Interview with Mr. Aloysius M. O'neill
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Library of Congress Interview with Mr. Aloysius M. O'Neill The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project ALOYSIUS M. O'NEILL Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: August 19, 2008 Copyright 2009 ADST Q: Today is the 19th of August 2008, and this is an interview with Aloysius M. O'Neill; the M standing for? O'NEILL: Moultrie. Q: This was Carolina, South Carolina. O'NEILL: Charleston. Q: This is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies, and I am Charles Stuart Kennedy. And you go by Al. O'NEILL: Yes. Q: Let's start. When and where were you born? O'NEILL: I was born on October 21, 1945 in Charleston, South Carolina; hence, the middle name. Interview with Mr. Aloysius M. O'Neill http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001617 Library of Congress Q: There's Fort Moultrie. Moultrie was a Revolutionary War hero.... Was he the one who flew the Palmetto flag? O'NEILL: That battle is the origin of the palmetto in the South Carolina state flag. In 1776 the British tried to invade Charleston which was the main port in the south of the colonies at that time. What was then called Fort Sullivan at the entrance to Charleston Harbor was the main obstacle to the British landing. It was, I think, the first victory by the colonists against the British in the war, June 28, 1776. The commander of Fort Sullivan was Colonel William Moultrie. The fort was built of palmetto logs which absorbed the British cannonballs and its guns drove off the British landing force and fleet. The fort was renamed Fort Moultrie and it played a big role in the Civil War. My grandfather O'Neill was born on June 28, so my great-grandfather Dennis O'Neill gave him the middle name Moultrie in honor of that day. Q: Let's talk about the O'Neill side of the family and we'll talk about your mother's side. What do you know about when and where did they come from? O'NEILL: Everybody in my family is Irish. The great-grandfather that I was talking about, Dennis O'Neill, was born in 1845 in Ireland. He came to Charleston at least by 1853. Q: Was the potato famine part of that? O'NEILL: I'm sure it was. He was born the year that the potato famine broke out. He came, I'm sure, with his father — my great-great-grandfather Michael O'Neill — and probably with a brother named Edward. I don't know anything about Dennis O'Neill's birth mother. She either died in Ireland or died on the ship because my great-great-grandfather remarried in Charleston in 1853. That's how I know their approximate arrival time. My family's been in Charleston ever since. Interview with Mr. Aloysius M. O'Neill http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001617 Library of Congress Q: Do you know what brought them to Charleston? So many of the Irish were heading to New York, Boston, New Orleans and Canada when the potato famine broke out but Charleston seems to be at the end of the line. O'NEILL: It may be because my great-great-grandfather's older brother who was also named Dennis was already in Charleston. But you're right: The Irish tended to go to the main northern cities or to New Orleans although the Irish Catholic diocese of Charleston was founded in 1820, so there was a substantial Irish Catholic community there earlier and, in fact, an even earlier Irish Protestant community Q: What were the O'Neills doing in Charleston? O'NEILL: I don't know what my great-great-grandfather was doing. My great-grandfather Dennis O'Neill enlisted at the age of 16 in the Irish Volunteer Company of an infantry unit called the Charleston Battalion in 1862. He was discharged about two years later. After the war, he had an auction and commission business, mainly selling houses and property. He was also in politics from time to time, both as an alderman in Charleston and as mayor pro tem later in the 1880's. He was also an officer in the post-war South Carolina militia, first a captain and then a major. He was active in a number of Irish organizations in Charleston including the Irish Rifle Club and a book society and things like that. During the Spanish- American War he was apparently an “assistant captain” of the Port of Charleston. At his death in February 1900, he was not quite 55 years old. Q: How was he earning his money? O'NEILL: His principal business was that auction and commission company, and he had a part interest in a boot shop with his cousins and his uncle. Q: We're up to your grandfather now? Interview with Mr. Aloysius M. O'Neill http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001617 Library of Congress O'NEILL: Yes. He was Aloysius Moultrie O'Neill, Senior. He was about nine when my great-grandfather died in 1900 leaving quite a number of children. My grandfather had various jobs in Charleston; he was among other things a timber inspector, timber and lumber being a big business in South Carolina in those days. He didn't serve in World War I because an older brother was in the Navy and he was the main support of his mother. Later he was the secretary and treasurer of the Hibernian Mutual Insurance Company in Charleston which as you can imagine was an Irish business. He died in 1962, aged 72. My father worked in the county records office as soon as he finished Bishop England High School, named after the first Irish Catholic bishop of Charleston. When World War II broke out my father was an electrician at the Charleston Navy Yard, in a war reserved job, so he was not eligible for the draft. In 1943 he volunteered for the Army Air Forces and by early 1945, he was in Burma with a combat cargo squadron. His unit went to China right after the war. When I was born in October 1945, my father was still in China. He went to the University of South Carolina on the GI Bill; got a degree in electrical engineering and soon he started working for the DuPont Company. He retired from DuPont in 1982. Q: What do you know about your mother's side? O'NEILL: They came to Charleston at least a generation earlier than my father's family because my great-grandfather James Francis Walsh was born in Charleston in December 1850, 10 years before secession. I don't know anything about his father. James Walsh became a fairly wealthy businessman in Charleston. He ran a mortgage company and at one time had a wine and liquor importing business which did business in both Europe and the Caribbean. There was a military angle to him as well because he twice commanded the Irish Volunteer Company in the South Carolina militia after the Civil War, first in 1898-99 and then again from 1903 to 1908. He was in ill health for some years thereafter and died in Saratoga Springs, New York where had gone to recover his health. Q: Yes, for the water. Interview with Mr. Aloysius M. O'Neill http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001617 Library of Congress O'NEILL: It didn't work; he died. He had two sons, one of whom died young, and several daughters, one of whom was my grandmother Gaffney. The other son, Roland Walsh who graduated from the Citadel in 1912, fought in World War I as a battalion commander in the Third Infantry Division. He stayed in the army thereafter and was one of several of my family members at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. He then served stateside during World War II; retired right after the war as a brigadier general. He died in 1956 and was buried at Arlington. My grandmother Gaffney, his sister, lived until 1979. She was almost 90 when she died. Her first marriage was to the headmaster of a private school in Charleston. He died of typhoid fever in 1919, leaving her with two sons. She then married Edward Gaffney, a dentist, and gave birth to my mother in 1923. Q: And your mother? O'NEILL: My mother's still alive. She's in a nursing home in Newark, Delaware. Q: How long did you live in Charleston? O'NEILL: I was only there as a baby, because we moved to Columbia while my father was going to college. I was born in Charleston while he was in China. My parents had married on Veterans Day, November 11, 1944. Q: How did they meet? O'NEILL: They knew each other in Charleston. It was a mixed marriage, though. My father was from Cathedral parish; my mother was from St. Patrick's parish. Q: Oh, my God!! O'NEILL: Quite a stir, I'm sure, at that time in the Irish Catholic community. They knew each other as teenagers, at least. They began dating, and my father was in the Army Air Interview with Mr. Aloysius M. O'Neill http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001617 Library of Congress Forces by the time they got married. From where he was training in South Dakota the farthest he could reach on leave was Vincennes, Indiana, so that's where they married. Q: How much education did your father have? O'NEILL: He had a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.