Growing up a first-generation American, attending the public schools and colleges, and going forth to change the city (and the world) are hallmarks worn by many of the people who have shaped the way we live, love, and work in New York City.
Native New Yorker and Queens resident Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy stood tall in that great lineage. Walsh D’Arcy left the city she loved on July 18, after a hard-fought battle with cancer at Sloan-Kettering Memorial.
“Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy was an outstanding leader who fought fiercely for the LGBTQIA+ community in general and for the Irish and Irish American members of that community in particular,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. “She helped create a wonderfully unifying and empowering celebration that reflects the diversity that makes Queens such a special place. Queens is proud to have called Kathleen one of its own, and she will be deeply missed.”
Sister, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, social worker, activist, author, ally and more, Walsh D’Arcy spent a lifetime speaking up, reaching out, and fighting against injustice.
“Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy was a giant in the Irish and progressive communities,” said her great friend and former City Councilmember (and long-time activist) Daniel Dromm. “Her love of people and commitment to equal rights defined her. She fought for the voiceless. From her work as a PTA parent when her daughter Maeve was in public school to marching in the streets against immoral wars, to fighting for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, she never backed down.”
“My mom was a student of Audre Lorde,” said artist Maeve D’Arcy, Kathleen’s daughter. “Audre’s legacy and ethos is something that I was raised with. My mom led with love, and she led with justice for all.” Walsh D’Arcy studied with Lorde at Hunter College, then earned her Master’s degree in social work at Hunter. Maeve D’Arcy followed her mother to Hunter, where she graduated with degrees in Visual Art and Social Justice Studies.
Many people knew Walsh D’Arcy as co-chair of St. Pat’s for All, the inclusive St. Patrick’s parade held each year in Sunnyside and Woodside Queens. From its early years, the parade committee gathered a devoted group of friends, organizations, and public officials who came to march down Skillman Avenue and returned every year.
“Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy was a joyful, tireless force for equality who devoted her life to uplifting LGBTQ+ New Yorkers in our Irish community,” said New York Attorney General Leticia James. “For years, I was proud to march alongside her at St. Pat’s for All, where she always welcomed me with warmth, humor, and a reminder that, for the day, my name was ‘Tish O’Jameson.’ Kathleen’s courage and compassion helped change our state for the better, and her legacy will live on.”
“Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy was a true community leader,” said New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, another longtime participant in the parade. “It was always a privilege to join her at the annual St. Pat’s for All parade. Kathleen was a caring and thoughtful person and a true visionary. She will be missed but her legacy will be lasting.”
“Kathleen was a deeply kind and generous person, who dedicated her life to her friends, family and community,” said New York State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris, who has marched in the parade since its earliest years. “She dedicated so much of her life to building an inclusive and welcoming community, and that work has created an indelible legacy.”
St. Pat’s for All was but one of her many passions and causes.
“Looking through my email exchanges with Kathleen over these years, I am blown away by her unabated energy, enthusiasm, and commitment,” wrote Dan Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who served as a Grand Marshal at St. Pat’s for All. “Here she is planning a celebration of the author Alice McDermott. Here she is sending an update from the bedside of her beloved friend Brendan Costello. Here she is promoting the St. Pat’s for All Parade. Here she is fighting for immigrant rights, worker rights, LGBTQ rights — always with a dash of Irish resolve. I’m exhausted just from reading all those emails, but I come away with even greater admiration for the singular Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy. More than a force of nature, she was a force for what is good and just and right.”
Current St. Pat’s co-chair Archley J. Prudent, and his partner, Hugh Gallagher, were introduced to Walsh D’Arcy in 2010 at a reception hosted by then-Irish Consul General Barbara Jones (who brokered the deal that got the Fifth Avenue parade committee to let LGBTQ people to march).
“It was impossible not to be drawn to Kathleen’s warmth, intelligence, and infectious enthusiasm,” Prudent said.
“Over the following years, Hugh and I proudly marched in the parade as representatives of Children in Crossfire, the Derry-based charity dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable children,” Prudent added. “With each passing year, our admiration for Kathleen grew. She was not only an exceptional organizer, but someone who made every person feel valued and welcome. She had a remarkable gift for bringing people together and reminding us that our differences made our community stronger.
“Working alongside Kathleen became one of the greatest privileges of my life. She was a mentor, a trusted colleague, and above all, a dear friend. Her wisdom, compassion, and unwavering commitment guided every decision we made. Even in challenging moments, she never lost sight of the parade’s mission — to create a community where everyone belongs.”
Walsh D’Arcy and St. Pat’s founder Brendan Fay received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad in 2016 at a state dinner in Dublin from former President Michael D. Higgins for their advocacy. Walsh D’Arcy also received the Lifetime Recognition Award for Pursuit of Social Justice from the New York Irish Center in 2019.
The Consulate General of Ireland in New York paid tribute to Walsh D’Arcy on X.
“We are saddened to hear of the passing of Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy, a pillar of the New York City Irish community,” the post noted. “A proud Irish-American, Kathleen dedicated her life to promoting a diverse and inclusive vision of the Irish diaspora. Kathleen will be remembered for her fight for LGBTQI equality in New York, from fighting the ban of LGBTI organizations in the 5th Avenue St. Patricks Day Parade, to the founding of the Sunnyside @StPatsForAll Parade… Her life and legacy will live on in the communities she helped to shape. The Consulate sends our deepest condolences to Kathleen’s friends, family, and the St Pat’s For All team during this difficult time.”
Walsh D’Arcy was a member of the Irish American Writers & Artists and served on its board of directors. As a writer and editor, she compiled and co-edited “Territories of the Voice: Short Fiction by Irish Women Writers,” the first American collection of Irish women’s short stories. Her work has been published in Irish America Magazine and All American Women. She wrote and produced “Inside Stories,” an oral history of women in NYC nursing homes, which was performed at the 92nd Street Y, and The Project Theatre in Dublin.
“What I remember most, was Kathleen’s caring for everyone as an individual,” Dromm added. “Every year before the St. Pat’s for All parade, she would call me and ask me if I wanted her to reserve a table for me and my family at the Saints and Sinners pub after party in Woodside.”
The party always lasted long after the parade, and people from all over came to sing songs, play music, and celebrate the day and its meaning.
She knew that music and art were essential to survival. As her mentor Audre Lorde wrote in the essay “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” “For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”
