CELTIC CROSS FUND

11/23/2024

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THE GREAT HUNGER
"An Gorta Mor"
The Horror of Irish Workhouses

11/03/2024

THE GREAT HUNGER "An Gorta Mor"
The way government chooses to maintain control can be insidious.

Please consider !

It was following the passing of the 1800 Act of Union, which abolishing the Irish Parliament, then Ireland was included as part of a “United Kingdom.”

However, this change in status did not result in equal treatment of the Irish. When the potato blight struck, British government measures to mitigate the Irish starvation were limited by an economic ideological straight-jacket favoring laissez-faire policies over human and social needs. British public opinion suggested that the fickle Irish had brought this disaster upon themselves.

08/17/2024

MIRACLES -

At about 8 o’clock on the Thursday evening of the 21st of August, 1879, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist appeared at the south gable of the Church at Knock, County Mayo, Ireland.
Beside them to the right was an altar with a cross and the figure of a lamb, around which angels hovered. There were fifteen official witnesses to the apparition – young and old – who watched it for two hours in pouring rain and recited the Rosary.
Two Commissions of Inquiry accepted their testimony as trust-worthy and satisfactory in 1879 and 1936.

Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, you gave
hope to your people in a time of distress and
comforted them in sorrow. You have inspired
countless pilgrims to pray with confidence to your
divine Son, remembering His promise,
“Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall
find”. Help me to remember that we are all
pilgrims on the road to Heaven. Fill me with love
and concern for my brothers and sisters in Christ,
especially those who live with me.
Comfort me when I am sick, lonely or depressed.
Teach me how to take part ever more reverently in
the Holy Mass. Give me a greater love of Jesus in
the Blessed Sacrament. Pray for me now and at
the end of my death.
Our Lady of Knock - Queen of Ireland Pray for Us. Amen.

AOH HICKSVILLE, John Obrien, AOH, Ancient Order of Hibernians Nassau County, Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians , Nassau County

Additional Photos:
In 2017 we had the remains of the youngest Knock Apparition witness, John Curry, re-interred at Old St Patrick’s Cathedral, New York.
John Curry was a native of Knock, who was just five years old when he, along with fourteen others, witnessed the miraculous phenomenon at the gable wall of Knock Parish Church on 21 August 1879.
As a young man, he went to New York where he remained until his death in 1943.
He lived out his final years with the Little Sisters of the Poor and was currently buried at a Cemetery on Long Island.

05/24/2024

Legislator Rose Marie Walker shared:
Our Tradition Continues…..
Our Annual Memorial Day Parade will once again kick off at 9 AM from Barclay Street in Hicksville (a new location for the start). We will turn left  onto Broadway, continue to Old Country Road, turn right proceed to Jerusalem Ave. Turn left and continue to the Hicksville Middle School . The ceremony will begin at the Monuments at 10:30.

 I cannot begin to thank the Hicksville Fire Department, Chief Mike Murphy and the Parade Committee for taking this on when our Veteran’s Organization said they can no longer do it….
Please come out to honor those that gave their lives for our country, all our veterans and all those still serving to protect our freedoms today.

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸GOD BLESS AMERICA 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

05/03/2024

Can they get away with murder?

It is hard to find the words to describe the actions of the British government and the injustice they have imposed on bereaved families this week.

At the stroke of midnight on Tuesday, April 30th, the British Government's
“Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act” came into full effect. Behind this innocuous title is the coverup of multiple killings.

The Act immediately closed down 38 inquests linked to 76 deaths. Families will be left without basic findings of the cause of death of their loved ones. It also closes investigations into hundreds of unresolved killings carried out over 30 years of conflict. It ends the rights of the injured and bereaved to have access to the courts. Behind these cases are families who have fought for up to 50 years for justice and truth.

This Act has been opposed by all political parties on the Island of Ireland, by victims groups, the EU and UN Human Rights bodies, and the US Congress.

The Irish Government has now instigated a legal case in the European courts as these actions run contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Good Friday Agreement.

The British Labor Party has committed to revoke the legislation if they come to power in the upcoming general election. The British Government has consistently acted to cover up their actions during the conflict. Families campaigned to secure disclosure, information, and inquests.

When the British could no longer frustrate the legal process they closed it down. The British Government and military have always portrayed themselves as referees and peacemakers between two warring factions.
Now the truth has been exposed. The pattern across cases is consistent. The British military, and agents, engaged in killings with no effective investigation, followed by years of cover-up.

The British military was involved in establishing, arming, and directing loyalist paramilitary gangs, allowing killing to proceed and protecting agents.

The pattern across 30 years of British involvement in the conflict is consistent. They were involved in commissioning, murdering, and covering up the killing of citizens North and South. In order to continue that coverup they have closed down all investigations into all killings.

I believed that the British attempts to stall and frustrate justice were in the hope that families would give up their quest. That was never going to happen. It now appears that justice is to be denied to ensure that no living British political or military figure will end up in court or exposed for their role in their dirty war in Ireland.

The families will continue their campaigns, and the British Government will have to defend its actions in a European court. It would be hoped that a new British Government would scrap this act and return to their previous agreements with the parties and the Irish Government.

The British Government was an actor in the conflict. The British Government should play a part in delivering justice, truth, and acknowledgment if we are to build a process of healing and reconciliation. Their actions this week are an injustice to bereaved families and an insult to all.

05/03/2024

WONDERFUL and MOVING ...
Spectacular presentation last evening.
Denis Mulcahy, 50 years of Project Children.

04/18/2024

YOU ARE INVITED -
FINIAN COMMEMORATION
- To make History: You need to be present.

Join us for an Irish Republican Commemoration at the
Fenian Monument in Calvary Cemetery.

Saturday April 20, 2024 at 11am

02/01/2024

February 2nd at 7:00pm Candle Mass
- 17 FORDHAM AVE. HICKSVILLE

Feast of the Presentation

This Friday at 7:00 pm Holy Family will celebrate a Mass by Candlelight for the Feast of the Presentation. During the Mass we will bless all candles to be used this year at our sacred liturgies as well as any candles parishioners would like blessed.

We will also give away leftover candles used at Masses this year to anyone who many want them.

10/15/2023

ALL ARE WELCOME - 11:00 AM
Join us Saturday, October 21, 2023
Commemorating the lives of the 215 immigrant's that died
a few hundred feet off the beach, victims of the two shipwrecks.

01/28/2023

Posted by Patrick S. Gilmore....
Hello to all interested in the Great Hunger -
- Pat Gilmore is posting his updates on An Gorta Mor specifically about Ballygar County, Galway on the Facecbook page "Friends of Ballygar", it will be his research from that village in North Galway , just a mile from the Roscommon Border and its history in the times of the Hunger, and he is looking for help so please read on ......

- Quote from Mr. Gillmore " When I was growing up in Ballygar in the 60's and 70' we knew nothing of the famine .
No one talked about it .
No teacher mentioned it
And when I asked then as a young lad I was told we never heard of those that left .
And so combined with over 15 years of research of that time in Ballygar , those that grew up there , the famine there , and those that left and what indeed they achieved in America and elsewhere , I am now trying to estimate broadly the numbers of people that the Estate of Castlekelly , Ballygar lost in the famine based on definites we now know .....
So a Question for you to mull over for the weekend . But consider these statements firstly
Dennis Kelly {Landlord} stated in his sworn testimony in the Devon Commission {June 1844 } that there were over 5400 tenants on his estate in the early 1840s .
A Ballygar businessman told me in 1972/3 that NO-ONE died in Ballygar during the famine.
Never was death even mentioned in Ballygar's history . And of course " we never had the meal in Ballygar"
Ballygar is just over 1 mile from the River Suck , Roscommon / Galway border and 9 miles from Roscommon town.
Roscommon County in pre famine times had a population of 250,000 , and today it is just short of 70,000 . According to Dennis Kelly he considered Roscommon his county town. And the land type of Southern Roscommon and Ballygar is very similar . Good land mixed with bog , prone to flooding.
And so to my question to you please which to my knowledge has never been asked before .
How many people died, in Ballygar in the estate of 5400 tenants in Dennis H Kelly Castlekelly estate ?
Your estimate figure can be expressed as a percentage or as a number . That number will not include previous or subsequent emigration from the estate , just deaths please .
I would like you to think about the answer seriously and then after answering please put your initials after the number and post as a comment below . I need your help so thank you .
These numbers will become part of a paper I'm writing on Ballygar for Local History in Maynooth University in Ballygar of this period . I thank you for your help in this regard . Please make your friends aware of this survey , and ask them if possible to submit an answer . You do not have to be originally from Ballygar to participate in this survey .
I am not giving guidelines as to what the upper and lower estimates could be of deaths as I do not wish to affect your opinion , in regards to your answer . Nationally the Irish Famine in the 19th Century is assessed as having a 12% death Rate which is one of the highest ever experienced of any international Famine in the world . This is not a scientific survey but rather merely reflects public feeling today . Your only guide is Dennis Kelly's estimate of Tenants on the completed estate .
This famine was not a Ballygar Famine it was however An Gorta Mor , an Irish Famine which affected every part of this country and its people and we still are learning about those effects . Regards JMcN
I will repeat this post 3 times for the benefit of anyone who misses the first postings . Thank you . PLEASE SHARE"

Just another example of the oppression of the Irish Culture.

11/07/2022

11/07/2022

THIS - SUNDAY MORNING 10AM - You are invited

The 2022 Annual Fenian Republican Commemoration will be held at the Fenian Monument in Calvary Cemetery, 49-02 Laurel Hill Boulevard, Woodside (Queens), NY 11377, on Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 10:00 am.

All Irish Republicans and supporters are welcome to attend. The theme of this year’s event is The Fenians in America: The Founding of the Fenian Brotherhood.

This year we will highlight the founding of the Fenian Brotherhood in 1858 by Irish immigrants.

The Fenian Monument is in 2nd Calvary, Section 16, Range 24, Plot A, Grave 1 and can be accessed from the Laurel Hill Blvd. entrance near the cemetery office. Detailed directions are attached.

The commemoration is organized by the National Irish Freedom Committee (NIFC). The NIFC supports the centuries long struggle for true freedom and independence in a reunited 32-county sovereign and Gaelic Irish Republic.

This annual commemoration is held to remember and honor our departed Fenian heroes and heroines whose sacrifices over the centuries for Irish Freedom continue to be an inspiration to all of us as well as a reminder that what they strived to achieve is still unfinished.

The Fenian Monument, which was erected in 1907 on the fortieth anniversary of the ex*****on of the Manchester Martyrs, is a sacred place surrounded by history and the remains of many of our Fenian ancestors. In the words of NIFC co-founder Michael Flannery, “the Fenian Monument in Calvary is the proper place to hold Irish Republican commemorations.”

After the ceremony, an informal gathering will be held at a local restaurant,
Connolly's Corner, 71-15 Grand Ave, Maspeth, NY 11378