Further tributes have been paid to politician, businessman and elite oarsman Billy Lawless who championed the case of undocumented Irish in the US.
As The Sunday Independent reports, his funeral was in Chicago last week and a memorial service will take place for him in Galway Cathedral on December 5th at 4pm.
The newspaper recalls how he was on first name terms with many US politicians, but he never lost the common touch.
What thrilled him most in recent months was a rowing trip up the river Corrib with Tribesmen Rowing Club, which he had helped to found.
Billy Lawless grew up on a dairy farm at Dangan, and was rowing from school age at Coláiste Iognáíd,better known as “the Jes”. He subsequently rowed with University College, Galway, Galway Rowing Club, Tribesmen and was a member of the Irish national rowing squad.
He won a gold medal with Tribesmen in 1987 at the World Masters’ Regatta in Sweden.He would quip that hauling milk cans as part of his delivery round helped his training, and good friend Jim Silke remembers how rowing friends might be enlisted to help a cow to calve, or to pick stones from a field.
His family farming duties prevented him from one year from travelling with a crew selected for Henley Royal Regatta in Britain.
“Billy was one of the founder members of Tribesmen RC in December 1976, sourcing the old pram paint shop that became our club premises, “Silke recalled.
“Billy’s heart was always in rowing. He rowed, coached and fundraised. He secured major sponsorship for the Tribesmen Head of the River for over ten years and raised the profile of the Head to a major national event. He was very well respected throughout the Irish rowing community,”he said.
In 1977, he sold the farm and bought a pub named “The Gallows” on Prospect Hill. He acquired several more premises, including the Twelve Pins hotel in Barna. He ran as a Fine Gael candidate in the 1981 local elections and lost by two votes.
He became president of the Irish Vintners’ Association, but when his daughter secured a scholarship to study in North America he decided to move the whole family over there.
He emigrated on an investor’s visa in 1998, bought a pub named the Irish Oak, and then developed what became the Gage Hospitality group of restaurants in Chicago. He and his wife Anne were granted US citizenship in 2014.
Employing many young Irish people on J1 visas, he also became aware of so many undocumented Irish in the windy city, and realised it was a wider problem.
He threw his energies behind the Chicago Celts for Immigration, was named Irishman of the Year in Chicago in 2008, and became board member and chairman of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Lawless was nominated as Ireland’s first overseas senator by then taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2016. President Michael D Higgins, who has paid tribute to him, presented him with a presidential distinguished service award in 2021.
Billy Lawless is survived by his wife Anne, children Billy Jnr, Clodagh, Amy and John Paul, siblings Gerald, Helen and Mary, grandchildren and extended family.
Read The Sunday Independent here
