HECKSCHERVILLE - Shirley Laudeman Brennan, Lebanon, enjoys genealogy and at the sixth annual Heritage Day in the Valley on Sunday, she set up a table to display some of her Irish roots.
"We've been coming out to this for three years now. I brought a lot of information. I made a poster and brought pictures showing our family tree," said Brennan, 53, who was there with her husband, Bob, 58, a former Minersville resident.
They were among the more than 75 people who came out to the traditional ceremony at the cemetery in front of the former St. Kieran Roman Catholic Church, the convent, the rectory and school buildings, which are side-by-side on Church Road off Valley Road.
Before heading back to the Heritage Day festivities at the Clover Fire Company grounds, Brennan and her husband spotted the grave marker for John J. Dormer, born 1875 and died 1937, and Margaret Dormer, born 1876 and died 1937.
"They're my great-grandparents. The story behind this is he was working in Cressona and died of a heart attack. He worked at one of the collieries. When they told his wife, she died of shock. So they both passed away the same day. They lived in Greenbury, which is right down the street," Brennan said.
St. Kieran church was closed in June 2008, a casualty in the widespread restructuring and consolidation of Roman Catholic churches. Heritage Day in the Valley is a fundraiser for the Friends of St. Kieran's, a nonprofit corporation raising funds to buy the property from the Diocese of Allentown with plans to turn it into a historic site and cultural center.
According to Catherine C. Clifford, president of the Friends of St. Kieran's, more than 300 people came out to the event.
It featured live music from The Troubles and The Irish Lads, a performance from representatives of McCormick School of Irish Dance, food vendors and a reenactment of Finnegan's Wake, Clifford, Cresswell Gardens, said.
"We're from Lehigh County. The last time I was here was when he was a little boy," Sean Shields, 40, of Allentown, said, referring to his son, Patrick, 13.
"This is the Irish valley, and it plays a real important part in Irish history," Shields said.
"When the AOH, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, started in America in 1836, it started simultaneously in New York and Cass Township," Thomas Symons, Primrose, historian for the Schuylkill County AOH, said.
"Also, this is the coal region. My family is from the upper coal fields in Scranton. We're Irish, and we like to support things like this. It's what should be done," Shields said.
More than 40 AOH members are buried at the St. Kieran's Cemetery, Symons said.
"These are the early founders of the AOH in America, members of AOH Division 12," Symons said.
The ceremony Sunday included a volley fired by Emil Rizzi, commander of American Legion 544, Minersville, and members Steve Mollick, Charles Nush and Rizzi, and the command was given by member William "Chip" Prelovsky.
"During most of the 19th century, the Irish Catholic immigrants to the United States were subjected to bigotry, social segregation and racial intimidation, all under the guise of patriotism, by the nativist population of this country. It was not uncommon to see signs in storefronts or businesses with 'Help Wanted - No Irish Need Apply' or, in the larger cities to have the Irish dominated by gangs such as the True Blue Americans or the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, or worse yet, to see our churches ransacked and burned to the ground," Symons said in his speech at the morning service at the cemetery.
"In March of 1836, a group of Schuylkill County Irish immigrants, all members of the Hibernian Benevolent Society, traveled to New York City and met with members of the St. Patrick's Fraternal Society. The fruits of that meeting can be seen here today. That meeting led to the beginnings of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, with divisions and charters granted simultaneously on May 4, 1836, in New York and Cass Township," Symons said.
For more information on the Friends of St. Kieran's, log on to the group's website at www.friendsofstkierans.com.