100th birthday celebrations for Crusheen emigrant

NORTH Clare man Joe Cunningham celebrated his 100th birthday recently with a party in his honour at the Aisling Irish Community Centre in New York.
Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade Pat Breen, who visited the centre, described Mr Cunningham as “one of the most interesting Clare people” he met there.
“Joe was celebrating his 100th birthday and I was delighted to be present with his family and friends to pay tribute to Joe, a Clareman who became a legendary band leader in the United States for over 60 years,” Deputy Breen stated.
Joe from Doon, Crusheen remains very active and he regularly drives to see his wife Rose, who now suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and lives in a retirement home.
A deeply religious man, who loves his wife and family, Joe is also a man who retains a deep love for Crusheen and Clare and enjoys meeting people from his native county and catching up with the news from back home.
Joe was born on April 11, 1912, three days before the sinking of the Titanic, the sixth of seven children. Three of his sisters joined the nuns and all four brothers emigrated. In 1929, at the age of 17, Joe left Crusheen and emigrated to the United States. It was not surprising that he chose to go to America. His parents lived there from 1898 to 1902 and were married before coming home to settle in Crusheen, where they reared their seven children. Joe was also following in the footsteps of his two older brothers and a number of aunts and uncles, who were already living there.
“We emigrated because my parents wanted us to. That’s the way it was, we did what we were told,” he told Deputy Breen.
Joe travelled by boat and arrived in America at the height of the Stock Market Collapse of 1929, when work was scarce and the country was deep in depression. He recalled how at that time Clare people looked after one another and it was not long before he got a job as a clerk in a Daniel Reeves store in Scarsdale.
Daniel Reeves was one of four Clare brothers who had set up a chain of grocery stores in New York. Joe lost that job a year later but was not out of work for long and almost immediately secured another job working as a supervisor in Butlers Stores, where he worked three days a week for the sum of $9.
When he found himself living alone in New York after one of his brothers left for Detroit to get a job in the automobile industry and the other left to come home to Crusheen, he picked up an accordion, which he found thrown on a bed and took up accordion lessons.
The Joe Cunningham Band played the New York music circuit for 60 years. Joe’s love of music continues to live on through his two eldest sons, who are running their own band, The Cunningham Brothers. This love of music also lives on in his extended family in Clare. His three nephews, Tom, Liam and Stephen, and their extended families who live in Crusheen carry on this music tradition, most notably Stephen’s son Francis, Joe’s grand-nephew, who is an All-Ireland U-18 concertina player.
“Together with the Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton, I was delighted to be on hand to present Joe, a fellow Clare man with his Certificate of Proclamation on behalf of Mike Spano, Mayor of Yonkers, New York, in recognition of Joe’s contribution to enriching the social, civic and philanthropic fabric of the city and beyond. Joe is a great man, who continues to live life to the full and it was great to meet him and share in the celebration of his life,” Deputy Breen commented.
“I met many other Clare people during my visit to the Aisling Irish Community Centre, which is a home away from home for many of them. The centre provides help for people with employment and accommodation and offers advice on a range of issues. It offers classes in a wide range of activities, including computers, art, Irish dancing, music and yoga. Its doors are always open for our undocumented. It is a place where they can feel welcome, a home away from home, you could say,” he concluded.