Page 21 - Our Wexford

Kehoe House and Rossiter Place, Hunger, but perhaps more to of apprentice to ownership of
are, in essence, pieces of Wexford. chronic anxiety on the part of what the February 1916 edition
Thanks to mobile content we’re Wexford tenant farmers over land of the journal Iron Tradesman
developing, millions of culture- security. characterised as “the largest and
driven Savannah visitors will soon In Wexford, Kilkenny, and best equipped” iron foundry south
get precisely that message.” of Virginia.
other regional newspapers, the
Keeley and his colleagues are companies vaunted Savannah Currently, the extant buildings
sure that such digital curation and its hinterland as offering from his ironworks are undergoing
will entice Americans to make “cheap and fertile” land, as well renovation and repurposing to
in-person trips to great Wexford as “universally high wages.” become the centrepiece of a multi-
attractions, such as the Dunbrody By regularly underscoring acre, world-class events campus.
Centre on the quayside at New that passengers for Savannah The Director of the Georgia
Ross, where one can tour a full- arrived alive, the advertisements University Honors Program,
scale reproduction of the sailing complicate the received narrative Dr. Steve Engel, notes, “From
barque Dunbrody. The original of Famine-era vessels as “coffin John Barry of Oylegate, second
vessel, the researchers have ships.” Catholic bishop of Savannah, to
determined, sailed to Savannah at and beyond Father Peter Whelan
least five times. But the findings go of Loughnageer, one of the great
deeper.
humanitarians of the Civil War
From an uncatalogued box in THE LITANY OF in Georgia, the litany of Wexford
the National Archives of Ireland, WEXFORD MEN AND men and women who built
James Devlin, an undergraduate Savannah is rich and extensive.”
student from Georgia Southern WOMEN WHO BUILT Engel concludes, “Our students
University’s Honors Program, SAVANNAH IS RICH are excited to uncover and share
brought to light correspondence what pushed and pulled the
mailed in 1847 by Andrew Low AND EXTENSIVE people who left Wexford, faced
II, the dominant cotton factor in the Atlantic crossing in winter,
mid-19th-century Savannah. The and then integrated into multi-
addressee was the Dunbrody’s ethnic Savannah neighborhoods.
owner, William Graves of New Much of the power of the The work is rekindling the
Ross, and Low’s intent seems to Wexford-Savannah Axis derives Wexford-Savannah relationship
have been promotion of Savannah from human-interest stories of in ways that yield very desirable
as an exporter of such goods as achievement. One exemplary tourism, business, and investment
cotton, rice, timber planks, and narrative is that of William Kehoe, outcomes. But also important BELOW:
‘Emigration
barrel staves. born in 1842, whose baptismal are the insights it provides into to Savannah’
record identifies his origin as newspaper
Devlin recalls, “Although nerve- the townland of Mounthoward migration, a core challenge and advertisement
racking to untie the fragile strings Upper, south of Gorey. Arriving opportunity in our time.”
around bundles of documents in Savannah at age 10 with his
not handled in over a century, parents and siblings, Kehoe
the discovery of the letters and would progress from the status
circulars from Low to Graves
thrilled me. As an Irish-American
awed by the contributions that
Wexford people have made to
Savannah, identifying the possible
origin of the Wexford-Savannah
Axis was humbling.”
Using Dunbrody, Glenlyon, and
other vessels, Graves grew the
Wexford-Savannah Axis, even
dispatching his son, James Palmer
Graves, to reside in the Georgia
city as his business representative.
Expanding to incorporate shipping
concerns in addition to Graves –
Howlett & Co. of New Ross and
R. M. & R. Allen of Wexford
Town – it responded to the Great

OUR PEOPLE 21