History

At a board meeting of the St. Patrick Society of Peoria (link http://www.stpatpeoria.com/ )in 1997, a comment was made that Peoria had a Sister City in Germany and also in China, and wouldn't it be nice if we had one in Ireland given the large number of Peoria people who have an Irish background.

Jim Spears and Leo Jordan, both board members, agreed to look into the matter. After the two had spent some months investigating the project, Jim asked Leo to continue the project due to his time commitments on other projects.

Leo requested a committee of one member from each of the Irish organizations including the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, The St. Brendan's and the St. Patrick Society of Peoria so that they would be aware of the Sister City proceedings.

A checklist was developed to look for towns in Ireland that had the following qualities similar to Peoria. They would like one that did not have another sister city in the U.S., one that had a river, a hospital and a good mix of industry and agriculture as an economic base.

When Gordon Peters, then Sister City Commissioner of Peoria, heard that the Jordan's were planning a vacation to Ireland, he suggested they visit the three towns that seemed to fit the list. Armed with letters of introduction from the City of Peoria and books from the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Leo and his wife Jo, who was by now involved in the search, started at Kilkenny. Information was left at the mayor's office with no real interest shown there. The next visit was to the town of Youghal, where the town clerk informed Leo that Youghal was in the process of forming a sister city relationship with Pittsfield, MA. The third town on the list was Clonmel. Peorians who had experienced the kindness of the citizens of Clonmel had especially recommended it. After spending two hours with Maureen McNamara, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, there seemed to be a mutual interest between the two communities. Clonmel had committed to "twinning" arrangement with five cities in Europe but none in the U.S.

Negotiations followed with six months of phone calls, faxes, emails, letters and meetings of the representatives of the Irish organizations in Peoria. Peoria Mayor Bud Grieves and Clonmel Mayor Vera Hewitt signed the paper work establishing a Sister City relationship between Peoria and Clonmel at the opening of the Erin Feis at the Riverfront on August 22, 1998. The Friends of Clonmel organization was established on January 26, 1999.