One look was all it took for this couple
Lorraine Peron asked the bartender at the Irish Rover if dancing was allowed at the popular pub in Queens, N.Y. “Next thing I knew, he was standing right beside me,” she says.
“That’s the end of the story,” says Seamus Donagher, who was moonlighting that St. Patrick’s Day in 1974. “I went back to work,” but, “I kept my eye on her for the rest of the night. … She was wearing a beautiful yellow dress, and she had this tan. I said to myself, ‘That’s the woman for me.’”
Lorraine was thrilled. “He could sing, and he could dance. He had a lovely voice and a melodious accent.”
Seamus had come to the United States from Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, after graduating from Maynooth College in Culinary Arts in Ireland and completing a 1 1/2 year apprenticeship in Basel, Switzerland. At the urging of his brother in Queens, he visited in 1973 and quickly rose to executive chef at J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation in Manhattan.
Lorriane was a pediatric nurse at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, and pursuing her bachelor’s degree when they met. Seamus invited her out, and for their second date, “He made dinner. It was fabulous,” Lorraine says. “My mother was delighted” that Seamus was from Ireland, because she had grown up in Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland.
Lorraine’s father was from Trissino, Italy, and “The first time I had dinner at Lorriane’s, it lasted for hours and hours,” Seamus says. Discussing politics with relatives, “They were screaming at each other … so animated. I enjoyed that so much,” as it reminded him of dinners in Ireland.
He went home to his sister’s wedding in September, proposed at Christmas, and married Lorraine at the Chapel of the United Nations on June 14, 1975.
“He made our wedding cake,” three or four layers of a traditional Irish fruit cake, Lorraine says, and the musician who played for their first dance at the Irish Rover provided the music at their wedding. Seamus’ family from Ireland could not attend, but his brother was his best man, and after a honeymoon week in Majorca, the bride and groom went to Ireland to meet his family and visit Lorraine’s mother’s hometown.
They lived in the Finger Lakes region of
New York, while Seamus worked as banquet chef at a resort. But with Mary’s sister and family living in Tolland, they migrated east in 1978. Seamus worked for Aramark Corporation in the executive dining rooms of United Technologies and Fleet Bank before being sent as corporate chef to open new businesses nationwide. He was also responsible for corporate dining for the Greater Hartford Open golf tournament.
Lorraine worked at Manchester Hospital, but with a young son and daughter to raise, they soon bought a home in West Hartford, and Lorraine switched to Kaiser Permanente in East Hartford. She moved into disease management and management of nurse case managers for ConnectiCare in the late 1980s.
As their children grew, Seamus, who had played Gaelic football, coached their son Philip’s soccer team. Their daughter Tara did Irish step dancing, which took the family across the U.S. and Canada for her competitions. “It gave us an opportunity to take vacations,” from Newport to Toronto to the national championship in California, Lorraine says.
“It was very family oriented,” Seamus says. “The friends we have today, we met through Tara’s dance and Philip’s soccer.”
“When my parents were alive, I went every year” to Donegal, taking one or both children with him, Seamus recalled. The family returned to New York often, with the St. Patrick’s Day Parade an annual tradition. “A lot of my friends from home are still there,” says Seamus, who marches with the Donegal contingent on this “high holiday” for the Irish. (Both the Hartford and New York parades were postponed this year due to the coronavirus.)
In 1997, with their children grown, Seamus jumped at the opportunity to become vice president of dining services at
Citibank’s world headquarters in Manhattan. Lorraine went to work at Pfizer’s headquarters in NYC as they were launching a new cardiovascular drug and traveled widely. Seamus went to Augusta, Ga., annually to oversee food service for Citi’s executives and clients at the Masters Tournament and moved to Citi’s executive planning facility in Armonk, N.Y., in 2006.
Lorraine left Pfizer in 2005 after their first grandchild was born and moved back to their home in West Hartford, which they had kept.
“I decided I wanted to do something different,” Seamus says. He commuted to Central Connecticut State University in 2008 to earn his teacher certification, and the next year began teaching at the Ella T. Grasso Southeastern Technical High School in Groton. “It was one of the most fulfilling things I ever did.”
Seamus retired in 2014 but hasn’t abandoned his art. “What makes me the happiest is cooking for family and friends and sitting with a group around the table and sharing the time together,” Seamus says. He enjoys preparing meals with grandson Chase and granddaughter Chelsea in South Carolina, and with grandsons Pádraig, Seamus, Aodhán, and Pearse in West Hartford. Their daughter, who teaches at The Mulcahy Academy of Irish Dance, lives blocks away and is married an Irish native, Terry Deveney, whom she met in New York City.
Seamus plays golf whenever he can with a group of friends “the Bogtrotters.” Lorraine, who has been a reading tutor for most of her life, works with six children in Hartford public schools. She and Seamus have traveled widely in retirement, adding time at the end of every trip to stop in Ireland. Next month they plan to be in Dublin to watch Pádraig compete in the 2020 World Irish Dancing Championships.
“We really love the same things,” Lorraine says. “We love to travel … to meet new people. … Early on I recognized Seamus had a great sense of humor,” and still does as they approach their 45th anniversary.
“It’s part of our Irish culture,” Seamus says. “It gives us the ability to laugh at life.”
Seamus knew when he married Lorraine, “She was somebody who was always going to tell me like it was.” He respects her “honesty and integrity. I felt she would always be in my corner,” plus, “I thought she had such a wonderful smile. I thought she was a wonderful person.”