What would you fight for? Yes, that’s the opening of the impressive 2018 Notre Dame commercials we saw throughout the fall during the football games.

My name is Brian McKenna and my brothers, Michael, Kevin and I hail from Holyoke, MA and are the last living relations of John F. Shea ’06, ‘08M.A. and Michael J. Shea ’04, ‘05M.A. the co-authors of the Notre Dame Victory March. If you’ve been in the Joyce Center lobby or Legends on campus you’ve seen their names, picture, and the words to the little old song they wrote for their Alma Mater. 

They wrote the most famous of all college/university fight songs in 1908 with its first public debut taking place at the Second Congregational Church in Holyoke, MA the very same year. The song was copyrighted in 1908 with all royalties for the song going to the University of Notre Dame.

As a child whenever we would visit my family’s graves in Holyoke's Saint Jerome’s Cemetery for the holidays to decorate the graves we would always stop at a grassy knoll where John Shea is buried, place flowers and say a prayer. Unfortunately, he never had a headstone.

Can you believe it? The co-author of the song honored as the “greatest of all fight songs” during the 1969 centennial celebration of college football and hummed around the world by Irish fans doesn’t have a headstone to mark where he’s buried!

I would like to request that the Notre Dame Club of Boston take it upon themselves to honor this Notre Dame legend with a fitting headstone that would properly identify for a future generation the ground and provide John with the recognition he so deserves.

His brother and co-author Michael who was a priest is buried with an appropriate headstone at Holy Cross Cemetery in Notre Dame, Indiana. 

To close with the same theme of the Notre Dame television commercials... They were the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. I appreciate your consideration of my request.

Regards,

Brian McKenna