The Francis O’Neill Mausoleum
The O’Neill family mausoleum is one of the most prominent tombs in one Chicago’s largest and most venerable graveyards: Mount Olivet Cemetary. Chief O’Neill and his wife are buried here Read More …
Author: Ronan
The Wheels of the World
In 1893, the world came to Chicago in the form of the Columbia Exposition or World’s Fair. This event put Chicago on the world stage like never before. Francis O’Neill Read More …
Chicago After the Great Fire
The above map gives some idea of how rapidly the city developed after the devastating fire of 1871. Note the prominence given to McCormick’s Reaper works and the smoke stacks Read More …
Dunn Family Collection
Beginning in 1902, O’Neill recorded a number of prominent traditional Irish musicians on Edison wax cylinders. The story of how they came to be part of the Dunn family collection Read More …
The Emerald Isle
The Emerald Isle is the ship that Francis O’Neill worked as a steward on when he first travelled to New York in the late 1860s. The ship is famous in the annals Read More …
If The Sea Were Ink
Francis O’Neill loved books all his life. In his autobiography, he finishes his story of life at sea and as a police chief by lovingly describing favourite books in his Read More …
The Banks Of The Black Water
A postcard from another time: Constantinople, Istanbul or Stamboul in the nineteenth century as Francis O’Neill would have seen it. His employer’s ship The Jane Duncan would have navigated the Read More …
News
Here’s a little write-up in today’s Irish Times about myself as well as a bit on the Chief O’Neill Project.
Miss McLeod’s
The above picture is taken from a wonderful collection of hand-painted early photographs from Egypt in the nineteenth century (See the Vincze Miklós article here). Not only does this picture from Read More …
Out on the Ocean
There are many exciting aspects to life at sea in the nineteenth century. Certainly it was a tough calling, but many young men at the time ventured “out on the ocean” Read More …