Mags GarganMags Gargan visits the Irish birthplace of an extraordinary hero of the poor in New Orleans
Nestled in woodland and overlooking a beautiful panorama of three counties, the story of the woman known as ‘Margaret of New Orleans’ is told in a thatched cottage over tea and a turf fire. Built from scratch by the local community in Tully, Carrigallen Co. Leitrim, the cottage marks where Margaret Gaffney was born and lived the first few years of her life before her family moved to the US and she became the ‘Mother of Orphans’ in New Orleans.
In 2008, the Margaret of New Orleans Community Association was established in Carrigallen to create a memorial cottage, raise public awareness of her story and to pray for her beatification, while another dedicated committee in New Orleans collects evidence to present to the Vatican in the hope of beginning the process of her canonisation.
Margaret was born in 1813, and at the age of five she emigrated with her parents, brother and sister, landing in Baltimore, Maryland. In a terrible series of tragic losses, first Margaret’s baby sister died and four years later her parents died from yellow fever and her brother disappeared and was never heard from again.
Though still a child herself Margaret found work as a domestic servant and in 1835 she married an Irish man named Charles Haughery. Charles had poor health so they moved to the city of New Orleans in Louisiana hoping that a different climate would help him and they had a daughter, Frances. The New Orleans climate did not help Charles and he decided to return to Ireland where he died shortly afterwards. A few months later, Frances became sick and died. Margaret was once again left devastated and alone in the world.
Irish widow
The life of an Irish widow in New Orleans was not easy. To support herself, Margaret worked as a laundress for the St Charles Hotel. She became acquainted with the Sisters of Charity and volunteered her time and her savings to the orphans they cared for.
“When she first went into the orphanage the children had no food or clothes. She got a handcart and started going around vegetable markets and collecting any donations people could spare,” says Carrigallen PP, Fr Denis Murray.
“The children were originally inside the city and she got the idea to take them out, so she bought a run-down farm and bought two cows. Then she had too much milk so she used the handcart to sell the milk. That was her first enterprise. Then she took over a bakery and it was the first steam bakery in America. It was hugely successful, and because of her business acumen businessmen would look for financial advice from her. Nothing was done for herself and she shows that in business you do not have to be ruthless or selfish.”
All the profits from Margaret’s business were used to support the work of caring for orphans and the poor, while Margaret herself was noted for her frugal lifestyle. Her charity crossed all races and religions, and she became a much loved and highly respected figure in New Orleans.
Margaret’s journey from destitute orphan to epic philanthropist ended in the care of the Sisters of Charity in 1882. She was given a state funeral – the largest ever seen in the city. She was the second woman in the US to have a statue erected in her honour, which was commissioned by the citizens of New Orleans soon after her death and still stands in the Lower Garden District.
Margaret’s legacy and the memory of her incredible charity work lives on in New Orleans, but her story has also been kept alive in her native parish. “The memory of Margaret has always been here with the people of Carrigallen,” says Bernie O’Rourke, the committee chairperson. “When we started building the cottage, people were fit to say this photograph came from America years ago to Augharan school and that’s it now on the wall of the cottage.”
Committee secretary, Maura Williamson says a former local school principal, Joe Doonan kept the history very much alive in the school. “He always got the school children to write Margaret’s story and other little projects. It was very much alive before we ever began.”
Stories and memories of Margaret had been shared over and back across the Atlantic until finally a group of locals in Carrigallen decided they had to do something in her memory. Michael Smith came up with the idea of rebuilding Margaret’s cottage. A meeting was held and the committee was formed.
“There was nothing but woods here and the well had fallen in, but from the locals we knew exactly where the house was,” says committee founder member, Kieran O’Rourke. “The local farmer who owns the land gave us a 99-year lease. We excavated the site and found old stones and rebuilt the well.”
Community
It was very much a community project and even local children helped out in any way they could. “We had nothing, it just came together,” Kieran says. “We broke down the ditch and we started to build. Help seemed to just come.”
“We were just about thatching the house when we held a fun day and we thought we had counted wrong when we saw the amount of donations,” Bernie says. “All the work has been done by volunteers and through donations, until the last two years when we got grants to put in the solar panels, toilets and other extras.”
The cottage is open for visitors in the summer months and for the last number of years a group of visitors have travelled from New Orleans to Carrigallen to trace Margaret’s footsteps.
“During the months of July and August we open the cottage every Sunday between 2-5pm,” says assistant secretary Helen Corcoran. “The fire is lit and the kettle is on the boil. You will get a cup of tea and whatever food is on the table, if there is a local musician you will get a song or a dance, and you will get Margaret’s story from whatever member of the committee is here.”
Margaret was regarded as a saint in her lifetime and now her cause is making progress with support from both sides of the Atlantic. The director of the Carrigallen committee, Loughlin McManus might even be her first miracle, after he survived a life threatening illness.
“I was in hospital for 2-3 months. I went in for an operation and I picked up a bug called C Diff (Clostridium difficil). It’s a killer and only about 20% of people who get it survive. I was on a life support machine for three weeks. My whole system shut down and I had kidney dialysis four times. Everyone had been praying to Margaret and I got about 100 Mass cards. I think it was a miracle.”
Fr Murray says that as a saint Margaret could be of help to people who have experienced loss or are left alone in the world. “They could see hope and that’s what the world needs today,” he says.
“After all she lost, through her hope and her belief in God she not only overcame but she became a hugely fruitful person. Her love towards others is really the miracle of Margaret and underpinning her miracle is her spirituality. She got that inner strength somewhere beyond herself, because it was almost superhuman what she achieved.”
For more information on Margaret visit www.margaretsbirthplace.com or on Facebook view Beloved Margaret Haughery of New Orleans