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Event

St. Patrick's Day on Beaver Island, 1995

Also 8th Annual St. Patrick's Day Festivities · Beaver Island Irish Olympics 1995

Draft — sources verified, prose evolving

TypeEvent
Date1995-03-18
WithinBeaver Island
ErasModern era
On this page
Event
Date
1995-03-18
Kind
Celebration
Where
The Shamrock
Followed by
St. Patrick's Day on Beaver Island, 1996
Eras
Modern era
Concepts
celebrationcommunityheritageirish-arranmore
Within
Beaver Island

Summary

The Beaver Beacon’s April 1995 issue reports the results of the “8th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Festivities,” a five-event “Beaver Island Irish Olympics” held at the Shamrock on Saturday, March 18, 1995, with named winners for each event.

Program

Five events, held at the Shamrock: the Shopping Cart Race (won by “The Shamrock Team”: Eric Renz, Matt Renz, Ricky Thie, Steve Brens, rider Brian Syzanski); the Tug O’War between the “Fishchokers” and “Hayseeders” (won by the Fishchokers, 2 of 3); the Fish Stomp (won by Paul Cole, Becky LaFreniere, Allison Beekman, and Kristen Walker); the Limerick Contest (won by Rich Ruis); and the King and Queen Competition, in which three couples competed to establish “the second kingdom on Beaver Island,” won by Ernie Martin and Heather Gillespie. The Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce separately ran a popcorn-sale, sweatshirt-sale, and raffle fundraiser at the Shamrock timed to the Games.

Evidence limits

The report is a detailed contemporary outcome account with named winners, not an attendance figure. It does not name the organizing body for the Games as a whole (an organizer named “Kathy Maudrie” is credited as “Press Agent,” but no club or association is named this year — later editions identify the organizers as “Clan Na Gael”), so carried_out_by is left empty. The same issues’ announcements of the Beaver Island Club of Grand Rapids’ “29th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Celebration” describe a separate diaspora fundraising party held in Grand Rapids, parallel to but distinct from this island celebration per Robert Cole’s 2002 retrospective.1

Open questions

  • Was “Clan Na Gael” already the organizing group’s name in 1995, or did that name come into use in a later year (it is first found by name in the held 1996 issue)?
  • What was the Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce’s role beyond the ancillary fundraiser — did it have any hand in organizing the Games themselves?

See also

Footnotes

  1. Robert Cole, “The Great Day: St Patricks’ Day History on Beaver Island,” Beaver Beacon, March 2002. ↩

Sources

  1. Reports the results of a "5-event Beaver Island Irish Olympics," in its eighth organized year, held Saturday, March 18, 1995: the Shopping Cart Race (won by "The Shamrock Team"), the Tug O'War (Fishchokers vs. Hayseeders, won by the Fishchokers 2 of 3), the Fish Stomp (Team #1: Paul Cole, Becky LaFreniere, Allison Beekman, Kristen Walker), the Limerick Contest (won by Rich Ruis), and the King and Queen Competition (three couples competed; won by Ernie Martin and Heather Gillespie). Kathy Maudrie is credited as an organizer/"Press Agent." The same issue's Chamber of Commerce column separately reports a fundraiser "at the Shamrock, as part of the St. Patrick's Day Games" (Popcorn Sales, Sweatshirt Sales, a Raffle), run by the Chamber alongside the Games rather than as the Games' organizer. The holding institution's portal restricts automated access; the archive holds a copy of this issue and can provide it on request.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1995-04_Beaver-Beacon
  2. The held sixteen-page issue scan is paired with the OCR source and confirms the published notice or report; it does not expand the source-specific identity, event, or outcome claims.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 1995-04_Beaver-Beacon
  3. Announces a March 11, 1995 party at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Grand Rapids, benefiting Beaver Island. This is the Grand Rapids diaspora party described in Robert Cole's 2002 retrospective as running "parallel" to the island's own celebration, not an edition of it. The holding institution's portal restricts automated access; the archive holds a copy of this issue and can provide it on request.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1995-02_Beaver-Beacon
  4. The held fourteen-page issue scan is paired with the OCR source and confirms the published notice or report; it does not expand the source-specific identity, event, or outcome claims.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 1995-02_Beaver-Beacon
  5. Repeats the March 11, 1995 Grand Rapids fundraiser notice benefiting Beaver Island. The holding institution's portal restricts automated access; the archive holds a copy of this issue and can provide it on request.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1995-03_Beaver-Beacon
  6. The held issue scan confirms the repeated Grand Rapids celebration notice.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 1995-03_Beaver-Beacon
  7. Cited here only for its statement that the Beaver Island Club of Grand Rapids' celebration ran "parallel" to the island's own St. Patrick's Day, not for outcome detail about the 1995 island Games. The holding institution's portal restricts automated access; the archive holds a copy of this issue and can provide it on request.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 2002-03_Beaver-Beacon
  8. The held issue PDF is paired with the canonical OCR Markdown source and preserves the issue-level provenance for this cited report or comparison.
    data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 2002-03_Beaver-Beacon

Added 3 August 2026. Recent changes

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “St. Patrick's Day on Beaver Island, 1995”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/beaver-island-st-patricks-day-1995/, accessed [date], citing Beaver Beacon, April 1995, "The 8th ANNUAL ST. PATRICK'S DAY FESTIVITIES." (and 7 further sources listed on the page).

Last revised 2026-08-03. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.

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