Image via CrunchBaseBy KIRK SEMPLEAt the New York Irish Center’s free Wednesday luncheons for the elderly, the memory of Tony Gallagher — and his sad fate — is never far away.
“Oh, terrible!” Margaret Clifford, 74, said with a slight shudder during a recent lunch. “We still talk about it.”
Mr. Gallagher, a carpenter who immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1970, died alone in his apartment in Sunnyside, Queens, two years ago this month, at age 72. A week passed before his body was discovered by firefighters summoned by the building’s superintendent.
His lonely ending stunned and embarrassed many Irish New Yorkers, and spurred a collective reckoning: How could this have happened, particularly among a seasoned immigrant population known for its cohesiveness and organization?
Now the soul-searching has led to another search: the Gallagher Initiative, an ambitious effort to evaluate the whereabouts, lives and needs of the elderly Irish in New York.
The initiative, which began in October and is expected to take four to six months, will focus at first on the Irish in Queens, but organizers hope eventually to expand it to all five boroughs. A team of researchers, working under the auspices of Elaine M. Walsh, a social worker and a professor of urban affairs at Hunter College, plans to interview at least 400 people, first-, second- and third-generation Irish over the age of 54, about their living situations, social networks, daily routines, hobbies and health.
The questions will “identify for us how the Irish elderly are now coping, what their current needs are and what their needs could be in the future,” Dr. Walsh said.
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