IA.Hib 20,22,23,26,28,30 REV_IA Template 9/25/15 3:47 PM Page 28
hibernia | news Scientists Engineer “Blight-Free” Potato
Mathew Brady’s Irish Mystery
I
variety of potato engineered to be ren August, a sign in Johnsburg, New York sistant to the pathogen that caused the that claimed to mark the birthplace of acGreat Irish Potato Famine has been apclaimed Civil War photographer Mathew proved for deregulation by the USDA. The Brady went missing. But in addition to J.R. Simplot Company’s so-called Innate posparking a search for the sign itself, its tato is more resistant to bruising and black absence sent historians into a quest to find spots than most varieties. When cooked at the true birthplace of Brady, eventually dishigh temperatures, this potato also procovering he was probably born in Ireland. duces less acrylamide, a chemical compound While there is no doubt that Brady, often that some suggest might cause cancer in cited as the “father of American modern humans if ingested in high amounts. photography,” spent his childhood in JohnsThe Innate potato can also be stored burg, speculation about his birthplace has been brewing for years. No birth cerat lower temperatures, tificate or any kind of documentation has been found to link his birth to New York increasing its shelf life State. In fact, an 1855 New York Census lists Brady’s place of birth as Ireland, as and further reducing does an 1860 census and Brady’s own 1863 draft records. food waste. Perhaps “From the new documents, I have no doubt that Mathew Brady was born in its most impressive Ireland to Andrew and Julia Brady,” said Mary Panzer, author of Mathew Brady trait, however, is its and the Image of History. Brady himself maintained he was born in New York, ability to stave off which many biographers took as fact. But the truth is open to debate. Brady grew potato blight, not up in a 19th-century America that was hostile to immigrants, especially the Irish. only reducing the And towards the end of his life he was plagued by poverty, and perhaps he felt amount of fungicide needed to prothat admitting his Irish origins would further damage his dwindling image. tect the crops in the field, but also reducing Even though Brady’s birthplace may be unknown, the photos he is responsible the likelihood of total crop failures such as for remain the greatest images we have of the Civil War. And any American with those that decimated the Irish population in a five-dollar bill carries a Brady photograph, his image of Lincoln having been the mid-nineteenth century. used on the bill since 1914. “For historical reasons and current agricul“My greatest aim has been to advance the art of photography,” Brady once said. ture reasons, this is an important milestone,” “And to make it a great and truthful medium of history.” Though Johnsburg may said Haven Baker, vice president of plant scihave lost its paternal claim on Brady this summer, his art remains for us all. ences at Simplot. “The Irish potato famine – M.S. did change a lot of Western history. Even today – 160 years later – late blight is a $5 billion n estimated 600-900 neglected and forgotten have not been able to find where their family memproblem for the Famine-era graves were discovered in bers are buried,” she said. Eventually, she uncovglobal potato Massachusetts in September when Rhode ered a news report that the graves in the cemetery industry.” Islander Annie McMullen was attempting to trace had been reinterred in the city’s Calvary Cemetery Though there are her husband’s Irish ancestry in New England. following an agreement between Waltham and the opponents of McMullen’s journey to discovery began Archdiocese of Boston in 1947. But when she GMOs, the Innate several years ago when she became interwent there, all she encountered was a field potato is cisgenic, ested in learning more about her inwith a few headstones. meaning that it laws’ journey from Ireland to the U.S. “That seemed odd, this big grassy doesn’t contain any She soon learned that her husband’s area and only four headstones,” she genes from any great-great-grandfather and three told the Waltham News Tribune. So she other species than brothers came to the U.S. during the took to excavating on her own, and dispotatoes. Famine, and that shortly afterwards one covered, under a few inches of topsoil, “It’s potato genes of the brothers died in a freak accident and grave markers for immigrants from counin the potato,” says was buried in the Irish Catholic Cemetery in ties Cork, Kerry, Donegal, Galway, and more. Baker. “There are Waltham, Massachusetts. But when she went to the After her discovery, she reached out to the clear benefits for cemetery, it was gone, replaced by a school, a new Waltham Historical Society and the Irish Ancestry everybody, and it’s church, and residential housing. Research Association. The triumvirate is embarking just a potato.” “I began to wonder about all the individuals who on a headstone reclamation project, hoping to restore – R.B.W. have been searching their Irish family history and the cemetery to its former state. – A.F.
A
Forgotten Famine-era Graves Discovered in Massachusetts
A
28 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2015