Tuohy inventions

January 22, 1887: John A. Tuohy was part of a team of four selected to represent 600 striking railroader workers before the management of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company in New Jersey. During the strike, the company brought in Pinkerton men who shot and killed a boy named Tommy Hogan for allegedly throwing a rock at the strike breakers.

November 18, 1887: Jerry Tuohy of 717 South Front Street, in Philadelphia and 18 other Irish immigrants, all employees of Edison Electric Light Company, were badly burned when a barrel of gasoline exploded inside the storage house where the company had allowed the men to live temporarily. The men were filling small cans with gasoline which would be put on work sites as danger warnings to the public. One of the men, Henry Dooley, was said to be drunk and allowed one of the cans to spill into a nearby fire causing the explosion.

February 22, 1887: The Chicago dry goods merchant on Erie Street, JW Tuohy gave his annual ball at Brunds Hall on North Clark Street for his employees and 200 guests

"Like an Irishman's obligation, all on the one side, and always yours." English saying

"My one claim to originality among Irishmen is that I have never made a speech." George Moore

"The English language brings out the best in the Irish. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter. They hurl it at the sky like a paint pot full of rainbows, and then make it chant a dirge for man's fate and man's follies that is as mournful as misty spring rain crying over the fallow earth." T E Kalem - On Brendan Behan's 1958 play Borstal Boy, quoted in a Time advertisement, NY Times 17 Mar 79

"This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)

"The Irish do not want anyone to wish them well; they want everyone to wish their enemies ill." Harold Nicolson

Sullivan, Louis (1856-1924): Modernist architect and father of the skyscraper.

Holland, John: Inventor of the modern submarine. In the mid-1870's, Irish nationalists invaded Canada, then a British province. The idea behind the invasion, albeit a stupid one, was to hold the entire province and its loyalist population hostage in exchange for a free Ireland.   The invasion failed of course, but it did have one positive result in John Holland and his idea for a submarine.   Born in county Clare Ireland in 1840 and educated at the Limerick school by Christian Brothers, he taught school in Ireland for five years before moving to Paterson New Jersey in 1873, where his brother was already involved with the militant nationalist group, the Irish Republican Brotherhood or the I.R.B. as it was known.
Holland had been working on the concept for an underwater ship for time. He had already built a proto type in the basement of his Patterson New Jersey home, but lacked the finances to carry his idea through. He found willing investors in the I.R.B   Holland became an ardent supporter of Irish freedom
and in early, 1880, members of the American Branch of the Irish Republican Brotherhood approached him with an offer.
The I.R.B would underwrite Holland's idea for a submarine if he agreed to work in secrecy. Holland agreed.
Oddly enough, although, the I.R.B provided the funds for the prototype submarine, but they never bothered to buy the patient from Holland.
It was another example of the financial mismanagement and failure to foresee the future that would eventually bring down the well financed organization.
Holland’s first sub was completed in 1881 and had its first successful run on the Hudson river that same year.
Called the "Fenian Ram," it was originally designed to ram British Gunboats that would come to the aid of Canadian forces when the I.R.B launched its doomed plans to invade that British province.
A second plan was to bottle up the British Atlantic fleet in Harbor with torpedoes launched from the sub, insuring a complete I.R.B victory in Canada.
But the Fenian Ram was rendered useless by a defective power system and never put into use.
At its best, it was a hair-brained, half baked schemed destined to fail. At that point in history, England was the mightiest Naval force on the face of the Earth, with Warships placed throughout most of North and South America.
What's more, the Crown held enough land forces in Canada to easily defeat any invasion launched from across the American boarder.
Like most things the I.R.B became involved with, the idea for the Fenian Ram never got off the ground.
However, in 1893 Holland was given his first contract by the us navy to build a prototype of a usable submarine.
Working with professional naval officers, Holland was able to come up with a workable version, called The Holland, a submarine with internal combustion engines for surface power and an electric motor for undersea power.
The ship was launched from Elizabeth New Jersey in 1898, and The Holland and several Holland designed ships were purchased by the navy, which more or less shelved his invention for several decades. Holland's prototype for the Fenian Ram now sits on display in a public park in Patterson, New Jersey.

.Fulton, Robert: Engineer and inventor Robert Fulton of Lancaster Pennsylvania, started his working career under the tutorship of portrait Artist Benjamin West in London England. However in about 1793, Fulton turned his interest to the study of mechanics and became fascinated with the idea of improving canal travel and wrote a book about the subject in 1796 called "A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation. He went on to patient the idea for several types of boats and other inventions that included among them a machine to saw marble, another that would twist hemp into rope and another for spinning flax. At the invitation of the French government he demonstrated his idea for a steam powered boat in Paris. However contrary to legend, Fulton didn't invent the idea, it had been around for a while, however he was the first to achieve any practical success with it. He returned to the states in 1806 and a year later launched the first steamboat, the Claremont on the Hudson river. Seeing the future before them, the United States government hired Fulton and set him to work on various navigation projects (in exchange for the US Patent and a loan for the steam powered boat) It was Fulton who built the 38 ton monster ship, The Fulton, which was the first steam powered Warship

Mellon, Andrew W.: (1855-1933): Banker, capitalist and Treasury Secretary under President Harding.

Stewart, Alexander T. (1803-1876): entrepreneur; "invented" the American department store.

McLeneghan John: In 1864 Irishman John McLeneghan decided that it would be a grand idea to import Mongolian Camels in to the California desert to start the first (and last) Sacramento to Utah camel freight line. It didn't work, in some part due to the fact that Camels are dreadful animals to work with and in some part because it was stupid idea to begin with. McLeneghan reappeared in 1868 in Salt Lake city running camel races. That enterprise failed when it was learned that the races were fixed because camels will never pass the lead camel in the pack. Mr. McLeneghan was asked to leave town shortly afterwards. In fairness, McLeneghan wasn't alone in seeing a future for Camels in the American desert. The United States Calvary tried riding camels for a while in Arizona, all to dismal results.

Stewart, Alexander T (1803-1876): Entrepreneur; "invented" the American department store.