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Local Irish group going strong for 84 years

Contributed photo by Pat Brown The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick have been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in a big way for 84 years.

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By Amanda Seitz, Staff Writer 8:20 PM Tuesday, March 16, 2010

HAMILTON — Nobody celebrates St. Patrick’s Day quite like the Irish.

In Hamilton, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick have been celebrating it for a long time. Eighty-four years to be exact.

Some members of the group will kick off the day at 7 a.m. in Ryan’s Tavern on High Street, according to member Don Ryan, owner of the Irish pub.

The day will mainly revolve around the Son’s 84th annual dinner at 6:30 p.m. to honor the organization’s motherland Gregory Jolivette said.

“It’s a celebration of St. Patrick and our Irish heritage,” Jolivette said.

In the past few years, the group has decided to add a different component to the day.

“We thought as we celebrate St. Patrick, that we’d do some good,” Jolivette said.

The group will raise money during its annual dinner and donate it to the Hamilton Community Foundation for students wanting to attend Badin High School but cannot afford tuition.

According to Ryan, the group has raised around $36,000 over the years for Badin students.

“We’ve been doing it for five or six years,” group President Craig Wilks said of the Badin fundraiser. “We generally choose one or two students per year.”

The group has also organized a golf tournament to help raise money for Badin scholarships.

The group’s treasurer, Denny Walsh, said Badin is special to the group because of its Catholic education.

“To be a board of trustee you have to be Irish-Catholic, at least half Irish,” Walsh said.

Members of the Sons maintain that the most important part of today’s celebration is remembering relatives and years past.  “It’s important that we’re celebrating our heritage,” Ryan said. “The Irish, they stand for love of God, love of family, love of country.”

For Walsh, the line of heritage relating the Son of St. Patrick is easy to see.

“(Sons of St. Patrick) is probably one of the longest running organizations in Hamilton — we’ve never missed a year,” he said. “My dad took me and my grandpa took him.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2192 or flast@coxohio.com.

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