IRISH LABOURERS WHO HELPED BUILD SOUTH CAROLINA HONOURED

     Hundreds of Irish labourers, many of whom died digging the Columbia Canal in South Carolina in the early 1800s, were honoured in an elaborate ceremony at the weekend.
     The Irishmen built a canal that today generates up to 10 million watts of power and supplies 35 million gallons of drinking water each day for South Carolina's Richland and Lexington counties.
     But their most important contribution to South Carolina came later, when they built St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Columbia.
     The church, which was originally built so the workers would have a place to be buried other than in the walls of the canal, helped expand Roman Catholicism in the state.
     A large granite "I" memorial was dedicated with bagpipes, dancing and a speech by the Irish consul general on Saturday in Columbia's popular Riverfront Park.
     Organisers hoped that the elaborate ceremony would make residents aware of the Irish sacrifice for the first time.
     Gaily dressed in saffron-colored kilts and playing When the Battle's Over, Irish pipe band Ceol na Gael marched past flags from 32 Irish counties and stopped in the shadow of the remains of Columbia's old prison.
     The walls of that prison furnished the granite blocks for the I-shaped memorial to the Irish men who came Columbia as indentured servants and built the canal.
     The prison likely was built by descendants of those who built the canal.
     "I said I want to use those blocks to bring history full cycle," said Jim Lawracy, who led the effort to build the memorial.
     At the start of the dedication, the Irish national anthem and The Star Spangled Banner rang out, as did greetings in both Gaelic and English.
     Lawracy and fellow members of the Irish history group The Ancient Order of the Hibernians dressed for the occasion in emerald jackets topped with green, white and orange sashes — the colours of the Irish flag.
     "It wasn't always easy being Irish in this country," said Niall Burgess, consul general of  Ireland, who travelled from New York for the dedication. "The Ancient Order of Hibernians created a roof and a space where we could freely be ourselves."
     Burgess reminded listeners — some of whom came from New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia — that for many Irish labourers the canal is not just a legacy, but a tomb.
     "May their souls rest with God," he said of those buried within the canal's walls.
     Denis O'Neill and his wife, Barbara, said the dedication and the preceding morning Mass, at which he sang a Gaelic hymn, were emotional reminders of his history.
     O'Neill"s mother, Anne Dolan, came to the U.S. from Ireland in 1950 and died two years ago.
     "I wish she were here," he said. "Oh, she'd be proud to be here."
     While in Columbia, Burgess was hoping to make lasting connections with the University of South Carolina and the Columbia Chamber of Commerce.
     "What matters at the end is not just the past and what happened, but strengthening the personal and business links between Ireland and Columbia," he said.
     Burgess said that the memorial was "uncovering a layer of history that we are all forgetting. It's a story that deserves to be much better known in Ireland."
     The canal, completed in 1824, cost US$209,000 to build and was part of a state system designed by Robert Mills to transport goods to Charleston for export.
     Much of the state's population was slave labour but slaves weren't used to build the canal because they were deemed too valuable. Irish labourers were hired because they were a cheaper option.
     "Canal worker was a job disproportionately dominated by the Irish," said Chris Rounds, a history instructor at Winthrop University who has studied the Irish impact in the United States.
     "And in South Carolina, because of the system of slavery, there wasn't a lot of competition with other racial or ethnic groups."
     After construction, many of the Irish workers moved on, but some stayed, founding St. Peter's on Assembly Street.
     "The canal is my family heritage," said Richard Peterson, who said his relatives helped establish the church. "That's why they came to Columbia and settled."
     The canal thrived for the first few years of its existence, but like many of the state's canals was put out of business in the mid-1800s by railroads. The canal was rebuilt and extended in 1891 to produce power.
     Burgess said for much of its history Ireland has been an emigrant nation, spreading its people all over the world.
     "We are not a people of place," he said. "We have a strong sense of connection globally."
     But in the past 10 years, that has started to change somewhat, he said, as the immigrant population of Ireland has been growing.
     While Burgess felt a connection to his homeland's emigrant past, others, like Peterson, felt a stronger connection with South Carolina.
     "All of these communities started building up what became the capital of South Carolina," he said. "A lot of that history is lost. Hopefully the memorial will shed some light on one of the events that really sparked the development of Columbia."