For one day of the year — or two, if you’ve found a really good party — every one of us is an honorary Irishman. But if you’re going to pass yourself off as authentic Cleveland Irish, you’d better get to know a few of the key mileposts that mark your heritage. Read up, drink up, and be merry.
The first wave of Irish immigrants arrived in Cleveland around 1820, though their numbers didn’t grow significantly until very bad potatoes drove them here en masse in the late 1840s. Interestingly, this same phenomenon also drove thousands of Hardee’s customers to McDonald’s back in 1983.
The first Cleveland Irish were instrumental in building the Ohio & Erie Canal, which paved the way for Hot Topic and other forms of mass commerce in the region.
Most early immigrants were farmers hailing from County Mayo in western Ireland, where they were already very good at being dirt poor. Upon arrival, most took up labor in the shipyards or steel mills, with a privileged few earning similarly miserable work aboard cargo vessels.
Most Irish settled around the marshy banks of the Cuyahoga River’s mouth, particularly on the bend of the river known as the Angle. By 1830, they had a distillery there, which prompted the name “Whiskey Island” and the realization that drunken Irish people cannot tell what an island actually is.
As the number of Irish swelled to several hundred by the mid-1820s, Cleveland natives grew discontented with the substandard version of English that had been foisted upon them and the poor manner in which the Irish behaved themselves in public. This continues to be a widespread problem today.
The first Irish church in Cleveland was called St. Mary’s on-the-Flats on Columbus Road. Christened in 1826, it was torn down in 1886, though Bishop Lennon probably would have whacked it by now anyway.
In 1847, a French missionary named Louis Amadeus Rappe became the first Roman Catholic bishop in the north of Ohio and a staunch protector of the woebegone Irish who had settled here out of desperation. His efforts led to an influx of priests and cash to the region, which means that, yes, Irish Clevelanders: French people actually saved your ass once.
In 1853 and 1854, Bishop Rappe created two parishes: one on the east side of the Cuyahoga (for mill workers) and one on the west (where most Irish lived). The eastsiders eventually assimilated into eastside suburban culture, which is why we have crap like corned beef burritos today.
In the 19th century, the Cleveland Leader reported that 60 percent of all criminal activity was caused by Irishmen. This fact 1) does not speak well for the largely Irish police force of the time, and 2) makes the Cleveland Leader our favorite dead newspaper.
By 1870, the Irish population in Cleveland had reached its peak of about 10 percent of the total population, with some 10,000 displaced Irish calling the region home. Today, some 172,000 Cuyahoga County residents claim Irish heritage, though only 67,000 of them hold political office.
By 1970, the region’s Irish had scattered such that no true Irish neighborhoods remained. Also, you couldn’t find a pint of Guinness to save your life, and everybody was drinking something called “Hillbilly Joose.” And don’t get us started on the pants people wore back then. Jesus.
By the mid-1970s, labor leader and freelance mobster Danny Greene cemented his reputation as one of Cleveland’s all-time great Irishmen, which really isn’t saying much for the rest of you.
Happily, rich vestiges of Irish culture remain today, most notably in the form of beautiful churches that people aren’t allowed into, plentiful bars with names like The Flying Shamrock, and shopping carts full of cheap green crap sold on the streets of downtown every St. Patrick’s Day.
Speaking of downtown on St. Patrick’s Day …
THE PARADE
The first Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day parade is guessed to have taken place in 1867. In the early years, the parade marched through the near- westside (from the Flats to Detroit-Shoreway) where the region’s Irish immigrants were concentrated. The songs and dancing were organized by the Order of the Hibernians.
The Order of the Hibernians is America’s oldest Irish fraternal organization, founded in 1836.
In 1910, State Sen. Dan Mooney introduced a bill which recognized St. Patrick’s Day in Ohio.
In 1912, more than 100,000 people traveled to Cleveland for the St. Patrick’s Day parade to welcome home local boxer Johnny Kilbane, who had just won the world featherweight championship in Los Angeles. (He would retain the title until 1923.) To date, the 1912 parade is one of the biggest and most well-attended in Cleveland’s history.
Every year, a Grand Marshal is chosen to preside over the Cleveland parade. This is an honorary title given to a man — usually a senior — who has contributed to the advancement of Irish activities in Cleveland. This recognition has been part of the ceremony since 1935. Since 1963, a “Mother of the Year” has been recognized as well. This honor is given to “a woman whose life has reflected credit on the Irish nationality.”
LOCAL FLAVOR
Ohio City’s Great Lakes Brewing Company was founded by Dan and Pat Conway in 1988. The Irish brothers were graduates of St. Edward High School.
The motto for the Standard Brewing Company, founded in 1904 by Stephen S. Creadon and John T. Feighan was “Erin Brew, Erin Brah” (Ireland Brew, Ireland Forever).
The Flat Iron Cafe, opened in 1910, is considered Cleveland’s oldest Irish pub. (Newer local notables: the Harp, P.J. McIntyre’s, the Public House, Stone Mad)
WE KNEW THEM WHEN!
Cleveland Irishman and mid-century TV celeb Phil Donahue was a member of the first graduating class of St. Edward High School, in 1953, and then went on to attend that paragon of Irish collegiality, the University of Notre Dame.
Clevelander Anne O’Hare McCormick was the first woman to join the New York Times’ editorial board and the first woman to win a major category Pulitzer Prize (1937). She cut her teeth as an associate editor of the local religious rag the Catholic Universe Bulletin.
Irish-American mobster Danny Greene started his own crew of underworld enforcers he called the Celtic Club back in the ’70s. He did battle with the local Italian mafia and set off a violent mob war that resulted in 35 car bombs erupting in the streets of Cleveland during the conflict. (The “Irish Car Bomb,” coined in 1979 in Connecticut, was inspired by both the sectarian violence in Ireland at the time and Cleveland’s own street wars.)
The 2011 film Kill the Irishman was actually filmed on location in Detroit. Actor Ray Stevenson, who played Danny Greene, said at the time that Detroit of the ’00s resembled the economic hardship of Cleveland in the ’70s.
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2019.
This article is an example of lazy journalism. I don’t even think I would call it journalism. It’s attempts at humor at the expense of those who are proud of their Irish culture are not well accepted. It’s focus on St. Patrick’s Day as a drunken celebration and on the Irish as “Drunken” people is offensive. The writer of this article should be identified and made attend the respectful Irish masses and celebrations that occur on St. Patrick’s Day. The writer should interview the hard working Cleveland Irish who work diligently to sponsor the parade to showcase their heritage and culture.
Nice hit job on the Irish, Scene Staff Writers. Danny Greene, who no honest and hardworking Irishman would ever hold in high regard, would be proud of you. Looking forward to your hit job on the Italians when the Feast comes around and on African Americans on MLK Day. You should be ashamed.
Perhaps if you had interviewd anyone from the UNITED IRISH SOCIETIES they would have told you how offensive this dribble would be to those of Irish descent. Shame on you for lowering yourself to tabloid journalsm.
This is very insulting article directed at Irish-Americans.
I dare you to write something of this vulgar about African-Americans or Muslim-American!
For reason you find it perfectly acceptable to write this kind of sh*t and insult the Irish heritage and culture.
TOTALLY DISGUSTING!!!!
Clearly, the writer thought they were being funny…they were not. Any time you poke fun at any group of people, be they grouped by national identity, color, creed, etc, you are being offensive. That kind of journalism scrapes the bottom of the bucket. Sad that Scene magazine felt the need to go there…my opinion of you as an upstanding journalistic organization has been diminished. Shame on you!
An educated and diligent writer would have told the story about the true struggles of the Irish immigrants; the hard working people that helped build what is America today, and how they really celebrate St. Patrick’s day. Where is the reporting on the number of Irish that attend mass in the morning before the parade? or the countless hours of practice for the dancers, pipers, drill teams, bagpipers & drummers – many of them children. Why the stereotypical crap? Who does that really interest? There’s not an ounce of humor in this article only a bunch of snark and a whole lot of offensiveness. Learn the true culture of the Irish before you decide to write again!
Why should the Irish not be offended when all other groups in America can be? We are a proud people and work hard to promote our heritage. Another comment is correct, please attend one of our Masses and see how reverent the day is to us.
If you have the courage to write such a bigoted and xenophobic article about the Irish community you should also have the courage to use a by line. A lazy, poorly written, unresearched piece of garbage with copied and plagiarized snippets of actual articles. To the “author” please have the decency to identify yourself and apologize for your ignorance.
I’m not even Irish and i find this offensive. These “writers” couldn’t handle one day in the life of an early Irish American. Get a life.
I’m no Cleveland Irishman…I’m Heebernian…and I wasn’t even born here, so most folks would call me a “fake Clevelander: because I didn’t grow up here and have no family here and have only been here since the early Nineties. But Christ on a cracker, even I could tell what a POS this story is, after just ONE read -through…
* “Real” irish folk don’t crap themselves up like that idiot in the image you ran…which you also ran LAST year, and showed the same moron. Only wannabees dress like that when it’s in the 20s with a wind chill of twelve. Look beyond his left jaw…see the white line? it’s the horizon…and the lake is FROZEN SOLID. Who does this shit?
^ No true Irish neighborhoods? Ever been to West Park, or isn’t it cool enough for the likes of you hipsters? You never heard of the “Green Mile” of Irish bars on Lorain, between West 150th and Rocky river Drive? The area is also known as “Little Dublin”, and has the most partying before and after the downtown parade. Wake up!
* Speaking of the parade, who cares about 1912? A lousy hundred thousand? Have you bozos already forgotten 2012? The trains were full by 9 AM and the RTA ran out of rail cars for the rest of the day, because half-a-million people decided to show up on a 77-degree day. Were you asleep, or what? The only gathering that outdid that circus was the Cavs’ victory parade, which was the equivalent of about FIVE St. Patty’s parades in a normal year. But 2012 was not a normal year. We will probably never see anything like that again in our lifetimes.
* It’s Erin Bragh…not Brah…as in “Erin Go Bragh”…or, when all the Pattys and Patricias and Shelaghs and Erins skank themselves up for the parade and the bar-hopping…it’s “Erin Go Braghless”…
* Lastly, your punch lines are lame and they really stink. This story was one big waste of space and keystrokes.
You tried to be funny and you fell flat on your sorry ass, which is where you’d land if you told any of these stupid jokes in a “real” West Side Irish bar, and not one of those chain saloons or phony greened-up places with names like Kitty O’Shea’s or Shitty O’Kay’s or whatever the hell they call themselves.
This story needs to be taken down and replaced by something respectful that pays tribute to the many ,and varied accomplishments of Cleveland’s Irish community. And the first paragraph should be preceded by a heartfelt apology. You like to call Cleveland your home, right? Hell, the Irish BUILT your city!
If you were trying to be funny, you failed. This is highly offensive in so many ways. As a person whose ancestors were those who were among the dirt poor you wrote about, their hard work and commitment to their city and country far surpasses your apparent competence. This is a dark day for Scene Magazine.
This attempt at satire falls short. You should leave it for a talented writer that would be proud enough to use their name and take credit for it.
This article is disgusting. Its full of racism and arrogance. However, I actually pity the author. In addition to the offensiveness of the content, its replete with rambling incoherence and terrible grammar. I would have thought that a child wrote it had the content not been of such a mature nature. The editors that allowed this person to humiliate himself or herself were excersizing compassion in withholding the authors name. Nevertheless, someones feeble attempt at journalism just failed so spectacularly that they likely will be forever relegated to internet trolling. Its difficult to mad at someone this stupid and this bad at what they do.
And for some reason my post deleted all of my apostrophes. Maybe the authors are subject to the same technological limitations… lol
This is a straight forward case of Europhobia and specifically Irishphobia. The writer and editor should be charged with hate speech, doxxed, and have their careers ruined.
The funniest thing about this is the writer didn’t realize this is more or less his resignation. He’ll be fired shortly for writing this idiotic lazy and pretty culturally insulting drivel about the ppl that run Cleveland. Slainte.
Marxism and Maoism had nothing to do with it…it was an attempt to be funny that crashed and burned like a 737. Enough with the SJW crap and cultural institutions. Save the lecture for the Plain Dealer comment boards.
Yeah, O’ Clown…save all that right-wing bushwah for your redneck PD pals. Politics has nothing to do with it.
Lighten up Irish freaks.
As the daughter and wife of Irish immigrants, I am disgusted at this article. If you were any type of journalist, and I use the term lightly, you would have done some research. You could have started with The United Irish Society, The East or West Side Irish American Clubs, The Ancient Order of Hibernians, any Catholic Church in WestPark (you know where it is as you named quite a few of our local pubs/restaurants.). The true Irish celebrate this Holy Day with family and friends. An Irish breakfast followed by Mass at any number of churches, with the big one on the West side being at St. Colmans, then off to the Parade. Did you even know the reason that the parade steps off at 2:04 pm? No, I bet you dont. It is because the American and Irish National Anthems are sung before it steps off. Thats just a little bit of a St. Patricks Day in the life of a true Irishman. I will leave you with this though….Cead Mile Failte in your new job! Youll need all the welcomes you can get!
If you write an artist like this, at least have the courage to place your name on the piece. It is cowardly to hide behind the title Scene Staff.
Who in their right minds allowed this article to be published? Was the journalist trying to escape their career? Surely they should be given what they clearly want- to be fired. And then to wimp out and leave it anonymous! I hope every Irish business person in this community pulls out from funding this blanantly racist, ignorant, and thoughtless news site.
For many of us in the Cleveland Irish Community, St. Patrick’s Day is a time to celebrate our faith, our family, our heritage, and our city. Our day starts with Mass, followed by a quick lunch as we head downtown to march in the Parade. It is a day filled with our family and friends, music and dance, love and laughter. We celebrate the strength and courage our ancestors had to leave their homeland in hopes providing a better life for their children, free or persecution and poverty. We honor our Catholic faith, and the fact that we have the freedom to practice our religion, We enjoy the talents of our many Irish musicians and dancers, skills honed through years of dedicated practice. To have it ridiculed like this is unacceptable.
The asshole that “wrote” this is too much of a coward to put their name on it.
The author of this shitslab of hate speech is a feckless cunt. What a cowardly no talent pile of shit. Scene should take this vomit pile down. I feel embarrassed for you.
You had the perfect opportunity to write about Cleveland’s rich Irish American history and instead chose to slander the culture and make fun of a plight that killed so many people. Is this supposed to be funny? It is horribly offensive.
posa bruscar!
This is one of the worst pieces of racist drivel Ive ever read.
Which piece of shit wrote and when are they fired?
Who wrote this racist drivel? When were they fired?
Cleveland Scene has hit an all time low.
I’m hoping that for every positive comment about this story, there are a hundred negative ones. Then maybe they will get the message and delete this atrocity. Been a SCENE reader for decades, and this has to be one of the biggest blunders they have ever published. Racist, unfunny, and just plain stupid as hell, with very little redeeeming value whatsoever. Especially that image claiming to be “your average Cleveland parade goer”…an image of a POS that sets the tone for the whole festering mess that follows.
Or maybe…MAYBE…this is just clickbait…get people to read it and get them pissed off and typing angry responses and somehow, the advertising rates go up. Maybe there’s a method behind this madness. Do you like being used by being abused? Yeah, I didn’t think so! And neither do I!
This is either pathetic attempt at humor or a deliberate mocking of the Irish. Do better.
NEWSFLASH: 50 Muslims killed in terrorist attacks on New Zealand mosques, which means a similar hatchet job on Muslims will appear in this space next week.
And Passover will begin in about another month (4/19), so you guys and dolls had better start collecting those Jewish jokes (for the ends of each paragraph) RIGHT NOW! It’s never too early for insulting ethnic humor!
Douchebags,I cant believe you printed this,even in your rag of a magazine.At the very least the author should have the balls to claim his work so that a drunken Irishman could properly smack the shit out of him for this abortion of an article.
This artical is completely disgusting .. the author(s) hiding behind, ssw…. a group of idiots.. as the Granddaughter of Irish immigrants to NYC, then onto Cleveland, I find this repulsive.. You, Cleveland Scene Staff Writer(s) need to retract.. obviously you are oblivious to the Irish American community in Cleveland, I would venture to say, Cleveland is more than 75 percent Irish… I am proud of my Heritage.. You should be ashamed of yourself.
No, it’s not 75% Irish, but the Irish probably think it’s that high. Maybe half that number, which is still a LOT.
I love you make light of the infamous 19th century potato famine. Will it be another 150 years until you make fun of the current famine in Yemen or can we cut to the chase?
What a disgusting article and a slap in the face to those of us with Irish heritage. We’re proud of our lineage. I couldn’t even finish this article. Scene – you should fire this writer or at the very least issue an apology.
Since this article was written by the Scene Staff as opposed to one individual, I bid the entire staff a collective GO F*%K YOURSELVES. And it is truly sad that there’s no mention of Kamm’s Corners which maintains it’s proud Irish heritage while also being ethnically diverse. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of the city’s fire and police still live there even though they no longer have to. The housing market there is booming and the businesses are thriving. Thanks for the “History” lesson.
agree with all of the above
Grandma and Grandpa Moran would not approve
Pg mo thin to the writers
Bugs Moran and Dion O “Banion wouldn’t approve, either. Hell, even Al Capone would be disgusted by this.