Shamrock Club of Wisconsin

The Shamrock Club of Wisconsin is the oldest and largest Irish American membership organization in the State of Wisconsin. It was founded on March 17, 1960, in Milwaukee. Currently there are chapters in Milwaukee, Fox Cities (Appleton and Oshkosh), Green Bay and Northeast Wisconsin [1] (Green Bay, Wisconsin), South Central (Baraboo), Dane County, (Madison), New London, La Crosse, and Lafayette County, (Darlington). The Rock County (Beloit and Janesville) chapter folded in 2007.

The Shamrock Club was organized by members of Milwaukee's Irish community who had been a part of the Milwaukee Holiday Folk Fair's annual November festival. Helped by the International Institute of Wisconsin, the Club met to organize on March 17, 1960, St Patrick's Day. A few years later, it would incorporate under Wisconsin corporation laws, and later would receive a federal 501 C (4) as a charitable, social and cultural organization.

The Shamrock Club would gain a foothold in the Irish community by sponsoring and chartering flights to Ireland. These trips were very popular, and there were often multiple trips to Ireland each year. When the chartered flights program started, there was little in the way of direct flights to Ireland, and those that existed were often prohibitively expensive. Changes in the federal laws would take the Shamrock Club out of the charter business, as more commercial airlines saw the growing interest in Ireland to be a viable money making option for them.

As interest in the Irish in Wisconsin grew, various chapters came to life across Wisconsin. The current chapters include [2] the Shamrock Club of La Crosse, in Western Wisconsin; Darlington's [3] LaFayette County chapter; New London's [4] Shamrock Club of New Dublin; Dane County, [5] based in Madison; The Shamrock Club of Green Bay and NE Wisconsin [6], in Green Bay; and the South Central Chapter, based in Baraboo and Portage. Fox Cities was revitalized by an influx of native born Irish in the late 2000's. Some chapters have disappeared, including Twin Lakes, and Fond du Lac. The Rock County chapter disbanded in 2007, due to lack of new members.

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