Each year, folks celebrate the coming of spring with a festive, beer-drinking, green-wearing day in which “everyone is Irish.” This weekend, though, the actual Irish of Omaha — some of whose
ancestors helped build the city from its start — commemorate a more
somber event. It’s the centennial of the 1916 “Easter Rising”
insurrection that was crushed at first but eventually led to the
Republic of Ireland’s independence from British rule. Rather than another St. Patrick’s Day, said Douglas County
Commissioner James Cavanaugh, it will be more like an Irish “Fourth of
July.” “No fireworks,” he said, “but lots of music, poetry and drama, and a great movie.” Ceremony, too. After a noon Mass on Saturday at St. Mary Magdalene
Catholic Church, 19th and Dodge Streets, celebrated by Monsignor James
Gilg, attendees will walk three blocks to the Douglas County Courthouse
Plaza. Among the speakers will be Larry Bradley, president of the local
Father Flanagan Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Last month
he attended the centennial celebration in Dublin. “That was historic, magical and exciting,” said Bradley, an adjunct
professor of geography and geology at the University of Nebraska at
Omaha. “It sent chills down my spine.” Ireland decided to mark the centennial on Easter because the “rising”
happened on that holiday. But the actual date was April 24, 1916, and
in many U.S. cities, people of Irish ancestry will celebrate this
weekend. In the American melting pot, Bradley is like a lot of us — a mixture.
He carries an Irish surname, but his ancestry is half-Mexican. Cavanaugh, of full-blooded Irish ancestry, said the Irish diaspora in
America had a huge impact on the Republic of Ireland’s independence,
which was won in 1922. “The war of independence,” he said, “was largely aided, abetted, supported and financed by the Irish in America.” Omaha developed through the efforts of many ethnicities and
nationalities. As the 2000 book “E Pluribus Omaha” says, new arrivals
enriched the city as a whole. Says the book by Harry Otis and Donald Erickson: “The newcomer,
usually with nothing other than his language, religion, physical brawn
and a desire to be free somehow adds a new tint to the social fabric —
an indefinable hue that enhances, however slightly, the portrait of the
city.” For immigrants from the Emerald Isle, the hue was green — and that included the ability to make money and prosper. After the ceremony in the plaza Saturday between the courthouse and
the City-County Building, the public is invited to Castle Barrett at
43rd and Leavenworth Street with “traditional Irish music” by the group
Dicey Riley until 5 p.m. At 11:30 a.m. Sunday at the Joslyn Art Museum, a centennial program
will be presented by the Irish American Cultural Institute, the Omaha
Irish Cultural Center, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Nebraska
Humanities Council and the Brigit St. Brigit Theater. The program will include the theater’s one-act presentation of
“Rising” and a reading of the proclamation of independence at four
minutes past noon, matching the time it occurred in Dublin a century
earlier. That will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Lisabeth
Buchelt, associate professor of medieval British and Irish literature
and culture at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; Barry Murphy,
professor emeritus at Creighton University; and Cavanaugh. Five years ago, Queen Elizabeth was welcomed to the Republic of
Ireland, where she spoke about improved relations. It was the first time
a British monarch had visited in 100 years. This weekend, Omahans and other Americans of Irish descent will observe another centennial. Said the Hibernians’ Bradley: “It’s a time of solemnity, commemoration and celebration.”
Irish Central
