Since the ancient past, societies have honored athletes.  Athletic competition may have developed out of pragmatic concerns such as training warriors, but it was soon realized that certain individuals were gifted with exceptional talents.  In the Ancient Olympic Games winning competitors were awarded Olive Wreaths and honored as human incarnations of Apollo; in modern times they are honored with some of the highest salaries in the world.  These honors are given in recognition of how exceptional athletic prowess is in on one individual; what then would be the likelihood of finding word class athleticism in three different sports in three generations of one family?  One would be forgiven if they were to say it was impossible if they did not know of the Sheas.

The Shea family traces their roots to Irish immigrants who came to America during the height of the great hunger.  The Shea’s story in America begins with Michael Shea who came to the United States in 1847.  He came from the area of the Dingle peninsula in County Kerry and married fellow Irish immigrant  Mary Courtney.  His grandson Jack Shea was born September 7, 1910 in Lake Placid, NY.  At age 3 Jack started skating at a nearby lake; by the time he was in high school he had won the North American men’s championship.  As if by preordination, while a sophomore at Dartmouth the 1932 Winter Olympics were held in his hometown of Lack Placid.  So well regarded was Shea by his fellow athletes that he was selected to take the Olympic Oath on their behalf in the opening ceremony.    On the first day of competition, he won the gold medal in the 500-meter speed skating event. The next day, he followed up by winning the 1,500 meters; making him the first double gold medalist in Winter Olympic history.  He returned to Dartmouth to a thunderous welcome (and humorless professors who held him accountable for the classes he missed).

Jack Shea graduated 10^th in his class from Dartmouth, but the Great Depression and the needs of his family cut short his dreams of becoming a lawyer; a regret he carried throughout his life.  When it was announced that the 1936 games were to be held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Jack Shea refused to skate to defend his title; as a political science major, he was well aware of what was developing in Nazi Germany.  Shea urged his fellow athletes publicly and privately to not support the games in Germany.  Jack proceeded to a respected career in local government in his hometown and was instrumental in bringing the games back to Lake Placid for the memorable 1980 Winter Olympics; the site of the “Miracle on Ice”. Shea would continue to skate recreationally unit he was 84.

Jack’s son, Jim Shea Sr. wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps as speed skater, but his talents turned out to be in cross-country skiing. He was a member of the 1961 NCAA champion University of Denver team, and made the 1964 U.S. Winter Olympic team where he competed in Nordic Combined skiing and two cross-country ski events.  While he did not medal, he did go on to coach the U.S. biathlon team in the 1972 Winter Olympics.

Jack Shea’s grandson Jim Jr. took another path to the Winter Olympics by competing in Skeleton, an event where competitors ride a sled similar to a child’s “flexible flyer” down a bobsled run attaining speeds of over 80 mph and pulling 5 G’s in the turns.  In 1999 Jim Jr. became the first American to win the skeleton World Championships.  Skeleton had been an Olympic sport in two prior Olympics but had not been competed in 54 years.  Jim Shea persuaded the U.S. Olympic Committee to make skeleton an event at the 2002 Winter Games (it has been competed ever since)

At the time of the 2002 games, 91 year-old Jack Shea was now the oldest living Gold Medal Winter Olympian.  All seemed in place for a

fairytale ending. As it made its way to Salt Lake City, 91 year old Jack Shea carried the Olympic Torch into the same Lake Placid stadium where he had won dual gold two generations before.  His grandson was selected to take the Olympic Oath as his Grandfather had done seventy years earlier and the three generations of Olympic Sheas were to be honored during the opening ceremonies.

However, it was not to be.  Seventeen days before the games, Jack Shea was killed just blocks from his home, when his car was hit by a van whose driver was later charged with driving while intoxicated.

With his grandfather’s funeral card tucked inside his helmet, Jim Shea won the gold medal in skeleton.  After the competition an emotional Jim Shea describing his winning run told reporters “My grandpa was with me the whole way“.

The story of the Shea’s is about more than medals, it is a story of determination, principle and, most importantly, family.  It is in its essence a story of Irish America. 

Note: In the same 2002 Skeleton competition where Jim Shea won the Gold, Ireland’s Clifton Wrottesley missed winning Ireland’s first Winter Olympic medal by 0.32 seconds.  It remains Ireland’s highest placing in the Winter Games

Neil F. Cosgrove, Historian

We have all seen the beautiful tradition of placing candles in the windows at Christmas time. This tradition of placing candles in the windows of homes during the Christmas season was brought to America by Irish immigrants in the 19th century. However, beyond mere decoration as Irish Americans these Christmas candles have a special significance. They reflect the fortitude and conviction of our Irish forebears to maintain the light of their faith through a dark and oppressive time.

Starting in the reign of the Tudors and continuing through the early part of the 19th century, it was a crime to be a Catholic in the British realm and specifically in her colony of Ireland. A series of laws, know to history as the Penal law, sought to reduce the Irish people to ignorant serfs and destroy their religious faith. The 1709 Penal Act demanded that Catholic priests take the Oath of Abjuration; an impossible requirement as it meant rejecting Catholicism most basic tenet, that Christ is physically present in the Eucharist, and other fundamental principles. Even if they paid lip service to the oath, all priests were required to register in their parish and could not travel beyond. Bishops were barred entirely from registering and any unregistered member of the Catholic clergy had to leave Ireland immediately. Without Bishops, it would be impossible to consecrate new priests; the goal was that Catholicism would die out within a generation.

Priests were hunted like wolves, the reward for the capture of a Bishop was from £50–100 and £10–20 for the capture of an unregistered priest; tremendous sums of money at the time. The priest himself would be charges with high treason punishable by death or transportation into slavery. Those who aided or harbored a priest faced equally severe punishment to themselves and families.

However the Irish will and faith could not be crushed so easily, no matter how powerful the despot. Priests remained in Ireland ministering to the faithful while constantly fearing capture and aided by courageous members of the laity. This was especially true during the feast of Christmas; were the hope and promise of the Holiday was desperately needed to give encouragement to the faithful to preserve during those dark times.

The practice arose for a member of the faithful to leave a candle in the window, which in the dark winter nights of Ireland before electric lighting could be seen at a considerable distance, and to leave the door unlocked as a sign to any priest hiding in the area that they would be welcomed and given shelter in the hopes of a Christmas mass. Needless to say, the candles also drew the attention of English authorities. However, when questioned, people would say the candle was to light the way to Bethlehem for Mary and Joseph and the door unlocked as a sign that while there may be “no room at the Inn”, the Holy Family would be welcomed in this house. The story had the desired effect, English authorities in their arrogance dismissed the candles and unlocked doors as harmless “Papish nonsense”. As a result, the light of the promise of Christ at Christmas was celebrated even in a world dark with oppression.

While the Penal Laws have been repealed, there are still forces today who would seek to destroy our faith and have us renounce our Irish heritage. In memory of our ancestor and to celebrate their courage, let us put a candle in the window at Christmas and let our faith and pride in our heritage shine out throughout the year.

It is an iconic image of WW II, a photo taken on June 6, 1944 showing American soldiers exiting a landing craft coming ashore at Omaha beach. A few months later on October 20th, another photo captured the moment General Douglas MacArthur “returned” to the Philippines, wading ashore from a landing craft. Neither of these historic moments would have been possible without one man, as overlooked but essential as the landing craft in these images that bore his name, Andrew Higgins.

Though in later life Higgins would be inseparably identified with New Orleans, he was born in Columbus, Nebraska in 1886. Losing his father when he was but seven years old, Higgins would claim he received his determination and strong will from his mother whose ancestors had come from Ireland after the failed rebellion of 1848. Higgins demonstrated the industry and innovation that were to be his hallmarks at an early age. At the age of nine and with only a sickle he began a grass cutting business. He soon purchased a lawn mower, eventually expanding until he had seventeen mowers and was hiring older boys to do the work while he managed the business. An incurable builder, the young Higgins constructed an iceboat in the basement of his home for use on the nearby lakes. When finished, he realized it was too big to be taken out of the basement doors. With characteristic determination, he borrowed jacks from a nearby construction site and with friends removed a section of the basement’s wall, got the boat out and restored the wall, all while his mother was out shopping. Perhaps not unexpectedly, such creativity, determination and strong will often brought young Higgins into conflict with school authorities resulting in him being expelled before graduating.

Higgins moved to the south where he began working in the lumber industry. His interest in boats was again rekindled when he was confronted with the problem of how to access timber from shallow, obstacle choked bayous. Higgins took a correspondence course in naval architecture and soon designed the first of the flat-bottomed shallow draft boats which would make him famous. The key feature was that the propeller was incorporated in a recessed tunnel that protected the propeller from grounding and fouling.

In the late 1930’s Higgins owned a small shipyard in New Orleans servicing the need of loggers and oil drillers in the Mississippi Delta. The

growing threat of war soon drew the interest of the Marines in Higgins’ boats as the Navy Bureau of Ships had consistently failed to produce craft that could effectively deliver Marines, their tanks and artillery on a beach. Marine General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith had seen trials of Higgins shallow draft “Eureka” boat could be “an answer to the Marine prayer”. The one concern was that as configured the Marines would need to disembark the boat going over the side, slowing their exit when they were most vulnerable. At his own expense, Higgin’s modified the boats by cutting off the bow and replacing it with a ramp. Higgins received a call that the Navy that they and the Marines would be coming to New Orleans to test the ramped boats and Higgins should also prepare to discuss a design for a craft capable of landing tanks. Higgins informed the Navy that instead of a plan he would have a workable craft. “It can’t be done,” the Navy told him; “The Hell it can’t,” replied Higgins, “you just be here in three days”. Higgins had the boat built in 61 hours.  Both would be taken into service, and while the ramped “Eureka” would have the official designation of LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) it would be known universally as the Higgins Boat.

Higgin’s answer to the “Marine prayer” came just in time as the United States would soon enter WW II. With his tireless energy, often working 16 hour days, Higgins seemingly overnight turned his small 50 man New Orleans boat building business into one of the largest boat builders in the world, building not only several models of landing craft but other boats as well. By September 1943, 12,964 of the American Navy’s 14,072 vessels had been designed by Higgins Industries.  Hitler bitterly called Higgins “The new Noah”. A fact that should not be overlooked is that to achieve this prodigious output Higgins employed anyone capable of performing the job, irrespective of gender or race, and everyone who performed the same job was given the same pay. Higgins was one of our nation’s first equal opportunity employers. Realizing the impact a worker lost due to sickness could have on productivity, Higgins established a company clinic where works could access health care free of charge.

Unfortunately, wartime gratitude is a fleeting thing. When the war ended, the drive and determination which had enabled Higgins to deliver what his country needed came back to haunt him as the toes he stepped on to get the job done now took their revenge. Maverick innovators like Higgins were out of place in the conformist world of post-war corporate America. Despite an indisputable record of being an advocate for his workers, his firms were crippled by post-war strikes. Higgins died in New Orleans on 1 August 1952.

Andrew Jackson Higgins was like the boat that bore his name: straightforward, tough and reliable. Neither was sophisticated, they just got the job done. He deserves to be remembered much more than he is. As General Eisenhower noted, “Andrew Higgins … is the man who won the war for us. … If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different.”

 

Neil F. Cosgrove, Historian

In a mid-19^th century classroom in one of Ireland’s new “National Schools”, pointed to as an example of a more “progressive” British policy in Ireland as they provided non-denominational education, a teacher faced a rebellion. One of his young students, a short, dark-haired son of a brewery clerk, refused to sing “God Save the Queen” as required at the start of the school day. The teacher summoned the superintendent, whose mood was not improved when confronted by the young rebel.  Though seated in the front row of the class because he already suffered from extreme nearsightedness, there was no mistaking the look of defiance in those blue eyes.  The superintendent bellowed to his defiant charge ‘Sing Sir!” only for the boy to refuse. The superintendent then applied the standard Victorian educational method to address diversity;  he smashed a chalkboard slate over the young nonconformist’s head. The boy missed several days of school due to “lightheadedness” (likely a concussion). When the sadistic superintendent attempted to further chastise the boy (this time with a cane) for his absence, the young dissident charged him pushing him back and delivered a swift kick to his knees. The boy, John Devoy, was expelled for his first fight for Independence.

John Devoy was born 1 September 1842 near the village of Kill in County Kildare. Nationalism was a family legacy. While Devoy’s father’s nationalism took a constitutional approach as a supporter of O’Connell and the Repeal Movement, John’s patriotism would favor his namesake; a maternal great-uncle who fought in the Rising of ’98. Though born on the eve of the “Great Hunger”, John Devoy would be spared the worst of that tragedy of suffering by the family relocating to Dublin. There his industrious and literate father secured employment at Watkins Brewery, providing a secure childhood at a time when the Great Hunger was sending across the Atlantic the millions of Irish emigrants who would define John’s later life.

In early 1861, at the age of eighteen years, John Devoy took the Fenian oath.  The oath bound the young Devoy to work for the establishment of an Irish Republic.  Devoy would dedicate himself to the Fenian cause with the same resolute determination he showed as a schoolboy while similarly bearing innumerable hardships with the same fortitude. Devoy’s father became aware of his son’s political activity and the family argument that ensued only made the rebellious teenager more determined.  He ran away and joined the French Foreign Legion to gain military experience he could later use in the fight for Ireland’s freedom.  Unfortunately, the youthful dream of adventure met the hard reality of being assigned to an engineering company (likely due to his eyesight) in Algeria.  He was released under his commanders signature a year later (though some sources incorrectly say he deserted) and returned to Ireland.

Devoy reported back to the Fenian executive led by James Stephens.  The Fenians were in the midst of planning a new rebellion with a bold new strategy composed of three parts.  First was the traditional recruitment of the young men of Ireland such as Devoy to the cause. However, past rebellions had always suffered from the lack of trained men and arms no matter how enthusiastic the support of this traditional recruiting source.  This was to be radically solved by the other two legs of the strategy.  The second part would be the active recruitment of Fenians from within the ranks of the British army. Fully sixty percent of the 26,000-strong British garrison in Ireland were Irishmen who served not out of loyalty to the crown, but as a desperate last resort to escape hunger and poverty. Every soldier who took the Fenian oath would achieve the dual purpose of undermining Britain’s ability to respond to a rebellion and providing another trained man and his weapon to the cause.  The third part was the realization that there was now a third force in Ireland’s struggle: Irish America.   Those starving emigrants that had been driven into exile in America had prospered in their adopted land.  They and their descendants were now a source of funding and battle-hardened men forged in America’s Civil War. 

To young Devoy fell the responsibility to recruit Fenians from the British Army. As with everything he attempted, Devoy rose to the task with total commitment and tireless zeal. He recruited soldiers who in turn recruited their messmates.  Devoy even clandestinely administered the Fenian oath to soldiers as they stood guard in their sentry boxes.  At one time, falling back on his Foreign Legion training, Devoy donned a British Army uniform to enter a barracks to gather intelligence on the Army’s strength and morale.  At its height, it is estimated that the Fenians had over 80,000 men pledged to a coming rebellion, of which over 20,000 were Devoy’s converted British soldiers.

However, it was soon apparent that Stephens, while a great visionary, was not a man to lead a rebellion.  While promising that with the end of the American Civil war 1865 would be “a year of action”, Stephenson continually dithered.  The success of the Fenians was also its vulnerability; a force of nearly one hundred thousand men could not be kept secret forever. British intelligence was soon reporting an alarming number of men in “felt hats and square-toed boots”; American fashions indicating that Irish Civil War veterans were returning to Ireland with vengeance in their hearts.  Suspicions were confirmed when documents inadvertently left at a train station detailed a planned Irish uprising.  The British lion had finally awoken to what was happening in its oldest colony.  In September 1865, the offices of Stephens’ paper The Irish People was raided and everyone on the premises arrested. Stephens was later apprehended and confined in an isolated wing of Richmond prison to await trial.  Devoy immediately turned his energies to a rescue plan. With the help of the prison hospital superintendent who was a sworn Fenian with access to the prison’s keys Stephens escaped and was spirited to France.

The Stephens escape was a propaganda coup for the Fenians.  Ireland was seized with sudden enthusiasm for Fenianism and the prospects of independence. However, Stephens continued to lack the nerve to instigate the rising and the British were now fully aroused. Suspect Army regiments were transferred from Ireland to the remotest parts of the empire. Suspending Habeas Corpus, British authorities made mass arrests including John Devoy and some of the soldiers he recruited.  Devoy was sentenced to 15 years penal servitude, but it would be half a century before he would walk Ireland a free man again.  Sadly, Devoy would also be separated from the only other passion he allowed himself, a young girl named Eliza Kenny to whom he was engaged.

For the next five years Devoy would be an unwilling guest at some of Britain’s most notorious prisons: Mountjoy, Millbank, Portland and

Chatham.  Fenian prisoners were selected for “special attention” by sadistic guards.  As might be expected, the former defiant schoolboy was hardly a model prisoner and orchestrated several prison strikes and other acts of disobedience which were harshly punished.  Finally, in January 1871 in response to public outcry concerning reports on how the Fenian prisoners were being mistreated, Devoy, along with four other Fenians including O’Donovan Rossa, was released on condition of accepting exile to the United States.  Known as the “Cuba Five” for the name of the steamship that brought them to America, they were given a hero’s welcomed by Ireland’s exiled children in America.  However, Devoy was appalled at what can only be described as the slapstick jockeying of various Irish American Groups and politicians as they pushed and shouted at one another to claim pride of place in welcoming the exiled Fenians and leverage their notoriety for their own purposes.  Devoy saw the vast potential of Irish America, but it had to be unified to be an effective force in Ireland’s fight for freedom.  It would be to this cause which John Devoy would devote the rest of his life and will be continued in next month’s history.