Ambassador’s wife recounts difficult tale of emigration

‘My father stayed and never returned to Ireland but he mourned for Ireland a lot’


Anton McNulty

THE story of Patricia Rooney, the wife of the US ambassador, is typical of so many Irish emigrate families who left these shores in search of a better life.
Mrs Rooney, whose parents, Martin Joseph Regan and Mary Regan, nee Duffy, came from near Kilmovee in east Mayo, emigrated to Pittsburgh over 70 years ago. She told students at a GMIT lecture on Irish emigration that after going to America her father got in contact with his aunt who was living in Pittsburgh and she was instrumental in him getting a job in construction and a place to live. However, she said they emigrated at the start of the great depression and life was not easy for them.
“My father had work when times were good but they left Ireland thinking things were going to be better and got to America in time for the depression which was a very serious depression compared to what we are seeing now. In my father’s family, a brother and three sisters came out but they came back, they either didn’t settle culturally or didn’t like the type of work. My father stayed and never returned to Ireland but he mourned for Ireland a lot and suffered from homesickness,” she said.
Mrs Rooney said her mother was 17-years old when she left Ireland and was placed in a home of one of the wealthy families in Pittsburgh and handled all the help in that home. She said her mother raised a family of ten children but never made it back to Ireland when she was young because of family and financial restraints but she had the opportunity to return home and meet her grandmother.
“I was the first of the family to come home and it was wonderful opportunity to come home and meet my mother’s mother who was still alive at that time and was about 96 years old. She was in a kitchen bed in her family home and it was a tremendous experience and it was the most delightful scene I have ever experienced. As a youngster, I had written to these people as our parents had given us addresses and we would write back and forth. But it was like writing to Santa Claus because I never thought I would meet these people. It was a wonderful experience.”
Mrs Rooney said her mother did make it home before she died at the age of 99 and revealed she was delighted to hear she would be returning to Ireland.
“It meant a lot to her when she did come back and now I have come full circle. She left here at the age of 17 and made a wonderful life for us under difficult circumstances. When she learned we were coming over she had the biggest smile on her face,” she concluded.