St. Patrick's Day presentation features Montana's Irish general

The Northwest Montana Westerners, a local history group, celebrates St. Patrick's Day with a look at Montana's Territorial Governor and Civil War general Thomas Meagher.

The presentation is at 7 p.m. on March 17 at the Northwest Montana History Museum, 124 2nd Ave. E, Kalispell. 

A dynamic speaker during the Irish Famine, the young Irish man was sentenced to be hanged and quartered after an abortive rebellion in 1848. Instead, he was exiled to Australia.

He escaped and fled to the United States. When the Civil War broke out, Meagher fought at Bull Run and then returned to New York to raise the “Irish Brigade” from fellow immigrants and was commissioned as its general.

After the war he was appointed Secretary of Montana Territory and soon became acting Governor. Meagher vanished mysteriously in 1867, presumed to have fallen from a steamboat tied up at Fort Benton on the Missouri River. His body was never recovered, and tales of murder persist.

Presenter Tim Christenson, a retired colonel, will talk about how the Irish contributed 150,000 troops to the Union cause during the Civil War. He will also look at the charismatic, but flawed Irishman who is still revered in the military. Meagher is honored with a statue in front of the state Capitol in Helena.

Christenson, who entertained the Westerners last year with jokes about the Old West, will sprinkle his talk with Irish lore and perhaps a song.

Cost of the presentation is $5 for the public. Members of the history group and youth under 16 are free.