McNamara's Blog

 McNamara, Francis Thomas (Mugs) passed gently into the morning light of November 7, 2020, 43 days short of his 87th Birthday surrounded by his family. He was the youngest and the last surviving child of John and Josephine McNamara and was preceded in death by his beloved siblings Mary, James, Anne, and John.  The son of an Irish immigrant, Mugs was bread and buttered in the town he loved so well attending Christian Brothers High School, Sacramento City College, and Sacramento State University. He graduated from Chico State University in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in education followed by a master’s degree in the same subject.   He was a lifelong learner devoted to his books and the arts. He would spend 47 years as a teacher and principal beginning with the Sacramento City Unified School District, commencing with the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, with indelible tenures at Joseph Bonham, Caleb Greenwood, John Bidwell, St. Ann’s, and St. Patrick’s. With quiet stre...

Eamon De Valera Comes to Sacramento July 18th, 1919. It may have been the most important date in Sacramento Irish History, when a tall, slender, boyish man of 37 years stepped off the Overland Express and into an adoring crowd at the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot. The President of the fledgling Irish Republic, Eamon De Valera, was in town to make a speech and to connect with the Irish and Irish Americans of the capital city. A large convoy of Irish policemen escorted him by motor car to the City Plaza where dignitaries and thousands of well-wishers waited. What made this visit so special was that Mr. De Valera was a wanted man by the British Government. Ireland was still under the yoke of British rule and the Irish election of 1918 that elected De Valera to that first Dail Eireann (Irish Congress) was not recognized by the British Crown. Just six months earlier, he was busted out of an English jail by the great Michael Collins, and was stowed away on an Irish ship bound for ...