Public Employee Press

Irish Heritage celebration
All things Irish

By JANE LaTOUR

Leprechauns and lullabies, corned beef cabbage and boiled potatoes, the Irish Flag and National Anthem, tradition always travels with the Irish.

Up and down the island of Manhattan and all across the city’s outer-lying boroughs, you can trace their story.

Monuments like the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park and the old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Little Italy tell parts of it. So do the subway tunnels and the newest addition – Water Tunnel #3 now in production – built by the city’s mostly Irish sandhogs.

Irish literature stocks the library shelves of the New York Public Library, with a disproportionate contribution from such a small island.

William Butler Yeats, the great Irish poet and dramatist, wrote one of his famous poems, “The Coming of Wisdom with Time,” in 1910. For decades before and since, many thousands of Irish have migrated to the shores of the city.

For generations, the Irish have made up a large part of the workforce of the power plants, the Police and Fire departments, and every other civil service job. They’ve literally built this city.

Ironworkers, carpenters, and all the other skilled craft unions have been home for the Irish and Irish-Americans. Their contributions make up one important stream of the great ethnic success story that is New York City.

All of this history and tradition was on view on March 3 at the union’s 14th annual Irish Heritage Celebration.

Irish Heritage Committee Chair John Townsend, president of the Dept. of Environmental Protection Supervisory Employees Local 1322, offered the traditional, “one hundred thousand welcomes.”

Co-chair Bernadette O’Leary Enzmann introduced the program, featuring the drummers and bagpipers of the Knights of Columbus Pipe Band and the step dancers of the Tir Na Gael School of Dancing.

In her remarks, delivered by Associate Director Oliver Gray, DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts recalled the proud legacy of the Irish: “They created a great community of hard-working Americans and made major contributions to our growing nation. The Irish-American commitment to the labor movement is great and lasting.”

The recently retired Maggie Donohoe was present for the evening. She was honored for her 28 years of service to the DC 37 Education Fund.

“I can’t think of a better way to honor the great contributions of our Irish-American sisters and brothers than by gathering as a union family and enjoying this wonderful event,” Roberts said.