{"id":185335,"date":"2026-03-10T07:43:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T07:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185335\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T07:43:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T07:43:19","slug":"new-exhibit-explores-st-augustines-ancient-irish-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185335\/","title":{"rendered":"New exhibit explores St. Augustine\u2019s ancient Irish ties"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you think of St. Patrick\u2019s Day in the U.S., you probably think about annual Irish parades in Boston and Chicago that date back centuries. But what about St. Augustine?<\/p>\n

A new museum exhibit at the city\u2019s downtown Visitor Information Center<\/a> explores the historic connections between the U.S.\u2019 oldest colonial city and Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The exhibit, titled L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draic: St. Patrick & the Irish Diaspora in East Florida 1595-1840, traces the stories of various Irish people who found their way to St. Augustine<\/a> starting in the 16th century.<\/p>\n

They are people like Richard Arthur, the man credited with introducing St. Patrick\u2019s Day to Spanish St. Augustine all the way back in 1600 \u2014 more than 100 years before what was long believed to be the first celebration of the holiday in Boston.<\/p>\n

Historian J. Michael Francis was one of the driving forces behind the exhibit. Having studied Ireland\u2019s connections to St. Augustine for years, he sees the exhibit as an opportunity to share some of the little-known stories he has helped unearth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think part of the hope is that this exhibition will provide a brief teaser into the presence of a lot of Irish people who have not received all that much attention historically,\u201d Francis says. \u201cAnd that Florida, even Spanish Florida, these periods where the Spanish crown governed St. Augustine and east Florida, was a place with a surprisingly high number of not just Irish-born people, but people of Irish descent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibit is a collaboration between St. Augustine, the Irish consulate in Florida and researchers from Sin Barcos, a nonprofit organization Francis helps run that is dedicated to exploring Florida\u2019s early history.<\/p>\n

The Irish diaspora in St. Augustine<\/p>\n

Ahead of the exhibit\u2019s opening Monday, the researchers and organizers who helped get the exhibit off the ground celebrated with a kickoff event that included traditional Irish music, history lessons and, of course, Guinness beer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speakers at the kickoff celebrated the opportunity to acknowledge St. Augustine\u2019s deep historical ties to Ireland. They included Francis; Sarah Kavanagh, consul general of Ireland in Miami; and Minister Niamh Smyth, a tourism official all the way from Ireland. <\/p>\n

\"USFUSF professor Dr. J. Michael Francis speaks at the opening of a new museum exhibit he helped organize in St. Augustine. Francis\u2019 interest in Ireland\u2019s connections to St. Augustine go back years to when he stumbled upon a mention of St. Patrick in a document from 1600. | Noah Hertz, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Kavanagh says people typically associate the Irish diaspora in the U.S. with cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco, but she hopes the history presented in the exhibit through documents, animations and more will shed light on the lasting effects Irish immigrants had on St. Augustine.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople went to many countries for many reasons, and it\u2019s important to understand that because, of course, the history of the world is the history of the movement of peoples,\u201d Kavanagh says. \u201cLooking back at our history maybe gives us some empathy for the present time.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draic is free to visit at the St. Augustine Visitor Information Center at 10 S. Castillo Drive. The exhibit will be up through the end of April, when the team behind the exhibit hopes to take it around the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you think of St. Patrick\u2019s Day in the U.S., you probably think about annual Irish parades in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-185335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}