00 . Music there from Paddy Moloney and Sean Potts the name of the tunes the 1st one as did you wash your father's shirt on the 2nd one is called the mountain top a pair of reels there and we're going to talk a little bit more about the mountain top but 1st of all we've got an announcement or 2 for you and and then we're going to come back with a really fascinating interview so please keep it right here on new. Gospel music has evolved over time but its heart stays true it still has an unmatched power to strike the deepest chord in all of us touching people of all face and over the Gospel chime our every Sunday morning from 7 to 9 am on k g a New York community radio station gospel song song for Pope hope that in lifting our voices together we to might one day reach the Promised Land. Sold to Gail is made possible by you the cage in your listener member and by the Celtic connection the Celtic connection is a monthly newspaper for all people with an interest in Celtic news music language culture and tradition for subscription information visit Celtic Connection dot com or call 303-777-0502 I don't think I'd listen to that guy. At any rate the last cut that we played by Paddy Moloney and John Potts tin whistle players best known for their work with the Chieftains was called the mountain top and here in Colorado our mountain tops were 1st. Invaded by Europeans coming to Colorado in search of precious metals gold and lead and silver and that period in American history was also coincident with a great exodus of people from Celtic lands many of whom who landed here in Colorado eventually by a roundabout route and if you are lucky enough to subscribe to Colorado heritage magazine the cover article. In for the current issue of Colorado heritage magazine is all about the life of the Irish in Colorado and particularly the life of the Irish in the Colorado mining. Districts and the author of that article and an expert in the field is a woman by the name of Lindsay Flo Welling and Lindsay is here with us tonight thank you and welcome to shoulder Gail thanks for having me it's great to have you here now bear with me while I paint a little bit of a common person's perception of the Colorado gold country I'm thinking dirt streets and wagons and rough and tough people and lots of saloons and. Paint an accurate picture for me of what life would have been like in the Colorado gold country in the. Lady 850 s. Early teens sixties well in a lot of the towns the buildings were going up so quickly that they didn't actually have organized streets just people building wherever they could find empty land certainly there have been a lot of saloons it would have been a very masculine place without many women around those who were there would have been prostitutes or laundresses or in Leadville they had groups of nuns who came in from Ireland to be nurses. And then eventually there were more. Buildings built like churches and other parts of the town infrastructure. There would have been all sorts of different minds in Leadville For example there's just numerous mines surrounding the town and the mining life would have been incredibly hard which led to a lot of labor strife because the conditions were so poor for the miners if. If I were there right at the the earliest days of Leadville what I've been likely to meet people from Ireland or did they come later what was their timing in coming to the mining camps I think they're they're from pretty much the very beginning because the largest group of Irish immigrants had come in between 84528552 the United States and they would have slowly made their way through different mining districts so they were networks of miners from County Cork in Ireland and then Cornwall in England and then they would come over and mine in places in Pennsylvania and Michigan and then come out farther west to Colorado and Nevada Butte Montana and San Francisco so they would have slowly made their way across the country minute up in Colorado right around the time of the gold rush and the silver rush in Leadville So the people who were coming were they primarily lower class middle class upper class what so what's a common Irish person like in the gold camps in those days if there is such a thing I think that. Primarily the people that were coming into the United States in this period were Catholic they were impoverished and unskilled and mainly from rural areas they wouldn't have had the money to be homesteaders since you need quite a bit of money upfront to be a farmer so they would have come over and worked. In jobs like mining that were working class so less elite and then you know you might get lucky and strike it rich which some children of Irish immigrants did like j.j. Brown for example James Brown being the husband later of the unsinkable Molly That's right yes so he was the 2nd generation Irish American as was Margaret Tobin Brown. So he struck it rich in Leadville and then like many other people who got lucky moved down to Denver and settled in Capitol Hill and then helped to build up the Denver Irish community what about any aristocracy the Anglo Irish aristocracy are they coming or. Are non Catholic clergy coming Presbyterians or Church of Ireland folks so what I study primarily is the Protestant Irish and their immigration to America and a lot to ask the right question. So a lot of them have come earlier that Anglo Irish are just really hard to track in the United States and they might have been more folded into the overall English immigration if they're joining a piss Capelli and churches but the Protestant or Presbyterian Irish or Scots Irish had come over in the late seventy's hundreds an early 18 hundreds but I think it's pretty interesting that the. Majority of Irish Immigration didn't become Catholic until the 18th thirty's so my. 1st of your 2nd generation Irish Americans are Protestant through this period and even today most people who have Irish ancestry are from Protestant roots is that interesting because that's kind of at variance with what we think about with celebrating St Patrick's Day and thinking of so many Irish people in the States as Roman Catholic clergy and stuff like that so what you're telling us is something that's at least for me a little bit at variance with what my. Guests would have been Yeah so in the vast majority of people because the Protestants came over so much earlier than the group of Catholic immigrants. Would be descendants of the Protestants but I think in the us we've gotten more of a. Celebration of Irishness that transcends the religious divides whereas in Ireland obviously there are still a lot of religious divides today that we don't necessarily see over here right so once people from Ireland either 1st or 2nd generation are in places like Leadville What do you find them doing how do you find them coming together to celebrate their commonality How are they distinct To what extent are there are clashes and to what extent or are the or old animosities between the orange Protestant groups and the green Catholic groups what kind of orange versus green conflict are we seeing as well so in Leadville For example you have a lot of celebration of ethnic heritage like naming the mines after Irish nationalist heroes like Robert Emmet And Wolf tone O'Donovan rasa and then other mines like the Fenian Queen Charles Stuart Parno made of Aaron so you can see the heritage with in the place names you also have a. Building up of the Catholic presence in town and the Irish had their own Catholic Church the Church of the n.c.a. Sion which you can still see in Leadville today even though it's not used as a church right now. And then there were all sorts of different ethnic organisations that people could join which I'm particularly interested in so you have. Local militias such as the wolf tone guards militias these are armed groups so. Sometimes they're sponsored by the state even but. There wasn't a. Standing army at the time so the local militias formed and then at times they'd be asked to for example come in and put down striking miners or they would stand up on the side of the labor leaders so. Yeah you had the guards it's specifically Irish local militia in Leadville they had different social organizations like the Knights of Robert Emmet Ancient Order of Hibernian Zz and the daughters of Aaron and then they had Irish nationalists organizations that were very specific. To Irish nationalism like the Land League and the ladies' Land League in the 1880s Land League there turns up in a number of folk songs of the period and. It's interesting that you say that the militia might have either stood on the sidelines or become actively involved in the conflict depending upon what their political persuasion is who got to call those shots who was in charge or were the militias voting on which side they'd be involved in and and how did that work with the organizations like the Ancient Order of Hibernian that your men mentioned I think that the militias would have been formed of local miners probably depended on how they sided in the labor conflicts so for example there were 2 major strikes in Leadville one in $880.00 which was led by immigrant from Dublin named Michael Mooney and then one in $896.00 which was led by the Western Federation of miners and Edward Boyce who is also an Irish American So just logically you would think that the miners who are of Irish descent in the Wolf Home Guards would be more likely to favor the labor movement rather than the owners of the mines. And what else were people doing I mean they couldn't have been drilling with the militia or. Actively working in the mines all the time where they are raising families you said there's a dearth of women there what are they doing for recreation and society. So they have the different ethnic organizations that would be a big draw for your free time and needs to be organizations that were mutual benefit societies so you could get sickness benefits and death benefits but also social organizations So for example in Cripple Creek they had different social clubs that were. Unique to the Irish the Sheridan and SARS field clubs that only Irish Americans could join the like I said labor movements are very active among the Irish Americans. And as true across the United States the Irish are associated with the labor movement they're active in Democratic Party politics and then also active in Irish nationalist organizations throughout the United States but particularly in Leadville and we talked about the Land League with the Irish in Leadville ranks 3rd nationally in their support of the Irish Land League behind only Philadelphia Chicago which I think is just mind boggling that a place that that new and small could raise that much money in support of nationalism when I read that in your article I was totally blown away that it was Philadelphia and Chicago and then Leadville and not Boston and New York which I would have just you know reflexive Lee assume that that's the way that it works but how interesting and why it was because there were terrific were in Leadville or or. Why the intense contribution of capital to the Land League fight back in Ireland. I think that when you're in a sort of isolated place like that it really helps people to stake a claim in America to be able to join organizations like the Land League and other nationalist organizations helps them to advance their lives in the United States also supporting the causes of their homeland keeps you tied back home while also gaining a foothold in the United States. And since Leadville is so isolated compared to the major cities that would have been supporting the Land League I think that maybe that was a big source of camaraderie to be able to come together in the Irish Nationalist Movement really interesting. To what extent I mean nowadays when we think about Irish culture being celebrated in the United States even if we're talking about little kids Depp dancing and things like that a lot of the culture centers around Irish pubs or churches and schools was that true then as well so they had like I said their own Catholic churches so in Mudville as the Church of the enunciation in Denver it would have been St Patrick's Church St Leo's and every area and the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. So the church life was important. For children there would have been schools through the Catholic Church St Mary's in Leadville. And then you have saloons and other meeting places in towns that they would have gathered as well and . Were there dances were there. People doing sets and jigs and reels like we we see around St Patrick's Day in Denver or was it a lower lower key more relaxed Beyond's I think there are advances once in a while but for the most part it would have been. Probably lower key or more military oriented in the celebration of nationality so if you were part of the Wolf's own guards you do armed drills and things like that. And then go drink with the guys in your regiment sure. So. And then through the different associations you would have. You know picnics and different outings. And then different. Trying to think of how to describe this but you have your association a life so different like mystical rituals and things like that that the men would be a part of the Knights of Columbus or. Order of Hibernian So you mentioned before and then for Irish Protestants you have the Orange Order there are 17 lodges in Colorado. 3 at least in Denver and one in Leadville and one in Cripple Creek and they sort of combine that mysticism and ritual with being extremely anti-Catholic and trying to promote a nativist American point of view Our guest is Dr Lindsay flew Ellen who has the cover article in this month's issue of Colorado heritage magazine published by history Colorado and the article is about Irish life in the mining camps of Colorado on the cover of the magazine there is a cartoon of a notable Irishman Finn Gaul O'Flaherty right will and what is his connection with. The Irish in Colorado so Oscar Wilde went on a tour of North America $882.00 and is a year long tour he visited Leadville in April of $82.00 and also visited Denver in Colorado Springs but it was particularly Leadville that he noted in his own writings and is reflected in this cartoon which is from Harper's Bazaar and I think it's just really wonderful cartoon he's holding up some miner's boots and hat and there's flowers growing out of the boots and then there's a little depiction of Leadville up in the corner. He. Lectured the miners in Leadville on art and esthetics of the Tabor Opera House which I think is just wonderful Then he went to a dancing saloon and. Noted that they were asking people not to shoot the pianist which he really enjoyed then he had to descend into the mine mine in Leadville in a bucket and then he said he had a supper with the 1st course was whisky the 2nd course was whiskey and the 3rd course was whisky. So he really appreciated it. So this would have been it was 82 it's before he becomes really famous So he wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray an 890 and the Importance of Being Earnest in 1905 but he was still known for his writings and as a humorist and for his wit and social commentary by this period. That's just fascinating I. Is there any record of what the reaction of the people in the mining community was to this person that I don't think of as a bushy bearded Tommyknockers kind of a minor Well Oscar Wilde at least claims that the reaction was very positive so. I think that he just really loved being in blood Ville based on his own writings and the things that he said later on so the political cartoon where he's celebrating the miners clothes. Came out of something he said about the miners of Leadville being the best dressed people that he came across on his North American tour and he was talking about that in New York several months later so really stuck with him is there was he being sarcastic or I'm sure. Dear. Fountain a thing anyone else of his caliber that came through Leadville that comes to mind well Colorado and Leadville in particular was the site of many different visits by Irish politicians at the time and there was a tradition of nationalist tours of the United States to try to raise funds for Irish nationalism so the founder of the Land League Michael Davidge came to Colorado twice as well as a few other Land League officers coming over from Ireland and there were also several other Irish M.P.'s. That is it is Leadville and Denver and then in 1919 the Irish president human de Valera came to Colorado Leadville by then was in serious decline but he visited Denver Idaho Springs and public as part of his tour to try to gain recognition of the Irish Republic from the United States government and would have been here just very shortly before the Irish rising that well the proclamation of the Irish Republic was just after that actually so the proclamation of Irish Republic was in 1916 right and then David was spared because of his American background and then he. Went on a tour of the United States in 190-1922 try to gain recognition of the Irish Republic he went back to Ireland and then that's when you have the treaty and then the their staff of the Republican right and Irish Civil War and what I think is really interesting about his visit to Colorado is at the same time you have a group of Ulster Protestant ministers who is touring the United States to protest against what they Valera is saying and to protest against our self government. Because they want to maintain the Union with Britain so they came to Colorado in early 1920 and then right after them another Irish nationalist Wendy Crawford came over as part of the Protestant friends of Ireland to argue that the Irish should have self-government So you see this argument back and forth and the people visiting Denver to try to convince the then rights of what side they should be on an Irish politics not not unlike Fox and m s n b c today right was just interesting that it's a different country that's coming over so they made a lot of efforts on both both the Nationals and the unionists to try to get Americans to support them. Very very interesting stuff. So what happens when mining starts to peter out in Leadville Where do people go what do people do and so some people would continue to be part of the mining network that we're talking about earlier so they would move on to different mines and other places they might move down to some of the coal mining communities near Boulder on the front range they also move to Denver and. Became police officers or. Did more urban activities. And in Denver they built up different Irish fraternal organizations and religious life there as well so by the early 1900 the Denver was the most Irish city in Colorado as it had been Leadville before and I think it was 44 percent of the Irish in Colorado were in Denver by 1010 Wow So there really is. A migration down out of the mining camps and into the growing cities along what's becoming the front range that's very interesting how Let's move away just for a 2nd from the. The meat of your research how did you do your research how did you get interested in music and then how did you go about trying to figure out what your source material would be and drilling down into it so I've always been interested in the history of the American West and I got more interested in Irish history when I was in college at the University of Oklahoma it's a go really great Irish history class there and what I'm really interested in is sort of parallel history so seeing what's happening in 2 different places at the same time and trying to figure out connections between them so when I was doing my Ph d. I was looking at how unionise an allstar were trying to appeal to the United States and I thought it was just just weird to think about. All these Irish uprisings happening while people are taking covered wagons out to the west they don't seem like they should be happening in the same universe as you have Charles Stuart Parnell you know giving speeches in parliament while people are in covered wagons and starting mining in Colorado. So I was interested in how these 2 things are happening at the same time and the connections between them. Unionists use examples from the American West in their speeches all the time and appealed to the Scotch Irish frontier and pioneering traditions so they really are related even though they don't seem like they're in the same world. So for this article in particular last fall I was taking a class at c.u. Denver in Colorado history and we were visiting Leadville. So as part of that my teacher Tom Noel asked me to put together a little talk on the Irish in Leadville and that led me to get really interested in the Irish in Colorado and particularly interested in different ethnic groups in Colorado in the 1st place so this is really fun to do research. Which And where did you do the research were you looking online at particular archives in the States or elsewhere where did you spend most of your time I do research Norlin library at c.u. And then at the Denver Public Library primarily the 5th floor of the great great Western history and genealogy is yeah that's right so looking there and then part of the greater context is from my Ph d. Thesis looking at how that Irish. Political movements played out in the United States and how that ends up being illustrated through people's lives in Colorado so help me to bring it forward to the United States and Colorado and the Denver metropolitan area now if I am down in Denver and I want to reach out and touch Celtic history somehow either in Leadville or in Denver or even here in Boulder where can I go are there places that I can go other than cemeteries to reach out and and physically connect with some. Some small element of Irish culture in Colorado right now so I think that because Leadville is a more. Well they had a very concentrated Irish population there and there had ethnic enclaves so it's easier to find remnants of the Irish today in Leadville because of the enclaves in different neighborhoods so the Irish were settled on the east side of the city and east 6 Street was the primary hub of the Irish neighborhood and that's on the east side of Harrison Avenue so if you go there today you can see still see Victorian houses and that part of town that would have been around and settled by the Irish one more time 6th Avenue on a porch cross street so it's east of Harrison Avenue on 6th Street 6th Street 6th the avenue right Ok and then. There you can still see the Church of the enunciation . And if you go on the train in Leadville you can see St Vincent's Hospital which was staffed by nuns. So you can still see that today as well I think in Denver it's a little bit harder to find the actual places where Irish Americans were because there were not ethnic enclaves of the Irish specifically I mean do have some enclaves of groups like the Chinese Don Was the street but not necessarily the Irish So they're spread out around the town and. You can see that sort of makes sense when you see how many Irish Catholic churches there are in different places around the town right so the richest Americans lives on Capitol Hill so you can see the Molly Brown house for example j.k. Mullen who was the leading Irish businessman in Denver lived in Capitol Hill as well and they joined together to help build. Different Catholic churches like St Patrick's St Leo's which is no longer there and then the Immaculate Conception cathedral which obviously is a huge landmark today they also helped to build St Joseph's Hospital. But other than those major land mine. It's probably a little harder to find evidence of the Irish there today so if I if I go to the cemeteries in Denver would I go to Riverside would I go to. You know one of the other cemeteries and is there anything in Boulder that we can find as well. Not so sure about this cemeteries I magine that any cemetery that has a Catholic section have some Irish buried there. Boulder was more mixed ethnically and. In agriculture and supply towns so you don't have huge numbers of Irish and then in the surrounding towns you have a lot of Catholic presence but not so much Irish So you know Lewisville is known for being an Italian town in Superior you have a lot of Polish Catholics and there's some Scottish Highland Catholics as well but not huge numbers of Irish. So it's a little bit harder to find in Boulder County I think. Thank you very very much for coming to join us any other good stories that you. Have that come to mind you'd like to finish up with to send us out here. I think when I was doing my research one person that really struck me as being completely fascinating was Joseph Murray who is a labor leader in Denver. He was born in Dublin and migrated to Manchester to work in the mills there and like many Irish migrated to England he became active in the Irish Nationalist Movement after moving over there he ended up going to Italy to fight for Italian independence against the Austrians in 859 and then came to the United States to fight for the union in the Civil War. He moved to Colorado as part of the Greeley agricultural colony Oh really and came out to Union County. And then became a labor leader with the Knights of Labor and his whole. Idea was to promote unity among the workers of the world but I think that he also just really embodies the international flavor and how much the Irish. Participated in different international movements around the world and I think it's just fascinating that he went to so many different places and then ended up in Colorado and was inspired to be a labor leader here I got an e-mail here from one of our listeners John wrote another interesting future of Leadville was that there wasn't much there for a laborer to invest in so it might have been difficult if you'd managed to pull together a grubstake to be able to put down roots and stay there long term as opposed to Boston or New York or even Denver does that comport with your research as well definitely And then after the silver crash in the 1890s people really. You know lost all their savings and had to move elsewhere so that. Drove a lot of people to go to Denver and to other mining camps be hard to stay in Leadville long term So what's next for you you've got this great article you've got your doctorate you're doing some teaching. What's the long term goal for Lindsay flew. Well I have a book based on my thesis coming out in think March of next year that's exactly what we wanted to know so it's coming out right around St Patrick's Day That's right but it's about the Protestant Irish So that's. That without but yeah it's called to Ireland's Beyond the Sea Wall Street unionism in America 18181920 it's published by Liverpool University Press and it's talking about how Irish Protestants tried to appeal to the United States to gain. Funding and recognition from Americans to try to equal Irish nationalists they were not that successful compared to Irish nationalists. And then also the Scotch Irish organizations in the United States before I let you go I thought I can't leave that question hanging Why do you think the national the Unionist were less successful than. The nationalists in fund raising the Nationalists had a more. United support base to draw from and I think they had better p.r. . The Unionists had a really hard time appealing to Americans because. Unionism isn't really romantic like Nationalism is to appeal to. An American base and the people who are descendants of the Scotch Irish were further back so their connections to Ireland were less strong than the nationalists in a lot of ways and then they also had really mixed messaging because some unionists felt like Great Britain should be representing them to the United States while others thought that the union is to be going over and doing it themselves so there was conflict within their own movement so their efforts were really. Mixed over time and and even. One thing I found really fascinating though is that throughout the whole world period which is what I looking at the Unionists used American examples to support their own movement for example they would say you know the Norse fought the south to support the union and try to save the union in America why isn't Britain stepping in to fight Ireland to try to save the Union with Ireland or my favorite is the revolutionary war that Americans fought against coersion against the British and the unionists were saying that they would fight against the coersion of home rule to try to save the union instead of breakaway very very interesting Dr Lindsay flew willing thank you very much for coming in and if you haven't had a chance to get a copy of Colorado heritage magazine the current issue is available online at the history Colorado website and Dr flowing is terrific article is front and center there in the magazine it's terrific reading it's a great opportunity to learn a lot and thank you very much for being with us this evening thank you it's great to have you here. Music there from the town of hell Weaver's son the title cut from a cd entitled The r. Nash light and the on a slight set as the name of that. We've got a ticket giveaway we've got one of those great giveaways where it's got lots of facets to it so let me just tell you a little bit about it and let me also tell you the number that you can call when we're ready so don't dial it now but the number that you're going to want to call is 3034 forward 2 forward 242 I'll give that to you one more time at the end of the discussion but we have to guest list tickets with camping privileges at the May Bon concert and it is a great concert I'll tell you about it here in just a 2nd we ask that you not have won anything from Cage in you in the last 30 days and that you can make it to the show and that you'd be a cagey and you listener member so here's what you need to know about this show it's an all ages show it starts at 8 pm on September 23rd so 2 weeks from the Saturday and it's hard to think of an artist in Irish traditional music more influential than Seamus Egan from the beginning of his career as a teen prodigy where he won for all Ireland championships on 4 different instruments when he was 14 years of age to his groundbreaking solo work with Shine that he records to his founding of Irish from the a much Irish American powerhouse band soul us to his current work as one of the leading composers and interpreters of the Celtic tradition Seamus has inspired multiple generations of musicians and helped define the sound of Irish music today so these are guest list tickets so they will be at the door of the venue which is Planet bluegrass in Lyons Colorado once again the show date is September 23rd up at Planet bluegrass in Lyons and if you would like to go. If you would like to go you can give us a call and we'll take the 3rd count 123 3rd caller at 3034 forward to forward to 42 that's 3034 forward to forward to forward 2 for a pair of guest list tickets to the May bun festival at Planet bluegrass there also was a great local opening band it's my good friends in a band called Take down the door which is. Jesse and Adam and John and let's see who are fighting oh yeah Beth of course and they will be holding forth as the opening act for Seamus and then a final all of those folks there's going to be a great Houllier a session later in the evening as well so you're camping privileges are something that you're really going to want to take advantage of give us a call 3034 forward to forward to forward to that's 30344242 forward 2 and be our 3rd color and you have to get us in the spirit nothing other than Seamus e. Gonzales themselves on k.g. a New. Me ask. Is it there from Seoul us it's off of an album called Waiting for an echo and the title cut or the 1st cut the lead cut on the cd is a set of turns the Hanover real John-James real and the copperplate like to thank once again Dr Lindsay flowing for joining us and educating us on the Irish and the Colorado mining districts just really terrific to have a chance to listen and learn from hers so Dr flowing thank you once again to catch her article in the Colorado heritage magazine online and we are climbing up on the 8 o'clock hour here at New You're listening to Cajun you Boulder Denver and Fort Collins 88.5 f.m. 1390 on Am and 93.7 f.m. In Nederland and 98.7 f.m. In Fort Collins Music Monday from all around the world with you cat is coming your way next thank you very much for listening I'm Carl calmly saying have a very good evening on k.g. And you.