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Considering the Irish-American influence on U.S. Catholicism, it makes sense that someone of Irish descent – John Gilmary Shea – undertook to preserve much of the existing knowledge of the beginnings of American Catholicism. A prolific writer and dogged rescuer of rare manuscripts, Shea became known as the “father of American Catholic history.” At this point, however, his name receives rather little attention.
Shea was born in New York City on July 22, 1824. His mother came from an established New England family of part-Irish lineage, and his father was a native of County Limerick who emigrated to the U.S. at age 25 and later served as principal of the Columbia College grammar school in New York City. In this same school, the younger Shea received his early education. A sickly youth, those who knew him well “realized that only the greatest care would carry him to mature manhood,” wrote Peter Guilday in his book
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Arrival, the work portrays Irish emigrants debarking from a ship. If this sounds like a typical Famine commemoration, it’s not. As the Irish Minister of State at the Department of Finance Martin Cullen pointed out, it commemorates a “confident Irish people still coming into America, or wherever they may be going into the world.” It is an expression of Ireland’s newfound confidence.
The idea grew out of a visit Irish government officials made to the United Nations, where they observed sculptures donated by various countries. When they asked where the sculpture from Ireland was, they were informed there wasn’t one.