A tribute to those Irish Americans we lost on 9/11

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This story first appeared in our sister publication, Irish America magazine, in the December 2001/January 2002 issue.

Quickly, there were demographic trends.

The Cantor Fitzgerald brokerage lost nearly 700 employees, a third of its total. Marsh & McLennan lost 295. Windows on the World restaurant, on top of 1 World Trade Center, lost 75 workers and 93 guests, talking business over bagels and coffee. 



And of course, the firefighters of the FDNY, while helping to evacuate some 25,000 people from the Trade Center, lost 343 of their "brothers."



Americans were the target, and of course other nationals also perished.

The Irish government named more than a dozen of its natives among the dead in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.



Based on family names and individual stories, there are many hundreds of American dead with Irish heritage, including Americans who through parents or grandparents had become Irish citizens. 



The Web site www.IrishTribute.com, set up in reaction to the September 11 attacks, estimated that perhaps one-sixth of the dead were in some way “Irish.”

"September 11, 2001 may well go down as the bloodiest day in the history of the Irish people," the Web site claims. "An estimated 1000 people who were of Irish descent or of Irish birth were lost in the violent events on that day."



On that warm and sunny Tuesday morning, Tommy Foley was closing out the overnight shift at Rescue 3, in The Bronx.

At age 32, Foley was already a 10-year veteran of the FDNY. It was the job he dreamt of since childhood, when he would visit the Harlem firehouse of a family friend, Firefighter Bob Conroy.



"Tommy Boy ? that's what I call him, ever since he's a little kid," Conroy said, still using the present tense. "I can still see Tommy Boy running around the firehouse in Harlem, running around and getting filthy dirty. It's all he ever wanted to do."



At 8:52 a.m., the call came in. Emergency in Lower Manhattan. An airplane or a helicopter or maybe even bombs, tearing through what New Yorkers call the Twin Towers. 



Instead of ending his shift, Tommy reached for his boots. Across the city, the scene was repeated. 



The first airliner hit just as scores of firefighters were either coming off duty or arriving to work, thus maximizing the number rushing downtown. 


Mike Cawley wasn't even on duty that day with his regular outfit the “Elmhurst Eagles” of Ladder 136, but instinctively he raced to the Towers with another unit, Rescue 4.



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