HOLYOKE, a city of Hamden county, Massachusetts, is situated on the west bank of the Connecticut river, crossed there by a bridge, and on the Connecticut River railroad and the Holyoke and Westfield branch of the New Haven and Northampton line, 8 miles north of Springfield. It is well supplied with schools and churches, and has three hotels and a public library. It was a small village until 1849, when the construction of a dam across the river supplied it with water-power for its manufactories, which now include paper-mills, cotton-mills both for spinning and weaving, woollen-mills, planing-mills, a flour-mill, a wiremill, and machine works. Originally the village was a part of Springfield, and in 1786 it was incorporated with West Springfield under the name of Ireland parish. It was incorporated into a town in 1850, and in 1873 it was made a city. The population, which in 1870 was 10,733, was 21,915 in 1880.