Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1887-2003 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
312pp
Context area
Archival history
Copies of the Patrick J. Quirk letter, journal, and related family materials were donated to Kerby A. Miller by Alice M. Knight in November 1990. Permission to publish was granted per letter of 6 December 1990.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Materials pertaining to a journal and letter written by Patrick J. Quirk. Quirk's father, Dennis Quirk, rented a smallholding or garden and was gardener to 'the estates' outside Ennis, County Clare. The family homestead is now part of or adjacent to the Clancy Park Housing Estate, part of the town of Ennis now. Per Kerby A. Miller: 'For a mere gardener, his sons were remarkably well-educated and upwardly mobile in America, so Dennis's status and occupation may have been more elevated than family folklore remembers.' The series includes: extensive correspondence between Miller and donor Alice Knight discussing the Quirk family; transcripts of 19th-century land valuations in Ennis pertinent to the Quirks; photographs of Quirk family members provided to Knight by the Quirk family; Miller's transcript and Knight's photocopy of Patrick Quirk's 1887 letter to his brother, also named Dennis; Knight's photocopy and Miller's handwritten transcript of Quirk's journal discussing his 1865 journey from Massachusetts to Montana.