•At least 11 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Irish; three were Irish-born.
•George Washington’s top spies were the Irish-American Roe brothers and their cousin, Nathan Hale.
•Charles Thomson of Derry, secretary of the Continental Congress, designed The Great Seal of the United States.
•The memorial honoring the defenders of Bunker Hill contains the names of 250 Irishmen.
•Twenty-two of the 54 American patriots killed at Lexington and Concord were of Irish extraction.
•The father of the American Navy was Commodore John Barry of County Wexford, Ireland.
•Charles Hoban of County Kilkenny, Ireland, designed and built the White House and repaired it after it was burned by the British in 1812.
•The Rough Riders, of whom Teddy Roosevelt was so proud, was founded by Irishman Bucky O’Neill.
•The Irish led labor organizing in America, and the father of Labor Day is Peter McGuire.
•Almost half of the Union Army in the Civil War was Irish, with 38 regiments having the word “Irish” in their name.
•The Congressional Medal of Honor has been awarded to 257 native-born Irish, more than twice the number awarded to any other foreign-born group.
•The inventor of the first working submarine was John P. Holland of County Clare, Ireland.
•America’s music has been influenced by troubadour Stephen Foster, song-and-dance man George M. Cohan and playwrights Harrington and Hart (all Irish- American).
•America’s first great playwright was Eugene O’Neill.
•The first woman to walk in space was Kathryn Sullivan.
•More than 30 percent of America’s top chief executive officers are Irish or of Irish descent.
•Seventeen U.S. presidents have had Irish roots.
•The five Sullivan brothers who went down with the U.S. Juneau had a destroyer named for them, and after it was retired, the name was given to a guided-missile destroyer in 1997. It marks the only time in American naval history that a name was not retired with its ship.
Source: Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Green beer and good cheer.
Parades and Irish accolades.
St. Patrick’s Day is many things to many people. But for lots of folks, the day is much more than merriment, though that’s part of it, too.
It’s a day for reflection and prayer, a day to give thanks and to look back. That’s the way it is for Dick Dalton, John O’Herron, Patty Corcoran and lots of other folks of Irish heritage, including many members of the local chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians at 701 Kinyon St. in Elmira. It is, first and foremost, serious business.

read_more


Tags: ,