The Thomas Megher [/'MARH/] Bar is where Ireland meets the wild west
Who is Thomas Meagher?
T
homas Francis Meagher [/'marh/] was born in Waterford, Ireland in 1823, and as a youth, joined the radical Young Ireland movement, which defied the occupying British forces.
In 1848, Meagher became a delegate for the Young Irelanders, and helped incite a rebellion known as "The Battle of Widow McCormzack's Cabbage Patch." However, since food and weapons were scarce, and Irish stones were no match for British rifles. The uprising was short lived, and the queen of England sentenced all instigators to death.
After the first execution, the Queen revised punishment, and banished remaining inciters to life in prison on an island outside of Australia. Island guards could not hold Meagher, and in 1852 he escaped in a rowboat, spending four days at sea, until an American whaling ship crossed his path and took him to San Francisco.
Meagher then moved to New York, became a lawyer, popular speaker, and the founder of various newspapers before joining the Union in the Civil War, where he rose to the rank of Brigadier General. He then recruited Irish immigrants for the Fighting 69th Irish Brigade, and marched under a green flag embroidered with the words: "Erin go Bragh" ("Ireland Forever").
A few months after war's end, Meagher was appointed Acting Governor of the Montana Territory. Finally, in the summer of 1867, after repeatedly beating the odds, Thomas Meagher reportedly fell off a riverboat and drowned in the Missouri River at the age of 44; though his body was never found!
A statue of Thomas Meagher charging on horseback currently stands before the Montana State Capitol building in Helena. His brief life as revolutionary, orator, patriot, convict, journalist, explorer, soldier and politician can only be summed up as "Irish Pride, personified."
Erin go Bragh! And welcome to Thomas Meagher's!
