Shamrock On!

Celebrating Irish culture in Arkansas

The Irish Cultural Society of Arkansas, which presents the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Little Rock and North Little Rock, traces its roots to a shortage of nurses here during the 1980s.

“Many of our society’s founders in 1995 were among the 40 or so Irish nationals who had immigrated here as nurses during that shortage,” says Eimear Fuller, the society’s president and parade committee co-chairman.

“Recruited by hospitals in the Little Rock area, they originally came intending to work here a few years and then return to their homeland. Instead, about two dozen stayed. They settled in central Arkansas. Some married Arkansans and began to raise families. Some brought along their Irish partners. Some never married.”

The nurses who later returned to Ireland had varied reasons. “The very hot summers were a big shock,” Fuller says. “The food and social life were different. Some found the distance from Ireland to be challenging for visits. Many younger nurses found the social life very isolating.”

Those who stayed were active in organizing the society’s first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 2002. This year’s festivities are set for Saturday, March 15. Fuller says the event is part of ongoing efforts by the society’s 100 or so members “to pass along their Irish culture to their American-born children and others in the area.”

Irish roots

The Irish presence in Arkansas actually began before statehood, starting with immigration to the Ozark Mountains in the 1820s by Protestants from Ireland’s north. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas reports these arrivals brought slang from their native land that later turned into words like “hillbilly” and “howdy.”

Some Irish immigrants came to Arkansas during the Great Potato Famine of the mid-19th century. One of them was Patrick Cleburne, from County Cork. Having settled in Helena in 1850, he commanded a Confederate regiment in the Civil War, dying in battle in 1864. Cleburne County was named for him when it was formed in 1883.

Harris Flanagin, an Irish Quaker, became Arkansas’ Confederate governor in 1862. After the war, Unionist Isaac Murphy became the first Reconstruction governor of the state.

Groups of Irish Catholics settled during the 1850s and 1860s in Little Rock, where Ireland native Father Andrew Byrne had dedicated St. Andrew’s Cathedral in 1846. He was instrumental in the 1851 founding of Mount St. Mary’s Academy, which continues to educate Catholic girls in Little Rock.

Green scene

About 13% of Arkansans claim Irish heritage, while another 2% cite Scotch-Irish ancestry. The Irish Cultural Society of Arkansas is credited in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas with “having revitalized a legacy of Irishness in the state that continues to be a source of pride to Arkansans.”

Twenty-one members of the society were interviewed last year by Irish author and oral historian Tomás Mac Conmara. His work was part of “Deep Memories: The Arkansas Irish Oral History Project.” The recorded interviews are kept in Ireland at University College Cork.

Fuller says that society members take part in fairs and festivals “to showcase Irish dancing, food, music, history and culture. We love to be contacted for volunteer opportunities. We have worked with the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Arkansas Rice Depot, the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, Central Arkansas Library System, Salvation Army Central Arkansas and other groups.”

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is the organization’s biggest event. It proceeds from downtown North Little Rock to downtown Little Rock, stepping off at 1 p.m. Following the parade, students from the O’Donovan School of Irish Dance and McCafferty Academy of Irish Dance will perform on a stage outside Dugan’s Pub.

“Our parade gets new participants each year,” Fuller says. “We also have groups that have taken part for many years. The variety includes floats themed to the holiday, bands, antique cars and trucks, clowns, dancers, animals, local businesses, schools and social groups. It’s quite a procession.”