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Irish Week 2003
Local Events
FRIDAY MARCH 12, 2004
12:30 p.m., 4th Avenue, Downtown Seattle.
The mini-Parade to put a green stripe down the
center of 4th Ave, to mark the route of the St.
Patrick's Day Parade, takes place the night before
the St. Patrick's Day Parade. That means that
this year, the Green Stripe will be on Friday,
March 12, starting at 7 PM. Participants gather
at F X McRory's at 6:30 PM to ride the Truck
or Trolley up to Prefontaine Park.
The stripe runs from 4th Ave and Jefferson to
Westlake Park, a distance of about one mile.
Anyone and everyone is invited to come along
for the 'craic' - a Gaelic word meaning "a
lot of fun'.
Learn more. (external link)
Other Events
Find information on other
St. Patrick's Day events at the
Irish Heritage Club Web site (external link)
Everybody is Irish on St. Patrick's Day! Join in the fun and celebrate!
Other Links
Following are links of interest which will take you to sites outside of the King County Web:
» The Irish Heritage Club - a non-profit, non-political, non-religious
organization that organizes and promotes Irish cultural activities in the Seattle area.
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Erin go bragh!
And welcome to our Irish Heritage page! From the legendary spiritual
leader St. Patrick to the revolutionary artist James
Joyce, the people of Ireland have contributed much to
world culture for thousands of years.
Here we hope you will learn more about Irish Heritage in
King County and find some of the greenest
information around!
Irish history
 Although relatively small in size, the Emerald Isle of Ireland has contributed much to the
world's cultural heritage. The magnificence of Irish art, the magic of Irish literature, and the
sheer joy of Irish dance have grown from a climate of both natural beauty and political, religious,
and economic upheavals.
The massive potato crop failure of 1846-47, for example, swept away nearly one-fourth of the country's population, and sent a great wave of immigrants (nearly 1.5 million) across the sea to America. In the New World, the Irish gathered in close-knit communities in large cities, where the industrial revolution was creating a demand for new labor. But before long, the culture of their adopted homeland had been transformed by these new Americans.
Only Germany and Italy sent more immigrants than Ireland to the United States in the years before 1920, and some of that great number came west to the Puget Sound as early as the 1840s. But by the time of large-scale American settlement in the Northwest, Irish communities in Eastern cities were well-established, and the Irish did not congregate in Washington in such large numbers. Even so, the Irish in the Northwest were the among the largest immigrant groups in the region, ranking just behind the English and Canadian at the turn of the 20th century.
Among the jobs that attracted the Irish were railroad construction, coal mining, logging, and homestead farming—occupations they shared with other new arrivals including African Americans and immigrants from Asia and southern and eastern Europe. With the establishment of federal military posts in Washington State (including Fort Lawton in Seattle), Irish American soldiers came as well.
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The coal fields of eastern King County provided employment to many new arrivals, including Irish laborers like those seen here at the entrance to a mining operation near Renton.
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Though Irish Americans were often well-integrated into the larger community, they made distinctive contributions and faced special problems. The great Catholic churches—and the network of Catholic social services that grew from them, including schools, hospitals and civic organizations-were often established by Irish Americans, like Father Francis X. Prefontaine and Bishop Edmund O'Dea, who helped establish the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle and the construction of such magnificent facilities as St. James Cathedral.
The Irish community in Seattle supported many religious institutions like the St. James Cathedral, built in the early 20th century on First Hill overlooking downtown.
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Large Irish American families joined other Catholic households in neighborhoods like Seattle's Capitol Hill, where St. Patrick's, St. Joseph's, Holy Names Academy, Seattle University, and other institutions reinforced the strong traditions of family and religion. Even so, American society retained vestiges of anti-Catholicism throughout the 20th century, resulting in prejudice against Irish American citizens as recently as the election of President Kennedy.
The Irish settled everywhere in King County, and joined with other Americans in establishing communities and helping the economy grow. On the Eastside, Irish immigrant Luke McRedmond settled in the Sammamish Valley in 1871, serving as mayor and post master of a community later named Redmond in his honor.
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Redmond was founded by Irish immigrant Luke McRedmond in the early 1870s. By the 1890s, the town was named in his honor and stores were doing brisk business along Leary Way. Photo courtesy of Marymoor Museum.
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The small community of O'Brien in south King County was found by brothers Terence and Morgan O'Brien in 1869, where a small community of Irish Catholics established hops farms and other agricultural pursuits. Today, O'Brien is part of the larger Kent community. The coal mining towns of southeastern King County, including Franklin, had many Irish American residents working in crews alongside Scots, African Americans, and southern Europeans. And the agricultural district around today's Burien was settled by pioneer Mike Kelly, whose farm, named Sunnydale, became a community center, with the first classes held in his house in 1874.
Since those early years, Irish immigration continued to grow alongside larger waves of immigrants from the nations of Scandinavian, Asia , and southern Europe. Today, the Irish American community in King County is thoroughly a part of our larger community. Each year, on St. Patrick's Day, those of Irish ancestry invite all of us to join in the celebration of their heritage and be Irish for a day.
Also see: King County Executive Ron Sims' Irish Week 2003 Proclamation
Copyright King County 2004. All rights reserved.
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