Dear Reader,

This issue moves across a few different places and moments. We begin with Irish arrivals in New York around 1900, then return to rural Donegal to look at harvest work in the early twentieth century. From there, we spend time with the song Molly Malone and its place in Dublin life, before looking briefly at the Dara Knot and its association with the oak. We close with the name Clodagh, drawn directly from the River Clodiagh in County Waterford, and a short piece on Banjo Barney McKenna of The Dubliners.

Irish women and children sit closely together, newly arrived in New York. Their clothing is worn, practical, and suited for travel rather than arrival.

The photograph captures a pause rather than a destination. Faces are set, watchful, and tired. Some children lean into the women beside them. Others look directly toward the camera. There is no gesture of celebration or welcome.

Images like this were taken around the turn of the twentieth century, when Irish families arrived in large numbers through New York ports. Many had crossed the Atlantic under difficult conditions and were photographed shortly after landing.

The image has been colourised. What remains most striking is not colour, but expression - a moment held before the next stage of life begins.

This colourised photograph shows a family winnowing corn in fields near Rosapenna, County Donegal. Grain is lifted into the coastal wind, allowing the lighter chaff to blow clear while the heavier kernels fall back down.

Winnowing required attention to timing and movement. The wind needed to be steady. The action had to be controlled. Grain could be lost if handled poorly.

In rural Donegal, harvest work was often shared. Tasks were learned through observation and repetition. Knowledge moved within families, passed on through practice rather than instruction.

The image shows a process in motion. No machinery. No excess. Only hands, wind, and grain.

Few songs are as closely associated with Dublin as Molly Malone. Sung for generations, it tells the story of a young fish seller pushing her wheelbarrow through city streets, calling out her trade of cockles and mussels.

There is no clear historical record confirming whether Molly was a real person. The song offers no dates and no fixed biography. What it presents is a voice moving through the city.

Street trading once shaped the sound of Dublin. Calls, movement, and informal work formed part of daily life. Molly belongs to that environment. She is named, but not elevated.

The ballad travelled widely. It was sung in pubs, homes, and gatherings far from the city it describes. Each setting kept the song familiar while placing it somewhere new.

Molly Malone remains part of Dublin’s soundscape, carried in song rather than record.

The Dara Knot is commonly associated with the oak tree, one of the most significant trees in Irish and wider Celtic tradition. Its name is linked to doire, the Irish word for oak or oak grove, a root that survives in place names such as Derry, whose Irish name Doire reflects the wooded landscape that once stood there.

The knot is formed from a single continuous, interwoven line, without a visible beginning or end. Similar forms appear across Celtic design, though the Dara Knot itself cannot be traced to a single historical source.

In early Irish society, trees were practical as well as symbolic. They marked boundaries, provided materials, and shaped settlement. Oaks held particular importance within legal, social, and physical landscapes.

The Dara Knot reflects these associations through form rather than text.

(pronounced cloh-dah)

Clodagh is an Irish feminine name taken directly from the River Clodiagh in County Waterford. Like many traditional Irish names, it comes from place rather than legend.

The river’s Irish name, An Chlóideach, follows the descriptive pattern common in early Irish place-names, which often referred to physical characteristics of the landscape.

As a personal name, Clodagh came into wider use during the twentieth century, particularly during renewed interest in Irish names drawn from rivers, hills, and townlands.

The name refers to water, location, and use.

Born in Inchicore, Dublin, in 1939 and reared in Donnycarney, Banjo Barney McKenna was a founding member of The Dubliners and a central figure in the Irish folk revival of the 1960s.

Best known for his tenor banjo, McKenna helped define the early sound of the group. His playing provided drive and rhythm, anchoring songs that moved easily between pub sessions and larger stages. At a time when the banjo was still peripheral in Irish traditional music, his style brought it forward as a lead instrument.

McKenna was also a skilled multi-instrumentalist, playing fiddle, mandolin, and melodeon. Within the band, his musical range supported both arrangement and pace, particularly in live performance.

Through recordings and performances with The Dubliners, Barney McKenna’s approach to the banjo became widely influential. His sound remains recognisable wherever Irish folk music is played.

Thanks for reading. We’ll be back next week with more pieces from across Irish life, history, and culture.