Contributed by Mike Donahue

My g-grandfather, Patrick O'Donoghue immigrated to Chicago with his wife, Mary Kelly in the 1850s. He joined his brother, Michael and his wife, Catherine Harty.  They settled in a heavily Irish neighborhood 3 miles south of downtown. Over the years, this neighborhood was called "Hard Scrabble," then "Cabbagetown" and finally, Bridgeport.

Work digging a canal was plentiful for men with strong backs; one brother was a laborer, the other was a teamster. St Bridget's church opened about the time Patrick arrived and with it came a school. Though conditions were better than they were in Ireland, this ghetto was tough. Here's a quote that appeared in a Chicago newspaper in 1867:

“...in 1867 Chicago’s captains of industry called in the state’s militia to repress Irish strikers in Bridgeport, a suburb dominated by packing houses, rolling mills and workers’ shanties. In short, as one outraged immigrant declared,  the life of an Irish laborer in mid-century America was often “despicable, humiliating, (and) slavish”… there “was no love lost for him - no protection of life- (he) can be shot down, run through, kicked, cuffed, spat on -- and no redress, but the response: served the damn son of an Irish _____ right, damn him.”

Contributed by Mike Donahue

My g-grandfather, Patrick O'Donoghue immigrated to Chicago with his wife, Mary Kelly in the 1850s. He joined his brother, Michael and his wife, Catherine Harty.  They settled in a heavily Irish neighborhood 3 miles south of downtown. Over the years, this neighborhood was called "Hard Scrabble," then "Cabbagetown" and finally, Bridgeport.

Work digging a canal was plentiful for men with strong backs; one brother was a laborer, the other was a teamster. St Bridget's church opened about the time Patrick arrived and with it came a school. Though conditions were better than they were in Ireland, this ghetto was tough. Here's a quote that appeared in a Chicago newspaper in 1867:

“...in 1867 Chicago’s captains of industry called in the state’s militia to repress Irish strikers in Bridgeport, a suburb dominated by packing houses, rolling mills and workers’ shanties. In short, as one outraged immigrant declared,  the life of an Irish laborer in mid-century America was often “despicable, humiliating, (and) slavish”… there “was no love lost for him - no protection of life- (he) can be shot down, run through, kicked, cuffed, spat on -- and no redress, but the response: served the damn son of an Irish _____ right, damn him.”