KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL The Moores made the most of life at 97 Orchard Street.

Photograph: Keiko Neiwa

In the spring of 1869, Bridget and Joseph Moore huddled over a tiny white coffin in the parlor of No. 14, 97 Orchard Street. The couple—who struggled to pay the $8 rent on the modest fourth-floor apartment—was devastated by the sudden death of their five-month-old daughter, Agnes. Or so believe staffers at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, who pored over church records, birth certificates, newspapers, naturalization papers and census documents to assemble “The Moores: An Irish Family in America,” the institution’s first new guided tour in six years.

All Tenement Museum tours explore re-created residences at 97 Orchard, but “The Moores” reaches the furthest back in time. (“Getting By: Immigrants Weathering Hard Times,” by comparison, visits the Sicilian Baldizzi family, which lived at No. 5 in the 1930s.) Despite the passage of time, researchers still uncovered a wealth of details, including that Agnes died from malnutrition and tuberculosis—most likely due to contaminated milk. Visitors discover it was a common cause of infant mortality through a recording of “The Swill Milk Song” that plays in an adjacent multimedia room: “Like poison, ’tis sure to kill/As a thousand tongues can tell.” Other period melodies ethnomusicologist Mick Moloney recorded for the tour include “No Irish Need Apply” from 1865, and “Thousands Are Sailing,” a traditional Gaelic lamentation for friends and relatives who departed for America.

Adorned with colorful rugs and knickknacks, well-preserved furniture, and religious artifacts that celebrated the Moores’ Catholic faith, the refurbished abode may surprise tourgoers with its relative sprightliness. “97 Orchard was only six years old at this time,” explains museum research manager David Favaloro. “The building was home to mostly artisans, shopkeepers and professionals then—certainly not the poorest of the poor.” No. 14 was still without running water or electricity, however, and the Moores would have been forced to share backyard outhouses with their neighbors.

While the Tenement Museum has explored the struggles and triumphs of the working-class Jews, Italians and Poles who called the Lower East Side home, this is the first time it’s addressed the Irish immigrant experience. (The neighborhood was predominantly German-speaking in the 19th century.) “We ultimately decided on the Moores because they had an incredibly compelling story,” says Favaloro. “And the focus on disease still has relevance today, as new immigrants face 21st-century health-care problems.”

“The Moores: An Irish Family in America” can be viewed by guided tour.