Savannah, Georgia, dates its Irish tradition back to 1733, when the British first colonized the area. Early settlers included wealthy Irish Protestants who were awarded land in the New World by the Crown, followed by poor Irish Catholics who helped build the railroad lines in the 1830s. Thousands more settled there after fleeing the Famine of the 1840s, especially from Mayo, Cork, and Kerry. Others came from Co. Wexford, which had a direct shipping line to Savannah. Jimmy RAY, head of the city's parade committee, says Savannah has been celebrating Saint Patrick's Day continuously since 1824, with a few exceptions. "We didn't have the parade for a few years during the Civil War, and one year when Saint Patrick's Day landed on Easter Week, but we always observed the holy day," he says. His Irish great-grandparents, Mathias H. RAY and Mary Elizabeth MAHANY, came to Savannah in the 1850s, when 70% of immigration to the city was Irish, and they settled there. A century and a half later, Irish-American clans such as the Rays maintain their sense of Irishness, not just from family tradition, but from the Irish Sisters of Mercy and Irish priests who have had a constant presence there. "We were taught Irish history by the nuns," Ray says proudly. That awareness extends to descendants of Protestant Irish, who also participate in the parade activities, and to the local Scottish Americans, who consider Saint Patrick's Day part of their Celtic tradition, too. It extends to Savannah's sizeable Jewish and Greek communities, who don green and partake in the annual parade, which is the second largest in America next to New York City's. In 1997, Floyd Adams, the African-American mayor, was seen at every Irish event, wearing his green topcoat. -- Excerpt, "Irish in America," Coffey & Golway