Lonely death in New York sparks census of elderly Irish

AN UNPRECEDENTED census of elderly Irish people in the New York borough of Queens will begin in earnest next week, with 400 respondents set to answer an in-depth survey about emigration from Ireland and their current conditions in the US.

The survey was named the Gallagher Initiative, after Tony Gallagher, a retired carpenter from Mayo who died at home in December 2008 and was not found for a week.

Some of the Irish senior citizens who gathered at the Irish Centre in Long Island city for the launch of the initiative were so frail that others had to carry plates of food to them from the luncheon buffet.

Their response to the Fund for the Advancement of Social Services was enthusiastic, with nearly all the 80 or so guests asking to participate.

Dr Elaine Walsh, the gerontologist from Hunter College who will head the four- to six-month study of Irish pensioners, says she’s using a “snowball approach”.

“Many of them said, ‘I’m fine, but I know someone who lives alone and needs help’. That’s exactly what we want. They were thinking of others, not themselves.”

Ciarán Staunton, the founder and president of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, unsuccessfully lobbied the Irish government for assistance. “Many of these elderly Irish sent money to Ireland in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s,” he says. “They paved the way for the Celtic Tiger and for us to come here.”

The New York senator Charles Schumer obtained $200,000 in federal funding for the census, and Christine Quinn, the Irish-American speaker of the New York city assembly, found another $25,000.

Dr Walsh intends to hold a conference on her findings in October 2011.

She and her staff are approaching churches, pubs, shops, restaurants, building superintendents and neighbours in their search for elderly Irish men and women who may be cut off from the community.

“The demographics of Queens has changed, with an influx of other ethnic groups,” she says. “That has increased their isolation.”

Interviewees will be asked if they are happy they left Ireland; whether they would have preferred to have stayed; how often they went back; how much money they sent home; how they feel it should be returned to them; where their families are and how often they visit.

“If they’re not seen for a couple of days, someone should ask, ‘Where are they’,” Dr Walsh explains.

Mr Staunton says the census will be a model, both for New York officials who like the idea of ethnic communities looking after their own, and for future Irish initiatives in cities like Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

The project was launched in the very place where community leaders met at Christmas 2008 for a memorial Mass for Mr Gallagher.

Dr Walsh wants readers who know elderly Irish people in Queens to contact her on 001-917 575 7158 or at Gallagher.initiative@gmail.com