Name-a-Day Calendar, June 5: Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Page 211 of 365
Chosen in: 1927, officially
Chosen by: It was (probably) an insult that the community turned into a badge of honor
The “Fighting Irish” nickname is one of those monikers of which the origin is debated and no one has ever confirmed anything for certain. I’ll tell what the university claims is the most “widely accepted” tale and leave the rest for you to read elsewhere if you wish.
The University of Notre Dame du Lac was founded in 1842, and of the school’s seven founders, four were Irish. This did not include the first president, French priest Edward Sorin, but it would include almost all of his immediate successors.
Notre Dame’s intercollegiate athletic legacy began with football in 1887. As the school was of Catholic denomination, their first teams were known simply as the Catholics, a nickname most likely coined by the press.
This was a period of mass immigration into the United States, including from Ireland. Catholicism was the primary religion in Ireland, so many Irish immigrants were Catholic, and many Irish Catholic immigrants ended up at Notre Dame. This was also a period of mass discrimination against immigrants into the United States, including and especially those from Ireland. They were commonly stereotyped, called slurs, and generally treated like second-class citizens.
Newspapers didn’t call Notre Dame’s teams the Catholics descriptively; they did so derogatorily. And sometimes it was even worse: “Papists” and “Dirty Irish” were thrown around regularly as well.
After playing for the team from 1910-1913 and spending 1914-1917 as an assistant coach, the legendary Knute Rockne became Notre Dame’s head football coach in 1918. Under Rockne, the team became one of the best in the country. They dominated local competition and began traveling far and wide to play more suitable opponents. The press didn’t like that either. In addition to the aforementioned nicknames, the papers began calling Notre Dame’s football team the Ramblers (or sometimes the Rovers), implying that the school cared more about football than…well…school. Imagine.
Rockne also hired student publicists to share the school’s own version of his team’s story. These students essentially flipped the negative connotation of “Irish” on its head, referring to Rockne’s team as the Fighting Irish. The implication here was that while the Irish football team (as a stand-in for the overall Irish population) were often counted out and viewed as the underdogs, they had a real scrappy spirit that often led them to victory. Eventually, the non-Notre Dame press followed suit.
This nickname was originally somewhat criticized by some who believed the term “Irish” should not be used to refer to people not of Irish descent (including several players on the football team), but the supporters won out. In 1927, the “Fighting Irish” got the stamp of approval from university president Rev. Matthew Walsh, who stated: “The university authorities are in no way averse to the name ‘Fighting Irish’ as applied to our athletic teams… I sincerely hope that we may always be worthy of the ideal embodied in the term ‘Fighting Irish’”.
Notre Dame wasn’t done turning negative stereotypes into positive symbols. In the 1960s, they took the leprechaun (originally a cartoonish caricature of the Irish by the English) and made it their school mascot.
The university’s official website has more information about other possible (but less likely) origins of the “Fighting Irish” nickname.
Previous page: Northwestern State Demons
Next page: Oakland Golden Grizzlies
Find every page at the Name-a-Day Calendar hub!