Shamrock Club of Wisconsin

The Shamrock Club of Wisconsin is the oldest and largest Irish American membership organization in the State of Wisconsin. It was founded on March 17, 1960, in Milwaukee. Currently there are chapters in Milwaukee, Rock County, (Beloit and Janesville), Northeastern Wisconsin, (Green Bay), South Central, (Baraboo), Dane County (Madison), New London, La Crosse, and Lafayette County, (Darlington).

The Shamrock Club was organized by members of Milwaukee's Irish community who had been a part of the Milwaukee Holiday Folk Fair's annual November festival. Helped by the International Institute of Wisconsin, the Club met to organize on March 17, 1960, St Patrick's Day. A few years later, it would incorporate under Wisconsin corporation laws, and later would receive a federal 501 C (4) as a charitable, social and cultural organization.

The Shamrock Club would gain a foothold in the Irish community by sponsoring and chartering flights to Ireland. These trips were very popular, and there were often multiple trips to Ireland each year. When the chartered flights program started, there was little in the way of direct flights to Ireland, and those that existed were often prohibitively expensive. Changes in the federal laws would take the Shamrock Club out of the charter business, as more commercial airlines saw the growing interest in Ireland to be a viable money making option for them.