Irish eyes smiled last night at Walhalla City Hall

Walhalla and surrounding area are steeped in German and Cherokee heritage. What’s so easy to forget, however, is the part played by Irish immigrants who escaped the famine of their European country and found work on a project that, if completed, would have changed Walhalla forever. And last night Irishman Marty Flynn addressed the mayor and council in hopes of support for an effort toward a lasting tribute to those Irishmen who, in the middle of the 19th century, worked on the ill fated railroad through Stumphouse Mountain. City administrator Brent Taylor says this could be a nice tie-in with the project to create a greenway thru the city, as part of the Palmetto Trail extension. There was immediate interest from Mayor Edwards and councilman Dennis Owens and Josh Roberts. A Sertoma Club member, Roberts’ thinking is this could also be something that his civic club might want to get involved in. Some people believe if the railroad company hadn’t run out of money, in the years before the Civil War, a rail connection thru Walhalla between Charleston and Knoxville, Tennessee would have made small Walhalla a major South Carolina city. Mark Thompson, executive director of the Walhalla Center for the Performing Arts, appeared alongside Flynn to express his show time organization’s support for an Irish remembrance.