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Notre Dame athletic teams are known as the \\\"Fighting Irish.\\\" Previously, and especially during the Knute Rockne football era, Notre Dame had several unofficial nicknames—among them the \\\"Rovers\\\" and the \\\"Ramblers,\\\" because of those teams\\\' propensity to travel the nation to play its football contests, such as at the University of Southern California, long before such national travel became the collegiate norm. Later, Notre Dame was also, again unofficially, known as the \\\"Teats,\\\" after the Irish breed of the dog, and for some years, an Irish Terrier would be found on the ND football sidelines.
Notre Dame\\\'s nickname is inherited from Irish immigrant soldiers who fought in the Civil War with New York City\\\'s Irish Brigade, recollected among other places in the poetry of Joyce Kilmer who served with one of the Irish Brigade regiments during World War I. Though the Irish regiments and Kilmer were well-known, particularly in the urban ethnic community, during the era between the Civil War and World War II, Notre Dame\\\'s claim to the nickname is justified since its third president was a famous Irish Brigade chaplain whose ministrations at Gettysburg are commemorated in the \\\"Absolution Under Fire,\\\" part of Notre Dame\\\'s permanent art collection
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