“I am the God of your fathers…” Exodus 3:6
Recently, my son and I have been investigating our family genealogy. We traced lines of inheritance from the pilgrims to the Vikings, from Bavaria to France - but found our strongest connections with the Irish Catholic immigrants of the mid-1800s. It was an era when it was a liability to be Catholic and Irish, a population impoverished by two centuries of Penal Laws imposed by the British. Among other things, these laws deprived Irish Catholics of their property and their right to serve in government; banned Catholic priests and the celebration of the Mass; and outlawed all Catholic instruction.
The Irish farmer was a sharecropper tenant, farming potatoes to pay the rent. They lived on potatoes also, and not much else. When the potato blight spread across the land in 1845, their source of food was destroyed. At the same time, harsh, genocidal government policies were implemented. Landlords took this opportunity to evict their tenants, putting families out of their homes even in the dead of winter, and caving in the roofs to prevent their return. Thousands died of starvation and exposure. Soup kitchens often demanded that Catholics renounce their faith before receiving food. Before the famine ended in 1852, the small nation lost one million of its population to starvation and disease.
Another million immigrants left Ireland, journeying to lands where they often were not welcome. Many died aboard the overcrowded “coffin ships.” Those who arrived in the United States faced more poverty, disease, and anti-Catholic prejudice. Yet, miraculously, these rejected, hated, poor immigrants began to make an impact on their new nation. They could once again teach their faith. They began to build churches, convents, schools and hospitals. The Catholic faith that so many of the Irish had died to defend grew strong and flourished in their new homeland.
This is our true inheritance; the faith of our fathers. But even now, we should not make the mistake of thinking we stand so secure that we cannot lose this treasured inheritance. We should never take for granted the victory won for us by Christ or forget the perseverance of those who went before us. We, in our season, should work as our ancestors did, to produce abundant fruit for the kingdom of God.
My paternal great-grandfather James Maloney, the first Maloney to arrive in America from County Mayo Ireland. On my mother's side, my great-great-grandfather Patrick O'Keefe was the first to arrive, from Mallow Cork County, Ireland in 1846 at the beginning of the famine. With thanks to my sister Cynthia Maloney, who scanned the photo.
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