2025 Irish Persons of the Year: Myra and Noel Behan
By Kathleen Sweeney
The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade and Faire Committee has selected Noel and Myra Behan as its 2025 Irish Persons of the Year. Noel and Myra were both born and raised in western Ireland’s County Mayo. Noel, who will be 87 in December, comes from the town of Castlebar, and Myra, who will be 86 in September, comes from the village of Partry.
Noel’s father was killed in the war when he was baby. His mother was a housewife and a champion knitter who won prizes for her work and sold it to wealthy people. Noel had an older brother and a younger brother, both of whom have passed away.
Myra is the third youngest of eleven children and one of only three girls in her family. She has three brothers who are still living, one of whom lives in County Clare, Ireland, and two of whom live in Manchester, England. Her parents were farmers. She remembers her childhood as giving her “some of the best growing-up years ever.” Her parents instilled in her the primary value of telling the truth no matter what. Irish children would be asked to show their tongues to verify their veracity because folklore had it that if you lied, a black spot would appear on your tongue. “It was a different world then,” Myra recalls. “We didn’t have much money—no one did—but everybody got along. People’s word was their bond. We trusted other people, and they trusted us.”
Both Noel and Myra describe their mothers as having been sticklers for cleanliness. Attending Mass was mandatory—if you didn’t go to Mass, you wouldn’t be going anywhere else. Being presentable at Mass was especially important, and Noel noted that the first thing that one did when returning home from Mass was to change out of one’s Sunday clothes.
Myra knew her maternal grandfather but never knew her other grandparents. All of her grandparents were farmers. Noel knew his maternal grandmother well. She was a midwife who remarried after Noel’s maternal grandfather died. Midwives received government housing, and Noel would spend his summers with her and his step-grandfather at their home in Ballyheane. His step-grandfather was a custodian in a mental hospital in Castlebar. Noel remembers going to the bog and cutting turf with him. He nicknamed Noel “the Colonel.”
At that time, many Irish people went to England to earn money that they could send home. Noel went in 1953 when he was fifteen and spent three years there. Myra went in 1956 and was there less than a year. They both coincidentally immigrated to Chicago in 1957.
Myra came to Chicago on a KLM Royal Dutch airliner on April 14, 1957. Noel came by boat one month later on May 14, 1957. All of Myra’s uncles had immigrated to Chicago, which Myra describes as having been full of Irish people who stuck together and who all prospered pretty well. Richard J. Daley was Chicago’s mayor then, and if you were Irish, you could get a job as a fireman or a policeman or in a park or school district. Myra’s uncle Patrick was a policeman, and he was still alive when Myra immigrated to Chicago herself.
Although Castlebar and Partry are only fifteen miles apart and Noel and Myra had frequented some of the same places when they both lived in England, they were destined not to meet each other until they immigrated to Chicago. Like many people of their generation, they met at a dance there. They were married three years later in 1960. They returned to Ireland for the ceremony, which was held at St. Mary’s Church in Partry. Noel jokes that he won Myra over with his money rather than with his dancing. They will celebrate their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary in May. “It must have been love,” Noel says with a smile.
Before Noel even became a United States citizen, he served in the United States Army from 1962 to 1964. Although this was during the Vietnam War era, he was stationed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and never went overseas. He had learned the meat business in Ireland, and upon returning to civilian life, he worked in a Jewel Tea Grocery Store’s meat department in Chicago for seventeen years. He was making good money, but much of it was going to medical bills because two of the couple’s sons suffered from severe bronchitis, which often required that they be hospitalized and placed in oxygen tents. To help their children, the Behans took a doctor’s advice and moved them to Phoenix’s warmer, drier climate.
Noel knew a man from County Leitrim—Pat McMorrow—who had moved to Phoenix from Chicago. When Noel called him, Pat said that he thought that Noel could easily get a job in Phoenix and that he owned a home on Dahlia Drive in Phoenix that the Behans could buy. They sent him three months’ rent in advance and moved to Phoenix in 1973 when their three sons Mark, Paul, and John were 5, 7, and 9 years old respectively.
Noel first worked at a Safeway grocery store and then became a United States Department of Agriculture meat inspector. When the USDA wanted to transfer him out of Phoenix, Noel went back to working at Safeway. Myra taught kindergarten at Rancho Solano School for six years. She also worked as a private duty nursing assistant and as a nursing assistant in Banner Boswell Hospital’s oncology unit. The Behans bought the house on Dahlia Drive and lived there for seven years before buying their current house on 46th Lane in Glendale, where they have lived for forty-five years.
Their sons attended St. Jerome’s Grade School. John and Paul graduated from Moon Valley High School and Mark graduated Greenway High School. All three of them live in Phoenix now. John served in the U.S. Navy and is a retired pharmacy tech. His wife’s name is Christy. Paul followed in Noel’s footsteps and works as a store director for Noel’s former employer Safeway at its Seventh Avenue and Osborn location. Paul’s partner’s name is Maryanne. Paul’s two children, Brittany and Sean, live in Pensacola, Florida. Mark served in the Marine Corps for twenty years and is a Department of Defense Engineer. He has a daughter Kelly.
Irish culture has always been a big part of the Behans’ lives. “We’ve always had an Irish home,” Myra says. After moving to Phoenix, they became very involved in its Irish community. Myra notes that Mark and Paul learned Irish dance from Mary McCormack and that “Mark plays guitar and sings every Irish song that you’ve ever heard.”
At the time, Phoenix’s Irish American Social Club was the center of Phoenix’s Irish community. Jimmy Cunningham was its president when they arrived, and Noel subsequently served two consecutive terms as its president from 1974 to 1976. “It was a lot of work,” he remembers. The Club used to meet at the Firefighters’ Hall at Dreamy Draw. The members would bring their children, and everyone would participate in the activities.
Myra and Noel have traveled extensively. They bought a fifth wheel recreational vehicle when Noel retired. Myra, who was still working, would take time off and they would leave Phoenix in May and would return six months later in November. Their travels took them all through Canada and Newfoundland and to Alaska. Noel, who is an avid fisherman, once caught a gigantic halibut in Alaska. Another time, the couple was on an Alaskan cruise that had spent three hours searching for killer whales. Noel spotted some whales three miles away that no one else had seen, and the ship’s captain later found him and gave him a medal for doing so.
The Behans include Ireland in their travels every few years. They estimate that they have made at least twenty return trips. When they go, they rent a house that can also accommodate their sons, and they all have a wonderful time together. Myra’s Irish nieces and nephews often visit the Behans here, and nine of them came for Myra’s eightieth birthday.
Every year, one of Noel’s former Castlebar neighbors sends them a copy of the Castlebar Annual Parish Magazine, in which they have often been featured. The magazine is sent all over the world, and last year’s copy included a picture of the Behans with their childhood friends that was taken on their most recent trip back last August.
Noel was present when the idea for Phoenix’s Irish Cultural Center was formed. Myra thinks that what has been done with the Center is amazing and that the people who have contributed their time to its growth and development have also been amazing. She and Noel include Patricia and Sean Prior, Jimmy Cunningham, Jimmy O’Connor, Tom and Peggy Mullins, and John Corcoran in that category.
One of Noel’s hobbies is woodworking. He loved whittling and carving as a child. He progressed to a technique called intarsia, which was popular in fifteenth-century Italy and which only five or six people in the United States are proficient at today. It involves sculpting figures using imported wood pieces of various shapes, sizes, and colors that are fitted together. The natural grain patterns and colors of the wood pieces create a mosaic-like design within the figures without any paints, stains, or dyes being used in the process. Each piece of wood is hand cut, shaped, fitted, and glued onto a backing, and the piece is then given either a matte or a satin finish. The resulting figures are truly beautiful, and Noel has created hundreds of them. One of them, which features a boy and a girl, graces the space above the Irish Cultural Center’s fireplace. One of the most impressive pieces is a museum-quality tiger that contains 325 separate pieces of wood. Noel’s woodworking skills are not limited to sculpted figures because he also made a wooden bench for the Behans’ front porch.
Noel is very proud to be Irish, and he is even more proud to have been chosen Irish person of the year. Myra is also very pleased to have received this honor. “I’m not a great person for the limelight, though,” she says. “Noel loves it. He used to sing all in public all the time.” They will enjoy the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in their own ways, and Phoenix’s Irish community is very fortunate to have this lovely couple as its 2025 Irish Persons of the Year.
