Cool Links
I thought I would take a moment to recognize some other websites and/or blogs that I have found to be informative, fun and overall extremely helpful if you are at all interested in history, New York and Irish/Irish-Americanism or any combination of these.
First off, here is the Old New York Page, which provides the coolest photographs about old New York. It updates daily, so you can always get a view of, say, Greenwich Village circa 1906 or the building of the Brooklyn Bridge of the 1880s. Really neat production on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/TheOldNewYorkPage?ref=br_tf
The Wild Geese is perfect for anyone interested in their Irish background. Run by Gerry Regan in Queens, New York, it provides a forum 
for discussion and has regular updates of blogs and articles about Irish history, literature film, the Irish diaspora, Irish-American history, Current events and anything you can think of concerning anything Irish.
Brownstoner, which is essentially a Real Estate site for Brooklyn and Queens, has been a big supporter of us here at artofneed, Blog for the Auld Irishtown Trilogy. They are really big on anything historical about Brooklyn and have picked up a few of my blogs. Here they give a very articulate background of the Brooklyn neighborhood Red Hook and the New York Dock Company, which I couldn’t have said better myself. The NY Dock Co., as many of you know, features in Light of the Diddicoy as one of the gang’s enemies, although they do business together. Even if it is nefarious business (the company hired the gang to kill a labor organizer).
http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2013/03/past-and-present-new-york-dock-company-warehouses/
LitKicks is run by a really smart and thoughtful literary enthusiast named Levi Asher. If you like to talk and read about classic literature, he specializes in the Beats, philosophical writing and any big news that breaks in the literary world. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he does not get snobby. His opinions are well thought out, empathetic and he is always open to criticism, and responds to it withenthusiasm instead of dismay. Something we sourly lack these days.
Fulton History was a humungous tool in my researching the White Hand Gang during their time. They provide numerous free newspaper articles from multiple sources that have been copied and uploaded onto the site. There are other sites that provide this service, but none are as user-friendly as this one.
Irish Holocaust – Not Famine. The Push to educate in facts – Is a Facebook page that has incredible detail concerning The Great Hunger, or what is commonly known as The Potato Famine of 1845-1852. I believe, as do many others, that this event is on par with the Jewish Holocaust of the 1940s, but because it had to do with the English (who many if not most Irish blame) and the Irish victims who did not want to speak of it, this incredibly important historical event has been shrouded in mystery, disinformation and all but erased from history books in school (I certainly wasn’t taught about it). This site puts forth the argument that since there was plenty of food in Ireland at the time (which was exported for English profit abroad), than it cannot be called a Famine. Instead, either holocaust, ge
nocide or extermination should be some of the adjective of choice here.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Irish-Holocaust-Not-Famine-The-Push-to-educate-in-facts/95407379904
The Brooklyn Historical Society – This is not just a great place to visit, it also has a great site replete with photographs, personal histories and an archive of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
http://www.brooklynhistory.org
There are a lot of sites out there that are really great and were of great help to me, but they are already so big and popular already, they certainly don’t need me to promote them. Wikipedia in fact, was a very fast source for mostly accurate information. If I need to know what political Al Smith was doing in 1916, or the man in charge of Tammany Hall Silent Charlie, or where NYC Mayor Red Hylan was or who the district attorney for Brooklyn was or maybe even a quick rundown of the major fundraisers in New York for the IRB was, Wikipedia and a few other spots were always just a few clicks away.
See you on January 16th!!! Wait, you haven’t heard about it yet? Well, below is the flyer for you.
Eamon
