Explainer: Who is the Leitrim woman Michael Martin referenced while meeting Trump on his US visit?

An Taoiseach took the time to tell the story of a Leitrim immigrant while navigating the high-wire act that was his US state visit on St. Patrick's Day.

Addressing Congress and President Trump, during a speech at the St. Patrick’s Day Friends of Ireland luncheon at the U.S. Capitol, Micheál Martin was at pains to highlight the important role of the Irish in America.

“As politicians, faith leaders, police officers, firefighters, nurses, community leaders, and construction workers. Irish people have helped to build the American dream with tenacity and courage,” he told the crowd.

“As all of us in this room know, courage comes in many forms.” He said. “I am today reminded of a woman, Margaret Haugherty, a woman born into deep poverty in County Leitrim.”

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Margaret Haughery, a native of Tully, Carrigallen, was born in 1813 as the fifth child to William Gaffney and his wife Margaret (née O’Rourke).

The Gaffneys were poor tenant farmers and moved to the US with three of their children, including Margaret, in 1818, landing originally in Baltimore.

Tragedy struck, however, when they arrived with their youngest child dying of illness before both parents succumbed to a yellow fever epidemic that raged in the city four years later.

Shortly after, their oldest child, Kevin, disappeared, leaving young Margaret alone. She was taken in by a Welsh family named Richards, who employed her as a domestic servant.

The young woman married Irishman Charles Haughery in 1835 and moved to Louisiana shortly after, where they had a child, though tragedy struck Margaret again when both her husband and child passed away from illness.

These early hardships coloured Margaret, and she never remarried, deciding instead to dedicate her life to the poor, moving into an orphanage run by the Daughters of Charity and beginning to work as a volunteer in exchange for food and board.

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Despite being illiterate and never receiving an education, she was entrepreneurial and bought cows with money from a loan she received from a local priest.

From there, she fed the children and began a dairy business before buying a bakery. She was innovative, co-inventing a more efficient oven and packaging crackers so that they stayed fresh longer. Along with this, she opened soup kitchens and orphanages to help the needy.

“The Orphanages that she helped to build across New Orleans remain as her legacy,” said Martin.  

“Margaret’s grit and determination, her hard work, entrepreneurship, and innovation and her dedication to giving back to her community, embody the best in what it is to be Irish here in the United States and at home.”

Her businesses prospered, and she became a well-known and respected figure in New Orleans and further afield, receiving a crucifix from Pope Pius IX.

Haughery was renowned in New Orleans, becoming only the second woman in the United States to have a statue erected in her honour following her death in 1882.

Her funeral was attended by high-profile people in Louisiana, such as the archbishop, the then-governor, former governors of Louisiana, aswell as the mayor of New Orleans.