a ‘K’ in their name? I did not want to argue with them. I said, ‘I’m going to be an Irishman with a “C”’. I always teased them, accusing them of not even knowing how to spell their own name. Sometimes people would get confused because the brothers had different spellings of our last names. They thought it was odd. It didn’t bother me one bit. To each his own!

  Mary Ward’s Emigration

  When I got to America, I wrote to Mary Ward in Dublin and she wrote back to me in Springfield. I told her about what I was doing, and the money I was making, and the company I was working for. It enticed her. Which, of course, is exactly what I was trying to do.

  I told Mary that, if she wanted to come to America, my uncle Tom would prepare the necessary affidavit for her. Eventually, in 1949, she decided to emigrate to Springfield. She paid her own way over. She told her friends in Dublin that if she didn’t like it, she would be back. She was promised her job back at Powers Hotel if things did not work out for her in America.

  Mary went back home to Frenchpark for a few days to say goodbye to her mother before going to America. (Her father had died when she was young.) Coincidently, while she was at home, she attended the funeral of Douglas Hyde, the founder of the Gaelic League and the first President of Ireland.

  Mary sailed for America on the SS America from Cork. It took six days to cross the Atlantic. She arrived in New York on 12 August 1949, at the same pier where I had arrived the year before. It was yet another hot day.

  Mary travelled with my sister Maureen and one of my sister’s friends from West Kerry, Ilene Malone who settled in the state of Rhode Island. My brother Maurice and I picked them up at the pier. I had been in America for over a year and Maurice for six months. So we had become ‘Americanised’. We knew the lie of the land.

  We took a taxi from the pier to the fancy Hotel Commodore on 42nd Street where we had lunch before taking the train to Springfield from Grand Central Terminal.

  Our taxi was going down a busy New York street like a bat out of hell. Mary had never moved so fast in her whole life. She was terrified. A city construction gang was repairing the street at the time. There was an open manhole with a pile of bricks next to it. Well, the taxi knocked one of the bricks down into the manhole. Suddenly, a huge man came up out of the manhole, and he was mad as a hornet. The brick must have conked him on the head. He was yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs. But the taxi driver just took off speeding down the street. We were all laughing to beat the band. To us, it was quite comical.

  Mary stayed with my uncle Tom for a few days, and then she moved to her own room in my friend John McDonald’s house on Judson Street, near Liberty School. McDonald was from Ventry.

  Mary did housekeeping in the wealthy Springfield suburb of Longmeadow for a little while. Then she got a job at the A&P warehouse on Liberty Street, packing bacon for sale in grocery stores. A lot of Irish girls worked there. I got her the job and it worked out well for her.

  Marriage

  Around Christmas in 1949 I asked Mary to marry me. It was about four months after she arrived in Springfield. Two friends of mine drove me up to Holyoke, just north of Springfield, to a jewellery store to buy a diamond engagement ring. I had heard about an Irish jeweller there who would give me a fair deal. I didn’t own a car at the time. I told my friends they would have to bring me up to Holyoke again to return the ring to the store if Mary turned me down.

  I really did not know for sure what Mary would say and was very nervous on the night I proposed. We were out together having a few drinks. I needed to get up some courage.

  Well, at the end of the night, I popped the question. And she said, ‘yes.’ No hesitation. What a relief! And a return trip to the jeweller up in Holyoke wasn’t necessary.

  There w
as a stag party for me at a place called Ireland 32 (named for the thirty-two counties in Ireland) in downtown Springfield thrown by my Gaelic footballer friends and a shower for Mary thrown by the ladies at the Marconi Club on Hungry Hill. They were basically fund-raisers to help pay for our honeymoon.

  We were married in Our Lady of Hope Church in Springfield on 30 September 1950. Father John J. Power, the pastor, said the Mass. My brother Maurice was the best man and my sister Maureen was the maid of honour. Mary didn’t have any relatives in Springfield and she had, of course, been friendly with my sister Maureen for a couple of years.

  Mr and Mrs Michael Joseph Carney pose for a wedding portrait.

  We had a big wedding reception in downtown Springfield at Ireland 32 and had a live band and a catered meal. Even Father Power came.

  Then we went on a honeymoon for a whole week in New York City. We stayed at the Taft Hotel, a tall building with a big beautiful lobby with very nice finishes and fine guest rooms. It was rated as one of the best hotels in New York. We toured all the sights. We went up to the observation deck on top of the Empire State Building, the tallest building in the world at the time. The view was even better than the view from the Crow back on the island.

  The new Mr and Mrs Mike Carney enjoy a drink at the bar at the top of the Empire State Building in New York.

  We went to a restaurant near our hotel called The Black Forest. It was the nicest restaurant that we’d ever been to. It was quite fashionable at the time with great food; it was very expensive. We also went to Jack Dempsey’s, the restaurant owned by the famous champion boxer. He had lots of pictures of his fights on the walls. We were thrilled.