I’m going to be passing through Clontarf today, and I’ve long wondered about that strikingly Irish name in a region settled by Scandinavian and German settlers. There has to be a story behind that, and I found out what it was. The Catholic Church had shipped over a lot of Irish people to live in Minnesota, creating what were called the Connemaras (after the region in Ireland they came from), surprising them by settling them in new small towns in the western prairies. The experiment did not work.
The history of this community can be traced to the arrival of a sizeable group of immigrants from the Connemara area of Ireland. They had been persuaded to come to Minnesota in the 1880’s by Archbishop John Ireland and were initially located on farms in the western part of the state. For a variety of reasons, the experiment was a failure and many of the settlers came to St. Paul and settled along the banks of Phalen Creek between Third and Seventh Streets below Dayton’s Bluff.
So Clontarf is a relic of brief Irish colony in my part of the state. Then I was left wondering about that “variety of reasons” that led them to fall back from this region to the big city of St Paul.
I learned about the winter of 1880-1881 from a compilation of newspaper articles published in Morris at that time.
I was surprised (but shouldn’t have been) at how dependent the towns out here were on the railroad — I knew that these were all railroad towns, and even that Morris was named after some minor executive at the railroad company, but in the 19th century those rails were the lifeline for all these communities. Winters were rough, some more so than others, and it was predictable that the Catholic Church had provided poorly for the Irish. It’s a shame that the railroad is so poorly maintained now, and only freight is carried on it now, and not always successfully — we had a train derailment a few weeks ago.
Let’s all look forward to a Minnesota winter!
That picture of an old steam engine has a big light on the front.
In 1880?
That is one year after Edison invented the long burning incandescent light bulb.
I doubt if they had giant filament light bulbs at that time.
It might be a carbon arc lamp.
Or maybe a large kerosene lamp with a mirror behind it.
Wikipedia implies that at that date it was probably a kerosene lamp.
I lived in West Central MN in the 1990s, but had never heard of the Irish settlements before–history is so cool–there’s always more stuff to find out about. I did, however know about the winter of 1880-81 from reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder book, “The Long Winter” which told of her family’s experiences during that winter in Dakota Territory.
There seems to have been a difference between the Connemaran settlers and earlier Irish settlers.
It seems the people from Connemara (25 families) in contrast to earlier Irish settlers were already stressed from being in a famine and had little experience farming (most seemed to have been fishermen or at most had a small garden in Ireland). In addition they were going to have turn prairie into farm land (much more difficult than farming already prepared ground), and, they apparently did not believe the warnings about having to insulate their cabins with sod to survive the winter. And they arrived in the spring of 1880 to encounter the winter of 1880-81. The earlier Irish settlers in Minnesota had already been in the US for some time (and probably picked up some English if they didn’t know it) before moving to Minnesota and were better prepared for what they would face as settlers. They seem to have stayed in Graceville. The Connemarans were accused of being beggars and lazy (though they were perfectly willing to work as day laborers) and were moved to St. Paul.
I admit the information easily available seems a bit contradictory. I used the following though do see some biases.
Shannon, J. P. “Bishop Ireland’s Connemara Experiment”; Minnesota Historical Society Press, Vol. 35, 1957 which is available at https://mnhs.gitlab.io/archive/minnesotahistory/articles/v35i05.html (btw Morris gets mentioned in the article)
As an Aussie, not really no..
Guess now I have.
Minnesota does a great impression of the Arctic from November to April, when all the lakes and even the ground freeze. Snow that doesn’t melt until spring is typical, though last year we had a brown winter.
The Irish settlement of Connemara Patch was right next to the enclave along Phalen Creek known as Swede Hollow. Both of them are within sight of the landing where they arrived via steamboat.
The land (which contains Carver’s Cave) was an important site for the Dakota before they were forced out. Now it has had the train yard removed and been restored back to parkland. It’s got a fantastic view of the Mississippi and Downtown St. Paul.
I imagine it was very much wetlands and floodplain when the Irish lived there and before the river was dammed and channeled.
StevoR
16 August 2025 at 11:01 pm
You may have heard about Minnesota winters…
ssie, not really no..
Just what we in much of Canada consider a bit chilly.
Mind you, a Minnesota winter can kill you just as fast as a southern Manitoba winter and that is fast.
“Just what we in much of Canada consider a bit chilly.”
Yeah, Just what we in much of Queensland consider a bit chilly.
(That is, under 10C)
@7,
Yeah, Just what we in much of Queensland consider a bit chilly.
(That is, under 10C)
It is never below 10C anywhere in Queensland. I found one minimum of 8.7C for Mount Isa in June, and that one I don’t quite believe. Oh, and I thought you lived in SA?
@ ^ rorschach : I live in South Oz. Adelaide hills. Near Belair National Park.
Think John Morales is now Qld based?
So does Lofty if memory serves. I wonder how he is and if he’s still around..
There’s also a few other Aussies here I know too FWIW.
I used to live in Adelaide, then Springton (SA), then Birdwood (SA), in the Logan area (QLD) these days.
Doesn’t get as hot in summer, doesn’t get as cold in winter — where I am.
Mind you: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-02/snow-falls-over-farmland-in-dalveen,-queensland/105605616
rorschach: official Qld minimum temperatures, historic and for 2025, FYI: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/extremes/annual_extremes.cgi?climtab=tmin_low&area=qld&year=2025
Yeah, but a bit of perspective; I just asked Bubblebot:
Me: compare the land area of queensland (aus) with the biggest 3 usa states
BB: Queensland, Australia has a land area of approximately 1,723,030 square kilometers (665,270 square miles). This makes it larger than any individual U.S. state.
The three largest U.S. states by land area are:
Alaska: 1,477,953 km² (570,641 mi²)
Texas: 676,587 km² (261,232 mi²)
California: 403,466 km² (155,779 mi²)
Queensland exceeds Alaska by roughly 245,000 km², and is more than twice the size of Texas, and over four times the size of California.
(Big place)
In the 1860’s, extreme weather affected Sweden and Norway. Crops failed, and people starved. There was mass migration, including to the USA. One of those historical oddities not that well known today. This is kind of scary as there is no reason it could not happen again today.
@ ^ cheerfulcharlie :Much more likely to get extremes – and ever more extreme extremes these days due to Global Overheating.
Yes, that includes prolonged severe cold too due to the effects on the jetstream forcing it to meander further and travel slower than it used to.
@12. John Morales : So that roused my curiosity over the size comparison of my state, South Oz, and so I found this :
https://mapfight.xyz/map/south.australia/#google_vignette
From which – scrolling down tothe SA vs US states comparisons says :
Oh and for PZ & fellow Minnesotans:
Site linked has visual overlays which are neat too.
SA is only Australia’s 4th largest state with a total area of 984,321 km square* (611,628.71331 miles)** which surprised me. I knew WA was bigger but the NT? Really? Still they ain’t a state*** so I guess that bumps us up the poduim position for the bronze! ;-)
.* See : https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/area-of-australia-states-and-territories/
.** See : https://www.unitconverters.net/length/km-to-miles.htm
.*** In fact at one stage early in our history until it was carved off into its own thing the Northern Territory was actually included in South Australia so technically Darwin – or matye it was Port Essington back then located at the northern “top” of our nation (colony?) was actually in South Australia. Of course, Victoria and Tassie are south of us too so.. yeah. Oh & NSW was named in Queensland and used to include that when it was, um, the entire eastern coast of the continent with the west being New Holland. Anyhow..
jrkrideau
It’s as if weather doesn’t recognize borders. Prairie blizzards are still deadly to this day. It’s rather silly to claim that living one climate zone north of Minnesota is a bit chilly in comparison. It’s slightly colder, and your summer is a bit shorter, but otherwise it’s like living in a freezer for half the year. We do hold the record for lowest winter temperature in the contiguous states, which is a deadly -60 degrees Fahrenheit, and occurred on February 2, 1996, in Tower, Minnesota.
It does make splitting wood very easy, once you’ve gotten yourself dressed in multiple layers of winter clothing including a snowmobile suit, balaclava, gloves, and fur lined hats with ear and neck flaps.
——
The famine that hit Northern Sweden and all of Finland in the 1860’s was caused by bad weather, but the suffering was caused by various bad government policies, social elites, and corrupt officials
grifting the aid and food relief that was donated to feed the victims of starvation.
wiki
Sounds eerily familiar to current events to require starving people to work in order to receive any social assistance.
Population of Minnesota- 5.8 million
Population of South Australia- 1.8 million
Population of California – 39.4 million
Population of Australia- 27.2
Population of Canada – 41.2
As an aside: Clontarf is in north Dublin, on the other side of Ireland from Connemara. Not perhaps an obvious choice of name, until you realise that the Battle of Clontarf (1014) was famous as one where the Irish defeated the Vikings. The actual (11th century) history was more complex than that, but this is what 19th-century Irish people would have meant by calling their new settlement Clontarf…
That brought me up short the first time I drove through Clontarf. We’re in the middle of a region full of Norwegian and Swedish settlers, and here they go and name their town after a famous victory over the Vikings, the one where Brian Boru was killed while still winning the battle. The residents were basically thumbing their nose at their neighbors.