Studying the History of the Irish Community in Belleville

At the suggestion of Christine Kinealy I am engaging in a serious academic study of the Irish community of Belleville, New Jersey. I few years ago I gave a presentation at a conference on the Irish experience in New Jersey that Dr. Kinealy was hosting at Drew University. She asked me to speak about using original documents to teach about the Irish experience in New Jersey at the high school and college level. Most of my documents were related to the Belleville Irish. Afterwards Dr. Kinealy observed that the Irish in Belleville deserve at least an article, if not a book.

It was a few years before I was able to devote serious time to the study. In the meantime, I had begun gathering material. As I did so, I realized why she was so enthralled by the Belleville Irish. For one thing, the Belleville Irish break all of the stereotypes. There were a number of Irish Catholic immigrants in Belleville long before the Famine. The Irish immigrants did not always keep to the religion of their ancestors. A number of Catholics became Methodists, including "Black Hughie" Donnelly. A number married Protestant spouses. In some cases, the Protestant spouse converted, in other cases it was the Catholic who converted. Why this is so--and a lot of it has to do with the need to assimilate--is an interesting study.

The first Irish-born in Belleville settled among the Dutch, when the area that is now Belleville was still known as "Second River." While a number married in the Dutch Reformed Church, and are buried in the cemetery, it is unclear just yet how many were actually communicants.

Later, the Irish worked in the powder mill and the calico printing plant, and at Hendricks Brothers Copper Mill. Many dug the Morris Canal. Some were farmers.

A number of Irish came at the time of the Famine. Another group came at the turn of the twentieth century. They continued to come even through the nineteen-fifties and sixties. While they took part in the local religious and political scene, they also participated in Irish-American organizations that were founded to further Irish causes, such as the Friends of Irish Freedom in the years between the 1916 revolution and the end of the war for Irish independence, or. later on, the Northern Irish Aid Committee (Noraid).

Bridget Elizabeth Connolly McEnery

b. Co. Sligo, 1849, d. Belleville 1929

It was through their experience in this country that they went from being "Ulstermen" or "Corkonians" or "Munster Men" to being "Irish" and, eventually, "American."

I will be studying the growth and development of the Irish community in Belleville from the beginnings of the Irish presence (by 1733 at the latest, with the marriage in the Dutch Reformed Church of Dennis Price and Dorothy Moor, both natives of Ireland) through to the present. Along the way, I am interested in studying the Irish reaction to the abolitionist community in Belleville (something that, as far as I know, has not been studied) and to the Chinese community, already ably studied by Elizabeth Rose Lew.

I will be seeking documents, photographs, and reminiscences of the Irish community.