John "Chick" Donohue is the Irish Echo's Irish American of the Year for 2023.
The native of the historically Irish neighborhood of Inwood in Upper Manhattan will be the sixteenth person to receive the accolade since it was revived in 2007. Donohue will succeed Professor Christine Kinealy of Quinnipiac University.
In a long and varied career, Donohue was a United States Marine, merchant seaman, and Legislative and Political Director of the Sandhogs Union Local 147.
He said he was delighted and honored to be named to the role of Echo Irish American of the Year.
Donohue, who is widely known by the sobriquet "Chick" or "Chickie," has made headlines in recent years by way of his book, “The Greatest Beer Run Ever," which was first published in 2017 and again in 2021.
The book was a collaborative effort between Donohue and Joanna Molloy of the New York Daily News.
The book would become a bestseller and lead to a movie by the same title with Zac Efron starring as Donohue, and additional roles played by Russell Crowe and Bill Murray.
The story originates in Inwood during the Vietnam War and a plan, hatched in a bar named Doc Fiddler's, to deliver beer to a number of U.S. soldiers from the neighborhood who are serving in Vietnam.
After hitching a ride on a merchant ship, Donohue landed in Qui Nho’n, the capital of Binh Dinh province in central Vietnam, in early 1968. As becomes quickly clear in both the book and the movie, this was not especially good timing.
But regardless of timing, the mission to deliver beer to the boys from Inwood would be carried out. It is an extraordinary story, one worth the telling - and telling again.
Donohue joins a distinguished and varied Irish American of the Year roster that features Professor Kinealy, hotelier and philanthropist John Fitzpatrick, former member of the Irish Senate and immigration activist Billy Lawless, Irish Immigration Reform Movement co-founder Mae O’Driscoll, Congressman Joe Crowley, university lecturer and Great Hunger curriculum pioneer Maureen Murphy, Congressman Peter King, broadcaster Adrian Flannelly, philanthropist Loretta Brennan Glucksman, attorney and rights activist Brian O’Dwyer, author Pete Hamill, Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal, author Colum McCann, former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
