St. Patrick’s Day, Bowne House, and the Role of the Irish in American history

by Rosemary S. Vietor, Vice President; Edited by Charlotte Jackson, Archivist

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all!

Bowne House is celebrating the contributions made to America by the Irish with a series of posts about Ireland’s connections to the Bowne family and to the history of New York.

PART ONE:

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17. It commemorates the Irish saint who is venerated (worshiped) as a saint in the Catholic and Lutheran faiths, the Church of Ireland – part of the Anglican Communion – and in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Saint Patrick was a fifth century Christian missionary who is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. March 17th is reputed to be the day he died, not the date of his birth, which is unknown.

According to legend, St. Patrick is responsible for driving snakes (which as serpents, were viewed as symbols of evil) from Ireland and indeed, Ireland today has no snakes. Patrick may have come from England, but he did arrive in Ireland, where he served as a bishop and preached Christianity to the native Irish population. By the 17th century, his legend was already entrenched in Irish lore.

The Bowne connection to Ireland dates to the 17th century, when both John and Hannah Bowne visited Ireland and were visited by Irish Quakers in America. Ireland had a growing Quaker presence dating from 1654, when an Englishman named William Edmundson founded the first Meeting in County Antrim. John Bowne visited Dublin during his exile, and Hannah preached at Quaker meetings throughout the country in the 1670s. There may have been multiple visits by the Bownes to Ireland. Centuries later, their descendants would live alongside the 19th-century Irish diaspora in Flushing.