Why Adair Came to America?

“Accounts blandly say he opened a loan brokerage in 1866 in New York; the place where he, a presumably very landed gentleman, meets and marries his presumably very wealthy bride. But why leave Ireland at all?”

In 1866, Adair came to post-Civil War New York from Ireland to boost his fortunes. Why? Perhaps the wild-fire spread of the Great Cattle Plague from Europe to Britain toward Ireland was threatening his way of life. That year, this hymn was written and widely sung in English churches:

1. All creation groans and travails
   Thou, O God, shall hear its groan
   For of man and all creation
   Thou alike art Lord alone. \

2. Pity then Thy guiltless creatures
   Who, not less, man’s sufferings share
   For our sins it is they perish
   Let them profit by our prayer. \

3. Cast Thine eyes of love and mercy
   On the misery of the land
   Say to the Destroying Angel
   ‘Tis enough; stay now thine hand.’ \

4. In our homesteads, in our valleys
   Through our pasture lands give peace
   Through the Goshen of Thine Israel
   Bid the grievous murrain* cease. \

5. Hear and grant the supplications
   Like a cloud of incense, sent
   Up towards Thy seat of Mercy
   Through the forty days of Lent \

6 And at last to all Thy servants
When earth’s troubles shall be o’er
Give, O Triune God, a portion
With Thyself for evermore. \

• murrain = disease

All Creation Groans and Travails (1866)
Church Hymn
By J.S. Neale (1818-1886)