On another St. Patrick’s Day I am proud to say I have Irish heritage from both sides of my family. Both my mother and father have Irish ancestry.

Here are two Irish stories, one about the man who designed the White House and the other of an ordinary woman whose actions saved 200 people’s lives.

Irishman James Hoban won a national competition to be the architect who would design the White House in Washington DC. As a boy, Hoban trained as a carpenter and wheelwright and from those beginnings gradually acquired the skills that enabled him to win that competition and design one of the most famous buildings in the world. Of course, seeing as the home of the President of the United States is based on Leinster House, the home of the Irish Parliament in Dublin, it seems obvious that it was an Irishman behind it.

Born in 1762, in Callan, County Kilkenny, Hoban immigrated to the United States just after the Revolutionary War and first settled in Philadelphia.

He moved on to South Carolina where he designed the old state capitol building at Columbia.

It was at George Washington’s suggestion that Hoban went to the federal capital in 1792 and submitted a plan for the presidential mansion in Washington DC. Hoban won the national competition and received the commission to build the White House. He was also awarded $500 and a lot in the District of Columbia.

The cornerstone of the famous house was laid in 1793, and work continued until 1801. Hoban also supervised the reconstruction of the building after it was burned by the British.

From 1793 to 1802 Hoban was one of the superintendents in charge of the erection of the capitol.

He died on December 8, 1831.

Here’s another story, this one of a woman who rescued 200 train passengers in Iowa.

Catherine Carroll “Kate” Shelley (December 12, 1863 – January 21, 1912) was a Midwestern United States railroad heroine and the first woman in the United States to have a bridge named after her, the Kate Shelley High Bridge. She was also one of the few women to have a train named after her, the Kate Shelley 400.

She was born in Loughaun in County Offaly, Ireland. Her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was small and moved from Illinois to Iowa near Honey Creek, a tributary stream to the Des Moines River.

On the afternoon of July 6, 1881, heavy thunderstorms caused a flash flood of Honey Creek, washing out timbers that supported the railroad trestle. A pusher locomotive sent from Moingona to check track conditions crossed the Des Moines River bridge, but plunged into Honey Creek when the bridge fell away at about 11 p.m., with a crew of four — Edgar Wood, A. P. Olmstead, Adam Agar, and Patrick Donahue.

Kate, just a teenager, heard the crash, and knew that an eastbound express passenger train was due in Moingona about midnight, stopping shortly before heading east over the Des Moines River and then Honey Creek. She found two surviving crew members, Edgar Wood and Adam Agar, and shouted that she would get help, having to cross the Des Moines River bridge along the way. Although she started with a lantern, it went out, and she crawled the span on her hands and knees with only lightning for illumination.

Once across, she had to cover about two miles on ground to the Moingona depot to sound the alarm. She then led a party back to rescue Edgar and Adam. The other two crewmen did not survive.

The passenger train was stopped at Scranton, with about 200 aboard. If Kate had not gone for help and he train had not been stopped, the train with its passengers would have plummeted into the river.

The passengers who had been saved took up a collection for Kate. The “little girls” of Dubuque gave her a medal, and the state of Iowa gave her another medal plus $200. The Chicago and North Western Railway gave her $100, a half barrel of flour, half a load of coal, and a lifetime pass. The Order of Railway Conductors gave her a gold watch and chain.

Poems and songs were composed honoring her. The Chicago and North Western Railway built a new steel bridge in 1901 and named it the Boone Viaduct, but people quickly nicknamed it the Kate Shelley Bridge or Kate Shelley High Bridge. It is still standing today.

Kate never married and lived most of her life with her mother and sister Mary.

She held many odd jobs, including teacher and North Western Railway station agent.  She died on January 12, 1912 from Bright’s disease.