BUTTE — Butte residents and visitors gathered to mark St. Patrick's Day with the city's annual parade and festivities, celebrating the Irish heritage that has long defined the community.
I took to the streets of Butte to take in the sights and sounds of the annual celebration.
Caden Tippett, a member of the Butte Central Pep Band, said the day carries deep cultural meaning for the city.
WATCH: Butte's St. Patrick's Day parade: Sights, sounds & Irish pride
"The Irish culture in Butte is very big, and it's very important that we continue to embrace that culture and keep it alive so that our children and our grandchildren can experience that culture too," Tippett said.
For 22 years, Viktor Kujawa has taken on the role of St. Patrick during the parade, carrying on a tradition of driving out snakes and forgiving hangovers.
"You gotta bring on the sunshine and drive away the storm clouds and forgive hangovers and drive the snakes out," Kujawa said.
Francas Shea came prepared to spread the celebration, bringing around 200 beads to hand out to people along the parade route.
For visitors like Amy Meyer of Whitefish, the draw of Butte's St. Patrick's Day is hard to put into words.
"The people, the buildings, the party...it's so fun!" Meyer said.
Butte resident Zoe Jensen said the sense of community is what makes the day special.
"It's really cool to see everybody all together, you know. Everybody all gets along, and it's pretty neat to see everybody all in one place," Jensen said.
MONTANA AND IRISH-AMERICAN HISTORY
Montana and Irish-American history are closely woven together, with the state seeing a large influx of Irish immigrants during the last four decades of the 19th century. The travel website AFAR noted: "According to the most recent U.S. Census, Butte is the most Irish city in the union per capita; almost a full quarter of its residents are of Irish descent."
"We know that a lot of the Irish that came to Montana came from the Western Seaboard of Ireland, and we know that for the most part were Irish speakers, so they were post-famine immigrants that left Ireland, so when they came here to Montana, they came steeped into Irish Tradition," said Ciara Ryan with the Montana History Foundation.
During the late 1800s, Irish and Catholics sometimes faced discrimination in the eastern parts of the United States. Montana - Butte and Anaconda in particular - was lauded as a place Irish could go to be free from persecution and make an honest wage for a day’s work. "They did face significant discrimination in the 1850s and again in the 1890s," said Emmons.
"Signs were sometimes posted outside of businesses back east that read 'Irish need not apply.'" Emmons believes that could have enticed many Irish Americans to head west to Montana.
Irish businessmen gained control of the hard rock mining industry and controlled a large portion of the state’s wealth. Another way Irish Americans showed their strength against the discrimination was by planning and celebrating the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. "It started in New York in 1852, because the Irish were saying we are here," Emmons said.
The website Irish Central noted: "By 1900, half of Butte’s 30,000 population were Irish; Butte’s, suburbs were named Hungry Hill, Dublin Gulch, and Cork Town. Irish societies flourished too, with the Clann na Gaels, the Gaelic League, the Parnell Guard, the Emmet Guard, Daughters of Erin, the Robert Emmet Literary Association, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians."
This article has been lightly edited with the assistance of AI for clarity, syntax, and grammar.
