Charles A. Lindbergh and the Irish: New Light on the Irish Side of the Celebrated Hero Pilot
By DONALD V. MEHUS
NEW YORK - The legendary American pilot, Charles A. Lindbergh (1902-1974), has long been celebrated as the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. The daring 33-hour feat, extending from New York to Paris, took place on May 20-21, 1927. At the French capital, Lindbergh was joyously besieged by throngs of jubilant admirers. Adulation for the new hero quickly swept around the world.
SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS became one of the most famous aircraft of all time. It is now on prominent display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington,
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The historic transoceanic flight is of course by far the best known aspect of Lindbergh's life. But a highly significant part that has received much less attention than it merits is the strong Irish heritage of Charles A. Lindbergh as well as his close, life-long associations with Irish-Americans and with Ireland.
The multifaceted Irish side of the Lindbergh story was the subject of an arresting talk delivered recently in New York by Professor Thomas J. Martin at the American Irish Historical Society (AIHS). Professor Martin, who has written prolifically on Irish and Irish-American topics, many of the pieces being co-authored with the writer of this article, is on the faculty of the History Department of Post University in Connecticut.
‘Lucky Lindy – The Luck O' the Irish’
Professor Martin's talk, entitled "Lucky Lindy - Luck O' the Irish," delivered to a capacity audience at AIHS, focused on Lindbergh's Irish heritage and his extensive associations, both social and professional, with Irish-Americans and with the country of Ireland itself. Lindbergh held his Irish heritage in great esteem, Professor Martin remarked, and always spoke with pride about his maternal ancestral homeland.
Professor Martin divided his lecture into three main sections. He first read several passges from Lindbergh's autobiographical work, Spirit of St. Louis (1953). The book is named after the pioneer airplane in which the intrepid pilot crossed the Atlantic in 1927. Here in his book Lindbergh recounts the profound feelings that welled up in him for his ancestral home when he first sighted and then flew over the Emerald Isle during that perilous transoceanic flight of 1927.
Lindbergh's Visits to Ireland
Later, in November of 1936, Lindbergh would return to Ireland and visit with his relatives in Kerry and Tipperary – the Kissanes and the Healys. Professor Martin read excerpts from a letter that Charles Lindbergh had written to his mother, Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh, at the time. In the letter he expressed his deep feelings for the Emerald Isle:
“[Ireland] has always had a strange attraction for me” Lindberg wrote, “possibly because I shall never forget the first sight of the hills of Kerry from the Spirit of St. Louis; possibly because a love of the old country is passed on even to the distant descendants of all Irishmen.”
On another occasion Lindbergh wrote even more vividly about his love for Ireland, when he first spotted the Irish coast after many hours of flying across the trackless ocean without having seen land or any vestige of human life. In reading the following passage from Lindbergh's autobiography, Spirit of St. Louis, one can readily sense the joy and profound relief Lindbergh must have felt when he first saw the coast of Dingle on that May day of 1927:
“There are boats in the harbor, wagons on the stone-fenced roads; people are running out onto the streets and waving. This is the earth again, the earth where I have lived and will live once more. Here are human beings. Here is a human welcome.... I have never seen such beauty before. Fields so green, people so human, a village so attactive, rocks and mountains so mountainous and rocklike.”
“Beyond the distant mountains above the stones and fields of Tipperary,” Lindbergh continues, “some of my ancestors lived. Three generations ago on my mother's side they sailed for weeks to reach America. I returned to their old world in less than 30 hours....”
The Irish Prime Minister
During the same trip of November 1936 to Ireland, the Irish Prime Minister, Eamon de Valera (1882-1975), hosted a state visit for the much-admired Irish-American pilot, just as so many, many dignitaries all over Europe and America had done following that legendary flight of 1927. During this 1936 visit to Ireland, Professor Martin remarked, Lindbergh gave the Irish Prime Minister his first ever plane ride, piloted by Lindbergh himself.
On perusing books about Lindbergh, such as Scott Berg's excellent 1998 biography, one is impressed by how many different types of planes Lindbergh continued to fly over the years and by the apparent ease with which he mastered each of the various planes, one more advanced than the last, he operated. Little wonder that the dauntless and highly-skilled Lindy was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean!
The Irish-American Community
The second part of Professor Martin's lecture dealt with Lindbergh's numerous and highly significant associations with the Irish-American community. Passages of Lindy's autobiography, Spirit of St. Louis, recount a steady stream of pivotal Irish-American connections throughout Lindbergh's life.
As a child growing up in Little Falls, Minnesota, to which the family had moved from the young Charles' natal city of Detroit, Charles' father (known as “C.A.,” while his pilot-son is known as Charles) received his formal education, before entering law school, under the aegis of the Dublin-born priest and educator, Father Daniel J. Cogan (1827-1889).
From both his early years as well as later on, many of Charles Lindbergh's friends were also Irish and/or of Irish extraction. The fact that young Lindbergh grew up in a state, Minnesota, which in spite of its various strong ethnic components is so often identified with Scandinavians and the fact that Lindbergh's father's family name is Swedish may help explain why the Irish side of the pilot's heritage has long been so little known to the general public.
Professor Martin commented that by 1860 the Irish represented more than an eighth of the population of Minnesota, the Irish thus comprising the largest ethnic group in the state after the Germans. Almost inevitably, then, the Lindbergh family would come in contact with Irish-Americans.
Lawyers and Congress
Martin cited men like the Irish-American author, politician, scholar, and orator, Minnesotan Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901), who was a major role model for Charles Lindbergh's father, C.A. Lindbergh. Others of particular signifance included Walter Quigley, C. A.'s law partner in Minnesota when C.A. first began his practice in the legal profession, as well as one of Minnesota's foremost attorneys, James Manahan, friend and colleague of C.A.Lindbergh
It is of significance to note that during the early years of the Twentieth Century, C.A. was elected to serve for five terms as U.S. Representative from Minnesota to the Congress in Washington. Thus very early on the young Lindy obtained considerable contact with the great world beyond Minnesota and with men in high positions. This early experience would stand Lindbergh in good stead later during the subsequent period of his great fame, when he was constantly brought into contact with people of high station everywhere.
‘Cupid’ Lynch and Father Coughlin
Professor Martin then focused on young Lindbergh's further associations with such Irish-Americans as the Kansas-bred J.H. “Cupid” Lynch, whom Lindbergh met in Nebraska in the early 1920s. Lynch was an avid pilot, and it seems that he was crucial in drawing young Charles into air-barnstorming in the Midwest and in the Rocky Mountain states during the early 1920s.
Not all of Lindy's Irish-American encounters, however, were quite smooth, for Lindy almost lost his life some time later in 1924 when his plane collided with that of an army officer, yet another Irish-American, a certain Lieutenant McAllister, at Kelly Air Field in Texas. The fact that Lindbergh survived several other air mishaps relatively unscathed led to his being given the nickname of “Lucky Lindy.”
During the 1930s Lindbergh became a close friend of yet another Irish-American and fellow Midwesterner, the noted Father Charles Edward Coughlin (1891-1979), who was based in Lindbergh's native state of Michigan, at Royal Oak, Michigan.
Father Coughlin often featured Lindbergh on the cover of his 200,000-circulation weekly newspaper, Social Justice, just as after his famous flight Lindbergh was featured on the covers of countless other publications around the world. Highly controversial at the time, Coughlin was both strongly denounced and warmly defended for his outspoken views.
It is debatable to what extent Lindbergh may have actually shared the controversial views of Father Coughlin – and to what extent Lindbergh may simply have been somewhat naive in such matters.
It would be surprising if the young Irish-American president, John F. Kennedy, had not taken official notice of the hero pilot while Kennedy occupied the White House. In 1962 Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, were guests of the Kennedys at a glittering reception, dinner, and concert at the White House. One can imagine the admiration of each man for the other, not least as the first in his respective sphere, Lindbergh as the first to fly solo across the Atlantic, Kennedy as the first Catholic president of the United States.
It is of further interest to note that like Kennedy, Lindbergh had also served during World War II in the South Pacific, Kennedy on sea, Lindbergh in the air. At one point Lindbergh became a comrade-in-arms of the eminent Irish-American pilot, Major Thomas B. McGuire, described by Scott Berg in his biography of Lindbergh, as the “U.S. Air Force's second-leading ace.” Working closely with Lindbergh, McGuire came to admire greatly the older pilot's prowess and daring skill in the skies of the South Pacific combat zones.
Spirit of St. Louis
Some of the most notable and significant Irish ties in Lindbergh's life were those with the Irish-American contingent working in San Diego on the building of the airplane, Spirit of St. Louis, the soon-to-become famous aircraft in which Lindbergh, by now a thoroughly experienced and professional pilot, was to fly to Europe.
During its construction, Lindbergh carefully examined and approved every aspect of the work. After all, his life depended on the soundness and safety of the plane! The Spirit of St. Louis, incidentally, has long been prominently displayed in the National Air and Space Museum of Washington's Smithsonian Institution, where the aircraft continues to be a popular attraction.
In May of 1927 Lindy flew the plane from San Diego to New York; and then early on that historic day of May 20, 1927, he left New York and successfully – fighting for some time extreme sleepiness while aloft during the 33-hour flight – soared over Ireland and a few hours later landed in jubilant Paris.
Ryan's Airlines
The company which built Lindy's craft, called Ryan's Airlines, was founded, operated, and owned – wouldn't you know it? – by Irish-Americans. The company had been established in San Diego by its namesake, T. Claude Ryan (1898-1982). With Frank Mahoney (1901-1951) as CEO, the company became America's first regularly scheduled commercial airline, with its initial route extending the short distance from San Diego to Los Angeles. The company's test pilots included still other Irish-Americans, Oak Kelly and Red Harrigan. Oak Kelly had himself been one of the first pilots to make a solo flight across the U.S.
It must have been a heady and exhilarating time for those young, venturesome Irish-American airmen, many born around 1900 and thus close contemporaries, growing up with the century while exhuberantly challenging and triumphing in the young era of flight! One will recall that it was only less than 25 years earlier, in 1903, when Orville and Wilbur Wright of Ohio had built and then flown the first successful aeroplane!
‘Wrong Way Corrigan’
Still other Irish-Americans in the firm were also important in related areas. Most famous of these was doubtless Douglas Corrigan (1907-1995), the chief mechanic working on the Spirit of St. Louis. This air mechanic and pilot, later to become famous as “Wrong Way Corrigan,” had a strong desire to follow in the sky path of his friend Lindbergh across the Atlantic. But the authorities determined that his plane was not up to standards for such an expedition and gave him permission only to fly overland from New York to California.
Climbing into his plane in New York during the dark hours of July 17, 1938, and presumably heading west, the determined Corrigan “accidentally” mixed up his directions and flew instead solo nonstop from New York to Ireland!
Corrigan later claimed that in the dim cockpit he read the compass wrong, maintaining that he saw the needle pointing east as pointing west, so that he “inadvertently” reversed directions. Like Lindbergh, “Wrong Way Corrigan” became an instant celebrity. People loved his audacity and spirit; he was given a big tickertape parade along Broadway; and the wrong way pilot was made the subject of an RKO film called The Flying Irishman.
Another Irish-American with whom Lindbergh had significant contact was John F. Condon, a professor at Fordham University of New York City. But this association occurred under tragic circumstances. The elderly Professor Condon volunteered to help Lindbergh by serving as a go-between from the latter to the presumed kidnappers of Lindberg's infant son. Condon's endeavor proved to be unsuccessful, and the nation was gripped by the sensational kidnapping trial at which Condon testified on behalf of Lindbergh.
Lindbergh Family Genealogy
Professor Martin's concluded his lecture with a discussion of the genealogy of Charles Lindbergh. Quoting from Edward MacLysaght's book, Surnames of Ireland (1989), Professor Martin remarked that Lindbergh's relatives were still today living in the very the counties that are listed by MacLysaght.
Professor Martin next read a letter from the then head of the American Irish Historical Society, John J. Murphy, sent to Charles' mother, Evangeline Lindbergh, written some 70 years ago in the 1930s. In her letter of reply, Evangeline wrote that she was indeed the proud descendant of the Kissanes and Healys of Counties Kerry and Tipperary, Ireland, thus confirming that the pilot was descended from people of the southwestern section of Ireland.
American Irish Historical Society
Following the warmly received lecture, there was an informal reception with refreshments in the AIHS salon, during which guests visited with the speaker. The American Irish Historical Society's headquarters building is an elegant town house located in Manhattan across Fifth Avenue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
During the reception it was a special pleasure to meet a John Kissane from Ireland, a distant relative of Charles Lindbergh. Kissane recalled tales of his grandfather meeting with Lindbergh in Ireland many years ago at the Kissane family homesteads in Counties Kerry and Tipperary. John Kissane's presence was a most fortuitous epilogue to the highly informative lecture by Professor Thomas J. Martin on the Irish heritage and the many Irish-American associations of the celebrated hero pilot, Charles A. Lindbergh.
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[Donald V. Mehus, whose work has been widely printed in major publications on both sides of the Atlantic, is completing a book with Thomas J. Martin on the Vikings in Ireland.]
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