Roman Catholics in the Wild West: Immigrant Missionary Priests in Gold Rush California

The graduates of All Hallows College in Dublin, founded in 1842, ministered first to the emigrants who left Ireland during the Potato Famine of 1845-47 and by the 1850s began sending missionaries to the American West, notably to places like California.  As the Irish hierarchy established dioceses in locales like San Francisco and Marysville, hundreds of these Irish immigrant missionary priests headed west to care for the spiritual needs of the gold rush communities in general and the Irish immigrants in those areas in particular.  The letters they sent back to All Hallows have been preserved and tell a remarkable story of dedication and hardship as they attempted to infuse their notion of the sacred on the landscape of the American West.  There are also many individual Irish immigrants whose letters, journals, and reminiscences round out the picture of Irish Catholics and their attempt, or lack thereof, to transplant their familiar notions of the sacred to a land that was less than hospitable toward such ideals.