Remembering Jim Kilgallen

There are many stories about Jim Kilgallen, the larger-than-life founder of the Irish of Havertown, 2004 grand marshal of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade and owner of Kilgallen’s Tavern, who passed away on Saturday. Michael Bradley, director of the parade, has a favorite, which Kilgallen used to tell on himself.

“Once, when he was in his twenties, he went up to New York City with a bunch of guys from Philadelphia,” Bradley says. “They ran into a group of fellas from Ireland, and they all wound up in a pub. There was a lot of singing going on, and at one point, Jim himself got up to sing. Understand, he was always a big man. Anyway, he started to sing ‘If I had the wings of a swallow …’ when one of the Irish guys yelled out, ‘You’d never get your fat ass off the ground!'”

Jim Kilgallen never had a problem seeing the humor in life, Bradley says, even if it came at his own expense. An inveterate needler, he usually gave as good as he got. Even at the saddest times, Kilgallen had a talent for making his many friends smile. “At every funeral luncheon, he would get up and say, ‘Nobody wants anything sad. You had to sing a song or tell a story,” Bradley recalls. “He’d have everyone laughing by the time they were leaving.”

Now it falls upon Kilgallen’s family and many friends to find a way to smile through the tears.

James J. Kilgallen, Jr., was born in West Philadelphia in 1931—on St. Patrick’s Day, appropriately enough. He was first-generation Irish; his parents Bridget and James Kilgallen hailed from Castlebar, County Mayo. He was a longtime member of the Mayo Association of Philadelphia and a member of Ancient Order of Hibernians Division 65, now named after Joseph E. Montgomery. Since 1990, he served on the executive board of the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association. He led the association as president in 1999 and 2000. In 2002, the Haverford Township Commissioners honored him as the Honorary Mayor of the 33rd County of Ireland-Havertown.

Tributes like that came Jim Kilgallen’s way in his life, though he never sought them out. Far from it, says Bradley: “He didn’t have a big ego.”

Bradley first came to know Kilgallen well in 1990. That was the year Bradley joined AOH 65. Through his parents, Bradley was already familiar with the older man. Bradley’s mother Bernie went to St. Rose of Lima School with Kilgallen, and his father Mickey attended St. Thomas More High School at about the same time he did.

Still, the friendship didn’t really kick in until Bradley became a Hibernian member of AOH Joseph E. Montgomery Division 65. Kilgallen and two other division members, Jack McNamee (the 2008 grand marshal, who died in late August) and Paul J. Phillips, took Bradley under their wing. All of them knew of Bradley’s interest in the parade—he was then a relatively wet-behind-the-ears volunteer marshal. Within a couple of years, Bradley had moved up to head marshal, and in time his mentors were backing him as a prospective member of the board. Kilgallen, he says, spearheaded the move.

(Bradley lost that year to the famous Johnny Doc of Local 98 fame, who has since become a close friend and trusted adviser, but moved onto the board—with the strong backing of the three men he calls his “posse”—in a subsequent election.)

The older gentlemen, Bradley says, were able to see what others might not have—that great institutions like the St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association need a periodic infusion of new blood. None of which suggests that they themselves were ready to be put out to pasture. On the contrary, says Bradley, “Those three guys, they just worked and worked and worked.”

Bradley has never been a stranger to hard work, but he learned much from his mentors. Kilgallen in particular “taught me more about people than anything I’ve ever learned in my life. He taught me to look past factions, to include everyone and make them all your friends.”

Kilgallen also impressed upon Bradley (and anyone else who would listen) the importance of not being an Irish snob. “He used to say, the people who come out on only one day a year and wear green plastic hats, they’re also Irish,” says Bradley. “We need them all. We’re much stronger together.”

Wise, to be sure—but also wickedly funny. Kilgallen the publican used to enjoy verbal jousting with his pal McNamee, who owned the popular Springfield restaurant C.J. McGee’s. “They used to tease each other unmercifully,” says Bradley. “Jack used to call Jim ‘the saloon tycoon.’ Jim would call Jack ‘the restaurateur.’”

Over the years, as the parade came to dominate Bradley’s life—particularly as March closed in—both men would show up at his door to help. “They would come over to my house and help put badges together, whatever needed doing” he says, “and tell Linda (Bradley’s wife) what an idiot I was. They’d drive over here and help me—and tease.”

Friends like that, Bradley says, are simply irreplaceable, and he and his colleagues on the parade committee will do their best to make sure they’re remembered as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade heads up the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Sunday, March 14, bigger and better than ever.

Bradley, for his part, will hang on tight to the happy memories. The memories, he says, keep him going when the pressures of parade planning close in, when the living room is full of badges and raffle tickets, and the phone never stops ringing.

Still, Bradley says, the sense of loss is inescapable. “It’s like I lost two dads in six months,” he says. “Jim’s death hit me doubly hard. It’s like I lost a father, my mentor and one of my best friends.”

Funeral details are as follows: Beloved husband of Margaret (nee Philbin) Kilgallen. Loving father of James M. Kilgallen, Maureen A. (Michael) Keeney, Theresa M. (Scott) McPherson, and Kevin F. (Joanne) Kilgallen. Brother of Nora Heiss. Also survived by 11 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. Relatives and friends are invited to his views Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. in the funeral home of John Stretch, E. Eagle & St. Denis Roads, Havertown, and to his Mass of Christian Burial following Saturday at 11 a.m. in St. Denis Church Havertown. Interment in Ss. Peter & Paul Cemetery. In lieu of flowers an offering in Mr. Kilgallen’s name to the American Heart Assn. Memorial Fulfillment Center 5455 N. High St. Columbus, Ohio 43214.