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Top 100 Irish America's Finest Politics and Public Services
“You
go out there and ask them what their future is today. If we don’t
build that today, there’s nothing”
– Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago.”
In the following pages we honor those who spend their lives serving their
country through politics and public service and see it as a duty to help
ensure that the American dream is within reach of all those who live in
this great land.
Mayor Richard M. Daley
On election night 2007, Richard M. Daley took the stage at Chicago’s
Hilton & Towers holding the hand of his cancer-surviving wife, Maggie,
and ready to eclipse his father as the city’s longest-serving mayor.
What would his father, Richard J. Daley, who served 21 years, think about
Daley winning a term that will take him to 22 years in office by 2011?
“I think my dad would be very proud of me,” Daley said in
an interview at the party. “So would my mom. And Kevin.” Daley
often mentions his son Kevin, who died of Spina Bifida at age 2 in 1981.
Daley’s family has been through a lot during this term, with Maggie
surviving breast cancer, Daley himself coming down with heart problems,
his son Patrick joining the army to fight in Iraq, and his daughter Nora
giving him two grandchildren.
Elected mayor of Chicago in 1989 to complete the term of Harold Washington,
Daley stepped into his job with a name that carried high expectations.
During his almost 20 years as mayor he has exceeded those expectations.
He has earned a national reputation for his innovative, community-based
programs to address education, public safety, neighborhood development
and other challenges facing American cities. In fact, Daley “is
widely viewed as the nation’s top urban executive” (Time magazine,
2005). The former state senator and county prosecutor who has been re-elected
five times by overwhelming margins, continues to improve the city, investing
more than $3 billion toward more than 125,000 affordable housing units
and establishing aggressive plans to rebuild public housing, extend affordability
and end homelessness in Chicago.
He is also supporting the plan by Dublin-born Garrett Kelleher to build
a 2,000-foot-high skyscraper in Chicago. The building, known as the Chicago
Spire, with 150 floors, will stand taller than Chicago's Sears Tower as
well as New York's upcoming Freedom Tower, to become North America's tallest
free-standing structure and the world's tallest all-residential building.
The Spire, which if completed as scheduled in 2011, will mark Daley’s
22nd year in office.
His efforts to improve the city have most certainly paid off as the city
of Chicago is currently favored by the U.S. Olympic Committee to host
the 2016 Olympic Games. Still, all is not completely rosy for the mayor,
and as the City undergoes an investigation into an allegedly fraudulent
hiring system, Daley’s office is coming under increased scrutiny.
Daley grew up on the South Side of Chicago, the fourth of seven children
of the late Richard J. and his wife Eleanor. He holds a law degree from
DePaul University and began his public service career in 1969 when he
was elected to the Illinois Constitutional Convention. Mayor Daley lives
in the South Loop neighborhood of Chicago with his wife. They have three
children, Nora Daley Conroy, Patrick Daley and Elizabeth Daley.
 Ambassador
Tom Foley
With the emphasis shifting from political stability to the economy in
Northern Ireland, and the Celtic Tiger cooling down in the Irish Republic,
U.S. Ambassador Tom Foley, a graduate of Harvard Business School, with
25 years of management and investment experience, is the right man for
the job.
On the phone from Dublin with Irish America in February, Foley talked
about Northern Ireland and the idea that political stability is enhanced
when the economy is good and unemployment rates are low. “We have
moved into that mode and we had an investment mission that Ambassador
Tuttle [U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. ] and I sponsored up there in October.
And now we’re preparing for the larger U.S. Northern Ireland investment
conference in Belfast on May 8 and 9,” he said.
Having a business background, Foley has more understanding than your
average diplomat about foreign investment, and he also has contacts. “I
just happen to know people from my business days who are now on Wall Street
or running companies, so I’ve had contacts that I’ve been
able to use to recruit people to come to the conference.”
Rita O’Hare, Sinn Féin’s person in America and not
someone who is easily impressed, said of Foley, “He’s accessible,
and very down to earth. The first time I met him I was struck by the fact
that he was clearly listening and watching.
He doesn’t jump in. He’s practical and pragmatic, and very
interested.”
With regard to the slowing down of the Celtic Tiger in the Republic,
Foley believes that while there may be a period of adjustment following
the very strong period of growth, “all the fundamentals are still
in pretty good shape and Ireland is strong relative to other economies
in Europe.”
Foley had been to Ireland several times before becoming Ambassador but
he admits that living there is different from visiting. “When you
come as a tourist you have a sense that the people here are very nice
and accommodating and that it’s beautiful and all that, but you
often don’t pick up the subtleties of the culture, but in my role
you do pick that up and I’ve been surprised by how different the
culture in Ireland really is from the States,” he says.
When asked to elaborate he explains: “The language has some subtle
differences in the choice of words and means of expression, and one thing
I noticed that’s different in the States is that people are more
open about celebrating other people’s success. It’s not just
Ireland but in Europe, I think there’s less willing acceptance of
people standing out.”
Another thing that has struck Foley is the Irish interest in politics.
“I’ve been on the radio four times in the last three days
talking about the U.S. elections. There’s a tremendous level of
interest here. I think there’s something in the blood that makes
the Irish interested and good in politics. Also, the world’s becoming
a smaller place. It matters in Europe who becomes president of the United
States,” he says.
Public diplomacy has been a challenge in all of Europe in explaining
what the U.S. has been up to in Iraq. Foley, who served as the Director
of Private Sector Development for the Coalition Provisional Authority
and oversaw most of Iraq’s 192 state-owned enterprises, from August
2003 to March 2004, is up to the challenge. “I think it helps a
lot with the dialogue when people realize that I actually am familiar
with the situation on the ground, so when I say something I can say it
with more authority than someone who hadn’t been there. So that’s
been helpful. Also, I think that attitudes are swinging back, and are
a little less intemperate here and on the continent with regard to U.S.
foreign policy. I think part of the reason for that is because things
seem to be going better in Iraq,” he says.
Foley grew up in Chicago, the fourth in a family of six (he has one
brother and four sisters). His Irish ancestors immigrated to the United
States during or just after the famine. “My father’s family
came into New York. And my mother’s part of the family ended up
pretty quickly out in Wisconsin. The Foleys were from the Waterford area.
And my mother’s family – their surname was Coleman –
were from around Dundalk, Co. Louth. My father’s mother’s
surname was Loughran and they were from Tyrone.”
Foley, whose 16-year-old son, Thomas, Jr., loves to visit Ireland, is
finding that Irish blood is hard to water down. “When I came here
and started getting to know people, I could see resemblances to my brothers
and sisters and parents – I don’t see that when I’m
in France or even in England. There’s definitely something in the
DNA.”
 Edward
Gillespie
From Senate parking lot attendant to Counselor to the President, Ed Gillespie
has just about seen and done it all in Washington. Before his current
role, to which he was appointed after the resignation of Dan Bartlett,
he served as Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.
Gillespie’s father came to the United States from Donegal as a child
in 1933 and went on to win a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, a Bronze Star
with Oak Leaf Cluster and a Silver Star during World War II. In an op-ed
piece in The Wall Street Journal on how the Republican Party cannot become
perceived as anti-immigrant, Gillespie wrote, “I am proud to be
the son of an immigrant. Like many first-generation Americans, I feel
it has made me treasure the benefits of citizenship even more. I appreciate
the opportunities that have been provided to my father – and by
extension to me and my three children – by the greatest country
ever to grace the face of the earth.”
A graduate of the Catholic University of America in Washington, Gillespie
had worked as a White House Advisor in the process of confirming Chief
Justice of the United States John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel
Alito. He was the Chairman of the Republican National Committee for the
2004 election cycle, and was the first chairman in 80 years to oversee
the re-election of a Republican president while holding Republican majorities
in both the House and Senate.
Ed is married to Cathy and the couple have three children, John Patrick,
Carrie and Mollie Brigid.
 Ray
Kelly
For Police Commissioner Ray Kelly the big question remains: If Mayor
Bloomberg does not run for a second term, will the city’s head cop
throw his hat in the ring in 2009? When asked by Irish America two years
ago about the possibility of a mayoral run, Kelly, a registered Independent,
answered: “This is the job [Police Commissioner] I want and this
is the job I am focusing all my energies on.” Spoken like a true
politician.
Kelly’s actions have always been louder than his words. Born and
raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, he attended Catholic schools
before entering the Marine Corps and serving in the Vietnam War. He retired
as a colonel from the Marine Corps Reserves after 30 years of service
in 1993. Policing, however, has played the biggest role in Kelly’s
professional life. With over thirty years experience on the force, Kelly
was the first person to hold the position of Police Commissioner for two
nonconsecutive tenures, from 1992-1994 under Mayor Dinkins and from 2002
to the present under Mayor Bloomberg.
From 1996 to 1998, Kelly was Under Secretary for Enforcement at the
U.S. Treasury Department. He served as Vice President for the Americas
of Interpol, the international police organization, from 1996-2000, and
as Director of the International Police Monitors in Haiti, the U.S.-led
force charged with ending human rights abuses and establishing a police
force in that war-torn nation.
Kelly holds degrees from Manhattan College, St. John’s University
School of Law, New York University Graduate School of Law and the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University. A second-generation Irish-American
whose four grandparents were all born in Ireland, Kelly is married to
Veronica and has two grown-up sons.
 Seamus
McCaffery
Irish-born, military veteran (U.S. Marine Corps) former Philadelphia
police officer, judge in the Court of Common Pleas, now a judge for the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court – it’s a classic American Dream
story of achievement through hard work.
Judge Seamus McCaffery was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1950,
to Seamus and Rita McCaffery. When he was five, Seamus immigrated to America
with his parents and siblings. The family settled in Philadelphia and
grew to include Seamus’ three brothers and three sisters, all of
whom remain in Philadelphia, Bucks and Montgomery counties.
Seamus’ formative years were heavily influenced by the values
of his ethnic, working-class parents, who stressed a strong work ethic,
giving back to the community, loyalty to family and to America. As an
immigrant, Seamus took these values to heart, and after graduating from
Cardinal Dougherty High School in 1968 he joined the United States Marine
Corps. After leaving active duty, he joined the Philadelphia Police Department,
where he spent 20 years.
During this time, Seamus raised three sons: Sean, Jim and Brian. Sean
is a member of the Philadelphia Police SWAT unit, Jim is an FBI agent,
and Brian is a recent graduate of Temple University School of Law. All
three of Seamus’ sons are married to schoolteachers, and Seamus
is the proud and devoted grandfather of two beautiful granddaughters.
Seamus and his wife, Lise Rapaport, live in Northeast Philadelphia.
 Patricia
Ann McDonald
hen Patricia Ann McDonald was elected mayor of Malverne, New York, beating
incumbent Anthony Panzarella, who had been mayor for eight years, her
success came as no surprise to her husband, Steven McDonald, a former
New York City police officer paralyzed from the neck down after being
shot by a teenager while on patrol in Central Park in 1986.
He told The New York Times that his wife has “a life experience
of service that has prepared her for this job,” adding, “what
she’s been through with me for the past 21 years, she’s the
most selfless person I’ve ever met.” Indeed, the couple have
overcome tragedy to launch a worldwide crusade for peace and forgiveness,
meeting presidents and popes along the way.
After she abandoned a career in publishing to care for her husband and
raise her son Conor, Patricia’s work in community service has made
her a public figure for decades. Politics runs in McDonald’s blood:
her father was a Malverne village trustee for 17 years, and when he was
taken ill in 1996, Patti stepped in and filled his role for a year.
Patti’s Irish roots can be traced on her father’s side to
Waterford and Sligo. Her mother’s family came from Sligo and Cork.
While raising her son, Patti included two children from Project Children
of North Ireland in her home during the summers. She also helped found
the Challenged Irish American Youth Team and has worked to encourage peace
in Ireland, participating in peace delegations to Belfast in support of
the Good Friday Agreement.
 John
McCain
Six months ago Arizona Senior Senator John McCain’s campaign for
the Republican presidential nomination was looking shaky. After a remarkable
comeback McCain stands a very good chance of becoming America’s
next president. Since his recent endorsement by former President George
H.W. Bush, McCain’s grip on the Republican nomination is tightening.
The son and grandson of distinguished Navy admirals, John McCain was
himself a Vietnam war veteran and was tortured for five years by North
Vietnamese captors as a prisoner of war. Despite the atrocities he suffered,
McCain kept a positive attitude and faith in America. To this day his
mantra still remains, “Duty, Honor, Country.”
On his mother’s side, McCain traces his Irish roots to the Hugh
family who came over from County Antrim in the early 18th century. It
has recently been confirmed by DNA testing that on his father’s
side as well, the McCain family came from north County Antrim, not far
from Dunluce. They settled in Mississippi. Several of the Mississippi
McCains are quite interested in their Irish heritage, learning Gaelic
and spending time in Ireland, and one of them is pursuing a Ph.D. in Irish
history. Senator McCain himself is an avid reader of contemporary Irish
literature, citing Roddy Doyle and William Trevor as favorites.
McCain remains a strong advocate for new immigration laws and campaign
finance reform. His life experience as well as his veteran status makes
him a popular choice, and he will prove a worthy adversary to whomever
wins the Democratic nomination.
John McCain lives in Phoenix with his wife Cindy and their four children
Jimmy, Bridget, Jack and Meghan.
 Barack
Obama
He is a leading Democratic candidate for the presidential election in
November, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has built his campaign platform
on hope and change. If successful, Obama will be the first man of African
descent to inhabit the White House. He will not, however, be the first
man of Irish ancestry to occupy the position.
Though it may come as a surprise to many, Obama can trace Irish ancestry
on his mother’s side back to one Falmouth Kearney from Monegall,
County Offaly, whose father was a shoemaker. According to Church of Ireland
rector Canon Stephen Neill whose investigation into Obama’s Irish
roots was prompted by a request from an Americans for Obama group based
in Dublin, Falmouth emigrated to New York in the 1850s at the age of 19.
Falmouth’s daughter Mary Ann Kearney, born in Tipton County, Indiana
in 1869, married Jacob William Dunham, of Kempton, Indiana. The couple
moved to Wichita, Kansas, where their great-granddaughter, Barack Obama’s
mother Ann Dunham, was born in 1942.
Barack Obama himself was born in Hawaii, where his mother’s parents
had moved and where she attended college and met Obama’s father,
Barack Hussein Obama from Kenya. The couple divorced when Obama was two.
Obama was educated at Columbia University. In 1991 he graduated from Harvard
Law School where he was the first African-American president of the Harvard
Law Review. In January of 2005 he was sworn into office as state senator
in Illinois.
Obama’s campaign remains strong in America, but the senator also
has the support of the tiny Irish town of Offaly where locals celebrated
the senator’s victory in the Iowa caucus. Standing outside of Ollie
Hayes’s pub, American Democratic activists led locals in the signature
Obama cheer, “Fired Up! Ready to Go!”
Barack Obama lives on the South Side of Chicago with his wife Michelle
and their two daughters Malia and Sasha.
 Patrick
Murphy
Patrick J. Murphy (D-PA) is the first veteran of the Iraq war to serve
in Congress. He has been representing Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional
District since November 2006. Murphy joined the Army in 1993 and became
a West Point professor, a JAG Corps attorney, and served in both Bosnia
(2002) and Iraq (2003-2004) post 9/11.
In Iraq he served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. During
his service he earned a Bronze Star and his unit was awarded a Presidential
Unit Citation.Murphy sits on both the House Armed Services Committee and
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He opposed a troop
increase in Iraq in 2007, and with fellow Democrats Senator Barack Obama
and Congressman Mike Thompson, cosponsored the Iraq War De-Escalation
Act of 2007.
This year, after the New York Giants’ surprise win in the Super
Bowl, Murphy showed his hometown loyalty when he was the only congressman
to vote against a resolution congratulating the Big Blue saying, “As
a former 700-level security guard and lifelong Eagles fan, I couldn’t,
in good conscience, vote for the New York Giants. The only thing worse
would have been a resolution honoring the Dallas Cowboys.”
Murphy is married to Jennifer and has a daughter Maggie, born in 2006.
His father is a Philadelphia police office and his mother is a career
legal secretary.
 Tim
Murphy
Tim Murphy (R-PA), U.S. Congressman for the 18th District of Pennsylvania
since 2002, is one of the few health care professionals in Congress. A
psychologist by trade, he served at a number of hospitals in the Pittsburgh
area, including Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital, before his election
to the state senate in 1997.
One of 11 children, born to a Polish mother and an Irish-American father,
Murphy grew up in a rural area of Ohio. “There was not much money,
but we never knew we didn’t have it,” says Murphy, who worked
his way through college. Upon leaving school, he became a practicing psychologist
and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He also made regular
appearances on KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh from 1979 to 1995 as a health care
expert.
The only child psychologist in federal government, Murphy explained to
Irish America why he took up politics. “I worked so long for so
many groups going back and forth and talking to elected officials about
health issues, and all the time I wished elected officials knew more.”
The catalyst came one night when he was visiting a new-born intensive
care unit. “I remember looking at this tiny baby addicted to crack
cocaine, and saying to a nurse, ‘I have seen enough and I’m
not going to take it any more.’ She said, ‘What are you going
to do about it – run for office?’ So I did. A state senate
seat opened up and I ran and then in 2002 I was elected to Congress.”
In Congress, Murphy puts his background in health care to good use. He
co-chairs the Health Care and Mental Health Care Caucuses. Murphy, whose
ancestors immigrated from County Cork many generations ago, is also involved
with the Irish Caucus and has been to Ireland several times, meeting with
Northern Ireland leaders Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley. He is excited to
“finally see peace there after the longest standing conflict in
Western civilization emerges now into issues of Irish economic partnership."
Congressman Murphy lives in Upper St. Clair, Allegheny County, with
his wife, Nan, and daughter, Bevin. – PH
 Scott
O'Grady
had this sense that people all over the world were praying for my well-being,”
Scott O’Grady, the former Air Force F-16 pilot, says of the six
days in June 1995 he spent eluding paramilitaries in Bosnia who were determined
to kill him after shooting him down. His dramatic daylight rescue by the
U.S. Marine Corps galvanized the country. “I’d made it to
the ground alive, which was miraculous considering I took a direct hit
from the missile and the airplane blew up around me and I was on fire.”
Miracle is also the word used by Marines – seven miracles, in fact,
they say. The final and most dramatic one happened when the helicopter
carrying O’Grady to safety took fire and a bullet hit the canteen
of Sgt. Major Angel Castro, who was sitting directly in front of Scott
O’Grady. “I was in the line of fire,” O’Grady
remembers. “I don’t take things for granted in life now.”
After completing his Air Force commitment, Scott O’Grady returned
to school and recently completed his Master’s in Divinity. “My
faith in God, the love of my family whom I wanted to see again, and my
patriotism were what really carried me through the ordeal,” he says.
“A lot of my patriotism was spawned by my understanding of my
ancestry and my heritage. The sacrifices of my ancestors have always inspired
me. My O’Grady grandparents came from Sligo and my grandmother Rose
Briarty was born in County Longford, Ireland. She married William O’Grady,
a Brooklyn police officer, and the two of them worked to put their three
children through college. My dad and uncle both graduated from the University
of Notre Dame and my dad went on to medical school and became a heart
surgeon. And that’s the American Dream.” O’Grady says
his mother’s father, an Italian immigrant who became the main breadwinner
of his family at fourteen, also was able to put himself through medical
school and became a pediatric heart surgeon.
 Rear
Admiral Timothy S. Sullivan
Since 2006, Rear Admiral Timothy S. Sullivan has been Commander, First
Coast Guard District and Commander, Maritime Defense Command One. In this
role he is responsible for all Coast Guard missions across eight Northeast
states and 2000 miles of coastline from Maine to northern New Jersey.
Prior to this position Rear Admiral Sullivan was Senior Military Advisor
to the Secretary of Homeland Security, where he was the primary coordinator
between the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. He also acted
as operational advisor to the secretary during Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita.
During 9/11 he was Commanding Officer, Group San Francisco before transferring
to the Department of Homeland Security.
A 1975 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, he has a master’s degree
in Communication Arts / Public Affairs from Cornell University and graduated
from the Kennedy School of Government Senior Executive National and International
Security Program at Harvard University.
Sullivan is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the Legion
of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Coast Guard Commendation
Medal, the 9-11 Medal and the Coast Guard Achievement Medal. Rear Admiral
Sullivan, who traces his heritage to Cork, is married to Teresa and the
couple have four children, Maureen, Conor, Rory and Patrick. – DOK
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