The first award  of the medal was made in 1966 to the Hon. James Farley, former Postmaster General under Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Farley, the grandson of Irish immigrants, managed FDR’s presidential campaigns in 1932 and 1936 and was an influential member of the New Deal “Brain Trust”.  The University of Notre Dame awarded Farley its highest award, the Laetare Medal, in 1974.  A member of AOH Division 29, New York, James Farley died in 1976.

Historians and Hollywood producers alike have held up the story of Union Major General Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate Brigadier General Lewis Armistead to illustrate the tragedy of internecine warfare. Hancock and Armistead had developed a friendship when stationed together in California before the war, with Armistead famously sending Mrs. Hancock the Armistead family bible for safekeeping as he left to join the Confederate As dramatically depicted in on the big screen in 1993’s Gettysburg, Armistead, a Brigade Commander in Pickett’s Division, found himself facing the center of the Union line, under the command of his friend Hancock, on July 3, 1863. Armistead, by all accounts, gallantly led his Brigade in what we now know as Pickett’s Charge, falling mortally wounded as he crossed the stone wall near “the angle,” generally considered to be the “high water mark” of the Confederacy. Knowing that he was in the hands of his friend’s troops, Armistead asked in vain to be taken to General Hancock, who had been wounded himself in the day’s fighting. The two never reconnected, despite their close proximity on the battlefield, and Armistead subsequently succumbed to his wounds.

The Irish Civil War produced no shortage of such sadly severed friendships, as the IRA in 1922, like the United States Army in 1861, found itself separating into two opposing forces. The treaty had been approved in the Dáil Éireann by a vote of 64 to 57, in favor, but the sentiment in the ranks was decidedly anti-treaty. For some pro-treaty IRA members, it was their unshakeable belief in Michael Collins that informed their decision to support the treaty. If the “Big Fellow” said that the treaty was a “stepping stone” to the thirty-two-county Republic of 1916, then that was good enough. Other pro-treaty volunteers saw themselves, in the conventional sense, as soldiers serving the elected government of their country – if the Dáil had approved the treaty, they reasoned, by however slim a margin, they were bound to support their government’s position. Anti-treaty IRA members, to the contrary, saw the treaty as a betrayal of the thirty-two county Republic of 1916.

The transformation of the Volunteers/IRA into the “National Army” had been a point of contention in late 1921, even before the Dáil voted to ratify the Treaty on January 7, 1922. As a revolutionary force, the IRA had emerged from the Irish Volunteers, through the infiltration of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The question of chain of command had been at times been a bit murky, as the Volunteers/IRA had an elected executive of their own, separate and apart from the Dáil. The so-called “New Army Plan” of 1921 sought to conform the IRA to a more conventional structure, with a Ministry of Defense, General Headquarters and the like. The Volunteer/IRA Executive The process of molding the IRA into a conventional military structure was underway, and not universally popular, when the Treaty was ratified.

Efforts were made, in the aftermath treaty ratification to keep the IRA together. An IRA convention, first agreed to but then banned by the Provisional (Free State) Government, was held on March 26, 1922. With pro-Treaty attendance having been discouraged, the already likely result became inevitable, as the delegates voted to reestablish the IRA Executive and reaffirmed allegiance to the thirty-two County Republic of 1916. Units around the country had to decide which side they were on, and there are many accounts of groups of Volunteers taking their leave of their comrades after finding themselves on the “wrong” side of the split. Pro-treaty IRA units, which became the nucleus of the new “National Army,” tragically found themselves engaged against anti-Treaty units, in spite of rank-and-file members on both sides sharing a common goal, differing only in their belief as to the best way of achieving that goal.

July of 1922, the first full month of the war, saw open conflict between pro and anti-Treaty units across the country, as each side sought to establish local strongholds. The month ended with the shooting by National Army troops of the unarmed Harry Boland, a widely popular figure in the Republican movement who had been at “out” at the GPO in 1916 and had subsequently risen to prominence in the War of Independence. Boland, who had been serving as the Quartermaster of the Dublin anti-Treaty IRA, would die on August 1, 1922, prompting Michael Collins to reflect with regret upon the death of his longtime friend and comrade turned adversary.

The morning’s carnage might well have proven counterproductive for the IRA, in terms of public opinion, at home and abroad, had British forces not responded by massacring civilians in the afternoon. Dublin and Tipperary were meeting in a football match at Croke Park to benefit the Republican Prisoners’ Dependents’ Fund. Shortly after the match began at 3:15 p.m., a plane, apparently conducting reconnaissance, flew over the pitch. Moments later, truckloads of Black and Tans, Auxiliaries and regular British troops surrounded the Park and burst through the turnstiles, opening fire on the crowd. Although nominally intended as a cordon and search mission – looking for IRA men in connection with the morning’s shootings – the massacre at Croke Park was in fact a shockingly lawless reprisal – the murder of innocence civilians by forces of the British state.

While efforts were made to suggest that the Tans and Auxiliaries had merely responded to IRA gunfire, the truth was plain to see. The afternoon massacre at Croke Park was a reprisal by Crown forces in Ireland, reeling from the IRA’s brutally successfully morning operation, against the citizens of Dublin. The profiles and ages of the victims, who are being remembered this week in GAA circles and across Ireland, show them to have been ordinary citizens. The youngest, ten year-old Jerome O’Leary, was shot through the head as he sat on a wall, watching the match. Eleven year-old William Robinson was similarly shot as he sat perched in a tree to see the action.

British Prime Minister Lloyd George had proclaimed, just two weeks prior, that the British had “murder by the throat” in Ireland. As the sun set on Ireland on Sunday November 21, it was far from clear just who the murderers where. By misusing its “monopoly on the physical use of force” the British government in Ireland had scored an “own goal,” suffering a corresponding loss to its claim of legitimacy, in the eyes of the Irish people and the world. Just as the hasty executions following the Easter Rising had galvanized Irish Nationalists, the shocking mass murder by Government forces of citizens out to watch a football match swelled the inexorable tide of independence rising in Ireland and influenced policy makers on both sides of the Irish Sea. Diplomatic contacts between Sinn Fein and the British government accelerated, ultimately leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.

Croke Park, already the center of traditional Irish sport, became a shrine to the innocent dead and a monument to Irish nationhood. And all of this happened one hundred years ago this week.

The country is again in the midst of a movement aimed at retiring team names and mascots deemed to be offensive. As with prior such movements, the “Fighting Irish” moniker and leprechaun mascot, with his classic “fisticuffs stance”, have entered the discussion. Those objecting to the nickname are presumably well-intentioned. But is “Fighting Irish” a slur? Or does the term have an origin of which the University, its students, alumni and the countless “subway alumni” can rightfully be proud?

Long before Notre Dame was established, the Irish soldier had a reputation for military prowess among the nations of Europe . The Treaty of Limerick in 1691 provided for the “Flight of the Wild Geese” in 1691 as Patrick Sarsfield and his Irish army of 14,000 joined Mountcashel’s Irish Brigade in the service of France . The Crowned heads of Europe (excluding England) enjoyed the service of generations of military leaders and intrepid Irish units who proved their worth time and time again. These Irish units in European service soon earned a reputation for their dependability and valor, leading continental armies to recruit in Ireland until the British made the practice illegal in 1745.

Irish emigration in the aftermath of the Great Hunger brought large numbers to our shores, just as the simmering conflict between the north and south was preparing to boil over. Anti-Catholic Nativists saw the Irish masses disembarking at American ports as a threat. Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, were considered to be dirty, immoral and “Un-American,” more loyal to Rome than Washington.

The Irish enlisted in the Union Army in great numbers and readers of this column are well aware of the gallant exploits of Irish Brigade. The penchant of the Brigade’s commanders for headlong charges and the willingness of the Irish troops soon caught the attention of other combatants, newspapers and the American people. The steady advance of the Brigade against murderous fire at Marye’s Heights on December 11, 1862 amazed the most battle-hardened observers. George Pickett famously wrote to his fiancé: “Your soldier’s heart almost stood still as he watched those sons of Erin fearlessly rush to their deaths. The brilliant assault on Marye’s Heights of their Irish Brigade was beyond description. We forgot they were fighting us and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our lines.”

What does any of this have to do with Notre Dame? The exploits of Irish troops reported in the papers could not have been more different than Nativist depictions of the Irish. “Fighting Irish” referred not to drunken brawlers, but loyal American soldiers, the bravest of the brave. Notably, one of the Chaplains of the Brigade was Father William Corby, who later became the President of Notre Dame.

Of the competing genesis stories of the “Fighting Irish” name, the connection between the Brigade, Father Corby and Notre Dame perhaps rings most true. Unlike Indian names adopted by non-Native Americans, the name “Fighting Irish” was adopted by Notre Dame President, Mathew J. Walsh, C.S.C., son of an immigrant from County Cork, in 1927. As for the pugilistic leprechaun, the Irish had dominated the sport of boxing for decades. The stance of the leprechaun (search “John L. Sullivan” and look at the image) says it all – he is pure boxer, not barroom brawler. Certainly no one thinks that the “Fighting Illini” name of the occasional Notre Dame opponent is a slur. Come what may, it seems likely that the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame will continue to “ fight in every game, Strong of heart and true to her name.”