Irish Catholics should remember potato-famine relief efforts by U.S. Protestants - WSJ article

From an article by Peter Duffy in today's Wall Street Journal:

Perhaps then, on this day of all days, the Irish Catholics of New York should do something that would've been unthinkable even a few years ago: raise a toast to the Protestants.

I am referring to the Protestants of New York City and their actions during the winter of 1847, an unjustly forgotten episode in the Irish history of this city.

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... the pulpit was opened to speakers. Rev. Jonathan Wainwright of St. John's Episcopal Chapel, a future bishop, read several passages from foreign newspapers describing the sufferings in Skibbereen, County Cork, which had become infamous for the plight of its poor. He insisted that he did not attend the meeting to "speak of modes of faith," but to urge his fellow citizens to "share our loaf" and "contribute liberally from our ample store."

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It appears that every minister in town sought donations from the pulpit. The list of churches that gave is impressive: Norfolk Street Methodist, the Reformed Dutch Church at the corner of Greene and Houston, the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue, Trinity Episcopal, the Second Wesleyan Chapel on Mulberry Street, Duane Street Presbyterian, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church on Christopher Street, Mercer Street Presbyterian, Grace Church, and on and on.