Busting the Myths of Irish Immigration - Recorded Live at the Tenement Museum | HISTORY This Week
1 Video View·Mar 20, 2026
March 18, 1879. A crowd gathers around an indoor track in Brooklyn, NY, as an Irish immigrant named Bartholomew O’Donnell attempts a strange feat: walking 80 miles in 26 hours. Newspapers claim he’s eighty years old. Lap after lap, he circles the track: smoking a pipe, sipping hot tea, and pushing through the night.