[A tour can be given. Also a one hour indoor presentation can be given.]
The Parish and the Hill is a novel written by Mary Doyle Curran about the life of her family in Holyoke. Through three generations, the life of the family has changed from a rough one in the mills to one of some gentility. Pulaski Park was were the Irish first lived in the late 1840s. St Jerome’s Church was a parish church for the family. After the Irish helped build the mills through the 1850s and 1870s, many new mills came into town. Her father worked as a mill sorter at the Farr Alpaca Mill. The Doyle family moved uptown to the Highlands in the early 1900s as many of the Irish of Holyoke did. There Holy Cross Church started as an offshoot of the Saint Jerome Church. Mary Doyle was born at 7 Thorpe Avenue and lived there in her youth. She attended the Highland Grammar School. Her relatives lived around the Highlands area and her own family did move a bit.
This tour may be done as a walking, driving, or bicycle riding tour. It is about 3 miles to cover the stops and then another 1 mile to return to the start. Use the 10 underlined TOUR links in the grid below to get to much more information on each stop. This tour outline was designed by Mark Clinton and Patricia Kennedy professors of the Holyoke Community College in 2017. It has been enlarged and described by Robert Comeau. [Use the Holyoke Public Library as a halfway rest area. Doyle worked here in her youth.]
| stop | location | address (Google map at link) | TOUR link | comments | |
| 1 | Pulaski Park | northern end of Maple Street | TOUR | Mary Doyle’s grandfather worked at the Parsons Paper Mill number 1 which was just over the start of the canal. | |
| 2 | Veteran’s Park | corner of Hampden and Chestnut Streets | TOUR | ||
| 3 | Saint Jerome Church Campus | corner of Hampden and Chestnut Streets | TOUR | This was Mary’s grandfather and mother’s church. | |
| 4 | Holyoke Canal System | Holyoke Heritage State Park | TOUR | ||
| 5 | Farr Alpaca Mills | corner of Appleton and Bigelow Streets | TOUR | MILL – Mary’s father worked at the Farr Alpaca Mill. | |
| Rest | Holyoke Public Library | Chestnut Street | TOUR | Library TOUR – Mary took out books from here | |
| 6 | Holy Cross Church | corner of Pleasant and Appleton Streets | TOUR | (first 5 stops at this tour link) | |
| 7 | Mary Doyle’s Birth Place | 7 Thorpe Avenue | TOUR | includes genealogical information and her other homes | |
| 8 | Hampden Street businesses | Hampden Street | TOUR | frequented stores | |
| 9 | Highland Park | corner of Lincoln and Waldo Streets | TOUR | now Kennedy Park | |
| 10 | Saint Jerome Cemetery | Saint Jerome Avenue | TOUR | Mary Doyle Curran does not yet have a marker. | |
| Bonus | Brightside | Brightside Drive | TOUR | The Doyles visited here for a theatrical play. Mary grandfather was in the old mens’ home (Beavan-Kelly) for a short time. |