James Ring & Catherine Welch

Ireland in the mid 1840’s was populated by 8-million inhabitants in various states of poverty. Under English rule, the Irish were prohibited from owning land, holding public office, or owning weapons. Irish farmers rented their small tracts of land from English absentee landowners. The staple diet for an Irishman was potatoes. The meal of potatoes was occasionally augmented with meat or other vegetables depending on the season, but potatoes sustained the entire population. In 1846, farmers noticed that their plants suddenly turned black and wilted. When they dug up their potatoes to harvest them, the potatoes looked fine but within a few days, they too turned black and rotted on the spot. This blight remained for three years, known today as the Irish Potato Famine. With the loss of their staple food, the Irish peasants could not feed themselves nor did they have any crops to sell. The Irish seldom used money since they raised their own food and bartered for other necessities. This lack of money prevented them from paying rent or buying food. The English had no sympathy for the starving Irish peasants and evicted nearly 500,000 from their homes. They also refused to provide food or even allow other locally raised crops to be distributed among the population (the crops were shipped to other counties and sold). The English believed that tough love would force the “childish” Irish population to work themselves out of the problem. Unfortunately, there were no jobs to provide the peasants with money and, even if they had money, there was no food to buy. In the end, an estimated 1-million Irish died of starvation, and another 1.5 million left the country. Other estimates show that by the end of the famine in 1851, the population of Ireland was only 4 million, half of what it had been five years previously.

James Ring and Catherine Welch were both born in Ireland and immigrated at different times. Catherine’s records indicate that she immigrated in her early teens, prior to the potato famine. It is not known for sure when James immigrated but it was very possibly during the famine. It is unknown which port them came through or how they met but they first show up in the records in Binghamton, New York after they were married. Their first child was born in Chemung County, New York and shortly afterwards they moved to Binghamton.

Like many Irish immigrants, James worked as a laborer. Catherine stayed home and raised the couple’s eight children: Daniel, John, Josephine, Kate, Mary, Bridget, Margaret, and Patrick. The Industrial Revolution brought large-scale manufacturing jobs to Binghamton, contributing to its growth and popularity. Cigar manufacturing came to the area in 1870 and, by 1890, Binghamton ranked second to New York City as the top cigar-making city in the country. Many of the couple’s children worked in the cigar manufacturing industry after completing only the most basic education. James died rather young. He was only in his forties. Catherine was left to raise the half-grown children on her own. She lived into her seventies.