There is a lot to love about St. Patrick’s Day, whether it’s getting decked out in green, indulging in a cold beer (green or otherwise), partaking in the holiday staple that is corned beef and cabbage, or enjoying a St. Patty’s parade. It’s all about Irish pride, but for those who may not be Irish themselves, it’s about honoring the contributions made to our communities by Irish Americans, and celebrating alongside them.
According to the website Irishcentral.com, people who are of Irish ancestry make up 24% of the population in Rhode Island, which is behind only to Massachusetts at 28%, and surprisingly, Delaware, at 24.5%.
The impact Irish Americans have had on our state is more than just sheer population numbers. Their contributions over the past two centuries have been significant, and continue to this day.
Rhode Island experienced its first real wave of emigrants from Ireland in the early 1820s. They came seeking work, which usually involved manual labor, such as the digging of the Blackstone Valley channel. It was a hard existence that was not without a degree of discrimination that had to be tolerated. “Diggers,” like Michael Reddy, not only persevered, but thrived. Reddy was believed to be the first Catholic to take up permanent residence in Woonsocket. He settled on Front Street, as a farmer, becoming a leader in the growing Irish community, and organizing the first Catholic service there in 1828. As a result, Woonsocket became a stronghold for Irish immigrants, but in the 1840s, Rhode Island saw a massive influx of Irish fleeing their homeland, as a result of the “Great Hunger,” or the “Great Famine” (aka The Irish Potato Famine), a period of starvation and disease in Ireland that lasted from 1845 to 1852. During this time, roughly
1 million people died, and more than 2 million more fled the country, causing a loss of nearly a quarter of its population, and creating one of the greatest exoduses from a single island, in history. It was this tragedy, in part, that brought many of the Irish to our shores, and by the end of the 19th century, the Irish became the largest ethnic group in Rhode Island.
Joseph Banigan was the first Irish Catholic millionaire in Providence. A young Banigan, along with his parents, was part of the wave of Irish‑Catholic refugees, who fled the Potato Famine in Ireland. Arriving in Rhode Island in 1847 at eight years old, he dropped out of school a year later and began working, apprenticing in the jewelry industry and learning about the production of rubber products. He was only twenty years of age, when he discovered a way to bypass the vulcanization patent of Charles Goodyear, and in 1867, he opened the Woonsocket Rubber Company. According to the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, Banigan employed a progressive agenda, ranging from labor relations, to the latest production methods to build his venture into the premier establishment of its kind, in the United States. He sold his company in 1893, for a whopping $9,000,000, and in 1896, he built Providence’s first skyscraper, the ten-story Banigan Building on Weybosset Street. Banigan’s philanthropic endeavors included establishing the Home for the Aged Poor, St. Vincent De Paul Infant Asylum, St Joseph’s Hospital, and St. Maria’s Home for Working Girls.
Bishop Thomas Francis Hendricken, born in Kilkenny, was ordained the first bishop of Providence in 1872. Hendricken oversaw construction of the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, in Providence, and Warwick’s Bishop Hendricken High School was named in his honor.
John Treacy, a native of Villierstown, County Waterford, was a long-distance runner, who graduated from Providence College in 1978, and won a silver medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. His brother, Ray Treacy, a 1982 PC graduate, has been a highly successful head coach/director of cross country and track at Providence College, for the past 39 years.
Patrick J. McCarthy became Providence’s first foreign-born mayor in 1906, which was by no means an easy accomplishment. McCarthy was born in County Sligo, Ireland, and emigrated in 1850, at age two. After losing both his parents to typhus, he spent his childhood being shuffled between various relatives and orphanages. He took whatever work he could, taking classes at night, and eventually earned a Harvard law degree, after which he relocated to Providence and entered the political arena.
J. Joseph Garrahy, a son of Irish immigrants, was our state’s 53rd governor, serving from 1977 to 1985. Providence-born Garrahy was referred to as the ‘people’s governor,’ and is best known for how he handled the state during the weather-related crisis that was The Blizzard of ’78.
Irish women contributed greatly to the state’s economy, as well, working in textiles mills and becoming teachers, ultimately changing labor relations forever. Others shattered early glass ceilings, including Florence Kerins Murray, who was a high-ranking officer in the Women’s Army Corps during WWII. Murray became the first woman to be elected to the state senate. In 1956, she was the first woman appointed as a superior court judge, in Rhode Island, and in 1978, she was appointed chief justice of the Rhode Island Superior Court. The Newport County Courthouse was renamed the Florence K. Murray Judicial Complex in 1990, the first time a courthouse in the United States was named in honor of a female jurist.
These are only some of the most well-known Irish Americans who’ve made impactful contributions to Rhode Island. There have been, and continue to be, untold numbers of Irish Americans who are part of the rich, historical fabric of our state. This is what we all celebrate on St. Patrick’s Day each year. However, you may choose to show your appreciation for all that the Irish have done for Rhode Island by wearing green socks or drinking green beer; March 17th is the one day each year, when we are all Irish.