From Warrenpoint,
County Down, Hugh
Byrne left for the port of
New Orleans in antebellum
times, when the
“Crescent City” ranked
second only to New York as the
largest port in all the United
States. By the time he arrived,
reports confirm that one in
every four New Orleanian had
been born in Ireland. Making
their homes off Tchoupitoulas,
along the famous “Sliver on the
River,” Hugh and his brothers
joined the ranks of many fellow
Irishmen in the treacherous life
of a riverfront screwman. And
they earned the way they made.
Hugh Byrne married Mary Kenny, whose Irish family had emigrated first to southern Kentucky, and then down the Mississippi to New Orleans.
From Killarney, Co. Kerry, Dennis McGrath left for America in earlier antebellum times, landing in New York and continuing on to Wisconsin in search of land. Making their home in Highland, Dennis and his family became farmers. And they earned the way they made.
Dennis McGrath married Mary Smith, whose family had emigrated from Co. Tipperary.
In yet another antebellum time – just months before Pearl Harbor – Dennis and Mary McGrath’s great-grandson, John, left Wisconsin for the Port of New Orleans, on personal invitation from Uncle Sam. Here, on our famous Canal Street in 1942, quiet Master Sergeant John McGrath met and fell in love with Hugh and Mary Byrne’s beautifully shy granddaughter, Isabella Byrne.
And so to Mary Ann McGrath Swaim, a Southern Irishwoman, who counts herself blessed to have been born in New Orleans because of the courageous wanderlust, and the laboring love, of her tribe. Mary Ann was the first of four children born to John and Isabella McGrath – Mary Ann, Glen, Marci, and Adrian. As she sees it, her story is not exceptional – nothing to compare with the monumental life achievements of those who came before her, who risked everything to venture across the ocean and across the land to find a home for themselves in the “Land of Dreams” – and to earn the way they made.
Dance was Mary Ann’s life’s goal, but early injuries forced her to look elsewhere. So, with cum laudes, Woodrow Wilsons, and such behind her, she became a lawyer, married her law professor – the incomparable “Louisiana Swaim” – mothered three exceptionally unique people – Clancy, Shannon, and Bill, and is now grandmother to two darling dolls – Sarah and Claire.
Mary Ann practiced law and returned for her MS in Counseling just before Hurricane Katrina changed everything. Just after she thought that Katrina had changed everything, she lost her life’s love – her “Professor Swaim.”
In between – always – Mary Ann searched for stories of her Irish past, only to be reminded by her Nana that “you’re an American” and “there are no castles in Ireland.”
“Nana was right and she wasn’t,” Mary Ann says, “but her message ‘Work, Live, Breathe, Here, Now’ was the same truth that Dennis and Mary McGrath and Hugh and Mary Byrne obviously knew.”
Still, Mary Ann fears she compromised the practice and even home sometimes, to follow a dream – the re-homing of Irish Dance in New Orleans. She became the first Louisianian, and so also the first New Orleanian, licensed by An Coimisiún le Rinci Gaelechá as an Irish dance teacher. In those times, she reveled at marrying Mardi Gras to feiseanna, with beads and medals meshing under strains of Irish tunes and Mardi Gras Indian chants. “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me.”
In her time she served as the first president of the Ladies AOH, Margaret Haughey Division, New Orleans; first Dance Chair for the Irish Cultural Society of New Orleans; member of the first Board of The New Orleans Friends of Ireland; the first New Orleanian traveler in search of a New Orleans Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann tour stop; a first officer of Southern Regions IDTANA (Irish Dance Championships); “Godmother” to O’Flaherty’s Irish Channel Pub; and member of boards of many other Irish organizations.
Post Katrina, Mary Ann remains an active member of the Board of The Advocacy Center of Louisiana (http://www.advocacyla.org/), an organization whose mission it is to ensure that children with disabilities are able to live, study and play in loving environments that help them meet their full potential.
Hugh Byrne married Mary Kenny, whose Irish family had emigrated first to southern Kentucky, and then down the Mississippi to New Orleans.
From Killarney, Co. Kerry, Dennis McGrath left for America in earlier antebellum times, landing in New York and continuing on to Wisconsin in search of land. Making their home in Highland, Dennis and his family became farmers. And they earned the way they made.
Dennis McGrath married Mary Smith, whose family had emigrated from Co. Tipperary.
In yet another antebellum time – just months before Pearl Harbor – Dennis and Mary McGrath’s great-grandson, John, left Wisconsin for the Port of New Orleans, on personal invitation from Uncle Sam. Here, on our famous Canal Street in 1942, quiet Master Sergeant John McGrath met and fell in love with Hugh and Mary Byrne’s beautifully shy granddaughter, Isabella Byrne.
And so to Mary Ann McGrath Swaim, a Southern Irishwoman, who counts herself blessed to have been born in New Orleans because of the courageous wanderlust, and the laboring love, of her tribe. Mary Ann was the first of four children born to John and Isabella McGrath – Mary Ann, Glen, Marci, and Adrian. As she sees it, her story is not exceptional – nothing to compare with the monumental life achievements of those who came before her, who risked everything to venture across the ocean and across the land to find a home for themselves in the “Land of Dreams” – and to earn the way they made.
Dance was Mary Ann’s life’s goal, but early injuries forced her to look elsewhere. So, with cum laudes, Woodrow Wilsons, and such behind her, she became a lawyer, married her law professor – the incomparable “Louisiana Swaim” – mothered three exceptionally unique people – Clancy, Shannon, and Bill, and is now grandmother to two darling dolls – Sarah and Claire.
Mary Ann practiced law and returned for her MS in Counseling just before Hurricane Katrina changed everything. Just after she thought that Katrina had changed everything, she lost her life’s love – her “Professor Swaim.”
In between – always – Mary Ann searched for stories of her Irish past, only to be reminded by her Nana that “you’re an American” and “there are no castles in Ireland.”
“Nana was right and she wasn’t,” Mary Ann says, “but her message ‘Work, Live, Breathe, Here, Now’ was the same truth that Dennis and Mary McGrath and Hugh and Mary Byrne obviously knew.”
Still, Mary Ann fears she compromised the practice and even home sometimes, to follow a dream – the re-homing of Irish Dance in New Orleans. She became the first Louisianian, and so also the first New Orleanian, licensed by An Coimisiún le Rinci Gaelechá as an Irish dance teacher. In those times, she reveled at marrying Mardi Gras to feiseanna, with beads and medals meshing under strains of Irish tunes and Mardi Gras Indian chants. “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me.”
In her time she served as the first president of the Ladies AOH, Margaret Haughey Division, New Orleans; first Dance Chair for the Irish Cultural Society of New Orleans; member of the first Board of The New Orleans Friends of Ireland; the first New Orleanian traveler in search of a New Orleans Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann tour stop; a first officer of Southern Regions IDTANA (Irish Dance Championships); “Godmother” to O’Flaherty’s Irish Channel Pub; and member of boards of many other Irish organizations.
Post Katrina, Mary Ann remains an active member of the Board of The Advocacy Center of Louisiana (http://www.advocacyla.org/), an organization whose mission it is to ensure that children with disabilities are able to live, study and play in loving environments that help them meet their full potential.