Chapter 2
by John Gavin Nolan
Ultimately, the key element in Monsignor Barry-Doyle’s personality may well have been his native “Irishness,” leading him to invent in part some ancestors, relatives, connections, and accomplishments. The comment of Peter Finley Dunne’s “Mister Dooley” comes to mind: It is a poor Irishman at all that can’t claim at least one king for an ancestor.
Monsignor Barry-Doyle arrived in New York on 29 October 1922. People in the Near East were suffering, and the crucial relief commodity was money. To obtain it, the Children’s Crusader, as the monsignor would come to be known, had only a few letters of introduction to some of Bishop Calavassy’s friends, and his own wits.