With trailblazing figures like Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass and a homegrown company as influential as Kodak, it seems Rochester often punches above its weight when it comes to historical impact. And for the Irish-American — or those curious about Irish history — it seems the city’s connection with Ireland consists mostly of tracing family ancestries to sleepy Emerald Isle villages.
But Ireland has changed immensely within the last century or so, and Rochester’s links to those seismic shifts in Irish life trace to Éamon de Valera, a polarizing leader in Ireland who “bestrode Irish politics like a colossus for over fifty years,” as Ronan Fanning wrote in his 2015 biography “Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power.” It was through de Valera and his ties to Rochester that the revolutionary efforts playing out in Ireland spilled onto the Flower City’s own streets.
The American Revolution is a distant memory at this point, so it’s jarring to recall that Ireland underwent its own revolutionary struggle against the British Empire quite recently. Those who have visited Dublin or read W.B. Yeats’ commemorative poem “Easter, 1916” may be familiar with the Easter Rising that kicked it all off, when Irish rebels battled British forces on the streets of Dublin. What often gets far less press in America is that the ill-fated —but galvanizing—Easter Rising was only the prelude to a revolutionary period in Irish history which included the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) and the Irish Civil War (1922-1923). Although he was a minor character in the Easter Rising, de Valera rose to prominence soon afterward and became a central figure in the political and military confrontation brewing with Britain.
The core of this story touches on something so fundamentally true about the best of Rochester: an identification with and mobilization on behalf of the oppressed.
As tensions rose and Ireland was on the verge of widespread armed rebellion in 1919, de Valera knew the support of the massive Irish immigrant population in America would be key to the revolution’s success. In June, he made an Atlantic crossing to begin a whirlwind speaking tour of the country, raising money and seeking political recognition for the newly asserted Irish Republic. One of de Valera’s first stops was Rochester, where he reunited with his mother, Catherine Wheelwright.
Over the next year and a half or so, de Valera would repeatedly return to Rochester. This wasn’t exclusively for family dinners, either. Professor Marion Casey, a leading Irish-American historian and author of the 2024 book “The Green Space: The Transformation of the Irish Image,” said the city was one stop in a “pretty well-worn tour circuit for anyone advocating for Irish causes.”
De Valera quickly recognized the activist spirit of Rochester, where suffrage and abolitionism had flourished. He anticipated the city would similarly be fertile soil for his advocacy of Irish independence. When asked on one occasion what he thought of Rochester, the first thing he cited was the city’s early and extensive role in the radical Land League movement a few decades earlier, which involved resisting unjust rents in Ireland and brought about extensive social and economic reforms in Irish society.
So for de Valera, Rochester offered a respite, but also a place to gain real political, social and financial progress for the cause. On a Christmas visit to the city in 1919, between receiving well-wishers and conducting interviews with local journalists, de Valera cabled a national message to the Irish people, who were still locked in a bitter struggle with British forces. “Endure yet a little while,” he wrote to them from his mother’s home on Brighton Street. “The year 1920 may see the republic of Ireland officially recognized by the United States—and then final victory after 750 years.” At such a desperate moment in the war, the passion and curiosity of Rochester supporters — a spirit still recognizable in the city today — may have helped to inspire the hopeful tone he struck for the Irish people back home.
That same enthusiasm spurred local organizers in the Irish-American community to arrange a massive meeting downtown at the Convention Hall (now Geva Theatre) a few months later, on Feb. 22, 1920. If there’s one thing Rochester is good at, it’s throwing a party — and when the night arrived, there was an impressive turnout. “The Democrat and Chronicle” reported that de Valera was “cheered for deafening minutes by more than 4,000 people who packed Convention Hall to hear him speak last night,” while the “Times-Union” remarked that his reception “attests the keen interest and generous sympathy of the large numbers of Americans in the cause of Ireland.” A resolution was read out and adopted, petitioning the United States government “to acknowledge the independence of the republic established by the Irish people.”
That evening is a remarkable, and representative, instance of Rochester’s committed efforts in supporting the Irish fight for independence and the direct contact with one of the Irish Revolution’s key players. De Valera — through his mother but also through the wider community that came forward to receive him so enthusiastically on so many occasions — encountered a solidarity against injustice that persists in Rochester, even after all these years.
Additional reading/listening:
- “The Irish in Rochester: an Historical Retrospective,” a 1957 article published in “Rochester History” by city historian Blake McKelvey.
- “De Valera in America: The Rebel President and the Making of Irish Independence” (St. Martin’s Press, 2010) by Dave Hannigan
- “The Irish Revolution” lecture series by Irish historian Michael Laffan, available on the History Hub podcast.
Sean O’Hare is a contributor to CITY.
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
