Retired pediatrician and former St. Patrick's Day Parade Grand Marshal Dr. Francis Rossiter Jr. knows the story well.

In the 1850s, his 15-year-old great-grandfather, Patrick Rossiter, left Ireland to find a better life in Savannah. Like many of the devoutly Catholic men and women who immigrated from the old country years ago, Patrick Rossiter took a job on Savannah's docks, his great-grandson said.

And when Patrick Rossiter married and began to raise a family, this young Irish immigrant brought a rich heritage to Savannah.

Dr. Rossiter knows a lot about his great-grandfather's life. To be sure, the retired doctor knows the stories about Savannah's Irish that have been passed down from generation to generation. In addition, Dr Rossiter and and his first cousin, Savannah dentist Jack W. Groover Jr., have spent years studying and preserving a treasure-a large album of family pictures.

Filled with frail news clippings and some photographs that are more than a century old, their album tells the history of an old Irish family in Savannah.

As Dr. Rossiter leafs through this album, he points out candid shots of a historic Irish neighborhood called Old Fort where he and his family grew up.

At one point, he turns to a 1930s-era photograph of Washington Square. Here, children, teens and young men are shown taking part in a now-outlawed Irish tradition-building a huge bonfire in the square.

In Dr. Rossiter's old picture, children wander happily about near a tall, homemade scaffold that older youths had built from wooden crates, tires, barrels of rosin and large wooden spools, Rossiter recalls. And just left of center in the old photograph, one young man can be seen climbing the tower.

According to Irish tradition, young men would light the makeshift structure at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve and turn it into a roaring blaze, both Dr. Rossiter and Dr.Groover say.

Dr. Rossiter says he enjoyed watching that bonfire. And sometimes he joined youths in building that tower that would roar into flames.

As Dr. Rossiter looks at the photo album and reminisces, he says he's glad his family had been able to keep their wonderful album of old photographs.

"It keeps you in touch with your roots," Dr. Rossiter says.