For many Irish and Irish-American Bronxites, this weekend is set to be a celebration of cultural roots.
The Throggs Neck St. Patrick’s Day Parade is on Sunday, and Lois Harr — one of the grand marshals — says it’s much more than just leprechauns and pots of gold.
“When you stop and think about it, it’s lovely,” she told the Bronx Times in an interview.
Harr’s connection to Ireland comes from her maternal grandfather, who was born and raised in Dublin in the early 1900s.
Growing up in an orphanage, he enlisted in the British Army and served in World War I. After the war, as tensions between Ireland and England rose in the fight for independence, Harr’s grandfather saw a better future in the U.S.
“He came out here because his sister was here,” she said about the Bronx. “One thing and then another, then he met my grandmother. And so that’s our story.”
Both her mother’s and her father’s sides are of Irish descent, Harr said, which influenced a lot of her upbringing and continue to influence her life to this day.
“I just was interested in Irish things, not like leprechauns and popsicles and Irish things, but Celtic Knots and music and more of the traditional things,” she said.
Harr went back to her grandfather’s home city for the first time at 50 years old. Since then she’s visited six more times — to different parts of the country and with different travel companions, most notably her husband John and two daughters Caitlin and Maura.
A graduate of Cardinal Spellman High School in Edenwald, Harr went on to get her B.A. in political science at Fordham College, then her M.A. in religious studies at St. Joseph’s Seminary and a professional diploma in religious education at Fordham University.
She worked at Christ the King School in Mount Eden for a decade before becoming a campus minister and adjunct instructor, and eventually the assistant vice president of Manhattan College. Harr retired from her…
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