Irish Folklore and History in Ohio
As we come down—or pick ourselves up—from a tremendous Green Season in Columbus, Irish culture roars right back in the form of road bowling. On Saturday morning, April 18, the local Ancient Order of Hibernians chapter hosts a fundraiser for Freedom for All Ireland at Deer Creek State Park with an Irish road bowling competition. If St. Patrick’s Day got you thinking about your Irish ancestors this month, there are now two great databases online where you can read about the lives, history, and folklore of everyday Irish and Irish American people.
Ohio in Dúchas
Duchas.ie hosts the much-hailed Irish National Folklore Collection online. In one of its greatest decisions, the nascent Irish Republic tasked schoolchildren with collecting the stories of the old folk from their communities, constituting the National Schools collection, while a host of academics traveled the world building upon the folklore collection.
The February 3, 2026, episode of Transatlantic: An Irish American History Podcast, focused on American immigrants as they featured in the Irish Folklore collection. Here is a sampling of Ohio’s contribution to the collection, which can also be searched by topic or content-type, and is a fantastic tool for both pleasure reading and research.
Columbus-specific content is lacking on Duchas – rural Irish people during the age of immigration often referred to all of America as “Columbus’ shore,” but Ohio features in many ways. The poem “An Old House on the Glen” from Tipperary, recounts a lost friendship from youth who had emigrated to Ohio.
The obituary of James Gamble, “the Blind Fiddler” of County Cavan, born 1798, references his brother Edward “Ned” Gamble, who traveled four times in his 1800s life between Ireland and Ohio on business and ultimately passed away in Ohio. The obituary makes clear 1800s Ohio had many related Gambles, and my own sleuthing suggests Ned was traveling back and forth between County Cavan and Coshocton, Ohio, where a prominent dam and lock system fostered economic development in pre-Civil War Ohio.
The Folklore Collection also contains an incredible local history of Wexford during and after the 1798 Irish Revolution. The family history of the Doyles of Boley, near Tintern Abbey, County Wexford, describes multiple sea-crossing (both to France during the French Revolution, and to America) success stories. One of these Doyles, Thomas Doyle, likely ended up in Cincinnati in the 1800s working on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.
The Indianapolis Journal newspaper of August 17, 1889, digitized online by the Hoosier State Chronicles, references Thomas Doyle being appointed Yardmaster of the Chesapeake and Ohio line in Cincinnati. The Schools Collection story on Duchas titled “A Teapot 200 Years Old!” says Doyle was such an expert on air-brakes for trains, he hosted “the King of the Belgians” at his Ohio home during a learning expedition for the King.
Crimes Against Humanity
No other historical records seem to indicate such a trip by any King of Belgium, but Ohio lawyer George Washington Williams, also from Cincinnati and the first African American legislator in the Ohio Statehouse, invented the term “crimes against humanity” in an 1890 letter to King Leopold II of Belgium, describing the colonial atrocities of his administration of the Congo in Central Africa.
Leopold II was known as the Builder King for the many public works projects he commissioned, including railway lines he had built in both Belgium and the Congo. So maybe the folklore in Duchas contains a little-known fact about a trip to Ohio for Leopold, who also invited George Washington Williams to both his Belgian palace and on the tour of the Congo that prompted Williams’ foundational humanitarian letter.
War Pensions from Ohio to Ireland
The next, just released, online database to explore is the interactive map, “Yankee Pensioners in Ireland 1845-1905.” The map was created by the Irish historian Damian Shiels and contains a wealth of knowledge about Irish immigrants to the United States, organized by data points mapped to their local connection in Ireland.
A prominent Ohio connection I found is Hughey Dorrian, from Drumbeagh, County Donegal. Dorrian served in the 19th Ohio Infantry from Alliance in Stark County, constituted in 1862 to fight for the Union Army in the American Civil War. His pension file indicates he completed his full three-year enlistment and began receiving his American pension while living back in Drumbeagh, County Donegal, in 1901.
In Columbus, we just celebrated the life of 20th Century Irish American public servant Hugh Dorrian, the son of Irish immigrants from County Donegal. A future article will look at the Dorrian family service in Columbus. The connection between the Columbus Dorrians and Hughey Dorrian of Drumbeagh is not clear. The power of the interactive pension map as a tool for those interested in Irish genealogy or the histories of Irish families with a service member in the American armed forces is obvious, however.
Both databases are a great diversion, inspiration, and serious research tool. Check them out and enjoy learning about the words and lives of our Irish ancestors.
This is such an interesting reminder that cultural identity isn’t just maintained through big celebrations, but through smaller, everyday stories. Digitization efforts like these not only preserve cultural memory but also democratize access to it, inviting broader engagement with Irish diasporic history. This makes me think about how many local histories are shaped by stories we don’t always see documented!