US professor is keen to forge links with Mayo
Professor James Walsh believes a little-known yet significant connection between Colorado and Mayo has the potential to open new links in tourism, academia and business.
A professor from the University of Colorado has said he would like to play a role in the establishment of collaborations between the Denver-based university and the Mayo campus of the Atlantic Technological University.
Professor James Walsh made his comments during a recent visit to Mayo where he met with members of the academic staff and received a brief overview of the evolution of the campus from its former state as a psychiatric hospital. The visit was facilitated by local historian Michael Larkin.
Prof. Walsh has dedicated an enormous amount of time and painstaking research in identifying the names of over 1,200 Irish immigrants who perished and died Leadville, which towers above the 'Mile High' city of Denver, Colorado and was at one time a 'boom town' following the discovery of silver there in the late 1800s. Thousands of immigrants flocked to this most inhospitable part of America high in the Rocky mountains, hoping to 'get rich quick' working in the mines.
Sadly, most of the Irish were destined to remain on the bottom rungs of Leadville's social classes, with hundreds succumbing to disease and workplace-related accidents and laying since in unmarked, sunken graves in the Catholic pauper section of Leadville's Evergreen cemetery.
A high proportion of those who toiled there, including sizeable numbers who had previously worked in the coalmines near Scranton, Pennsylvania, were from Mayo. Indeed Mayo’s own Mayo's Michael Davitt, co-founder of the Irish National Land League, visited Leadville on a number of occasions where he encouraged the workers and miners to remain united in pursuit of better pay and working conditions.
Professor James Walsh believes this little-known, yet significant connection between Colorado and Mayo, in particular the Michael Davitt connection, has the potential to open new links in tourism, academia, business and other forms of collaboration.
Following his visit to the county, he stated: “I would dearly love to play a role in the establishment of possible future collaborations between the University of Colorado, Denver and the Atlantic Technological University here in Mayo.”
Michael Gill, Dept. Head of Organisational Development, ATU, in welcoming Prof. Walsh outlined how the Mayo campus looks forward to exploring options and possibly in the not-too-distant future welcoming students from the University of Colorado to Mayo.
