An American Bus Chair

"My great-grandfather (John James Sloane) was born in Loch Gowna, Co. Cavan in the 1880's but emigrated to the USA in early 1900. There he worked with the Fifth Avenue Coach Company as a bus driver (an attached picture shows him on one such bus). His father became ill about 1914, which forced John to return to Ireland to take over the running of the family farm and flax mill. Returning to Ireland he brought back one of the bus seats from New York and had it made into a chair which he used for the rest of his life (he's pictured sitting on it in the family home, beside his wife). Today it is in a sorry state; however, I look at it as a piece of well loved and used furniture and a symbol that some of the diaspora did return."