Dargan named city’s Irishman of Year

By Michael P. Walsh

Special to the Voice

Stephen D. “Steve” Dargan, who has devoted his life to public service and has worked tirelessly to improve his city, state and Irish community, has been named West Haven’s Irishman of the Year.

Dargan, the grandson of Irish immigrants, will receive the honor at the city’s 32nd annual St. Patrick’s Day Celebration at noon March 17.

The West Haven St. Patrick’s Day Committee will fete the city’s top Irishman by hanging a green street sign designating City Hall’s Campbell Avenue entrance as “Stephen D. Dargan Square” for a year.

Last year’s recipient, former West Haven school nurse Sandy McCauley, will take home her retired sign at the start of the ceremony.

The “Irish Person of the Year” award is bestowed annually on an Irish resident or couple who personifies service in the city’s close-knit Irish community.

“I’m honored by my Irish heritage and to live in West Haven,” said Dargan, a lifelong Westie and former 13-term state representative. “With the number of multicultural people that we have, it’s an honor to represent my Irish heritage.”

Dargan will toast his Irish lineage with scores of friends and loved ones, along with an array of shamrock-clad dignitaries and descendants of folks from Erin.

Accompanied by Celtic music played by bagpipers and drummers, the West Haven Police Honor Guard will escort Dargan to the Campbell Avenue steps of City Hall for his special recognition.

The St. Patrick’s Day Committee, chaired by the city’s 2009 Irishwoman of the Year, Mary Lyng Malenda, includes the lifeblood of West Haven’s Irish society, such as members of the Irish American Club and former honorees, as well as former and current city, fire and police officials.

“Steve Dargan has been a dedicated public servant whose contributions to West Haven have left a lasting impact,” said Mayor Dorinda Borer, the city’s 2014 Irishwoman of the Year. “His commitment to our community and his countless years of volunteer work embody the spirit of leadership and civic pride. It is an honor to recognize my friend and mentor as West Haven’s 2025 Irish Person of the Year.”

Dargan, who turns 70 on March 29, hails from an ancestry whose legacy is woven into the tapestry of the American fabric.

Nearly 200 years ago, sons and daughters of Erin, escaping the Great Famine, embraced the dream of a brighter future and embarked on a bold journey across the Atlantic to make their new home in a place of hope and promise. And when they landed on America’s shores, they shared the true treasures of their homeland: song and literature, humor and tradition, faith and family.

In the mid-1800s, Dargan’s paternal great-grandparents, Pierce and Ellen Dargan, emigrated from Ireland to the United States and settled in New Haven.

His great-grandparents’ journey from Freshford, County Kilkenny, was followed by his maternal grandparents, John Glacken and the former Margaret McGowan, who left the Emerald Isle for America at different times in the early 1900s. Glacken emigrated from the Quigley’s Point village of County Donegal, and McGowan migrated from the Bogside neighborhood of Derry, Northern Ireland. They later married and settled in Norwich, followed by West Haven.

Dargan was born in New Haven in 1955 to Robert Dargan Jr. and the former Margaret Glacken. He and his siblings — Robert Dargan III, Timothy Dargan and Mary Margaret Dargan — were raised by their hardworking parents in a traditional Irish Catholic household on Richards Place in the center of West Haven.

Steve Dargan attended public schools and graduated in 1973 from West Haven High School, where he ran track. He also attended Quinnipiac College.

The Irish Person of the Year distinction runs deep in Dargan’s family. His father, now deceased, received the award in 2012. The Dargans are the first father and son to receive the honor.

Steve Dargan is a longtime member of the West Haven Irish American Club and a lifetime member of West Haven’s Elks Lodge 1537. He is a former member of the Knights of St. Patrick in New Haven.

As a Democratic member of the Connecticut House, Dargan represented West Haven’s 115th District from 1991 to 2017.

For 20 years, he was a co-chair of the General Assembly’s Public Safety and Security Committee, which oversees all matters related to civil preparedness, state and municipal police, and the overall safety of residents.

He served on the Gaming Policy Task Force, the Police Pursuit Task Force and the Private Security Personnel Task Force. He also served on the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee and the Insurance and Real Estate Committee.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Dargan was the state’s first elected official to serve in a CIA counterterrorism unit, calling the experience “one of the highlights of my career.”

In January 2017, shortly before the start of the 2017 legislative session, Dargan resigned to take a job on the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, which he still holds.

Dargan served in elected or appointed capacities for his hometown since he was 21 years old.

He served on the City Council from 1985 to 1991 and the First Fire Taxation District’s Board of Fire Commissioners from 1980 to 2004.

He is a former volunteer for West Haven Hook and Ladder Company 1 and a former member of the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs.

Borer lauded the civic-minded Dargan for his dedication to “our spirited Irish American community.”

At the midday event, the mayor will present him with an Irish flag and a proclamation citing his devotion to his “rich heritage.”

Dargan will also receive an embroidered “Irishman of the Year 2025” jacket.

West Haven’s Irish community takes great pride in the St. Patrick’s Day traditions handed down from each generation. Every March 17, those of Irish birth or lineage honor the memory of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland who brought the message of Christ to the Irish people nearly 1,600 years ago. Teaching the word of God, St. Patrick used the three-leaf shamrock, with each leaf representing the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The need to preserve their Celtic identity in the U.S. led the Irish to form the Hibernian Society, which held the first St. Patrick’s Day parades, and local organizations, such as West Haven’s Irish club.

Members of the New Haven County Firefighters Emerald Society Pipes & Drums will lead the event’s opening procession, followed by remarks by St. Patrick’s Day Committee member David Coyle, the master of ceremonies.

Retired Pastor Mark R. Jette, the city’s 2010 Irishman of the Year, will offer an Irish blessing. Jette formerly served St. Lawrence and St. Paul churches in West Haven and Sacred Heart Church in Suffield.

Fiona Stewart, the queen of the 2013 Greater New Haven St. Patrick’s Day Parade, will sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Irish national anthem, “Soldier’s Song,” followed by remarks by Borer.

Dargan, joined by grand-niece Reagan Neal, 7, of Shelton, will then pull off a shroud revealing the rectangular sign.

Mary Dargan, of West Haven, and Tim Dargan, of Chesterfield, New Jersey, are expected to join their brother for the unveiling. Robert Dargan, of Branford, is unable to attend the ceremony.

Steve Dargan is a former sales representative and a longtime resident of the city’s Beach Street neighborhood.

His propensity for volunteerism includes formerly serving on the West Haven Flood and Erosion Control Commission and chairing the Ken Strong Stadium Commission.

For many years, Dargan paid it forward by coaching youth baseball and basketball. He was also an assistant basketball coach on West Haven High’s 1987 CIAC Class LL championship team.

For four decades, Dargan was the voice of West Haven High football, serving as the Blue Devils’ public address announcer.

He is a former member of the West Haven Umpires Association and the Greater New Haven Baseball Umpires Association, along with the Connecticut Jaycees and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Dargan has received numerous civic awards, including the Notre Dame High School Knights of Honor in 2015.