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Kerryman Kelleher to lead 244th parade

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Kelleher was named as grand marshal of the 244th consecutive parade at a press conference in Manhattan on Monday. The County Kerry native will take the grand marshal’s sash from this year’s grand marshal, Tommy Gleason.
Moments after his name was announced, a smiling Kelleher said that in his wildest dreams growing up in Ireland he would never have imagined leading the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“This is the nicest thing that could happen to someone from the old country,” Kelleher, who is 65, said.
The press conference announcing Kelleher’s elevation to grand marshal was called several months earlier than in previous years. Usually, the new grand marshal is named in early December. But parade committee president John O’Connor explained that the earlier announcement was rooted in the event’s ever growing logistics.
“The parade has expanded to such a size that we need more lead time,” O’Connor said.
And that meant announcing the grand marshal’s name at approximately the halfway point between the last parade and the next.
Parade chairman John Dunleavy said that the parade was now so big that it drew an estimated $70-$90 million in revenue into the city of New York.
Part of this was paid to hotels accommodating a growing number of bands from around the U.S., Ireland and Britain taking part in the event.
And Dunleavy indicated that the green and gold of the grand marshal’s native county might have some additional green and gold company on Fifth Avenue next March. He said that Irish Olympic showjumping gold medal winner, Cian O’Connor, had indicated an interest in taking part in the parade.
Dunleavy said that O’Connor would be welcome and that the parade committee was looking into the possibility that O’Connor could ride with the equestrian unit that is traditionally one of the lead units in the parade line of march.
The 244th parade, which will take place on Thursday, March 17, would be dedicated to the United States of America, “a land of immigrants and a land of opportunity,” Dunleavy said.
In his acceptance remarks, Kelleher said that a great debt was owed to chairman Dunleavy, and the parade’s executive secretary, James Barker, for making the parade such a success.
Barker was not present at the press conference, which was held at the Shelbourne Murray Hill hotel on Lexington Avenue, because he is ill and in the hospital.
Kelleher, who is a director St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Inc., the corporate entity that runs the parade, said that the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade stood out from all the other parades around the world. It was, he said, “the diamond of the fleet” and he believed it would be celebrated “for many hundreds of years to come.”
Kelleher said that he believed that the American dream was something that could be turned into reality with faith, hard work and by seizing the opportunities presented in life.
“I am deeply grateful to those who have helped me along the way,” Kelleher said. “The Irish are hard workers. They are also dreamers and they have helped to make this city great.”
The press conference was attended by three former grand marshals: Dorothy Hayden Cudahy, the first woman to lead the parade, Mary Holt Moore, the second woman grand marshal, and Dr. John Lahey, president of Quinnipiac College and vice chairman of the parade committee.
“Denis Kelleher has been enormously supportive of this parade,” Lahey said.
The press conference was also attended by Irish consul general in New York, Eugene Hutchinson, deputy consul general Gerry Staunton, and Irish Echo publisher Sean Finlay.
Hutchinson said that Kelleher had been year by year “enormously supportive” of philanthropic causes both in the U.S. and Ireland.
Kelleher said that he wanted to personally dedicate his big day on Fifth Avenue to his family and to Irish immigrants. He indicated that he was aware of the difficult situation that many undocumented Irish immigrants found themselves in, and that he had been working with former Rep. Bruce Morrison in an effort to secure changes in immigration law that would be of benefit to the Irish.
Kelleher and his wife, Carol, have three children and six grandchildren. Kelleher, now a resident of Staten Island, grew up in the tiny village of Gneeveguilla, about 11 miles from Killarney. He arrived in the U.S. on Jan. 26, 1958. Two days later he got his first job in America, at Merrill Lynch. He served in the U.S. Army in the 1960s and was honorably discharged in 1966.
With a degree from St. John’s University, Kelleher embarked upon what would be a successful financial services career on Wall Street.
A member of numerous boards and winner of many awards and honors, Kelleher is presently the founder and chief executive officer of Wall Street Access, a diversified financial services company based at Battery Place in Lower Manhattan.

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