Special Events:
Wednesday, May 27th: Opening Reception at the Molly Brown House featuring Unearthed: Voices of Leadville’s Shanty Irish
When Margaret and JJ lived in Leadville, the Irish were the largest ethnic community, reaching close to 3,000 Irish-born residents during the 1880s. The Leadville Irish community is the story of a working-class, immigrant community struggling for survival and respect at 10,200 feet. Facing poverty, forming some of the most important labor unions in early Colorado.
Their story demonstrates the human toll of industrial labor and how first and second-generation immigrant laborers struggle for a dignified existence. As labor leader Michael Mooney said, “We may not have the whole American flag, but we have earned a corner of it.”
Unearthed explores the history of the Irish in Colorado and the lasting impacts they left behind, especially in the mining industry — the eight-hour workday, stronger safety, and livable wages.
Thursday, May 28th: Musical performances by The Dublin Gulch Band and other Irish musicians
“Don’t bother to tarry in America, go straight to Butte,” was the call of many an Irish immigrant to relatives back in Ireland.
Most of Butte’s Irish came from West Ireland, predominantly County Cork, but thousands immigrated from Counties Mayo and Donegal as well. David Emmons, author of The Butte Irish, states that by 1900, Butte had 12,000 residents of Irish descent in a population of 47,635. At the turn of the nineteenth century, over twenty-five percent of the population was Irish, higher than in any other American city, including Chicago and Boston.
Dublin Gulch has finally reached beyond the quarter-century mark and is still going strong.
Friday, May 29th: Leadville Excursion
Join the ACIS excursion to the historic silver mining town of Leadville, the highest incorporated town in North America at 10,200 feet. In the 1880s, Leadville was home to the largest Irish immigrant community in the Rocky Mountain region. Today, thousands remain buried in the pauper section of Evergreen Cemetery, where the average age of those buried is just 22.
In 2023, the Leadville Irish Pauper Memorial was unveiled to honor 1,339 individuals—most of them Irish or Irish American—buried in unmarked graves. Funded primarily by the Irish government, the memorial is now one of the most significant Irish public history spaces in the Rocky Mountain region.
The excursion includes visits to the memorial, Evergreen Cemetery, and historic Annunciation Catholic Church, followed by a reception and buffet dinner before returning to Denver.
A $50 contribution is requested to help cover transportation and dinner costs.
Saturday, May 30th: Las Juntas: An Comar
Las Juntas: An Comar is an interdisciplinary collaborative production five years in the making and born out of a series of artistic exchanges on the banks of the Rio Grande, on the US-Mexico border, and the River Foyle, in the North of Ireland. Drawing together varied artistic practices–music, soundscape, theater, narration, photography, illustration, performance art, installation, and dance– Las Juntas: An Comar weaves the threads of historical and contemporary connectivity between Irish and Mexican communities at home and in their diasporas, embodying and animating the possibilities of transnational solidarity in bridging the fracturing landscape of late-stage capitalism.
