1958-1959 Love Letters to Murdock, Minnesota, photo above — This is a box of family letters from the parents of author Jannet L. Walsh, Murdock, Minnesota. The letters were written by the late Margaret “Peggy” Glieden Walsh, Brooten, Minnesota, and the late father Martin J. Walsh Jr., originally from Murdock, Minnesota.

UPDATED June 29, 2025  — A listing of Swift County Minnesota first pioneers, European, has been added below due to numerous people reaching out to me about their own family connections to rural Swift County. Please see below after heading, Writing series underway explained, or view at button below.

‘Irish Bard’ Jannet L. Walsh, continues to find roots rural Minnesota

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Jannet L. Walsh
Friday, June 27, 2025
Murdock, Minnesota

From tiny Murdock, pop. 306, Swift County, Minnesota, my voice as an artist is heard! Forget the arts, then forget the soul of culture, especially in rural America.

I’ve been chasing stories of my Irish family since early January 2024, as a grant recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

ABOUT THE GRANT
I am concluding my official work activities related to the project June 30, 2025, and will be submitting my report in July 2025. A list of all grant recipients across Minnesota for Fiscal Year 2024 Creative Individuals can be viewed at the Minnesota State Arts Board website, see grantees, and their projects.

The Creative Individuals grant is designed to help individual artists and culture bearers develop or sustain their creative practices and meaningfully engage with Minnesotans. Grantees may use funds to support their creative practice and meaningfully connect to and engage with audiences, participants, students, and/or communities during the grant period, according to the Minnesota Arts Board.

Artist goal for writing project, Minnesota State Arts Board 2024
“My goal for the grant is to write a new collection of nonfiction family history stories in Minnesota, arriving before the Civil War and eventually homesteading in Swift County. Stories will be used to create a manuscript ready to seek a book publisher.”

Jannet L. Walsh
2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

About the grant writing project
My grant was written with specific writing goals, in my case related to how many pages I planned to write during the grant period. I’m happy to say I’ve achieved my writing goal. The topic is specific to Minnesota, and my mainly Irish family history I’ve been working on for several years. My research was entirely in Minnesota, no travel outside of United States or to Canada.

Manuscript status, June 2025 — Status of my current manuscript is about 50 to 75 percent complete. I set out to write numerous stories related to my family, more than was possible in the time period of the grant. Hunting and gathering information, or research period, is like gathering valuable artifacts, such as personal letters, public documents, then sorting through the pot of gold, deciding what do I do next.

All most all of my original writing takes place in note books, pen and paper. I write where I am researching, visiting, standing, sitting, in farm fields, standing in grand structures, such as Minnesota Capitol, or at home my kitchen in tiny Murdock, population 306.

I write in pencil when researching in libraries or archives, such as the Minnesota History Center, or other library or archives with specific rules for research. I can carry a notebook just about anywhere, not worrying about digital loss, or hiccups, when writing first drafts of a chapter. This method does slow the process, not writing first on my laptop computer, but for me it works. I can can stack my notebooks up, index, and go directly to what I’m writing.

Research for the my grant started at home, January 2024, and at the Swift County Historical Society and Museum, Benson, Minnesota. I also included research trips to Saint Paul, visiting the Minnesota State Capitol, Minnesota History Center’s Library, Cathedral of Saint Paul, and other locations.

Writing series underway explained

My nonfiction creative writing practice, literature based on fact, is written in first person and present tense, when possible, engaging readers in Irish family history detective work, first in notebooks to capture thoughts and events in real time.

The manuscript underway for the 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board grant is the third in a series of family stories with a concentration on life as pioneers, making their way as new Americans, to present day. My nonfiction creative writing, prose poetry, and my wit are part of my writing projects.

• My first book, published 2023, “Higgledy-Piggledy Stones: Family Stories from Ireland and Minnesota” is described by reviewers as follows: Her writing is as ‘you are there’ writing style; sews personal genealogy to world history; and finds the extraordinary hiding in plain sight, affirming history lives beside us in our own homes. This book is about finding Irish roots in Ireland, especially my Foley family, along with stories here in Minnesota related to my Irish family history. My first book started originally as a Masters of Fine Arts thesis manuscript at Augsburg University. Learn more at my book page.

• Second writing project, underway, Wolfe Islander: Return to the people of the Land and Sea, a collection of new family history stories in Minnesota and Canada, part of the Irish Diaspora. This is the Canadian writing project, not part of the Minnesota State Arts Board grant. Please see details about funding for this project, and learn more about his writing project at my Irish Diaspora page.

• Third writing project, underway, this is funded by a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board grant, and topics are specific to family stories in Minnesota related to my family history, from about the American Civil War, to today in rural Minnesota. Please view project page for updates.

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What I’m sharing about manuscript
The manuscript will remain private until published as I’m seeking a publisher for this new collection of stories. A manuscript is the original, unpublished written work, and a book is a finished body of work, ready to be published.

Below is a summary an excerpt from my manuscript underway for my Minnesota Arts Board 2024 grant.

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Manuscript title:
Dispatches from Edge of the World
Collection of stories from rural Minnesota
by
Jannet L. Walsh

Manuscript Summary: This is a creative nonfiction collection of mainly Irish family history stories in Minnesota by Jannet L. Walsh of Murdock, Minnesota. Her family arrived in Minnesota before the Civil War, homesteading on the prairie lands of rural Swift County, Minnesota. Walsh’s family was among the first in a series of Catholic colonies established in 1876 by Archbishop John Ireland in De Graff, Minnesota. There were 4,000 families selected for colonies, including her family in De Graff, the first colony, 1877, to make new lives as farmers. Her Irish Walsh family left County Kilkenny, Ireland, 1842, to escape famine, the Great Famine, along with religious, racial, and political discrimination under British rule.  After arrival in North American, her family followed a long path of migration, about 35 years, from Ireland, Canada, and finally rural Minnesota. Her writing is as ‘you are there’ writing style, along with use of letters, epistolary form, weaving family history to world history, finding the extraordinary hiding in plain sight, and showing readers history lives in our own homes. What is presented here explores the author’s quest to preserve and gather stories, antiquated and modern, understand her family as ancestor’s journey after finding a permanent home living on the edge of the world in rural Minnesota.

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“This edge of the world in Murdock looks west towards De Graff, about four miles from Murdock, in the nearly open farm fields, separated only by county roads, and onwards to the county seat of Swift County in Benson, about 14 miles away.  The view on a clear day includes the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks, green lush corn or soybeans growing in the summer or brown crops in fall before harvest.  There are miles of rich black dirt fields before planting or after harvest, or snow-covered ground in the deadly cold winter months. Farmsteads with barns, silos, tractors are loosely spread out in this rural skyline.
The edge of world is not always visible, and takes time to closely study this geographic region from where I mark my days and nights. 

If the world appears to stop on my edge of the world, if not for a few moments or a day, the edge of the world is even closer to my front porch. “

Excerpt from Dispatches from Edge of the World
Collection of stories from rural Minnesota

Manuscript
2025
by
Jannet L. Walsh

Copyright © 2025 by Jannet L. Walsh
All rights reserved.

Birds in my backyard

When I talked to the birds

I made extensive notes, , November 2020 to September 2021, photographs and videos during the pandemic about birds in backyard friends, including rabbits and squirrels.  At times I thought I talking to the birds when the world what falling apart.  This was a very hyper-local focus nature experience during extreme political and dangerous health conditions globally.  I have a chapter devoted to the birds and wildlife in my backyard, living near the edge of the world in rural Murdock.

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Project Mentors
I have engaged with two mentors during the Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, with specialities in history, writing and book editing. Conversations were by phone, online video, and in person during the grant. Mentoring included topics of research, history, planning for research travel, and writing topics.

As June 26, 2025, it’s likely I will have one larger book, or potentially two books due to the work related to my Minnesota Arts Board Grant. This is all part of the writing process, what fits, and what’s for another collection of stories. As I complete writing all the chapters for the book, I’ll be making decisions about the order of the chapters, or deciding to separate work into more than one book.

The Rev. Gary E. Mills, Th. D., is the Director Swift County Historical Society in Benson, Minnesota, and is a history and genealogy expert. Rev. Mills served as a writing and history expert for my grant. View the Swift County Historical Society Museum website.

Ms. Tracy Ross has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Augsburg University. She is a published poet and nonfiction author, educator, and college professor. Ross is a 2025 McKnight Fellow and a recipient of grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, 2023.

She served as writing mentor, and professional book editor, for my writing project funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board, 2024. View website of Ms. Ross.

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Culture bearer lineage, Canadian boost
My actual curiosity for exploring my family’s ties in rural Swift County, Minnesota, started sometime as a young girl, in the 1970s. Today, 2025, my childhood desire to collect stories of my immigrant family continues to flourish in Minnesota.

My oral storytelling tradition and skills were passed down from my late grandpa Martin J. Walsh Sr., Murdock, Minnesota, and likely from his Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canadian born father, Michael J. Walsh Jr., 1858- 1929. There’s been a deep understanding of history and heritage running deep for my family, at home in Minnesota. My father Martin J. Walsh Jr., 1924-2008, passed the storytelling duties on to my brother Paul M. Walsh, and me.

Canadian Reinforcements — Culture bearers are artists and individuals who practice and carry forward cultural art forms, beliefs and traditions, according to The Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C., the national cultural center of the United States.

I’ve come to learn during my quest to put together my family’s mainly Irish roots in Minnesota, I am a culture bearer.

It took a trip to Canada, prior to my Minnesota State Arts Board 2024 grant, working on a writing project about my family’s Irish Canadian roots on Wolfe Island, Ontario, in the middle of the St. Lawrence, winter 2022.

While writing in Canada, noted Canadian storyteller, the late Captain Brian P. Johnson (1953 – 2025) called me Murdock’s own ‘Irish Bard’. He was a retired Wolfe Island III ferry boat captain when I met him, and known for his marine history, prolific writing and storytelling. Please read Captain Brain Johnson’s story about my Canadian adventures, ‘Irish Bard’ finds family roots on Wolfe Island by Brian P. Johnson, Thousand Islands Life.

Captain Johnson helped me understand the tradition of being a culture bearer, and my responsibility to pass along family stories, or even regional stories, of my mainly Irish ancestors in rural Minnesota, and be a cheerleader, inspiring others to be storytellers.

Bard is a word associated with storytellers, and used to highlight a storyteller, or that’s what I’ve come to learn. There is the use of the word bard on Wolfe Island, the very same island my family lived from 1842-1877, before coming to Minnesota.

I met on the same trip to Canada in 2022, the late Johnny O’Shea, 1932-2023, known by residents respectfully as the Bard of Wolfe Island. I wrote about O’Shea in 2024, view story at my website, August 16, 2024.

I’d say Captain Brian Johnson is the bard of Wolfe Island, telling stories with the other bard, Johnny O’Shea, both busy spinning tales from the beyond.

From my Grandpa Mart and my father Martin, also known as Marty, I carrying on the tradition as cultural bearer, storyteller, a very Irish tradition, all from Dublin Township, in Swift County, Minnesota. Some families have a tradition of music, but it storytelling for my family.

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Family background in rural Swift County, Minnesota

First, my Irish Foley family arrived in Minnesota to Washington County, 1853, stopping first in New Brunswick, Maine, then finally to Minnesota.

Next, my Walsh family arrived in 1877, to De Graff, Swift County, Minnesota. They were all Irish, with at least eight members of the my Walsh family born in Canada. They had been living in Kingston and Wolfe Island, Ontario, Canada for 35 years as farmers, before migrating south to Minnesota. My peopled joined the first Irish Catholic Colony started by the late Bishop John Ireland, later named Archbishop of the Catholic Diocese of Saint Paul.

My family is one of the four thousand Catholic families Archbishop Ireland helped resettle in west central and southwest Minnesota during the years of 1875-1885. Archbishop Ireland’s goals were to alleviate the perceived problems of nativist prejudice (anti immigrant), poverty, and loss of religion faced by urban Catholics (particularly Irish) on the east coast and poor Catholics still in Ireland by relocating them to low cost farmland in western Minnesota. Today I live just three miles from De Graff, in Murdock, Minnesota, in the same house my father was born in 1924. 

Link to pamphlet about Archbishop John Ireland’s colonies — Catholic Colonization in Minnesota Revised Edition, 1879, author Catholic Colonization Bureau of Minnesota, Archbishop John Ireland, view at The Project Gutenberg EBook.

Below is a quote from the pamphlet written by Archbishop Ireland to encourage people to become farmers in Minnesota, privileged and independent, published 1879.

THEIR BRAVE BATTLE FOR INDEPENDENCE—THEIR BOUNTIFUL REWARD.

“It’s na’ to hide it in a hedge;
It’s na’ for train attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.”

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My father, the late Martin J. Walsh Jr., of Murdock, Minnesota, would say when I was a child, and was telling stories of our family’s history and connection to the island of Ireland, “We are Archbishop John Ireland’s people.”

It just happened to be the Archbishop’s last name was the same as the country my people left behind in the mid 1800s. Read and learn more about my dad, and his 1953 trip to Ireland at my 2022 blog.

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What happens next?

I anticipate finishing the manuscript in fall 2025, and then present to potential publishers, what’s called querying publishers.

The findings, and details to my manuscript will remain private until published as a book.

By Jannet L. Walsh
Written at home, Murdock, Minnesota

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Thank You!

I wish to express my sincere gratitude as a Fiscal Year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

My nonfiction writing project is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The grant helped bring an idea of a writing project to reality, allowing me to focus on forgotten family history in rural Minnesota, far away from the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul.

My voice as an artist is heard from the farmlands of Minnesota because of my Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individual 2024 Grant.

Sincerely,
Jannet L. Walsh

Please follow update at my website, JannetWalsh.com.

Copyright © 2025. Jannet L. Walsh. All Rights Reserved.

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*Jannet L. Walsh of Murdock, Minnesota is a photographer, writer, and educator. She is the author of a creative nonfiction quest narrative “Higgledy-Piggledy Stones: Family Stories from Ireland and Minnesota,” 2023 by Shanti Arts Publishing. Walsh is recipient of a Southwest Minnesota Arts Council Growth Grant funded by the McKnight Foundation, 2022-2024, and Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, 2024-2026. She is also recipient of a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals Grant, funding from National Endowment for the Arts. You can follow Walsh on Facebook and Twitter, and on her other social media channels, with the hashtag #IrishFamilyHistoryDetective.