custom, part five

St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center, New York City, August 2022. Photo by the author.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is legendary not only because of its impressive, Gothic revival structure and liturgical opulence but also because of what it represented to the generations of Irish immigrants and their descendants in New York City who faced ethnic and religious discrimination in the US during the 19th century. Despite the various forms of hardship, social exclusion, and disenfranchisement that immigrants face, some Irish communities thrived and…