NOTE: Fair warning folks! It has been said that the Irish are incapable of making a long story short. This feature is proof positive that there is some validity to those words. While Butte residents will once again not have their traditional St. Patrickâs Day parade and many will not be heading to their favorite tavern, there is still much to celebrate and more importantly, to honor and be thankful for. Our Irish ancestors took a chance and left their homeland and opened a new chapter in the mining town that lay below the Continental Divide. The story below focuses on the immigrants of the Beara Peninsula and highlights their innocence, courage, perseverance, devilry, and sometimes pure stubbornness. More than 100 years have passed, but the Beara connection remains steadfast. Their descendants hold tight to their stories, their traditions. It may seem somewhat redundant to state, but it doesnât make it any less true â âIf it werenât for them, we would not be here.â