Clashmore Mike: the animals of Notre Dame's sideline

1924 to the 1960s

The terriers: The animals of civic record in this county belong, by documentary weight, to a football team. For more than forty years the University of Notre Dame's mascot was a living Irish terrier, and the university's own archives keep the succession with a candor this section is glad to borrow: "The history of Irish Terriers as mascots contains a number of conflicting accounts." The first was Tipperary Terrence — Terry — presented in 1924 and named by student contest; in May 1924, following two students walking on Niles Road, Terry was hit by a car, and he died a few days later. The famous one came in 1935: Clashmore Mike, donated by the Chicago breeder William J. Butler, became the official football mascot, entertained the crowds with his sideline gymnastics, had his own column in the football programs, and, in the fan accounts the archives preserve, marched to the opponent's bench at halftime to lift his leg on it. He died in September 1945 — the university's Alumnus of October 1945 gives the date, 17 September, and his age, eleven years — "and was buried in Notre Dame Stadium," the archives record, under the field his successors still play on.

The succession, as muddy as the archives admit: Clashmore Mike II, born Shannon Invader, succeeded him and ran away in 1948. James McGarraghy of Chicago then presented the university with Shannon View Mike. The 1952 Scholastic Football Review mentions Shannon View Mike and a dog named Pat; the 1953 Review calls the mascot Clashmore Mike III; the archives hold two of the 1950s dogs' coats, one green and one blue, and state plainly that "this is where the history becomes a bit muddy." The terrier era faded through the 1960s — the Leprechaun, a human mascot, became official in 1965 — and a revival movement surfaced around Knute Rockne's hundredth birthday in 1988 without restoring the dogs. The last Clashmore Mike of record appeared on the cover of the 1963 football guide with the coach and the captain. These are the county's documented animal celebrities: not strays and not legends, but named working dogs with donors, dates, a grave under a stadium, and an archives honest about the gaps in their own succession.

Sources:

1. University of Notre Dame Archives, "Notre Dame Mascots" (sites.nd.edu/ndarchives) — Terry (1924); Clashmore Mike (1935–1945), buried in Notre Dame Stadium; Mike II and the runaway of 1948; Shannon View Mike; the 1952–1953 records; the coats.
2. The Notre Dame Alumnus, Vol. 23, No. 5 (October 1945) — Clashmore Mike's death on 17 September 1945, aged eleven, and his burial in the stadium.
3. Scholastic (University of Notre Dame), "Becoming the Leprechaun" (2019) — the terrier era's span and the Leprechaun's succession, from the university's own student magazine.