Posted : 2021-03-14 10:06
Updated : 2021-03-14 11:26
An excursion by the wives of Western miners in Korea in the early 1900s / Robert Neff Collection
By Robert Neff
Some of the most successful and famous silver and gold miners in the United States in the late 19th century were Irish or Irish Americans. Thus, it is not surprising that there were a large number of them in Korea in the early 20th century working for the American-owned gold mining companies. One of these early Irish-American miners was Martin McMahon.
McMahon was born in Limerick, Ireland, on Feb. 20, 1870, and his family immigrated to the United States in 1881 and settled in Colorado ― a state associated with mining. Naturally, at some point, McMahon became a miner and then fell in love with an Irish Canadian girl (five years his junior) named Mary Bel ― who apparently liked to be called Molly.