Last Updated: 1:22 p.m.
Irwin Connelly, a long-time resident of Flagler County, a former Flagler Beach city attorney, division chief of the Flagler County Public Defender’s Office, and a stalwart advocate of environmental protection whose work over the decades left its imprint on the county’s conservation landscape, died Wednesday of cancer, Brynn Newton, his wife, said. He was 80.
“Irwin was a pioneer in protecting the natural resources in Flagler County,” Dennis Bayer, the Flagler Beach attorney whom Irwin mentored, said this morning. “He was a tireless champion for land protection. He also cared for the citizens of Flagler County as a public defender and, after retirement, a teacher helping kids learn to read. In his quiet, determined manner, he left a positive legacy. I practiced law with Irwin in 1987 for two years before becoming an environmental crimes prosecutor. He then turned over his practice to me in 1997.”
As recently as a few weeks ago, Connelly, a resident of unincorporated Flagler County near Flagler Beach, was actively involved in the debate over the annexations of Veranda Bay and Summertown along John Anderson Highway, appearing before the City Commission and writing commissioners. He was opposed to neither, but, as he wrote county and city commissioners in mid-December, was “concerned that because of the huge increases of the number of residential units over and above what this developer and the County previously agreed to, there will be unnecessary adverse impacts to the lands and community.” He urged: “Any annexed lands should provide the same per capita number of recreation/conservation lands as presently exist in the City.”
“Irwin left quite a public interest legacy in Flagler,” Al Hadeed, the former county attorney whose own imprint on the county’s environmental legacy is vast, said. “Among his many contributions was his dedication to youth education….He strongly believed in the principle that a good education was the antidote to an individual’s potential pursuit of crime. He experienced among his clients through his work in our criminal courts how lack of reading skills prejudiced the productivity of their lives. I admired his dedication. He left an indelible mark on our community. He is a model for my pursuits in retirement.”
His worldview was broad, alien to parochialism and at times despairing of the country’s fraying fabric. Deploring the intensifying damage of partisanship in 2021, he wrote in these pages: “As best I can tell, the change in who we are as a country has been caused by partisan leaders being willing to rally their minions for any purpose so long as it might lead to demolishing their opposition. The good of the country no longer is even part of the goal. I still believe most in our community are very good souls. Let’s hope their good will can prevail over hate.” (See two of Connelly’s previous columns in FlaglerLive here and here.)
“Irwin said that his sense of geography was that there’s Ireland and the rest of the world is Not Ireland,” Newton, who serves on Flagler County’s Land Acquisition Committee, wrote this morning. “His paternal family was distantly related to Padraic Pearse, who wrote the Proclamation of Irish Independence in 1916 (which begins, ‘Irishmen and Irishwomen . . . ‘), and visiting Ireland in 1977 got him primed for the Halifax Plantation war (our World War II). Hopeless causes are the only ones worth fighting for. Or, as Walter Boardman frequently reminded us, ‘You can’t win. You haven’t got a chance. But the stakes are too high to let it go by default.'”
The following, below the 2014 image from “Star Wars Island,” is an obituary Newton wrote that originally appeared at Bunnell’s Heritage Funeral and Cremation website. There may be a service in the future, but Newton said Connelly had had a few big gatherings where “Pretty much everybody had already had their chance to say everything when he could hear it.”
Irwin A. Connelly was born November 19, 1945, in Tampa, Florida. He graduated from Santa Fe High School, Lakeland, Florida, and from the University of Notre Dame in 1968, the latter made possible in part by Operation Bootstrap, Lake Wales. He served in Korea and the U. S. Army 1968-1970. He received his Juris Doctor from The University of Florida College of Law in 1973.
Irwin practiced law in Lake City, Volusia County and Flagler County from 1973 to 2009. He donated hundreds of hours of service to clients of Legal Services of Central Florida. He received the Florida Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Award in its inaugural year, 1982. He was the city attorney for Flagler Beach in the 1980s, was a private practitioner in Bunnell and Flagler Beach, and served as division chief, in Flagler County, of the Seventh Judicial Circuit’s Public Defender’s Office.
Irwin worked closely with Walter S. Boardman and others in 1978-1981 to save from development what is now Bulow Creek State Park in Volusia and Flagler counties, and devoted his energies to protecting what remains of Florida’s wilderness throughout his career. He provided legal assistance to founders of the Flagler County Humane Society and served on its first board of directors.
Irwin retired from practicing law in 2009 and devoted his time to continuing to help children as a volunteer Reading Pal and particularly by working with Flagler-Palm Coast High School Future Problem Solvers to address the nurturing of children born into poverty. The students’ award-winning strategies included organizing Child Fairs and seeking to introduce the science of early brain development into Flagler schools’ curriculum in order to educate soon-to-be-parents about the importance of the very earliest stages of children’s development. He and two of his Problem Solvers were named Flagler Beach Rotary Club’s 2018-2019 Citizens of the Year for their continuing efforts.
Irwin welcomed friends’ offers to pray for him — particularly if their prayers included thanksgiving for the wonderful life he was privileged to enjoy. He loved Florida’s natural resources and beauty. He adhered to the philosophy that, in order to know the Creator, one need only look to Creation. He was a sports fan, participant, and analyst, and especially loved music and hiking in his great grandparents’ Ireland. He is survived by his wife Brynn Newton and his son Padraic Connelly.
In lieu of other remembrances, please consider a gift to the Nature Conservancy or Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
By Mail:
The Nature Conservancy
Attn: Treasury
4245 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 100
Arlington, VA 22203 USA
The Nature Conservancy Donation Link
By Mail:
The Dollywood Foundation
C/O Finance Department
111 E. Main Street, 2nd Floor
Sevierville, TN 37862
The Imagination Library Donation Link
Jaii Hein says
In 1978 I was asked to print his letterheads for his business in the HT Cook building in Bunnell. I owned Flagler Printers as a new business as a 28 year old. Later printed the bumper stickers gratis for ” Save Bulow” which we did. Condolences to family and friends. He was a great human.
Brynn Newton says
Your role was a big factor in a true grass roots, community-wide effort. Thank you, Jaii.
Sean Moylan says
Tis Himself!
Brynn Newton says
Sure and didn’t he love a fine bit of Yeats recited by you around the Cumberland Island campfires, Sean.
Thank you
Carrie G Baird says
I am so sad to hear about this loss to our community. I loved reading about his passion for the environment–but I will always remember him for his passion for early learning and young children.
Brynn Newton says
You were one of his heroes. He was so gratified to see that you were recognized recently for your amazing work.
Josh Davis says
Back in the olden days when Kim Hammond was the only Circuit Judge and Sharon Atack was the only County Judge, I faced off against Irwin in trial. As a young prosecutor, I was thrilled to test my craft. Mr. Connelly taught me more in a day than I had learned in years from a textbook. Afterwards, Rich Price shook my hand and said, “Welcome to Flagler County, you’re not a real prosecutor until you’ve lost to Irwin Connelly.” Irwin and the 2 Judges were the foundation of my prosecutorial career. Mr. Connelly was a humble, awesome, brilliant man and he will be greatly missed!!!
Paul Larkin says
Very sad…a huge loss to Flagler County and our World…thank you Irwin for your many contributions to Flagler County and it’s Residents and may your Soul rest in Peace!!
Env says
I wonder what Irwin would think about the mass fish kill happening in the Palm Coast canals right now. Which is undoubtedly linked to a trophic cascade. A cascade triggered by the Palm Coast Storm Water department’s recent policy switch to repeated and illegal pesticide/herbicide treatments in our ditch system and retention ponds. The city is not legally allowed to be spraying anywhere the water discharges. And there are multiple enforcement actions from the Florida department of environmental protection against the city for illegally spraying, but the city is continuing with spraying into our water. I remember calling the city after seeing children get run out of their bus stop by feral hogs. The city said they couldn’t afford to deal with the problem. Then they came a week later and illegally sprayed the ditches and retention pond around the kids bus stop with glyphosphate. The states surgeon general says there is no safe level of exposure to this stuff. Irwin’s philosophy to educate children in his community and keep their environment safe stands in stark contrast to the Palm Coast city government’s current policy, which seems to be poison children and feed them to the hogs. The city needs to reverse course on this new policy switch to spraying the storm water system with deadly chemicals. First it killed all the rodents and birds in the ditches. Now it is killing the fish in the canals because of the trophic cascade. We are on track to become a hotspot for childhood leukemia next. This is the next predictable event in this cascade if we continue treating the storm water system with spray. With my experience working in wildlife genetics and cancer, I am afraid this isn’t me just guessing. It is just the pattern of events in cities that have gone down this path spraying into the storm water system before. History is doomed to repeat itself here if we don’t learn from it.
Lance Carroll says
With all due respect to your post, there was a deep freeze recently. A deep freeze, most certainly, results in floating fish.
DC says
Hats off to a good man and a caregiver of Flagler County’s natural resources and beauty.
Higher Ground Sir
John Ferree says
I am glad I knew him.
Mike Smirch says
I feel fortunate to have known Irwin Connelly. He was reliable and intelligent; a consistent force of good intentions, as solid as those rocks on Skellig Michael. His contributions to community and humanity should inspire us all to make good choices with whatever time we have.