Irish Medal of Honor recipients honored at Pa. convention: New state officers elected
Pennsylvania’s Hibernians elected new officers at Valley Forge in July 1995, then processed with pipes to the AOH obelisk in the Medal of Honor Grove.
As printed in the Celtic Mirror, August 1995
VALLEY FORGE, Pa. - A new slate of officers was elected by members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the LAOH during the 88th bi-annual convention held here in July.
Martin Madigan was elected president of the state organization. Other officers include Seamus Boyle, vice president, John Kane, secretary and Eugene Daly, treasurer.
New LAOH officers are: Sarah Ann Mains, president; Dorothy Weldon, vice president; Rose McGonigal, secretary; and Kate B. Angerson, treasurer.
The convention was attended by top national AOH officers including President Ed Wallace, who delivered the keynote address, Secretary Tom McNabb, Director Ned McGinley, and past National President, Joseph Montgomery.
On July 23, members attended a special Mass and ceremony at the Medal of Honor Grove at Freedoms Foundation, Valley Forge.
A special tribute was paid to 65 Irish National Medal of Honor recipients who were honored on the AOH Obelisk located in the grove.
His excellency, the Most Rev. Bishop Thomas J. Welsh of the Diocese of Allentown celebrated the Mass in the Faith of Our Fathers Chapel.
Bishop Welsh also delivered the homily. Sister Kim Voightsberger was soloist during the Mass.
Following the Mass, the Irish Thunder Pipe Band and the Montgomery County Division No.1 Color Corps led a procession from church to the site of the obelisk where a brief ceremony was held.
As many as 150 people attended the ceremony.
The convention concluded with a luncheon sponsored in part, by the convention committee.
The record since
This was a short convention notice, and we can add a good deal of context that the 1995 report left to its readers.
First, the numbers. The “65” in the report does not match later tallies, and we could not establish which list it counted. By the count most often cited, of the 3,464 Medals of Honor awarded as of September 17, 2009, about 2,021, or 58 percent, went to Irish Americans, more than twice the total for any other ethnic group. Of those, 257 recipients were born in Ireland, more than half of all foreign-born recipients. The monument to the Irish-born recipients at Valley Forge was erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the obelisk this procession walked to. Across the whole history of the medal, more than 40 percent of the 3,552 awards made to date were for actions in the Civil War, the war that created it.
The grove itself belongs to the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, a non-profit civic education group founded in 1949 next to what is now Valley Forge National Historical Park. Its Medal of Honor Grove is woodland divided into areas for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each area has an obelisk listing that state’s recipients, and in most cases a tree has been planted for each one, with a marker giving name, rank, unit and the date and place of the action. A path called America’s Walk of Honor was dedicated in April 1997, two years after this ceremony. The foundation keeps ninety volumes of research on the recipients, including photographs, sketches and handwritten citations. In early 2024 it merged with the Union League Legacy Foundation and now operates as Founding Forward.
The medal’s own origins sit in the same war as the Irish Brigade. On December 9, 1861, Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa introduced a bill authorising 200 “medals of honor” for sailors and marines, and an Army version followed. The standards were loose at first: after a review authorised by Congress in 1917, 911 Army medals were revoked.
The Hibernians have a long Pennsylvania story of their own. The order was founded in the United States on May 4, 1836, at St. James Church in New York, and a branch was formed the same year at Pottsville, in the anthracite country. Its early purpose was to guard Catholic churches from nativist mobs and to help Irish immigrants, many of them in the coal mines. A women’s auxiliary, the Daughters of Erin, followed in 1894, and the Ladies Auxiliary later raised $50,000 for the Nuns of the Battlefield sculpture in Washington, authorised by Congress in 1918. Membership in the United States stood at 181,000 in 1965.
Bishop Thomas J. Welsh, who said the Mass, was a Pennsylvania man, born in Weatherly in 1921 into an Irish Catholic family. He led the Diocese of Allentown from 1983 to 1997 and died on February 19, 2009.
Questions readers ask
How many Irish-born soldiers received the Medal of Honor?
An estimated 257 Irish-born Americans have received the Medal of Honor, more than half of all foreign-born recipients. Counting Irish Americans more broadly, about 2,021 of the 3,464 medals awarded as of September 17, 2009, or 58 percent, went to people of Irish descent. A monument to the Irish-born recipients, erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, stands in the Medal of Honor Grove at Valley Forge.
Where is the Medal of Honor Grove?
The Medal of Honor Grove is at the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, beside Valley Forge National Historical Park. The wooded grove has an area for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, each with an obelisk listing its recipients and, in most cases, a tree and marker for each one. America’s Walk of Honor opened there in April 1997.
When was the Ancient Order of Hibernians founded in America?
The Ancient Order of Hibernians was founded in the United States on May 4, 1836, at St. James Church in New York City, near the old Five Points neighbourhood. A branch formed the same year in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Members must be Catholic men born in Ireland or of Irish descent, and the order had 181,000 American members in 1965.
Who was the first Irish American to receive the Medal of Honor?
The first Irish American to receive the Medal of Honor was Michael Madden, for his actions in the American Civil War. The earliest action ever recognised with the medal, however, was that of Bernard J. D. Irwin, an Irish-American Army assistant surgeon, at Apache Pass in February 1861. Irwin’s award was made three decades after the event and after Madden’s.
