After we left the Lunar New Year gathering at Asia Plaza on Saturday, February 5th, we rested for a while at home before we attended the “Hibernian Celebration of Our Patron Saints Brigid and Patrick” that took place at the West Side Irish American Club in Olmsted Township.
We believe that this was one of the first and largest convocations at the Club since the advent of Covid 19 in early 2020 (i.e. both the Claddagh Ball and the St. Patrick’s Day parades were cancelled for 2020 and 2021) so a lot of people turned out to acknowledge the honorees for both 2020 and 2022. These included those selected as:
- Grand Marshal (Thomas Scanlon in 2020 and Thomas McManamon in 2022)
- Irish Mother of the Year (Kathleen Mangan in 2020 and Rita Lally in 2022)
- Inside Co-Chair (Maureen Mohney in 2020 and Patricia Lavelle in 2022)
- Outside Co-Chair (Christopher Cooper in 2020 and Kathleen Mangan Stull in 2022)
- Hibernian of the Year (Robert Fitzgerald in 2020 and Father Thomas Mahoney in 2022)
At 4:30 pm a mass was conducted that concluded about 6pm after which we all gathered in the main hall for socializing, a delicious dinner, musical entertainment by Auld Pitch, and more socializing in the Irish tradition.
We got to visit for a moment with Father Mahoney, 2022 Hibernian of the Year, whose great grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ireland between 1848 and 1867.
Not surprisingly, Father Mahoney told us that he was familiar with the work of Ms. [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-1″]. In fact, he and other clergy had once sought her counsel in the matter of a worthy person from South America.
Father Mahoney, who impressed us as being a very sweet and modest man, said that this was so long ago that he forgot who ended up representing this person or the particulars of the case, but she did get to remain in the United States which is what mattered most to him, and we concur.
