Overview of the Rooneys

This is part of a series from the family history book I wrote for my mother's birthday. To see all the posts, click on the "Mom Book" tag at the bottom of this post.

Rooney

The first of our Rooney line to come to the United States were John Joseph and Elizabeth (Kelly) Rooney who arrived in New York on May 18, 1848, in the steerage compartment of the ship The Constitution, out of Belfast, Ireland. The Constitution was a famine ship, over-crowded with the sick and the dying, those who were fleeing in any way possible an Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger), or what we call the Potato Famine. The peasants of Ireland were dependent on the potato, the only food that could produce enough calories per acre to feed the rapidly growing population. When the potato blight hit in 1845, it caused wide-spread hunger and disease. Although Ireland continued to export food throughout the Famine period, that food belonged to the (largely British, largely Protestant) landowners, and was not distributed to their workers. Millions died or were forced to emigrate. The population of Ireland dropped from a pre-1845 high of ten million to only four million by 1900.

John and Elizabeth were a young couple, only 25 and 21 when they arrived in the United States. Their eldest (surviving) child, Patrick, was born at sea. On average, pre-Famine Irish married young (16 for girls, 18 for boys), so John and Elizabeth may have lost children in Ireland before emigrating. They lived in New York when they first arrived in the United States, but around 1855 they moved to Columbus, Wisconsin, where they owned a small farm. This is where their paths crossed with the Cunninghams, who moved to Columbus shortly after. John and Elizabeth had ten children. Their third child, Elizabeth Theresa Rooney, married Robert Steven Cunningham on November 24, 1880. 

While the Cunninghams farmed a full section of land, the Rooneys had only a quarter section. With their large family, it must have been difficult to make ends meet, and they would have had no land to pass on to their children. Around 1890, most of the family moved to Minnesota, including the Rooney's grown children and their families. Although most of the Rooney siblings -- including Elizabeth Rooney Cunningham --  settled in Minneapolis, John and Elizabeth homesteaded in western Minnesota with their youngest son, Ambrose. They lived with his family until they died in 1906. They are buried in Osakis, Minnesota.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

http://thedeanbeaverblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/rooneys-of-columbus.html