Mid-Semester Report
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Tag Archives: Irish History
05. Using RECAP to evaluate the reading – Eamon Loingsigh The Power of Family Lore: Uncovering Brooklyn’s “Auld Irishtown”
The things that Eamon talks about in this article are relevant to my topic since he is giving information about Irishtown that later on became Vinegar Hill. This source helps on the research of my assignment but doesn’t fill all my needs. The author and the publisher are trusted sources. The author is a dedicated writer and researcher of this neighborhood.
Eamon comes from the Loingsigh family that has witnessed the history of this neighborhood, the changes area’s names, and the tough times that Americans gave to Irish. The currency of the source information is pretty reliable even though it was published nowadays, the content of it was taken by trusted sources like history books and family personal experiences.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle website is up-to-date source since it is dedicated to write the Brooklyn’s history and everything else that has to do with this borough from 1841. Eamon comes from an Irish emigrant family that moved to Irishtown, Brooklyn, New York in 19th century. His parents and grandparents told him stories about Irishtown, he read books about it and did research online. I looked up some of his sources like the book Gotham and I did verify them.
In that part of Brooklyn were known the neighborhoods like Dumbo, Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Navy Yard, but Irishtown wasn’t recognized as an actual place in official records. This made the author to write about it. Creating this source came down to his family, they told him stories about Irishtown. Nobody knew much about it at that time since the computers and internet didn’t exist, so it wasn’t easy to look things up.
04. The First Visit in Vinegar: Site Report #1
My Reflection on the Loingsigh Reading
Application of the RECAP criteria to the Loingsigh reading:
RECAP
Mr. Eamon Loingsigh’s article “The power of family lore: uncovering Brooklyn’s “Auld Irishtown”,” is written on the official Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s newspaper website: http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/power-family-lore-uncovering-brooklyn%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cauld-irishtown%E2%80%9D-2013-04-08-193600 This makes Mr. Loingsigh article a reliable secondary source, which can be used and referred to in a research project.
Relevance: This information would be relevant to my needs if I were conducting research on Brooklyn’s Irishtown.
– The source helps me research my topic and/or answers my questions.
– The source meets the requirements of my assignment.
Expertise: The author is a direct relative of the primary sources in his article, and the publisher is an official newspaper.
– The author is qualified or an expert who knows about the topic.
– There is information about the author on the web page.
Currency: The information was written on April 8, 2013.
– The source is almost three years old.
– This website does get its information from up-to-date sources.
Accuracy: The source’s information is reliable but may have the potential for some falsification.
– The source states where the information comes from.
– I can verify any of the information by checking other sources.
Purpose: My information source was created for career and a sense of family duty.
– My source was designed to inform, educate, entertain, and/or to make money.
– I do not think that my source was designed to further a political, religious, or institutional cause; but it is biased towards the Irish perspective. Consider the point of view of “Whiskey Wars,” for instance.
I strongly believe that this is a “credible source,” because the author’s article was published in a credible newspaper; however, the information, though acquired from primary source interviews and secondary literature, was not purely taken from historical archives of governmental sources, such as libraries or historical documents. There is no official document claiming that Vinegar Hill was once called or known as “Irish-town.” I would use this source in the context of an unofficial historical research project.
Reflection #4: Applying RECAP to Loingsigh Reading.
When applying the RECAP criteria to Loingsigh’s article “The power of family lore: uncovering Brooklyn’s ‘Auld Irishtown'”, I do think the article can be used as is a credible source.  I also think that it acts as a stepping stone to access additional credible sources. The article is current and is certainly relevant to this class because of our focus on Vinegar Hill. The author does cite his research throughout. He bases his knowledge off of what he has read by other authors who have researched and written about “Irishtown”, Brooklyn. He seems well informed and well researched, and I would use the article as a source during research. I would also use the authors and other sources he cited as sources for my research. I think that the author’s trilogy would be a better source than the article. This article comes across as being a way to advertise the author’s books. It informs the readers of the trilogy, speaks of the author’s inspiration, and gives a brief synopsis of the history. Even though I think the main reason of the article was to promote the author’s trilogy, it was definitely also meant to be an informative piece to educate people about “Irishtown”.
Reflections #4: RECAPing Auld Irishtown
I was very pleased to encounter Loingsigh’s writing. It was intriguing to follow up with this article having read the Smithsonian’s “Whiskey Wars” prior to this. Loingsigh’s article has put the Whiskey Wars in context of a greater history, while tracing the trajectory of Irish history within Vinegar Hill. His mode of research was based off of several strategies, one of which was the experiences of his grandmother, who was a primary source at hand. The layers he discovered are native to his homeland, which is not a common experience in the melting pot of New York City.
In regards to the RECAP evaluation, This article was relevant for our previous readings, and for our site visits as well. Loingsigh’s expertise is apparent in his writing style, as he is planning to write 3 books based on this historic matter. Loingsigh gives the reader a large window, which tells us that his idea of tracing history was inspired by the early stories of his grandparents (early 20th century) to recent research he as uncovered in the past decade (the articles on the White Hand Gang, and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York). His grandparents serve as primary sources, while his research conducted within Municipal Archives on Chambers Street and New York Times articles which also proves to be primary and secondary sources. The purpose of this article was to inform readers both about the author’s upcoming works, and to offer a new range of information which was undocumented on Irishtown’s history. Loingsigh stresses the loss of information on Irishtown, how it was not charted as a territory, but exists through the experience of others.
