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www.celtic-connection.com
APRIL 1999
AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE IRISH IN SEATTLE
By JOHN KEANE
EATTLE — In many cities across the United States, the Irish community is fast disappearing. The 1970 census found only 251,375 people in this country who were born in Ireland, substantially less than the 1.8 million 100 years earlier. First and second generation Irish-Americans are much more likely to marry non-Irish than Irish people, and the children of such marriages, in turn, are less likely to think of themselves as Irish.
When applied to the State of Washington, these facts would seem to suggest that the Irish community in Seattle should be small and not very active. That is not, and never was, the case. In fact, Washington ranks seventeenth among the 50 states in numbers of Irish and Irish-American residents.
In researching the early history of the Irish in the Northwest, land claim records show that as of 1856, approximately one in 12 claims in Washington Territory were made by Irish-born settlers. The majority of these people came to the U.S. both before and during the Famine years in Ireland of 1847-1850.
As a result of the Famine, many more came to the Northwest attracted by the need for unskilled laborers in lumber mills and mines. Others came when gold was discovered in the Klondike, and when word spread about fortunes ready to be made. Once these immigrants settled here, their relatives came to join them in increasing numbers, especially during and after the turbulent years of the Irish War of Independence (1916-1921).
The Irish in Seattle in the early years of this century are remembered by
Nellie Cullen Nolan, now the oldest active Irish-born member of Seattle's Irish community. Nellie came to Seattle in 1924 to join her Irish aunt, Bridget Mannion Aylward.
In the late 1890s, her aunt had travelled to the Klondike as cook for an expedition led by a Captain Healy and she ended up mining for gold on her own. She later settled in Seattle where; at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, she was named Queen of Alaska.
When Bridget Aylward's niece arrived in Seattle, there was already a fledgling Irish club here, then called the American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic.
The club met regularly for Irish dances and picnics. Although membership waned in the Thirties and Forties when the Irish Free State achieved worldwide recognition, there was always an annual Irish picnic. Members took the ferry across Lake Washington to Fortuna Park, and the picnic always included a game of Irish football.
This group was the only active Irish club in Seattle until 1941, when another Irish organization called The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick was started. This national organization
CAROLANS IRISH CREAM Indulge in the Finest
was originally established before the Revolutionary War and had George Washington as an honorary member.
In the Eighties, in response to threats from the "angry daughters of St. Brigid," the all-male Friendly Sons modernized, welcomed women as members and changed its name to the Friends of St. Patrick. Still going strong, they hold an annual black-tie affair that mainly attracts members of Seattle's professional community.
After the Second World War, there was another Irish influx. These were mostly young single people who came to the Northwest because they had relatives here.
In addition, many priests and nuns were brought to Seattle from Ireland by the local Catholic Church to compensate for shortages here. Encouraged by several of those priests, the newly arrived Irish organized the Gaelic Club in 1952, which in 1958 became the Irish-American Club.
While membership was open to everyone, the club president was required to be Irish-born. This club was very active, organizing monthly meetings, dances, and Gaelic football games.
In summer, Gaelic football was the club's focus. This is a distinctively Irish sport combining elements of soccer, Australian football, and rugby. Usually played "15-a-side" with a round ball, the game features high catching, hand and foot passing of the ball, and fast action throughout.
In the Sixties, the Seattle team tried to become active in the North American Gaelic Athletic Association, which had been organized in Cleveland in 1951 to promote Gaelic football competitions in North America. But, since most games were held in the eastern states, the cost of travel was prohibitive.
The Seattle team members were almost all Irish-born and most of them were Catholic priests which also hindered arranging out-of-town games.
A few games were held with teams from Vancouver, B.C., and San Francisco, but by 1964, the Gaelic Club football team had ceased to exist.
Besides playing Gaelic football, Irish dancing was another way people born in Ireland could pass on a taste of their heritage to their children born here. There are two main kinds of Irish dancing.
Step dancing is performed mainly in exhibition or competition and requires a great deal of skill and practice. The emergence of this style of dancing is now more
popular than ever because of shows like River-dance. Ceili dancing requires only an elementary knowledge of some basic steps, in many respects it can be compared to American square dancing.
At first, step dancers had to travel out of state to participate in Irish dance competitions. The first Seattle international feis (Irish Dance Festival) was held in March 1977, and since then, there has been at least one feis every year in Seattle. Today, there are at least eight Irish dancing schools in the Seattle area, and the numbers involved in both kinds of Irish dancing grow each year.
Though the Irish in Seattle have always celebrated St. Patrick's Day, there was no official St. Patrick's Day parade in Seattle until 1972. That first parade was held as a solidarity march in response to the killing of 13 civil rights demonstrators in Deny the previous January.
A new organization, the Irish Festivities Committee, took over the organizing of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in 1973 and also organized a Proclamation Luncheon at which local politicians proclaimed March 10-17 as Irish Week.
In 1982, the first official visit of a representative of the Irish Government to Seattle occurred when the Consul General from San Francisco participated in the Irish Week Proclamation Luncheon.
Since the demise of the Gaelic Club football team, one of the major Irish activities missing in Seattle was Gaelic football. It was no wonder then that, in 1979, yet another club, the Seattle Gaels Gaelic Football Club was organized exclusively to promote Gaelic football.
Unlike the Gaelic Club of the Fifties, this new club placed emphasis on building a team around American-born players who were mostly but not always of Irish extraction.
In 1980, the club affiliated with the North American Gaelic Athletic Association and travelled to San Francisco to compete as in the North American Gaelic Football Championships.
By 1982, the
Irish-American Club, Irish Festivities, and the Seattle Gaels were all going strong, but many times their activities clashed.
Because of the cross- membership, there was much duplication of effort in sponsoring dances and concerts. The three clubs finally decided to combine resources and efforts in 1983 under the new name of the Irish Heritage Club.
Membership and interest have skyrocketed since. There are now over 600 paid members of the Irish Heritage Club. The Irish Heritage Club is also much more active than the original three clubs.
In 1983, members of the Irish Heritage Club, the Friends of St. Patrick and others worked together to form the Seattle Ireland Sister City Association. This new group, required by the city to be a separate organization, was instrumental in the establishment of an official sister-city relationship between Seattle and Galway in 1986.
An official Seattle delegation led by former Governor John Spellman traveled to Galway to formally sign the agreement in 1988. In 1993, to further mark the relationship, a monument was unveiled in Galway by then-Seattle City Council President George Benson.
The limestone monument carries on a bronze marker the geophysical data of Seattle — its longitude, latitude, distance and time difference, and an arrow pointing in the true direction of Seattle, and plans are underway for a similar monument in Seattle to be unveiled in March, 2000, which will carry the geophysical data of Galway.
The Mayor of Galway, Alderman Michael Leahy, in March of 1998 was the seventh Galway mayor to participate in Seattle's Irish Week celebrations. Seattle was also represented at Gal-way's 1999 St. Patrick's Day parade. An annual student-exchange exists between the University of Washington and University College Galway.
Until a few years ago, the numbers of young Irish-born people annually migrating to Seattle had increased substantially, attracted by its hip reputation and lifestyle as well as the employment opportunities.
The number of incoming young Irish has since dropped to a trickle, but the number of establishments in Seattle catering to them continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
Most people would agree that the first genuine Irish Pub in Seattle to cater specifically to the young Irish was Murphy's in the Wallingford district in the late Seventies. In 1999, there are over a dozen such establishments which claim the "genuine Irish" title and more are coming.
Having lived in and visited many other U.S. cities with larger Irish populations, I can honestly say that the Irish spirit in Seattle is alive and well, and that there need be very few twinges of anxiety about the future of Seattle's Irish community.