Friday, September 8, 2023
5:30pm to 9:30pm
at The Edison Ballroom, 240 West 47th St, New York, NY 10036
The 13th Annual Irish Echo Labor Awards will honor the Labor Leaders of 2023.The contribution of the Irish in America to the cause of labor has been nothing less than immense. Indeed, it could be argued that the American labor movement would not exist at all in its current form without the efforts of the standout Irish men and women through the years.
Our celebration in the Edison Ballroom New York, will salute a new generation of Irish American Labor Leaders who are flying the flag for today’s labor movement across America.
Presentation to the Irish Echo's Irish American of the Year 2023.
John "Chick" Donohue is the Irish Echo's Irish American of the Year for 2023.
The native of the historically Irish neighborhood of Inwood in Upper Manhattan will be the sixteenth person to receive the accolade since it was revived in 2007. Donohue will succeed Professor Christine Kinealy of Quinnipiac University.
In a long and varied career, Donohue was a United States Marine, merchant seaman, and Legislative and Political Director of the Sandhogs Union Local 147. Donohue, who is widely known by the sobriquet "Chick" or "Chickie," has made headlines in recent years by way of his book, “The Greatest Beer Run Ever," which was first published in 2017 and again in 2021.
The book was a collaborative effort between Donohue and Joanna Molloy of the New York Daily News.
The book would become a bestseller and lead to a movie by the same title with Zac Efron starring as Donohue, and additional roles played by Russell Crowe and Bill Murray.
The story originates in Inwood during the Vietnam War and a plan, hatched in a bar named Doc Fiddler's, to deliver beer to a number of U.S. soldiers from the neighborhood who are serving in Vietnam. After hitching a ride on a merchant ship, Donohue landed in Qui Nho’n, the capital of Binh Dinh province in central Vietnam, in early 1968. As becomes quickly clear in both the book and the movie, this was not especially good timing. But regardless of timing, the mission to deliver beer to the boys from Inwood would be carried out. It is an extraordinary story, one worth the telling - and telling again.
HOTEL PARTNERHotel Accommodations: Promo code: EDBLR
Preferred Corporate rate of 25% off of their Best Available Rate at
Hotel Edison, 228 W 47th St, New York, NY 10036
located next to the ballroom.
For reservations, please contact Sean Campbell
at 212-201-7650 X153 or
email sean@edisonballroom.com
MEET THE 2023 IRISH LABOR AMBASSADORS
