Joseph P. Riley's 40-year mayoralty has seen the emergence of the city as a nationally-recognised example of how historic preservation and environmental responsibility should be handled, continuing a tradition of public service in the position that has also been occupied by others of Irish background: George Cunningham (1873-77), George Bryan (1887-1891) and John Grace (1911-1913, 1919-1923).

 

John Patrick Grace was born in Charleston in on December 30th. 1874, the grandson of County Tipperary immigrants.  Having qualified as a lawyer, Grace formed his own political machine, which included an alliance with the mercurial Cole Blease (1868-1942), Democrat, prominent state politician from 1890 onwards, Governor of South Carolina from 1911 to 1915, and later U.S. Senator.

 

Grace was elected as progressive mayor in 1911 and again in 1919.  He played a major role in taking over the city docks from the railroads.  He was a virulent opponent of American involvement in World War I and this stance hurt him politically.  Nevertheless he was re-elected in 1919 with large working-class support.  He always pulled for the underdog and was, despite his alliance with Blease, very progressive for the time on racial issues. 

 

He was also a strong Irish nationalist and played the key role in awarding President Eamon De Valera the freedom of the city when the Irish leader visited Charleston in 1920 at the height of the Irish War of Independence.  After his defeat in 1923, Grace focused on getting funding for a bridge across the Cooper River, which was later named in his honor.  Grace died in Charleston on June 25th. 1940.

 

George Cunningham moved to the city from Tennessee in 1852 at the age of 22. Of Ulster Irish stock, he became a partner in a successful meat market and, having established himself first at Ashley Avenue and then at Glebe Street, was nominated in 1868 to one of the six places reserved for whites on the black-dominated City Council. 

 

Cunningham became Mayor of Charleston in 1873 and served for two terms. He also served as U.S. Marshal; Director, President and General Manager of the Charleston Water Works; and U.S. Postmaster from 1889 to 1903, when he died at No. 178 Broad St., having purchased it and No. 180 after the Civil War. 

 

George Dwight Bryan was Mayor of Charleston from 1887 to 1891. He had a colorful early career as a midshipman and acting captain (at the age of 19) in the Confederate Navy, being captured and imprisoned in Brazil for a brief period, before returning to marry Mary King in 1869.

 

George D. Bryan was directly descended from George Bryan, born in Dublin in 1731. After arriving in Philadelphia about 1760, the original George established himself as a merchant and was later a delegate to the important Pennsylvania conventions and councils of the 1770s, and a member of that state's Supreme Court for eleven years until his death in 1791. His son, also named George, was Auditor General of Pennsylvania from 1809 to 1821. 

 

Another son, Jonathan Bryan, moved to Charleston in the early 19th. century and set up as a merchant there. Jonathan's son George Seabrook Bryan (1809-1905) was appointed  a U.S. District Judge in 1866 by President Andrew Johnson, succeeding A. G. McGrath Sr. and is remembered for his independent conduct of the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan trials of 1871-2.