Notre Dame’s Legacy

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Editorial / Periscope - Niall O'Dowd

Notre Dame’s Legacy

October 26, 2007

By NiallO’Dowd

SOUTH BEND, Indiana — These fall days are ready-made memories for generations of fans of the Fighting Irish. If you haven’t been to Notre Dame on a football Saturday try and make it once in your life. It is an experience not to be missed. It doesn’t really matter what the result of the game is, and certainly this year the team is the worst in living memory. On Saturday they were annihilated by a vastly superior USC team that looked like men against boys.

What was important was the extraordinary camaraderie and atmosphere as Notre Dame fans gathered from all over America for a ritual that has become timeless for successive generations.

In the parking lot were cars with Alaska registrations, as well as from Washington State, Florida and points east and west. The tailgate parties which start from the early mornings were a wonderful opportunity to catch up with old friends, college roommates, new families experiencing the Notre Dame glow for the first time in their lives and, of course, the rabid football fans who live and die by the Blue and Gold.

The two-hour drive from Chicago is past cornfields and rural settlements that are scenes from a rural idyll. As you approach South Bend you become aware of the incredible history about to unfold.

Buildings named the “Waterford Development” or “Dublin Village” begin to sprout up. You see Irish Tricolors along side Notre Dame flags. You get the sense of an Irish settlement unique in American history.

How this particular slice of Irish America came to life amid the cornfields of rural Indiana is a miracle in itself. Suffice to say that it is the most unlikely outpost of an ethnic culture in America.

It all began on a bitterly cold afternoon of November 26, 1842, when a 28-year-old French priest, Father Edward Sorin, of the congregation of Holy Cross and seven companions, looked out over a snow covered 524 acre site and saw their great dream of a Catholic university unfold in front of them.

They were optimistic to say the least, but in 1879 a disastrous fire burned their fledgling campus to the ground. But they were not to be denied.

“I came here as a young man and dreamed of building a great university in honor of Our Lady,” Sorin said. “But I built it too small, and she had to burn it to the ground to make the point. So, tomorrow, as soon as the bricks cool, we will rebuild it, bigger and better than ever.”

The nickname the Fighting Irish soon became attached to the student body and the college. It may be because so many fought on the Union side in the Civil War.

At the start of the Civil War, Sorin saw the importance of helping the Union cause and asked his fellow priests to minister to the soldiers and the Irish Brigade in particular.

Irish-born William Corby and six other priests of Holy Cross order, a third of the order’s members in the U.S., eventually joined up.

But Corby was the first Catholic priest with the Union Army. He chose to serve the Irish Brigade, and there is an extraordinary photograph of him ministering to the troops after the Battle of Antietam.

The Fighting Irish nickname has also been attributed to the school’s battle against the Ku Klux Klan. During two days of riots in May 1924, Notre Dame students took on the Indiana Ku Klux Klan. The KKK hated their religion and feared Catholics would take over the state.

“Look around: they are already taking over the schools, flaunting our laws” shouted one Klan leader. The Klan was routed by the students, striking a blow for equal rights everywhere.

From such unpromising beginnings came the University of Notre Dame, the greatest Catholic school power house in America and a living symbol of how a burning belief can overcome even the most crushing setbacks and prevail.

These days many of the Irish descendants of those pioneers arrive by private jet. The days of anti-Irish discrimination are long gone.

Notre Dame’s board has been led in the recent past by men such as Donald Keough, former president of Coca-Cola, and Andrew McKenna, chairman of McDonalds. The Keough-Naughton Institute on campus is a magnificent center for Irish Studies, and I am very proud to be their newest board member.

It is incredible that I grew up in Ireland like millions of others and never heard the story of Notre Dame. Now Notre Dame has a magnificent campus in Dublin and the college, mainly through its football team, is close to a household name.

If there is a symbol of the success of the Irish in America then this college is it.

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