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Praise for 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History

"The Irish are an amazingly well-informed and literate people as a rule, but now with 1001 Things there will be no standing us!  Edward O'Donnell has dug and delved into the archives and in simple, straightforward, yet scholarly prose presented us with a feast of fact.  Being Irish is a twenty-four hour a day vocation and I can't think of a better book to help one along the Hibernian road.  What the hell are you waiting for?  Get the book and get reading!"
     -- Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming: A Memoir and Singing My Him Song

"The 1002nd thing that everyone should know about Irish American history is that Edward O'Donnell has produced the most comprehensive, incisive and engaging treatment of the subject ever attempted.   He has mastered the difficult challenge of presenting the facts without ever slipping into pedantry or trivia. This will be an important reference work for years to come."
      -- Peter Quinn, author of Banished Children of Eve

"Edward O'Donnell's new book will be a lasting source of pleasure and edification for everyone interested in the history of Irish America. In a unique and highly engaging format, he gives us a rich and colorful portrait of one of America's most prominent ethnic groups. His grasp of the Irish antecedents is every bit as impressive as his command of the American context."
    -- Kevin Kenny, Boston College, author of Making Sense of the Molly Maguires and The American Irish: A History

"Few people understand the Irish like Edward O'Donnell.  Even fewer can explain Irish culture, history, politics and religion with such wit, insight and knowledge.  Keep this immensely readable book handy, because you'll return to it time and time again."
     -- Terry Golway, author of For the Cause of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Irish Heroes and The Irish in America
 
 

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Part I Ireland Before 1850

7. The Celts Come to Ireland
     The Celts were an Indo-European people who originated in northeastern Europe as far back as 1,200 B.C.  By 600 B.C. the Celts were a formidable presence in Europe, and by the third century B.C. they were encroaching on the Greek world.  Indeed, the word Celt, like Ierne, derives from the name the Greeks gave to these much-feared barbarians, Keltoi. 
     The Celts reached Britain by about 400 B.C. and Ireland by 300 B.C.  They most likely arrived in Ireland in small bands, rather than as an invading horde.  Many no doubt arrived from Britain, but linguistic evidence suggests that greater numbers came from Iberia (where the dialect of the Celtic language was different from that in Britain and similar to the one developed in Ireland).
     The single most important fact regarding the Celtic cultural impact is that the Romans never conquered Ireland.  The spread of the Roman Empire across continental Europe, through Gaul and into Britain meant a steady erosion of a recently arrived Celtic culture.  By contrast, the culture of Ireland’s Celts had centuries to take root and flourish – nearly 800 years until the arrival of the first Christian missionaries and 1,000 years before the Viking invasions.  It is little wonder then that modern Irish culture continues to reflect this Celtic influence.

13.   Druids
     The central figure Celtic life was the druid, a kind of wiseman, teacher, judge, doctor, and high priest all in one.  More than one scholar has compared them to the Hindu Brahmins of India, the highest figures in the caste system who exercised social, legal, economic, and religious authority.  Druids trained for up to twenty years studying astronomy, ancient poetry, natural philosophy, astronomy, and the legends and myths of the Celtic gods.  Accounts of these “the wise men of the oak,” as they were known, frequently mention their wearing distinctive white robes.
     In their capacity as judges they wielded near absolute authority (including the power to issue sentences of death).  “In all public and private quarrels,” wrote Julius Caesar of the Celts of Gaul, “the priests alone judge and decide.  They fix punishments and rewards, where crimes or murder have been committed or boundary and inheritance disputes arise.”  Their rulings reflected a powerful sense of morality.  “We teach that the gods must be honored, no injustice done and manly behavior always maintained,” explained one druid when asked to explain how they arrived at their verdicts.  St. Patrick got much the same answer centuries later when a druid explained the foundation of their moral code as, “Truth in the heart, strength in the arm, honesty in speech.”  Little wonder then that druids also possessed the political power to cast the deciding vote if the election of a chieftain was at an impasse. 
     Further evidence of the high place held by druids in Celtic society is demonstrated by the many exemptions they enjoyed from traditional obligations such as military service or annual dues or tribute.  As scholar Gerhard Herm writes in his history The Celts, “[T]he Druids were the authentic and most important representatives of the Celtic people, the embodiment of all that was unique to it.”

26.   St. Patrick’s Legends
     Of the many legends associated with St. Patrick, two stand out.  First, it is said that he drove the snakes out of Ireland.  The problem with this story is that Ireland never had any snakes to drive away.  Separated from England (where snakes of all sorts abound) and the Continent thousands of years ago, Ireland emerged from the Ice Age snake-free.  If St. Patrick were alive today, of course, he would have his spokesperson come forward to offer a slightly modified legend which stretched but did not break the limits of belief: “Since Patrick’s arrival in Ireland no snakes have been sighted.”
     A second and more plausible legend is that he used the shamrock to explain the mystery of the Trinity (by comparing the three leaves with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit).  The legend is unverifiable, since Patrick doesn’t mention it in his writings.  Some have suggested it derives from an earlier Celtic tradition of using the shamrock as a metaphor representing a "trust in your soul," "belief in your heart" and "faith in your mind."  Some missionary, if not Patrick himself, very likely Christianized this concept.  Few in Ireland seem troubled by these details, and the shamrock remains the Irish national symbol. 

Part II Coming to America

123.  The Voyage of St. Brendan
     Brendan was born around the year 500 A.D. in Fenit, County Kerry, and was educated in the great monasteries of the day.  Ordained a priest, he traveled far and wide, establishing many monasteries.  According to legend, Brendan also sailed across the Atlantic to the Americas, or what he called the “Land of Promise and of Saints.”  A written account of the trip, the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, tells of Brendan and his crew sailing from Dingle Bay and hopping from a series of islands (“God’s stepping stones”), most likely the Hebrides, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.  On their return voyage they took a southerly route via what might have been the Azores. 
     So did an Irishman discover America 900 years before Columbus and 400 years before Leif Eriksson?  No one knows for certain.  On the one hand, many scholars have interpreted the Navigatio Sancti Brendani as a work of fantasy, even humor.  On the other hand, a few scholars are not yet ready to dismiss the story as a mere fable.  They point to the fact that the suggested route (via Iceland, etc.) would have made sense.  Furthermore, at least one person has successfully re-enacted the Brendan voyage in a skin-covered curragh of the sort described in the epic, proving that it could be done.   Ultimately, it’s a question that will never be answered with any degree of certainty.

134.  Indentured Servants
     Some Irish immigrants in this period arrived as skilled artisans.  But for every skilled artisan or aspiring farmer, there were countless Irish who arrived in American as poor unskilled laborers.  Unable to pay their passage, many signed contracts of indenture with ship captains, who in turn auctioned them off upon arrival in America.  The contract bound the indentured servant to a term of service for four to seven years at the completion of which he or she received some land, money, or both.  Some, like Daniel Dulany, were fortunate.  He arrived in 1703, survived his indenture, studied law, rose to become a judge, Attorney General, and a member of the colonial legislature and Governor's Council.  Far too many others died before their term expired (especially, if they landed in disease-prone the South), or survived to face a life of low paid manual labor.

144. Patrick Carr Falls in the Boston Massacre
     An Irishman was among the first to shed his blood in the cause of American independence.  Patrick Carr, an Irish-born journeyman leatherworker, was among the crowd fired upon by British troops on March 5, 1770.  Carr died along with four others. 

195.  A British Historian Offers a Solution
     Distressed over the poor relations existing between the United States and Great Britain, British historian Edward A. Freeman argued that the slavery controversy and Irish nationalists were to blame.  He offered the following solution: “[T]he best remedy for whatever was amiss [between the U.S. and Britain] would be if every Irishman should kill a negro and be hanged for it.”
 

234. Bridey Murphy
     In 1956, Virginia Tighe claimed to be an Irish woman named Bridey Murphy, who had been born in the 19th century.  Under hypnosis administered by a man named Morey Bernstein, she “recounted” many details about her life in Ireland. “Bridey” told Bernstein about being married to a lawyer named Sean MacCarthy. She described Irish rivers and even the church she attended.
     A reporter for the Denver Post got hold of the story, and Virginia became an overnight sensation. Bernstein wrote a best-selling book, a movie was made (The Search for Bridey Murphy, 1956, and songwriters penned tunes about Bridey Murphy.  In the end, it turned out that Virginia probably gained her intimate knowledge of Ireland from a woman named Bridey Murphy who lived across the street from her in Milwaukee.  As a child Virginia heard Murphy tell many stories about Ireland and more than likely held them in her sub-conscious until they were drawn out under hypnosis.  The Bridey Murphy hype eventually subsided and Virginia Tighe returned to obscurity.

244. The Election of 1960
     Thirty-two years after Al Smith’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy finally did what Irish Catholics once thought impossible – win the White House.  Even though he’d won by the slimmest of margins (49.9 % to Nixon’s 49.6 %), Irish Americans took his victory to mean one thing: they had arrived.  As historian William V. Shannon wrote, “it removed any lingering sense of social inferiority and insecurity.  To a people for whom politics had long been one of their chosen professions, the election of Kennedy was a deeply satisfying accomplishment in which every Irishman could take vicarious pleasure.” 
 

Part III Politics and the Law

279.  Tammany Hall
     The most famous, or perhaps infamous, political machine in America was Tammany Hall in New York City.  It originated in 1788 as a fraternal society -- the Society of Saint Tammany or Columbian Order -- as an egalitarian alternative to the many aristocratic gentlemen's clubs founded at the time.  Comprised mainly of artisans and small merchants, the organization chose as their "patron saint" the Delaware Indian chief Tamanend (nicknamed Tammany) and employed Indian terms such as "sachem" for council member, "brave" for a rank-and-file member, and "wigwam" for their meeting hall.   The latter accounted for the organization's popular name, Tammany Hall. 
     Initially, Tammany was a social and charitable agency not connected with politics.   Tammany also had no original connection with the Irish and espoused an enthusiastic Americanism that took a dim view of foreigners.  Most Irish New Yorkers in the early republic supported Jefferson, as his party was identified with opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts (see entry #151) and support for France (by definition an anti-British posture).  However, Aaron Burr and later Martin Van Buren transformed the society into their personal political organization and promoted an agenda that appealed to the growing number of poor Irish entering the city: universal manhood suffrage, abolition of imprisonment for debt, and tolerance of ethnic and religious minorities.

315. Ronald Reagan
     Ronald Wilson Reagan was the descendant of Michael Reagan who came to the U.S. from Tipperary in 1853.   His career spanned the film industry, California's governorship, and the White House.   His presidency (1980-1988) was marked by national prosperity, increased military preparedness, and vigorous anti-Communist efforts abroad.  The latter, in combination with his diplomatic overtures to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, are seen by many as having played a key role in winning the Cold War.  Critics, however, point to the massive federal debt piled up during the 1980s.  Reagan survived an assassination attempt in 1981 and weathered the 1986 Iran-Contra scandal.
 

Part IV  Nationalism

365.  Clan na Gael
     Clan na Gael (“band of the Irish”) was founded in 1867 by journalist Jerome Collins as a revolutionary nationalist organization committed to the forceful overthrow of British rule in Ireland.  Unlike the Fenians, however, they were a secret, oath-bound society.  While this fact hampered the Clan’s growth somewhat, it also protected it from unwanted attention from British authorities.  The movement spread across the country in the early 1870s as activists established revolutionary cells from New York to San Francisco.  Ten years after its founding, with a dedicated membership of 10,000, the Clan established formal ties with the IRB in Ireland through the creation of a joint Revolutionary Directory. 

401. Hibernocentrism
     One of the products of the Gaelic revival in America was the development of what might be called a “hibernocentrist” view of Irish history -- that is, the writing of histories of America and Ireland that sought to highlight the heroic and glorious contributions of Irish people to science, art, religion, technology, war, and civilization in general.  Between the 1880s and 1920s, dozens of works of Irish history were published in the U.S., most expressing a distinctly hibernocentrist viewpoint.  In one of the more vivid works of this genre, Martin Mulroy writes in The Irish Discovery of America 1000 Years Before Columbus (1906) that Irish Celts came to America “Long before either the Italian or the Englishman had any notion of venturing from their native shores.”   For evidence, he cites St. Brendan’s diary and accounts of 17th-century French missionaries who claimed to encounter Indians who spoke both Latin and Gaelic.
     Hibernocentrism also extended to Irish American history and had the same goal in mind – to challenge the popular belief among Anglo-Americans that the Irish had arrived only recently in the United States and made few significant contributions.  If they could prove that the Irish were among the earliest settlers in America and had made important contributions to American history -- especially the American Revolution -- they could effectively undermine anti-Irish sentiment.
 

Part V  Religion

508. Early Anti-Catholic Laws
     As the number of Irish immigrants increased, many non-Irish colonists began to express anti-Irish hostility that originated in the Old World.  In the 1650s Richard Mather declared that the influx of Irish in Boston represented “a formidable attempt of Satan and his sons to unsettle us.”  Fr. Christopher A. Plunkett, a Capuchin friar born in Ireland, was imprisoned and exiled along with several other priests to Barbados by the government of Virginia in 1689-90.  In 1698 South Carolina levied a head tax on indentured servants from Ireland to discourage their emigration to the colony.  In 1704 Maryland followed suit in order to “prevent the importing of too great a number of Irish Papists.”   In 1720 the government of Massachusetts expressed concern over the sharp rise in Irish immigration to the colony and announced that they would have to leave within seven months.

515.   "Dagger John" Hughes 
     The embodiment of this trend toward an authoritarian clergy and hostility to evangelical Protestant reform was John Hughes (1797-1864), bishop of New York.  Born in County Tyrone he came to the U.S. in 1818 and soon entered Mount St. Mary’s seminary in Maryland. Ordained in 1826 he soon achieved a national reputation as a fiery pro-Catholic polemicist, engaging in several high profile “debates” in the pages of leading Protestant and Catholic newspapers.  His detractors took to calling him “Dagger John” because of his personality and the fact that he always drew a dagger-like cross under his signature.
      He was made Bishop of New York in 1842 (and Archbishop in 1850).  He became a leading figure in the reshaping of the American Catholic Church along Irish lines – that is a militant brand of worship that emphasized obedience, piety, regular worship, and reception of the sacraments -- backed by an authoritarian clergy.  Central to this plan was a program of institution building designed to insulate Catholics from the corrupting influences of American culture.  This included not just parish building, but the establishment of a vast system of parochial schools, hospitals, and orphanages, plus separate fraternal societies to compete with American ones.  On more than one occasion, Hughes mused that it might be more important to build a parochial school first, followed by the parish church.  This outlook was understandable, given the hostile environment of his era.  However, critics then and in subsequent generations have argued that in the long run Hughes’ model of defensive Catholicism hindered the full participation of Catholics in American life until the mid-20th century. 

528.  The Valiant Work of Irish Catholic Nuns
     It must be stressed that without the presence of an army of Catholic nuns, a majority of whom hailed from Ireland, none of this church and institution could have taken place.  It wasn’t enough for the bishop or pastor to raise money and build buildings.  Every school, orphanage, hospital, and home for wayward girls required trained personnel to staff them.  Nuns brought experience, dedication, and a capacity to work extremely hard.  Almost as important, they cost next to nothing to employ and thus allowed for the construction of vast complexes of educational and health-related institutions. 

542.  Fr. Edward Flanagan
     Father Edward Flanagan (1886-1948) was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, and first traveled to the United States to earn an undergraduate degree.  He was ordained in Austria in 1912 and returned to America to pastor an Omaha, Nebraska, parish.  Moved by the plight of homeless and orphaned boys, he opened Father Flanagan's Boys Home in 1917.  Filling a need, it expanded rapidly, and was renamed Boys Town in 1922.  Within 15 years Boys Town had been incorporated and added additional facilities across the state.  Flanagan died in 1948 while on an overseas fundraising trip for Boys Town.  His story was made famous in the 1938 movie Boys Town, starring Spencer Tracy.

Part VI The Military

567.  The Evacuation of Boston, March 17, 1776
      When the British Army evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776, George Washington was unable to resist the temptation to recognize the day’s significance in the eyes of so many of his soldiers.  He named John Sullivan the officer of the day and made “St. Patrick” the password for those on guard duty.   To this day, March 17 is a state holiday in Massachusetts, though few of the state’s residents seem to be aware that it is in commemoration of “Evacuation Day.”

574.  Sharpshooter Timothy Murphy, Hero of Saratoga
     Timothy Murphy (1751-1818) was born in Pike County, Pennsylvania.  He became a member of Colonel Daniel Morgan’s Rifle Corps, a fierce group of sharpshooters who were deadly accurate with their aim.  In the Battle of Saratoga, the turning point in the American Revolution, Murphy’s marksmanship killed two British commanders.  The ensuing confusion is credited as a major factor in the American victory.  Murphy became the most celebrated marksman of the war.  His contributions are immortalized with a monument at Saratoga erected by the local chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

592.  Battle of Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg
     On December 13, 1862 Union forces assaulted Confederate entrenchments along a ridge known as Marye’s apostrophe? Heights, in Fredericksburg, VA.  Fourteen waves of attackers were sent across open fields against the fortified Confederate position.  All were shattered by repeated volleys of Confederate fire.  The Irish Brigade was in the third wave, and achieved international fame with the tenaciousness of their attack.  Eliciting cheers from their Confederate adversaries, many of whom were Irish themselves, their attack collapsed when the Brigade’s officers were felled.  Of the fourteen attacks, the Irish came closest to attaining the ridge.  The Brigade was permanently crippled by the 45% losses it sustained in the attack.
     In the aftermath of the futile assault on Marye’s Heights, Gen. Robert E. Lee commented on the extraordinary courage exhibited by the men of the Irish Brigade. 
"Never were men so brave.  They ennobled their race by their splendid gallantry on that desperate occasion.  Though totally routed, they reaped a harvest of glory.  Their brilliant, though hopeless assaults on our lines excited the hearty applause of our officers and men."

622.  The Sullivan Brothers
     The five Sullivan brothers, Albert, Francis, George, Joseph and Madison, were born in Waterloo, Iowa, between 1914 and 1920.  In 1937, George and Francis enlisted in the Navy. They were followed by their three younger brothers shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor plunged the U.S. into war.  In February 1942 all five were assigned to the light cruiser, the USS Juneau. After service in the Pacific, including combat actions in the Guadalcanal Campaign, they were lost on November 13, 1942 when a Japanese submarine torpedoed and sank the ship.  The tragedy received extensive press coverage in the United States, resulting in a new Navy policy prohibiting family members from serving together in the same ship. 
     The story of the Sullivan Brothers was commemorated in the patriotic film, The Fighting Sullivans.  The Navy commemorated the Sullivans by naming a destroyer in their honor. The USS The Sullivans served the Navy until final decommissioning in 1965.  A second The Sullivans was launched in 1997 and is homeported in Mayport, Florida.
 

Part VII  Culture

641.  The Harp
     Next to the shamrock, the second most common symbol in Irish culture is the harp.  It’s everywhere in Ireland, from the backs of coins to kegs of Guinness.  This may seem somewhat strange, since the harp doesn’t figure prominently in traditional Irish music.  Prior to the subjugation of Ireland by the British in the 17th century, however, Irish harpists were famous throughout Europe and enjoyed a revered place in the old Gaelic order.  Harpists played the music that accompanied the recitations of that other famed group in Gaelic Ireland, the poets.  The harpist tradition was virtually wiped out with the Plantations and Penal Laws.  When a harp festival convened in Belfast in 1792, only eleven harpists could be found in the entire country.  The few songs written down during that event are the only connection remaining to this once essential element of Irish culture.   As with the shamrock, nationalists in the nineteenth century adopted the harp as a symbol of Irish nationhood.

642.  The Irish Flag
     Why, if they represent the clashing interests in Ireland’s troubled history, are the colors green and orange in the Irish flag?  Well, you might say it’s the product of wishful thinking.  Green has been a color associated with Ireland since the 1600s and is most likely derived (surprise) from the greenery of the Irish landscape.  The color orange dates from the 1600s as the symbol of the Protestant Ascendancy.  William III, also known as William of Orange, defeated Catholic James II in Ireland in 1691 to complete England’s “Glorious Revolution.”  The Orange Order, the Protestant organization dedicated to upholding the union between Ireland (later just Northern Ireland) and Britain, dates from 1795. 
     The earliest proposal for uniting these antagonistic symbols in a national flag dates from the 1830s.  The Young Ireland movement of the 1840s adopted the tricolor flag as a symbol of Protestant and Catholic unity.  It persisted for a few decades before giving way to the green flag with a harp.  It was in the aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916 that the tricolor was revived as the emblem of militant nationalism.  It became the official flag of the Irish Free State in 1922.  The Good Friday accord of 1998 has come as close as any effort to making the symbolic intent of the flag a reality.

658.  Mulligan
     Sometime in the early 20th century, golfers began to use the term “Mulligan” to describe a “do-over” shot allowed in an informal game.  The earliest written reference to the term is in the 1949 Dictionary of Sports: “Mulligan … a handicap of a free shot given after a player makes a bad one”.  The expression most likely does not refer to a specific individual named Mulligan, but rather to the common expression for an Irish fool.  The expression may have predated them, but great team of Harrigan and Hart certainly did the most to popularize it through their string of hit musical comedies in the 1870s and 1880s known as the Mulligan Guards.  So when casting about for a term to describe an allowance given for a foolish shot, Mulligan seemed an apt choice.  In recent years, with the booming popularity of golf among both men and women, the term has crept into general usage to describe a do-over after any sort of flub.

675.  The "Stage Irishman"
     The stage Irishman was a staple of American comedic theater for more than a century.  He was a mish-mash of stereotypes about the Irish – hilarious and fun-loving on the one hand, lazy, drunken, and violent on the other.  Even though it was their culture being ridiculed, working-class Irish flocked to theaters to see the stage Irishman.  By the late-19th century, however, many in the emerging Irish American middle class found him both embarrassing and insulting and worked to have the character eliminated from vaudeville routines.

694.  James Cagney
     Born the son of a bartender, James Cagney (1899-1896) grew up on the tough streets of New York’s Lower East Side.  Drawn to the theater, he began touring with a vaudeville troupe as a song-and-dance man with his wife Frances.  In the late 1920s he moved to Broadway and enjoyed critical success opposite Joan Blondell in the musical Penny Arcade (1929).  His performance in the film version brought him to Hollywood where he subsequently won the lead role in the movie Public Enemy (1931).  It launched his career as the classic Irish gangster and led to several more films such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Each Dawn I Die (1939), and The Roaring Twenties (1939).   Cagney broke out of the urban tough role with his Academy Award-winning performance portraying song-and-dance showman George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).  Cagney made many more films over the course of his career and received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award (1974) and the U.S. Medal of Freedom (1984).
 

Part VIII Medicine and Science

831.  Howard A. Kelly
     Dr. Howard A. Kelly (1858-1943), one of Johns Hopkins’ “Famous Four” founding physicians, arrived at the university in 1889 after teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. He established the long-term residency program in Gynecology at Johns Hopkins, which made gynecology a true specialty. Among his numerous innovations, he invented the urinary cystoscope and was among the first to use radium for cancer treatment. He founded the Kelly Clinic in Baltimore, which became a leader in radiation therapy. 

845.    Henry Stack Sullivan
     Henry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) is considered by many to be one of the great contributors to the field of psychiatry in the 20th century.  Born in upstate New York, he graduated from medical school in 1917 and immediately took a job with the Medical Corps providing mental evaluations of potential soldiers.  Sullivan spent most of the 1920s doing clinical research and in 1931 opened a private practice in New York City.  He also began to publish studies based on his research.  In so doing he proposed several novel theories of psychiatry that prompted wide debate in the field and much additional research.  Most notable was his work into schizophrenia which resulted in the disorder no longer being classified as “incurable.”

863.    Kathryn Sullivan and Eileen Collins
     The Irish American contribution to space exploration has continued in recent years with astronauts Kathryn Sullivan and Eileen Collins.  Selected by NASA in January 1978, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan became an astronaut in August 1979.  She served as Capsule Communicator in Mission Control for numerous Shuttle missions.  During her first mission she and Commander Leestma successfully conducted a 3½-hour Extravehicular Activity (EVA) to demonstrate the feasibility of satellite refueling.  She is the first American woman to perform an EVA.  In 1990 she served on the crew assigned to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1992 she was Payload Commander on NASA's Mission to Planet Earth, performing twelve experiments expected to enhance our knowledge of our climate and atmosphere.
 

Part IX Work, Business, and Innovation

869.   Marcus Daly
     A teenage-immigrant from County Cavan, Marcus Daly (1841-1900) rose from poverty to become one of America's richest men as the "Copper King" of Montana.  Originally a silver miner, Daly took an assignment with a Utah mining company to investigate the potential of a silver mine in Montana.  He recommended they purchase it and invested $5,000 of his own money.  When the mine proved profitable, he sold his share for $30,000 and used the money to by the Anaconda Silver Mine in Butte, Montana.  Daly ignored others who said the mine was spent and continued to sink shafts after the silver ran out.  Astonishingly, he made a huge strike – of copper, not silver – and soon became known as the “Copper King.”  His Anaconda Copper Company eventually became an industrial behemoth at the center of Butte, building power plants, irrigation stations, railroads, lumber mills and banks.  Daly attracted thousands of Irish miners to Butte by offering higher pay and improved industrial conditions paid for by his incredible wealth, thereby creating the most Irish town in the West.  His influence extended into politics, where as a strong Democrat he used his power and money to affect national politics and was the strongest supporter of the populist William Jennings Bryan during the 1896 presidential campaign.

881.    Emmett J. Culligan
      The founder of the world’s leading producer of water treatment products was born in a small brick house in Yankton, South Dakota.  Emmett J. Culligan (1893-1970) left college after two years and tried his hand at farming.  After service in World War I, he landed a job with a water softening company, eventually rising to become district manager for the state of Iowa.  In 1924 he started his own company, but saw it fail with the onset of the Great Depression.  It was in the 1930s that he hit upon the idea of selling softened water (as opposed to water softening equipment) to customers on a franchise basis.  He started his new company, the Culligan Zeolite Company, in 1938 and soon had 150 dealers. By the 1990s the company, now Culligan International, had more than 1,000 franchised dealers in the U.S. with expanding operations throughout the world and an annual revenue of 150 million dollars. 

893.   “No Irish Need Apply”
     In addition to hard labor, long hours, and low pay, Irish men and women also faced severe discrimination in the workplace.  Tradition has it that beginning in the 1830s, Irish workers began to see signs in factories and work sites reading “No Irish Need Apply,” or some such variation.  Some historians claim the signs never actually existed (at least to the extent claimed), but they certainly did for women domestics because their work brought them into the homes of native-born American families.  Typical was this classified ad in an 1836 newspaper:
WANTED-- An English or American woman, that understands cooking, and to assist in the work generally if wished; also a girl to do chamber work.  None need apply without a recommendation from their last place.  IRISH PEOPLE need not apply, nor anyone who will not arise at 6 o'clock, as the work is light and the wages are sure.  Inquire 359 Broadway.

925.   The Church and the Labor Question
     The Catholic Church remained staunchly anti-radical and anti-socialist, but the rights of Catholic workers to organize into unions was firmly established.  So too was the right of priests to speak more freely on social and labor Father John A. Ryan emerged as a leading spokesman for economic justice with the publication in 1906 of A Living Wage.  In this and subsequent works he summoned the authority of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and other teachings to call for social security, a living minimum wage, public housing and a more equitable tax system.  In 1911 he authored Minnesota's minimum wage bill that became law in 1913.

932.  Leonora O'Reilly
      Leonora O’Reilly (1870-1927) was born into a family steeped in labor radicalism.  Her father died when she was young, so she was raised by her mother, a garment worker and political radical.  At only age 16 she founded the Working Woman’s Society, a trade union and mutual aid society.  In 1897 she organized the first women’s local of the United Garment Workers of America.  Six years later she contributed to the founding of the New York Women’s Trade Union League.  O’Reilly’s skill as an orator and determination drew thousands of women into the labor movement.  She was also prominent in the women’s suffrage movement, the Henry Street Settlement House, and the NAACP.
 

Part X Sports

945.  Nineteenth-Century Standouts
      With so many Irish Americans playing professional baseball in its early decades, it’s not surprising to that many of the game’s earliest stars were of Irish ancestry.  Mike “King” Kelly, for example, helped the Chicago Nationals win five championships in the 1880s.  He led the league in batting in 1884 and 1886 and was a legendary base stealer, giving rise to the expression, “slide, Kelly, slide.” "Big" Ed Delahanty (one of five brothers who made the big leagues) posted a whopping career batting average of .346 and even hit four home runs in a single game.  Roger Connor was the home run king of the so-called “deadball era,” with 192 round trippers over his career to go with twelve seasons with a batting average over .300.   Joe Kelley was a standout left fielder for the Baltimore Oriles in the 1890s.  he hit over .300 in twelve consecutive seasons, including .391 in 1894.  Pitcher Tim Keefe won 342 games in fourteen seasons, twice winning more than 40 games in a single season.  He is credited with inventing the changeup.  Pud Galvin became baseball’s first 300-game winner and pitched more innings (5,959) and complete games (641) than anyone but Cy Young.

953.  TAD Dorgan
     Thomas Aloysius Dorgan, or TAD, as he was known by sports fans across the country, was born in San Francisco in 1877.   His natural talent for sketching landed him a job as a cartoonist and illustrator for the San Francisco Bulletin.  William Randolph Hearst wooed him to the New York Journal in 1902 where he focused on sports, especially his first love, boxing.  His sketches of athletes, particularly fighters, and daily cartoons were widely syndicated in papers across the country.  Dorgan is best remembered for the many expression he invented, such as the superlatives “the cat's meow” and “the cat's pajamas” and the exclamation “For crying out loud!”  He also created several slang terms to the American lexicon, including “hot dog,” “hard-boiled” (a tough guy), and “cheaters” (eyeglasses).

966.    Art Rooney
     One of the creators of the NFL, Art Rooney purchased the Pittsburgh Pirates (the future Steelers) for $2500 in racetrack winnings in 1933. His passion for horse racing was legendary. One weekend in 1936, he took $500 to the races and left with $300,000! Not one to waste money, he applied his earnings to his shrewd business dealings. 
For decades, Rooney watched the Steelers lose until the 1970s, when they became a football powerhouse, winning the Super Bowl in 1975, 1976, 1979, and 1980. True to his team, Rooney stayed on as chairman until his death at age 87.

970.   Dick and Al  McGuire
     Richard (b. 1926) and Albert McGuire (1928-2001) are the only brothers elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.  Dick McGuire played twelve NBA seasons with the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons during which he was named an NBA All-Star seven times.  He led the league in assists in 1950 and piloted the Knicks to three consecutive NBA championships (1951-1953).  As a player, he was known as “Tricky Dick” for his lightning fast moves, slick passing, and uncanny ability to find an opening.  He later coached both the Pistons and Knicks. 
     Dick McGuire’s younger brother Al made his mark in coaching college basketball.  First with Belmont Abbey and then with Marquette University, McGuire established himself as one of the game’s great motivators and teachers.  He led Marquette to eleven consecutive post-season tournament appearances, including the NIT (1970) and NCAA (1977) tournament championships.  The latter victory was the last game he coached.  He later became a highly respected analyst for televised basketball.

976.    Joe Mullen
     One of only two American-born players in the Hockey Hall of Fame, Joe Mullen (b.1957) was born in New York City.  He starred at Boston College before joining the St. Louis Blues.  Over the course of eighteen NHL seasons, Mullen became the first American-born player to tally more than 1,000 career points.  In stints with St. Louis, Calgary, Pittsburgh, and Boston, Mullen scored 40 or more goals and had 40 or more assists in six seasons.  He also won the Lady Bing Trophy for sportsmanship in 1987 and 1989.