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Joseph Banigan (1839- 1898) and his parents were part of a wave of Irish Catholic refugees who fled the Potato Famine in Ireland. Arriving in Rhode Island in 1847, he attended school for one year before becoming a full-time worker at age nine. Over the next fifty years he employed the “pluck and luck” characteristics of
Hanley, James, 1841-1912 James Hanley was born in Roscommon, Ireland and came to America with his parents as a child in 1846 during the Great Famine migration. He rose from poverty to prominence as Rhode Island’s leading brewer. Hanley’s first important step into the world of business came in January 1862, at the age of
McCarthy, Patrick Joseph, 1848-1921 Mayor Patrick J. McCarthy was the only immigrant ever to serve as mayor of Providence. Born in County Sligo, Ireland in 1848, his family fled the Potato Famine in 1850 only to be quarantined on Deer Island in Boston Harbor. Both his parents died there. “PJ”, as he liked to be
Bishop George Berkeley,1685-1753, was an Irish-born enlightenment philosopher, Anglican Bishop, philanthropist, and proprietor of Whitehall in Middletown from 1729-1731. After his return to Ireland in 1732, he was soon consecrated Bishop of Cloyne and continued his philosophical writings. His poem “On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America” is famous for the oracular
O’Shaunessy, George Francis, 1868- George Francis O’Shaunessy was born in Galway, Ireland on May 1, 1868. His parents came to America when he was a child and settled in New Jersey. George was educated in New York City parochial schools and received a law degree from Columbia University in 1889. Thereafter he acquired a reputation