Public Employee Press

Irish Heritage celebration
Passing on a vital culture

By JANE LaTOUR

It takes many woven strands to keep a culture intact over centuries.

DC 37’s Irish Heritage celebration March 4 provided a grand occasion for the wearing of the green. Tradition was on display in every way — from the tam-o’-shanter caps sported by some to the roiling drums of the pipe band.

The guest speaker, City Council Member Christine Quinn, told of her ancestors, one who traveled to America in steerage on the Titanic — one of the few poor, lower deck passengers to survive — and another, a battalion chief who drove Mayor LaGuardia to fires.

“It doesn’t seem that there could be a better place to celebrate in New York City than DC 37, the largest municipal union in the city,” she said. “The unions are what enabled the Irish immigrants to work their way up.”

Local 299 member Sister Mary O’Connor offered the invocation. Her service as the Catholic Chaplain on Rikers Island for 17 years places her within the Irish tradition of the civil service.

“I come from a family of public school teachers,” she said. “The Irish have always done hard labor. The goal was to get into established work that wasn’t going to fold.”

Drummer Mike Donovan is a Sewage Treatment Worker and a member of Local 1320. He followed in his father’s footsteps when he went to work for the Dept. of Environmental Protection and when he joined the Knights of Columbus Pipe Band.

Three generations of the Donovan family are drummers in the band, including his daughter Kristy. “I started playing as a youngster and now I try to keep the tradition alive,” he said.

John Townsend, president of Local 1322 and co-chair of the Irish Heritage Committee, spoke proudly of his ancestors from Roscommon County. “My grandfather worked as an apprentice and then as a steamfitter in a shipyard,” he said. Co-chair Kathy Fitzgerald’s grandmother came from Galway. Her family worked in sanitation and as ironworkers.

Each year, the Tir Na Gael School of Dancing displays the fancy footwork of Irish step dancing. Sister O’Conner learned the art as a youngster, as did Kathy Fitzgerald’s daughter Lauren.

Growing up marching in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is an important part of the tradition. History echoes in the wail of the bagpipes and the shared stories of ancestors and Irish history. “My father was always reading books on Irish history,” said Mike Donovan. “Now he passes this along to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

The ties that bind extend across the ocean as they have for generations. Sister O’Connor has many relatives still living in Ireland. “Money from America helped our relatives survive,” she said. John Townsend has traveled to Ireland with his family for the past 14 years. “The children see where their ancestors came from,” he said. The Donovan family’s dream of marching in Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade finally happened in 2002. “We carried a banner from Brooklyn,” said Mike Donovan. “This was just after 9/11 and the crowd went wild.”

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts greeted the celebrants on March 4. “I look with pride at the contributions made to our union and to the labor movement by my Irish friends,” she said. “We will all find each other as we fight to hold on to what we have built.”