Province Connacht | ||
Castleconnor is a parish in west County Sligo, Ireland.
Map of Castleconor, Knockroe, Co. Mayo, Ireland
The Catholic Church, Castleconnor parish, has provided uninterrupted service to the community since at least the 1830s, and almost certainly from much earlier times.
Some Irish from Castleconnor Parish immigrated to the United States in the 1840s. Skilled farmers, many Irish settled in North Eastern Pennsylvania and became tenant farmers. These immigrants and their prodigy were Roman Catholics and often had large families. Through hard work and responsible management, children of these Irish immigrants often remained farmers but became land owners by the 1860s. They married, usually to other Roman Catholic Irish immigrants, and had their own families - the first generation born in America.
These first gereration Irish Americans were risk takers just as their Grandparents had been. They sometimes moved long distances in pursuit of employment. They found work building transportation infrastructure such as canals and railroads as the United States expanded west to the Mississippi River and beyond.