The McDonalds both descend from Irish immigrants of the past two centuries — Patti’s grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Galway and Cork in the early 1900s, while Steven’s ancestors settled in New York and Maryland before 1900, both generations having escaped the Irish potato famine and its aftermath.

Reflecting on the honor, Patti said she thought of her ancestors’ struggles in leaving their homeland to build families and a set of values that she has tried to carry on in her own home. “I look at it almost as a reflection on them and who they were to be able to be in this position, where Irish America magazine thought of Steven, Conor and I,” she said. “That’s how I personally look at it — having grandparents that came from Ireland, their background and what they instilled in their children were then instilled in us.”

Conor, 27, who followed in his father’s footsteps when he joined the New York City police force in 2010, said he often strives to pay tribute to two generations of ancestors who “busted their butts” to make a life for themselves in the U.S.

While on patrol in Central Park in 1986, Steven was questioning three teenagers when one of them pulled out a gun and shot him three times in the head, neck and spine, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and dependent on a ventilator tube. In the years recovering from his near-fatal injury, Stephen has since forgiven his young assailant and shared his story with audiences around the world. He gives five or six talks a month, at schools and churches, about the healing power of forgiveness. In 1998 he traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, which at the time was still beset by sectarian violence, and spoke in both Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods to spread a message of amnesty to his kinsmen.

He has returned to Ireland in the years since, speaking in Dundalk in 2000 and celebrating the 75th birthday of the Rev. Mychal Judge, a New York City Fire Department chaplain and a family friend who was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.