The Irish of San Francisco

Preparing for the Saint Patrick Day Parade

From the days (decades really) before the Gold Rush of 1849, to our current governor Gavin Newsom (a fifth-generation Irish San Franciscan, by the way), the Irish have been an integral part of the development of San Francisco since before it was part of the United States. With Saint Patrick’s Day right around the corner, I felt this was a good time to explore the contributions of Irish San Franciscans.

The first known recorded appearance of an Irish man in California was Timothy Murphy. He arrived in the Golden State as a laborer, but found his fortune trapping sea otters in the Monterey Bay. In a few short years he became a land owner, and as this was still Mexico at the time, he was known as Don Timoteo.

With the Potato Famine of the 1840s and many immigrants from the Emerald Isle encountering signs in eastern cities which read, “Irish need not apply,” many of them found a home in San Francisco.

According to the records of the era, the foreign-born Irish population was twelve percent of the population in 1856. Some twenty five years later the Irish immigrants and their offspring accounted for thirty three percent of the city’s population. By 1870 Irish immigrants made up over twenty one percent of the labor force in San Francisco.

Notable non-Irish San Franciscans like Levi Strauss may have invented blue jeans and Philo T. Farnsworth may have invented Television, but the Irish who called San Francisco home established a lot of “Firsts.”

In 1867, Frank McCoppin became the first Irish-born mayor of a major city. The surveyor Jasper O’Farrell (for whom O’Farrell Street is named) designed the street-grid plan emanating from Market Street, thus establishing the layout of the San Francisco we know today. In 1849, the first chief of police was hired and he was Irishman named Malachi Fallon.

As the Irish immigrants were establishing their place in the city-by-the-bay, racism and discrimination still prevailed amongst the Protestant-born upper echelons who ran the city.  As in other large cities, the Irish may have been initially shut out of the halls of power, but where they could establish themselves, they did.

The ranks of the San Francisco police and fire departments had many Irish members.  As did the schools, the trades, and other professions which were embraced by the new immigrants denied access to the movers and shakers of the city.

As the first Irish citizens of San Francisco began to produce second and third generations, their decedents established Irish neighborhoods in many parts of the city.  The Mission District is known for being the nadir of the Latino community in San Francisco.  As it is where the Spanish established the first building in the city, the Mission Dolores, hence the name of the neighborhood. 

Before WWII the neighborhood had a thriving German and Greek community, as well an Irish one. To this day the Dovre Club bar and Duggan’s Funeral Home are just a few of the remaining businesses in the Mission District when it was once a thriving Irish community.

When the community became a diaspora, and many Irish descendants began moving to the suburbs in the post-war years, the need for a real cultural center became paramount.

In 1971, the United Irish Cultural Center was established and finally, one central building was constructed.  It now serves as a meeting space for cultural events and offices to promote the heritage and civic contributions of the Irish in San Francisco.