Five Irish facts

Bishop John England of Ireland and Charleston: England was the first Catholic bishop in America to be assigned south of Maryland. He arrived here in 1820 when the Vatican intervened in the city’s fractious St. Mary’s parish. “The diocese in Baltimore kept sending French Catholic priests to St. Mary’s, and the Irish couldn’t understand them,” said Stephen White, director of the Charleston History Society. When he died in 1842, “all the church bells in Charleston – Catholic and Protestant – tolled in memorial.”

Three waves of Irish immigrants to Charleston: 1. The Anglican Irish, late 17^th century and early 18^th century; 2. the Presbyterian Irish (better known as Scots-Irish) in the late 18^th century; and 3. The Catholic Irish, who began arriving in the 19^th century. The city didn’t receive a huge influx of “famine Irish” in the 1840s and 1850s because of economic conditions here. “The famine ships that came here generally came here by accident,” said White. That’s exactly what happened to White’s great-great-grandmother -- the ship that brought her to Charleston in 1854 had been bound for Philadelphia).

Irish militias: Ethnic Irish militia units from Charleston fought in every war from 1812 through World War I, and three served in the Confederate Army: the Irish Volunteers, the Montgomery Guard, and the Meagher Guard. The Meagher Guard was named in honor of Irish revolutionary hero Thomas Francis Meagher, who eventually came to live in America after avoiding a death sentence in Ireland. When war broke out, Meagher signed up to fight for the Union, prompting the Charleston Confederates in his namesake militia to change the name of their unit to “The Emerald Green Guard.”

Mayor John P. Grace (1911-15; 1919-23): Grace’s fiery “common-man” antipathy for Charleston’s “bluebloods” – particularly Thomas P. Stoney – outlived the man himself. As historian Robert Rosen wrote: “Charleston Corporation Counsel William Regan tells the story that upon his election, (Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.) was handed an aged envelope addressed to “The Next Irish Mayor” by the Bishop of Charleston. Inside was the message: ‘Get the Stoneys.’” Stephen White responds: “The story is apocryphal. The sentiment has some truth to it, but there was no piece of paper. Bill Regan is a great storyteller.”

Peace: Protestants and Catholics of Irish heritage largely put aside their Old World differences here in Charleston. For instance, The Charleston Hibernian Society’s constitution calls for the organization’s presidency to rotate annually between Catholic and Protestant members.