The Luck of the Irish

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Currently events around the world are being reevaluated as preventative measures against spreading this year's coronavirus. Cities like Boston and Chicago have canceled popular St. Patrick's Day activities to avoid drawing crowds. Locally officials have canceled the thirteenth annual Horseheads St. Patrick's Day parade, and postponed the gathering attempt to break last year's record for the largest human shamrock.

Horseheads parade from the past

St. Patrick's Day has been celebrated since the beginning of the 17th century and odds are it will be widely celebrated again. Various traditions and customs associated with the holiday have fairly recent roots. Contributing to this, today more people claiming Irish ancestry live outside of Ireland than the  Irish population living within its borders. Here in Chemung County the 2010 census reported 9% or just under 8,000 people who claimed Irish ancestry.

The United States has always attracted people from around the world, looking for a chance to make a new life for themselves and their families. Here in the 1700s, at least three early white settlers were Irish. They arrived as soldiers accompanying Irish American General John Sullivan on his 1779 military campaign to wipe out the Native populations. Impressed with the fertile valley, Abijah Ward and brothers John and William Fitzsimmons returned to the area to settle and farm.  

For many immigrants, including the Irish, it wasn't easy to assimilate into American life. As a group, the Irish were viewed with suspicion set apart by their accents, funny religious practices and culture. Being Irish in America during the 1800s really wasn't so lucky.

It wasn't particularly lucky for the Irish back in Ireland either. Ireland was in the midst of successive years of  potato blight, a time known as the Potato Famine. Conditions were so bad that Ireland's population decreased by one-fourth. Many died, and others fled the country. 

In 1848 gold was discovered in California. The Gold Rush lured 75,000 people west, including many Irish newly arrived in the United States. Estimates of mining camp populations put the Irish workers at 10 - 20%. The phrase 'Luck of the Irish' comes from this time. It was used sarcastically to describe random luck that didn't require any skills.

That luck began to change towards the end of the century when the sheer number of Irish Americans grew. Once shunned, now their sizable and growing population offered an influential political voting block called "The Green Machine." Politicians courted the Irish American vote, and curried favor by appointing many to public offices.

Today people continue to celebrate their Irish ancestry, and St. Patrick's Day is the most widely celebrated national holiday around the world.

In Ireland, March 17th is observed as a national holiday with citizens getting the day off. Once a purely religious holiday, observations have taken a more secular turn. Many traditions we associate with the holiday started here in the United States.

The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place, not in Ireland but in New York City in 1762. It was organized by homesick Irish soldiers fighting for the British. Together soldiers marched and sang through the streets as a sign of comradery.

The color green, called "Irish Green" in Ireland, is called "Kelly Green" here. Kelly was first used in 1917 as slang to refer to anyone Irish or Irish American. The closest authentic Irish surname is O'Callagah. 

Kiss me I'm Irish comes from the good luck one is supposed to gain when he/she kisses the legendary Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle in Cork, Ireland. Elsewhere it's become good luck and a good excuse to kiss anyone of Irish ancestry.

Things like Green Beer, Lucky Charms, and Sexy Leprechauns all fall into the category of questionable origins. They are a nod to the change that has happened over the years. Now it's desirable to be Irish, even if it's just for a day.

Slainte!
 

Last year's Human Shamrock

This Photo of a Dirigible Over Elmira is Fake!

by Erin Doane, Curator

“The Pageant of Decision” was a massive theatrical production that celebrated the Sesquicentennial of the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign.  On September 28, 1929, 2,000 local participants in Elmira performed the 17-act pageant on a half-mile wide outdoor stage on the slope of East Hill in front of nearly 75,000 spectators. The above photo from CCHS’s archive shows the Navy dirigible Los Angeles hovering over the pageant crowd. It is a wonderful, striking image. Too bad it’s fake.

The crowd shown is indeed gathered for the pageant in Elmira on September 28, but the Los Angeles was not there that Saturday afternoon. The massive airship, in fact, had flown over Elmira one week earlier on September 21. A photo that appeared in the Star-Gazette after the pageant show the exact same image (though a slightly wider view) without the dirigible.

Star-Gazette, September 30, 1929

The USS Los Angeles was a 658-foot-long rigid airship built in Germany in 1923-1924 as part of reparations after World War I. It was delivered to the U.S. Navy in 1924. It was primarily used as an observatory and experimental platform and as a training ship. In 1929, Congressman John Taber of Auburn arranged to have the dirigible fly from its base in Lakehurst, New Jersey up to Geneva on September 21 where it would circle the pageant being held there to commemorate the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign. (“The Pageant of Decision” was actually performed all across New York State in 1929.) So, the Los Angeles did appear at a pageant, just not at Elmira’s pageant. And it actually showed up early to the Geneva one, much to the disappointment of those in attendance.

The original plan was for the Los Angeles to leave Lakehurst on the morning of September 21, passing over Elmira around noon and arriving in Geneva in time to circle above their pageant, which began at 2:00pm. Instead, because of the weather conditions, the dirigible left New Jersey at 5:45 Friday evening, which changed its arrival time in Geneva to 7:30am on Saturday. The flight was non-stop, as there was no place for the airship to land except for in an emergency, so even though it circled the town for about half an hour, very few people there got to see it.

In Elmira, folks were also disappointed by the early passing of the massive airship, but it actually ended up passing over Elmira twice that day. At 5:40am, people who were awake and in the streets at that time could hear the dirigible’s motors droning as it passed over the city. The fog was so thick, however, that it was not visible. When Representative Gale H. Stalker of Elmira learned about the unexpectedly early flyover obscured by fog, he wired naval authorities to express his dissatisfaction. Navy officials then communicated with Lieutenant Commander Charles Rosendahl on the Los Angeles, and ordered him to return to Lakehurst by way of Elmira.

So, at noon on September 21, the Los Angeles sailed majestically over Elmira, bathed in sunlight. It lazily droned in from the northeast, cruised down the center of the city at an elevation of only about 1,000 feet, and then disappeared to the southeast. The original plan was for the dirigible to pass over the city at noon, so the only thing that really changed was the direction in which people saw it traveling. The newspapermen and cameramen of the Star-Gazette climbed onto the roof of their building to cover the story.

Photo taken from the roof of the Star-Gazette building 

Saturday, September 21, 1929. The towers are those of 

the First Presbyterian Church.

The Star-Gazette reported that when the airship passed overhead Elmira came to a standstill. “Husbands phoned their wives at home, binoculars and telescopes were brought forth, cameras were hastily adjusted and restaurants and offices were vacated and points of vantage were sought. Even automobiles were stopped in the streets, the drivers and passengers peering upward and hoping, no doubt, that no policeman would come along to spoil it by making them move on.” There was no waving of handkerchiefs or cheering, however, as everyone was too impressed to become vocal.

So, the USS Los Angeles did fly over Elmira and 75,000 people did gather the watch “The Pageant of Decision” in Elmira, but those two events did not happen at the same time or even on the same day. Why, then, do we have a photograph that indicates that they did? I, frankly, have no idea. Perhaps some photographically-talented trickster was just having a little fun back in the day, never expecting his or her creative image to become part of a museum’s collection. We will probably never know, but it is important to set the history straight.