Know nothings never go away. Continued.
It’s not just newcomers to Oregon who are surprised to learn there’s some KKK in the state’s political DNA. Along with a handful of likeminded anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant groups back in the 1920s, the KKK tried to shut down parochial schools statewide. Has Oregon ever reckoned with the fact that a majority of voters (115,500 to 103,700) supported them by voting Yes? This should help.
Long-time local reporter Steve Law has just published an expose of the pervasiveness of white supremacy in Oregon politics just over a century ago. There were sixty active KKK chapters in the state. Only Indiana had more men in the white robes per capita than Oregon.
JUST RELEASED: Peddlers of Hate. How the Ku Klux Klan Seized Power in 1920s Oregon by Steve Law. Available now from Oregon State University Press.
Local Irish July
The Portland Hibernian Society won’t meet at Kells Restaurant again until September 18. Enjoy your summer in Western Oregon. The best summer in the world weather-wise, some say. Here are three Irish gatherings scheduled for this month.
Gaelic Athletic Association Games
Saturday,July 18 - Columbia Red Branch features one Gaelic football match and one hurling match at Montavilla Park starting at 10am. From Brian Thompson, “After the matches those that are interested will go for food and drink somewhere close to the park. Your members and other PDX HI recipients are invited to come watch and then join us for the afters.” Free.
Traditional Irish Music and Dance
Saturday, July 18 - For the fourth year, Fairsing Vineyards in Yamhill will host a Celtic Ceili with traditional music, a live caller, step-dance lessons, food, friends, and children. Imagine the setting: high on a hilltop surrounded by forested acres and incredible views extending from the Cascades to the Coast Range. 4pm to 8 pm. Blanket picnics and outside food are welcome. Bottle service of Fairsing wines availableuntil 7:30 pm. $15.
Picnic by the Willamette
Sunday, July 26 - The annual Irish Network Portland summer bash will again be held at Foothill Park in Lake Oswego. Free for INP members $5 donation for non-members.
Military aircraft are a common site on the runways at Shannon Airport in County Clare. (Photo curtesy of Shannonwatch.org)
Will Air Force One land at Shannon in September?
There was a bit of a buzz over the Fourth of July about the Irish Open at the Trump layout in West Clare. Will Trump visit Ireland this September? He says he wants to. But he says a lot of things and the tournament’s still two months off. And there’s the sticky question of timing. Read here about a conflict with the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
Scores of US troops passing through Shannon
Shannon Airport is having a record year even before the Open attracts thousands of passengers. Since the war with Iran began on February 28, the number of US troops passing through SNN on the way to the front took a big jump – 2,000 in January, 3600 in March. Overall, the passenger numbers are running 12% higher than last year as the Irish Examiner reports.
Guinness owner grounds Aviation Gin joint in NW Portland
Know anyone who visited the Aviation Gin Tasting Room at 2075 NW Wilson? Willamette Week reports it was last call last week. Diageo, the corporation that made the call to cal it quits, is the dominant player in the worldwide booze business. It was co-founded by the Guinness folks. Aviation’s co-owner and front man is the actor Ryan Reynolds. He’s kind of a Portland regular. At the opening of the tasting room in 2022 he said, “If a grown-up theme park and a bartender fell in love and produced offspring, it would be this gin factory.”
It wasn’t just Oregon
Hollywood’s first nationwide blockbuster, as Steve Law describes Birth of a Nation, was released in 1915. It had four long runs in Portland. At the time of its release in 1924, Law writes, “the Portland Klan outnumbered the city’s Black population by more than five to one.”