30. Phelan & Collender: The Irishmen Who Built an American Billiards Empire

Podcast: Transatlantic: An Irish American History Podcast · Fin Dwyer & Damian Shiels

Opublikowano: 2025-11-03

Michael Phelan, born in Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny, rose to prominence as one of America's most gifted billiards player and showmen. In New York he encountered Hugh Collender, from Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, an exiled Irish nationalist who decided to turn his talents to business after the failed rising of 1848. Phelan’s flair and Collender’s enterprise combined into one of the great economic successes of 19th century Irish America. Together they built Phelan & Collender, a company that revolutionised billiard-table manufacture and helped define an American leisure industry. This episode traces how two Irishmen, shaped by different beginnings but...