Episode 2.4 (Bernie McCafferty): Leaving a Trace: Cleveland's First Irish Neighborhood

In season two of the "Finding Home" podcast series, Irish American Archives Society Executive Director Margaret Lynch interviews an array of Clevelanders with specialized knowledge and stories about the history of the Irish in Cleveland. Episode 4 features an interview with Bernie McCafferrty. For several decades, Bernie McCafferrty, a Business Consultant for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, has tracked elusive information about the earliest Irish immigrants to settle in Cleveland. He has traipsed cemeteries, transcribed census records and city directories, and perused early property records. For an MA Thesis in Irish Studies at John Carroll University, he focused on the 1850 census and found an early concentration of Irish immigrants in the area equivalent to today's East Flats and Warehouse District. McCafferty, who is also a singer/guitarist with the Craic Brothers, shares the high-points of his work, which can be read in full at https://collected.jcu.edu/mastersessays/62/ He has also photographed and transcribed gravestones at cemeteries surrounding Clew Bay and shard the results on the IGP Irish Genealogical Projects website at https://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/mayo/photos/tombstones/markers.htm