Background

John Woods' Family Tree
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Background - Ireland

After the abortive uprising in 1867, Gladstone, then the United Kingdoms Prime minister, withdrew the Anglican Church monopoly and it ceased to be the official church. In 1875 Charles Parnell became leader of the Home Rule for Ireland party, a party that advocated local autonomy but not full independence. Land ownership occupied the stage during this period and evictions were countered by ‘Boycotting’. Through Parnell, Gladstone reduced rents in 1881 and granted land reforms leading to land redemption in 1891.

In 1886, Gladstone’s Home Rule scheme was defeated in the British Parliament and in 1891 Parnell died. In 1893 Douglas Hyde founded the Gaelic League, devoted to the ancient Gaelic past, and in 1903 the Wyndham Act divided the great estates among the farmers. Arthur Griffith’s ‘United Irishman’ publications started in 1899, espousing in 1906, Sinn Fein; the boycotting of Westminster by the Irish electors.

Background – New Jersey

The United States in the 1890 -1910 time frame was experiencing its greatest immigration influx, reaching a high mark of almost 1,300,000 aliens in 1907. A ten-year period of over capitalisation ended in the panic of October 1907. Under Theodore Roosevelt’s administration (1901 – 1909) the progressive reform movement took definite shape in the country. Progressivism was an attempt to mold modern institutions for the benefit of all. Roosevelt denounced ‘mal-factors of great wealth’ and advocating a ‘square deal’ for labour.

The Irish were set apart from the natives by their religion, poverty and ebullient temperament. Excluded by nativism, the Irish built their own communities. Unprepared for the disorderly New Jersey cities and handicapped by centuries of British oppression and exploitation, they endured a slim existence. Not all were in the slums. Those who with the passage of time prospered were known as ‘lace curtain Irish’.

Irish Nationalism surfaced with the formation of fraternal orders, mutual aid associations and societies advocating the liberation of Ireland. In 1910 Woodrow Wilson garnered the Irish votes by declaring himself for Irish home rule.

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