Garryowen or Garry Owen is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Butler Township, Jackson County,

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

, United States, generally surrounding

St. Patrick's Church St. Patrick's Church, Saint Patrick's Church, St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church or Saint Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, and similar, may refer to: Australia * St Patrick's Church, Adelaide, a heritage-listed church in Adelaide, South Australia ...

History

The settlement was founded by Irish immigrants in the late 1830s, who first named it Makokiti. It was part of a wave of Catholic settlement encouraged by

Mathias Loras Pierre-Jean-Mathias Loras (August 30, 1792 – February 19, 1858) was a Catholic Church in France, French Catholic priest in the United States who served as the first Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque, Bishop of Dubuque, in what would become ...

, Bishop of Dubuque. His associate, missionary

Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli, Order of Preachers, OP (November 4, 1806 – February 23, 1864) was a pioneer Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic missionary priest who helped bring the Church to the Iowa-Illinois-Wisconsin tri-stat ...

, founded a log church there in 1840 with funds from the

Society for the Propagation of the Faith The Society for the Propagation of the Faith (Latin: ''Propagandum Fidei'') is an international association coordinating assistance for Catholic missionary priests, brothers, and nuns in mission areas. The society was founded in Lyon, France, in ...

. When

was completed, it had about 100 parishioners; the 42 men of the congregation had aided in its construction. By 1842, the congregation had 600 members and had a school and resident pastor. The school was probably the first Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Dubuque. Mazzuchelli noted in 1844 that there were no Protestants in Butler Township. Dennis A. Mahony, an instructor at the school and a future member of the

Iowa Senate The Iowa Senate is the upper house of the Iowa General Assembly. There are 50 seats in the Iowa Senate, representing 50 single-member districts across the Iowa, state of Iowa with populations of approximately 60,927 per constituency, . Each Senat ...

, suggested that the name of the community be changed to Garryowen (after

Garryowen, Limerick Garryowen () is a neighbourhood in Limerick, Ireland. History The word Garryowen is a transliteration of the Irish Garraí Eoin - "the garden of Owen" - and relates to the association in the 12th century between St John's Church and the Knig ...

) to reflect the community's Irish heritage. In 1854, the congregation built a stone church, today recognized on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. The school closed in 1871 after the

Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known by its initials BVM, is a Roman Catholic religious institute founded in the United States by Mother Mary Frances Clarke. Its founders were Irish Catholics. The BVM currently works in tw ...

were unable to secure funding to continue it. Seven parishes in nearby communities stemmed off of St. Patrick's. The post office, founded in 1847, was discontinued in 1900. Garryowen's population was 36 in 1902.

References

Unincorporated communities in Iowa Unincorporated communities in Jackson County, Iowa Irish-American neighborhoods 1830s establishments in Wisconsin Territory {{JacksonCountyIA-geo-stub