Boston/Beara Society Trip to Montana, August 2 – August 10, 2009

Butte, Boston, Beara.

On Sunday Aug. 2nd. A group of  29 pilgrims left Logan airport for Butte Montana. Some knew others, but by Monday, Aug.10th. a special bond would be born between us.  A year’s planning by Maureen Bennett and an itinerary  by our Friends of Irish Studies at the University of Montana allowed us a relaxed and unforgettable trip.
In Butte’s Finlen Hotel that evening we were swept off our feet with hospitality at a welcoming reception.   Traditional pasties, music, song and stepdancing.   A merging of two groups who had never met, sharing an identical heritage. 
In the morning Ellen Crain and her staff at the Archives were besieged by a few professional genealogists and 25 non professionals enthusiasts.    My own discovery at the Archives was to meet, for the first time, alive and in person, Mary T. Dwyer, Puleen, Ardgroom.
Our tour guides for the day were Jerry Sullivan (Rua) a selfless community leader, and former miner John T. Shea, whose grandfather was from Cahircheem.
Going underground, with miners helmet and lamp to sense, see, smell and feel  the working conditions was a powerful connection to make with ones mining ancestors. I had heard the men swinging the hammers in quick succession could see the drill head by the candlelight reflection on it.  The term limelight is said to have originated here.
To get a perspective of the scale of current strip mining, apart from the invisible ten thousand miles of underground tunnels, see it from the viewpoint of Our Lady of the Rockies.  This huge statue, honouring women, looks out over Butte from the high ridge of the Continental Divide.
That afternoon we visited the Ghost Towns of Nevada City, where streets of antique buildings are preserved, and Virginia City (Eyeries Village size) where most of us sheltered from the midday sun in an old barn, now a pub, kept upright by an interior beam framework.   The rousing songs did’nt help the structure much, and we ignored the sobering view out the front window of world famous Booth Hill where four previous  pilgrims were hung for causing less havoc.

Back in Butte next morning our tour guide Julie Crowley, an architectural student, pointed out the symbolism in the building details of a City built by the Irish.  By weekend Julie, who was unable to locate her own ancestry in Cork, was positively identified by Finbar Power and Maura Burns as being from Glenbeg.
On to Helena, the Capitol  Building with the equestrian statue of Thomas Francis Meagher, Irish revolutionary and twice Acting Governor of Montana, guarding the front entry.  The nearby beautifully detailed Cathedral, built with the gold  mined by Irish miners.  East over the Missouri river to Canyon Ferry for dinner at O’Malleys, owned by Kerryman, Matt Gould and his Mayo born wife Clare O’Malley.

Thursday morning we are touring Anaconda courtesy of the AOH, where the ore from Butte was smelted.   Their Washoe theatre is listed in the National Registry of Historic places.    Noon time finds us at the University of Montana in Missoula and lunch hosted by the Office of International Programs and Irish Studies.  Here Professor Traolach O’ Riordain of Cork City teaches Irish language and literature.     He is developing the Program into the largest west of the Mississippi.
A contribution toward the program was made by Maureen Bennett, on behalf of the Boston Beara Society, and poet Leanne O’Sullivan’s, ‘Cailleach’ as well as Siobhan Hawke’s, social and economic history of Bere Island, were presented to their Library.
            South now along the Bitteroor valley to Hamilton and the Marcus Daly mansion on twenty two thousand acres.Daly  was from Ballyjamesduff, Co. Cavan and he it was who discovered the rich copper lode in Butte.  Advertising, in Irish, for miners in the New York papers resulting in 50% of the population of Eyeries parish living in Butte one hundred years ago.

Friday we visited the quiet and restful cemeteries down in the Flats of Butte.  A time to reflect on the creativity, ingenuity, noise, pollution and murderour rush to get copper from the deep hard rock.   While Uptown, An Ri Ra festival was beginning a weekend of films, music, song, theatre, workshops and craic for those of us above ground.

Sunday’s outdoor Mass, in the Irish language, at Emma Park overlooking the Flats and the Highlands to the South, with the steep ridge of the Rocky Mountain Range to the east, brought up again a familiarity and connection with those who left loved ones in Beara and elsewhere a hundred years ago to provide a better quality of life from ‘Butte America’.

Michael Dwyer.