Irish America August / September 2013

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AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 CANADA $4.95/ U.S. $3.95

S pecial

HEALTH ISSUE

Did JFK Have Celiac Disease?

Irish Skin and Melanoma Risks Did This Gene Help Irish Famine Survivors?

Nuns In Health Care – An Enduring Legacy Irish Set Dancing and Parkinson’s Disease Ireland’s Alarming Suicide Rate Plus: Nurses, Doctors and Pharma Leaders

Secretary of Health

Kathleen Sebelius on the future of Health Care, her Irish roots, and keeping fit

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promising Ireland for over 35 years The American Ireland Fund has supported innovative work that preserves Irish culture, counters sectarianism, advances education, strengthens community development and cares for those in need.

Today, our Promising Ireland Campaign has exceeded its initial goal of $100 million and will achieve $150 million by its close at the end of 2013. With charities facing increased demand for services with fewer resources, your support is needed more than ever. So far, over 350 outstanding projects and organizations have received support from the Promising Ireland Campaign. Please join us in Promising Ireland.

We invite you to learn about giving back to the land that has given us so much. Please visit

www.theirelandfunds.org

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Contents August / September 2013 Vol. 28 No. 5

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FEATURES 32 WHEN IT COMES TO HEALTH, KATHLEEN CARES

Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services, talks to Patricia Harty about implementing Obamacare, and other topics.

36 ALL ABOUT AUTOIMMUNITY There’s something disconcerting about the thought of the body attacking itself. Dr. Noel R. Rose, a pioneer in the field of autoimmunity and autoimmune disease research, talks to Sheila Langan.

38 WAS JFK SUFFERING FROM CELIAC DISEASE?

Dr. Peter Green, a leading authority on Celiac Disease, which affects many Irish, writes about the disease and makes a case that JFK likely had it.

42 THE HUNGER GENE Yale professor Patrick Duffy, MD, writes on the “Celtic Gene” that is responsible for hemochromatosis and surmises that it may have had a part to play in those who survived the Great Hunger. While Peter Quinn writes in “Hunger and its Children” (page 52) how schizophrenia and other diseases are associated with starvation.

44 SISTERS SHARING Joyce and Ruth O‘Leary talk to Kara Rota about sharing

musical talent and autoimmune disease.

47 COMFORTABLE IN MY OWN SKIN After a diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma at age twenty-eight, Emma G. Fitzsimmons got smart about being in the sun.

50 FINDING THE OTHER Molly McCloskey shares how one profound reading experience led her to better understand her older brother, who suffers from schizophrenia.

53 LAUGHTER & DRINK, AND STAYING SOBER

Sheila Langan looks at a number of comedians who are challenging notions of Irish identity and alcohol, and Malachy McCourt writes that you can be Irish and sober.

56 SUICIDE: WHEN THEY WANT TO END IT, AND KNOWING WHEN TO HELP

Sharon Ní Chonchúir reports on one of the most worrying trends in Ireland today – the high suicide rate. In “Knowing When to Help,” April Drew writes about an intervention that saved a friend’s life.

61 WHO’S WHO IN HEALTH CARE? The Doctors: Some leading specialists in their fields, many of whom have been named to our Top 100 lists, on issues that concern us today.

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66 THE MEDICINE Leaders in pharmaceutical companies who are shaping the future of medicine.

68 NURSES This feature on Irish nurses by Teresa O’Dea Hein shows why they are so highly sought after by the health care industry.

70 HOSPITAL NUNS From the Civil War to Chicago’s Mercy Hospital, the extraordinary history of Irish nuns in health care,

by Mary Pat Kelly.

74 THE GOLDEN YEARS? Rosemary Rogers writes about Mary Manning Walsh nursing home and the nuns that make it so special.

76 COMMUNITY CARE Dave Aldrich writes about a couple who, having made an impact on the problem of obesity, have turned to philanthropy. Michelle Meagher writes about Theresa Maloney Butler, CEO of Middletown Community Health Center.

80 HERBAL MEDICINE The oldest form of healing, long practiced in Ireland, proved just the thing for writer Jonathan Self.

82 THE HEALING WAY Honora Harty joins a group of M.S. Ireland walkers on the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route. While Christian O’Toole writes how his brother Coleman’s long struggle with M.S. hasn’t dampened his sense of humor.

86 THE IRISH OF MEDICAL HISTORY From the inventor of the defibrillator, to the surgeon who performed the first successful kidney transplant, and beyond.

92 WHAT ARE YOU LIKE? The acclaimed, adventurous and hilarious science writer Mary Roach talks to Sheila Langan.

97 REEL LIFE MIRACLE Irish set dancing has been found to have therapeutic effects for sufferers of Parkinson’s disease.

98 LET THE HEALING BEGIN Fionnula Flanagan writes that it’s time to welcome everyone back into the fold, even those family members we’re not talking to!

100 YOGA: THE BREATH IS KEY An introduction to the benefits of yoga, by Irene McLaughlin Narissi.

DEPARTMENTS 6 8 10 16

First Word Readers Forum Hibernia Irish Eye on Hollywood

94 101 102 104

Books Crossword Sláinte Photo Album

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 5

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Vol.28 No.5 • Sept. / Oct. 2013

By Patricia Harty

IRISH AMERICA

Sláinte

Mórtas Cine Pride In Our Heritage

Good Health “What’s exciting is that millions of families . . .will have access, some for the first time, to quality, affordable options in just a few months.”

– Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius s the national debate on Obamacare takes center stage we thought it an opportune time to interview Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, née Gilligan, and to focus on health issues that affect everyone, but maybe the Irish a little bit more.

We looked to writers to contribute personal essays on mind, body and spirit, with rewarding results. Molly McCloskey writes about what it was like to grow up with a brother who has schizophrenia.

Malachy McCourt writes on being sober for 28 years. April Drew tells of a friend’s suicide attempt, while Emma Graves Fitzsimmons contributes a piece about her brush with skin cancer – a must read for all fair-skinned members of the clan.

In our history section one of the eminent physicians profiled is Dr. Thomas Patrick Fitzgerald, the father of dermatology, who was the first to research the effects of UV rays on different skin types.

And, of course, how could you have a Health and Wellness issue without the nuns?

Many of the finest hospitals and nursing schools in the U.S. were founded by Irish nursing sisters. Mary Pat Kelly writes of their outstanding contribution, while Rosemary Rogers takes us to a nursing home for the aged that is run by Carmelite nuns.

I have an enduring image of visiting my mother in Nenagh Hospital and being struck by the high shine on the hospital floor, the crisp uniforms of the nurses, and being told by the formidable nun in charge to stand up straight. I think there might even have been a sign that said “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

I know my mother would have been interested to read our piece on Herbal Medicine, which has a long tradition in Ireland. I recall picking rose hips for a syrup she would make and dish out to us by the spoonful. Vitamins weren’t talked about back then. It was years later, when I picked up a bottle of Rose Hip Syrup in a health food store, that I understood that she

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6 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

was making sure we got our vitamin C. No matter how diligent mothers might be or how well we care for our physical being, environmental factors and genetic predisposition can make us vulnerable to illness. In my family it’s autoimmune diseases, the most serious being M.S. So naturally, one of the first experts we talked to was Dr. Noel Rose, the father of autoimmunology. We also cover celiac disease, which has a very high rate of diagnoses in Ireland, and learned of its association with other autoimmune diseases including hemochromatosis, which causes the liver to retain iron. The latter may actually have been a benefit during the Famine, writes Thomas P. Duffy, M.D., of Yale Medical School. He is one of many researchers who are finding links between starvation and its dire effects on later generations, including mental illness. Read more on this in Peter Quinn’s short but thought-provoking piece, “Hunger’s Children.”

Grief and grievances are also covered in this issue. My sister took a long trek on the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain to raise money for M.S. Ireland in memory of our brother David, and found it a healing experience. Meanwhile, Fionnula Flanagan advises that it’s time to let go of old grudges and welcome everyone back into the fold. Surely there’s healing in that!

One particular article I would call your attention to is “Reel Life Miracle.” It’s about Irish set dancing being therapeutic for people with Parkinson’s disease. To me the hero of this piece is not the doctor but the unnamed Co. Clare man he witnessed putting aside his walking aid and joining the dancers on the floor. By refusing to let his disease rule his life, and showing that while he couldn’t walk properly, he could still dance, he inspired a new therapy – based on Irish step dancing! – which thousands of people will benefit from. Now that’s something to cheer about.

Sláinte!/Good health.

Founding Publisher: Niall O’Dowd Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief: Patricia Harty Vice President of Marketing: Kate Overbeck Art Director: Marian Fairweather Deputy Editor: Sheila Langan Copy Editor: John Anderson Advertising & Events Coordinator & Music Editor: Tara Dougherty Director of Special Projects: Turlough McConnell Financial Controller: Kevin M. Mangan Editorial Assistants: Adam Farley Michelle Meagher Claire McWeeney Matthew Skwiat

IRISH AMERICA 875 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 201, New York NY 10001 TEL: 212-725-2993 FAX: 212-244-3344

Subscriptions: 1-800-582-6642 E-MAIL:

submit@irishamerica.com www.irishamerica.com Irish America Magazine ISSN 08844240) © by Irish America Inc. Published bi-monthly. Mailing address: P.O. Box 1277, Bellmawr, NJ 08099-5277.

Editorial office: 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001. Telephone: 212-725-2993. Fax: 212-244-3344 E-mail: submit@irishamerica.com.

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IRISH AMERICA IS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

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FRANK H. NETTER MD SCHOOL OF MEDICINE Committed to educating the health care team with our School of Health Sciences and School of Nursing

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{readers forum} The Last Word: Love Thy Neighbor

Judy Collins: Great article / interview. I heard Judy sing live last time she was in Dublin, Ireland. I have loved her music since the early 70s. Her honesty is inspirational, her energy contagious and her music, enthralling. Long may it continue. Great article. Congrats to Patricia and Judy.

Secure borders with Catholic charity towards all is the only way to go.

– Howie McNiff Posted online, July 5

– Adrian Taheny Posted online, May 22

Melissa McCarthy: The Scene-Stealer Goes Center Stage

What a wonderful article! I have always loved Judy Collins. I have seen her many times in person over the years. I hope to see her again before I leave this world.

She is an awesome person and you have captured her perfectly in this amazing article. Good job!

– Jackie Hagan Posted online, May 22

THE IRISH OF THE MIRAMICHI: Fascinating tale from Miramichi. Amazing how we Irish know so little of what became of our Famine emigrants.

– Angela Posted online, June 27

The entire cast of Mike and Molly are outstanding. It certainly has the best African American comics as well [with Reno Wilson, Nyambi Nyambi and Cleo King].

It would be great if we could add another recognition for Judy Collins with a Kennedy Center Honors celebration. Nominations can be made at their website: www.kennedycenter.org/programs/specialevents/honors/ – Paul Edward Keating Via Facebook, July 8

The Collins Clan: The June/July Roots coverage of the Collins Clan is much enjoyed and appreciated. In the spirit of Kentucky Derby time, you might have considered including Stephen Collins Foster (“My Old Kentucky Home,” “Swanee River,” “Jeannie With the light Brown Hair,” etc.).

According to genealogical lore from Duah/Moyvane County Kerry, the [Collins] family came to the Pittsburg area in the early 1800’s and went “down river” to Cincinnati and then on to Covington, Kentucky.

– John C. Begley Posted online, May 24

Colum McCann: Write What You Want to Know Wonderful approach to writing! I’d like to be inspired.

– Joan Anderson Miller Via Facebook, May 30

Donegal: The Forgotten County The highest cliffs in Europe [the Slieve League Cliffs] are there.

– Brenna Briggs Via Facebook, June 4

Who could forget Co. Donegal?

Jack Summers Via Facebook, June 4 Glencolmcille, Co. Donegal

Kevin Collins Venice, Florida

The Celtic Cross memorial on the banks of Canada’s Miramichi River.

8 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Visit us online at Irishamerica.com to leave your comments, or write to us: Send a fax (212-244-3344), e-mail (submit@irishamerica.com) or write to Letters, Irish America Magazine, 875 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001. Letters should include the writer’s name, address and phone number and may be edited for clarity and length.

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{ hibernia }

PEOPLE

| HERITAGE | EVENTS | ARTS | ENTERTAINMENT

Irish Woman With MS Loses Assisted Suicide Case

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arie Fleming, a 59-year-old woman from Co. Wicklow in the late stages of Multiple Sclerosis, lost her case against the Irish Supreme Court to overturn Ireland’s laws on assisted suicide. The court announced in early May that it had unanimously rejected her constitutional challenge against the ban.

Fleming, a former university lecturer and mother of two, has made public her desire to die in her home at a time of her own choosing. With her MS at an advanced stage, Fleming is paralyzed from the neck down and is therefore unable to take her own life unassisted. Her grown children and her partner, Tom Curran, have

expressed their support of her wishes, but, under Ireland’s current laws, could face up to 14 years in prison if convicted of aiding in her death.

Fleming first took her case to the Irish High Court in January, and, after losing, brought her appeal to Ireland’s Supreme Court in February. Suicide was decriminalized in Ireland in 1993, and Fleming contends that the current law discriminates against severely disabled people; that she should have the same right as any able-bodied citizen to take her own life, even if she needs assistance.

Chief Justice Susan Denham announced the court’s decision, that even though suicide is no longer a criminal act, there is no

A NEW LOOK FOR CIGARETTE PACKS MAY BE COMING IN IRELAND reland is leading the way in the fight against smoking. This past May, the Irish Ministry of Health proposed legislation that would ban the use of cigarette pack branding. No more Marlboros or Camels on display.

This would make Ireland the first country in the E.U. to pass such a ban, and the second country overall; Australia passed similar legislation in 2012. In recent years, Ireland has taken a strong stand against smoking. In 2004 the country was among the first to require smoke-free workplaces, in 2007 it put an end to selling ten-packs of cigarettes, and in 2009 it demanded graphic picture health warnings on cigarette packaging.

The Health Ministry estimates that over 5,000 people a year die from tobacco-related illness. The ban on cigarette branding would

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remove all traces of advertisement – including trademarks, logos, and graphics – from cigarette packs, replacing it with a graphic visual warning and space for the company’s name in a generic font. Health Minister Dr. James Reilly, said,“the introduction of standardized packaging will remove the final way for tobacco companies to promote their deadly product in Ireland.”

Tobacco manufacturers have countered, arguing that this measure will only increase the smuggling in of tobacco products and hurt the growth of small businesses.The ban proposal has been approved by the Irish cabinet (Taoiseach, Tanaiste and Ministers of State), and will be brought before the parliament as early as next year, while similar legislation is being introduced in Great Britain.

– M.S.

10 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Marie Fleming

explicit right to suicide – assisted or otherwise – guaranteed by the Irish constitution.

Fleming, who was not well enough to appear in court, was represented by Curran and other family members. – S.L.

IRISH PARLIAMENT PASSES PROTECTION OF LIFE DURING PREGNANCY BILL fter months of public outcry from all sides, lawmakers in the Irish parliament passed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill by a substantial margin – 127 votes for and 31 against. The decision followed a lengthy and heated debate that began on July 11 and continued into the morning of July 12.

The bill allows for emergency abortion procedures to deal with “a real and substantial risk of loss of the [pregnant] woman’s life.” It also allows for an abortion if three medical practitioners agree it is necessary to prevent a pregnant woman from taking her own life.

Pro-abortion rights groups hailed the decision as “historic,” but added that the bill does not take legislation far enough, as women who are rape victims or whose unborn child is found to have a fatal abnormality will not be automatically entitled to an abortion.

Anti-abortion groups expressed concern that the new legislation would bring the country one step closer to “abortions on demand.”

The Irish debate over abortion was re-ignited in Ireland after the 2012 death of Savita Halappanavar.

The 31-year-old Indian dentist living in Galway was refused a quick termination of her pregnancy even though she was miscarrying and contracted sepsis.

After going through the Irish Senate, the bill must then be signed into law by President Michael D. Higgins, who could decide to refer it to the Supreme Court for further investigation of the bill’s constitutionality. – S.L.

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Funding Approved for First Cross-Border Bridge he newest bridge in Ireland is as important for its symbolism as for its ability to carry cars, and both have Irish on each side of the border excited. When completed, the Narrow Water Bridge will be the first ever cross-border bridge connecting the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Funding for the bridge was officially granted by the UK’s Finance Minister in May. The Narrow Water Bridge, which will span 2,165 feet across Carlingford Lough and link Counties Down and Louth, has been in various stages of development since 1976. But barring any unforeseen roadblocks, the handsomely designed bridge will be completed in

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2015 at an estimated cost of £14 million, mostly financed by the E.U., with just under £3.5 million coming directly from the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

When completed, the bridge will evoke two harps laid end-to-end with its dual cable-stayed towers.

While a public inquiry is still possible if local resistance is voiced or there are significant objections, the bridge project appears to have only supporters, with everyone from local councillors to Gerry Adams lauding the plan.

Councillor Gerald Mallon, chairman of East Border Region, told the BBC that “The Narrow Water bridge is a genuinely symbolic cross border project providing

the first bridge linking Ireland and Northern Ireland and will provide a catalyst for both economic development and tourism within the region.”

Gerry Adams, TD, called it a “crucial investment project that can significantly enhance the local economies of communities on both sides of the border,” reported the Belfast Telegraph.

The two most popular areas for tourism in the region are the Mourne and Cooley Mountains in Down and Louth respectively. The Narrow Water Bridge is expected to significantly alleviate traffic congestion around Newry and cut about 45 minutes off the journey between the two counties. – A.F.

IRISH METHODIST CHURCH ELECTS ITS FIRST FEMALE LEADER everend Dr. Heather Morris was installed as the new president of the Methodist Church in Ireland this June, becoming the first female to hold not only that post, but the first female head of any of Ireland’s four main churches. Dr. Morris was elected to the position last summer, and the confirmation took place at the church’s national conference in Carrickfergus on June 12th. She will serve the usual one-year term.

The 48-year-old reverend was born in Nigeria while her parents were doing missionary work, and was educated in Belfast and Dublin before following her father and grandfather into the Methodist ministry in 1992.

While English Anglicans have been tepid about allowing female bishops, a 2002 Covenant between the Church of Ireland and the

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Methodist Church in Ireland that calls for mutual communion, united congregations, and even joint training of ministers “to encourage mutual understanding at all levels in our churches” has caused some to declare Dr. Morris to be the “first woman Bishop,” according to Sky News.

Dr. Morris pushes back on the import and influence of her gender, telling the Murnaghan Show,“I am happy to stand with where the Methodist Church in Ireland is” on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and physicianassisted suicide.

“I have said before that my election wasn’t an issue around gender. My experience has been one where, as a woman in ministry, I have been nurtured and encouraged to use the gifts that God has entrusted to me. I see this as just a natural progression.” – A.F. AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 11

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{news from irish america} “RORY’S REGULATIONS” WILL FIGHT SEPSIS IN NEW YORK HOSPITALS ew York has become the first state in the U.S. to mandate a series of protocols to diagnose and treat sepsis before it turns fatal.

The protocols have been named “Rory’s Regulations” for 12-year-old Irish American Rory Staunton who died from an undiagnosed case of sepsis on April 1, 2012.

Doctors failed to recognize that Rory was suffering from sepsis until it was too late.

Sepsis is a common but almost unknown killer. It is the single leading cause of death in intensive care units in the U.S. and kills over 200,000 Americans each year; more than lung cancer, stroke and breast cancer combined. However, public awareness of the dangers of sepsis is so low that a 2010 report

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found 70 percent of Americans did not even know it existed.

Sepsis is a dangerous condition caused by the body’s own immune response to infection. The body produces chemicals to fight the infection, but those same chemicals cause widespread inflammation, which can shut down the body’s organs.

“Rory’s Regulations” will require all New

York hospitals to be proactive about sepsis and aim for early identification and treatment of the infection. The Regulations also call for increased patient communication and a “more meaningful” role for parents when their children are in the hospital.

Rory’s parents Orlaith and Ciaran and his sister Kathleen have worked tirelessly since Rory’s death to try and prevent more families from suffering from their devastating loss.

Their advocacy is a poignant tribute to Rory, who was a keen student of politics and social justice despite his young age.

The family has also launched the Rory Staunton Foundation (www.rorystaunton. com) which joined forces with the Global Sepsis Alliance (www.globalsepsisalliance. org) in April in an initiative which aims to reduce sepsis deaths by 20 percent by 2020.

And they have had several meetings with the Senate Health Committee staff of Senator Tom Harkin with a view to holding the first ever national hearings on sepsis, which is now killing more Americans than AIDS. Rory’s father Ciaran says the family will keep working to prevent any more deaths from sepsis. “If this had happened to Kathleen, Orlaith or me, Rory would be doing the same thing,” Ciaran says. “He was a true champion of the underdog and he never took no for an answer.”

Ciaran will deliver the keynote lecture about Rory’s Regulations at the first Sepsis Summit Berlin, which will take place in the German city on Monday, Sept. 9. The conference has been organized by the World Sepsis Alliance in advance of World Sepsis Day on Sept. 13. More information here: http://world-sepsis-day.org/ – Kelly Fincham

SPAIN BEATS IRELAND AT YANKEE STADIUM EXHIBITION MATCH n June 11, the national soccer teams of Ireland and Spain went head-to-head in an evening exhibition match at Yankee Stadium in New York, and there were a few seconds during the 82nd minute when the (largely Irish-friendly) 40,000-person crowd thought it might end in a tie. Irish striker Sean St. Ledger had scored an equalizing goal to bring the score to 1-1, but the sideline official put his flag up and called offsides on forward Simon Cox.The crowd, with its Irish sympathies, was audibly upset.Then at minute 88, Spain’s substitute Juan Mata scored the definitive blow to Ireland to bring the final score to 2-0 at the end of the night.

While there were no illusions about 41-ranked Ireland’s chances against number one-ranked Spain (Ireland hasn’t beat Spain since 1989), the score was nil-nil until the middle of the second half when Spain’s Roberto Soldado sent the ball past Ireland’s goalie David Forde.

Regardless, St. Ledger was happy with the game, telling the Irish Examiner, “They are a great side, but I think we can take confidence from the performance.... It was a great experience to play in this stadium.” – A.F.

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STUDY SHOWS IMMIGRANTS GIVE MORE TO MEDICARE THAN THEY TAKE OUT s the United States Congress debates an immigration reform bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants (which includes about 50,000 illegal Irish immigrants), Harvard researchers have published a study that challenges widely-held notions of the relationship between immigrants and the U.S.’s entitlement programs.

Published in the May issue of the journal Health Affairs, the study shows that between 2002 and 2009, immigrant contributions to the Medicare program produced a surplus of more than $100 billion.

In 2009, for example, immigrant payments into Medicare accounted for 14.7 percent of the total budget, while immi-

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grants only used 7.9 percent, creating a surplus of $13.8 billion. This contrasts with the $30.9 billion deficit generated by the U.S.-born population in the same year.

The study argues that because immigrant contributions tend to come from a younger, healthier workforce that simply doesn’t need Medicare services yet, their payments into the program are essential in balancing out the disproportionate use of its benefits by U.S.-born retirees. Thus, “Policies that restrict immigration may deplete Medicare’s financial resources.”

Lead author Leah Zallman and her team of co-authors drew some criticism for focusing only on a portion of Medicare, and, as the New York Times

points out, it is also not clear how much of the surplus is generated by illegal immigrants who are not eligible for Medicare benefits even though they are paying into the program.

Still, similar studies on other programs have shown the same fact with regard to Social Security, where immigrants generated a $12 billion surplus according to the Social Security Administration itself.

Studies like these seem to pave the way in convincing immigration reform critics of the economic benefit of allowing illegal residents to become citizens, which already has support in the IrishAmerican community and at the White IA House. – A.F.

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Dr. John L. Lahey President of Quinnipiac University

Quinnipiac Opens

State-of-the-Art Medical School The new Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut is attracting students in primary care medicine. By Turlough McConnell

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r. Bruce Koeppen didn’t just do a double take in 2009 when he first read the announcement that Quinnipiac University was planning to build a medical school. He took action. The Yale-educated Koeppen, then dean for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, called Quinnipiac president John L. Lahey and proposed himself as the school’s founding dean.

“I knew the time was right for Quinnipiac to provide the best medical education,” said Lahey, a 2012 Irish America Hall of Fame inductee who has served for more than a decade on the boards of several major medical institutions and corporations. “And I knew that Bruce Koeppen was the person most qualified to realize that vision,” he added.

Koeppen welcomes his first students to the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine on Quinnipiac’s North Haven, Connecticut campus in August.

“Building a medical school made a lot of sense for us,” Lahey said, noting that the university already has an emphasis on health professions programs including nursing, physician assistant, physical therapy, diagnostic imaging, occupational therapy, anesthesiologist assistant and radiologist assistant, among others. “Now is the time to combine these strengths for 14 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

a more collaborative, compassionate and efficient health care system. It is time to add the doctor,” he said.

And Koeppen relished the opportunity to develop a program of medical education for the 21st century that would integrate formal classroom knowledge with clinical experience and a curriculum crafted to teach the fundamentals of clinical, behavioral and social sciences necessary to deliver world-class patient care.

He believes the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac, named for the world-renowned medical illustrator whose drawings and atlases have served students for decades, will prepare its graduates for a wide spectrum of career options.

Named a “Healthcare Hero” by Business New Haven, Koeppen has been praised for his work overseeing the development of the new facility, which will be formally dedicated in September, as well as for its innovative curriculum and its stellar founding faculty members.

They are renowned researchers and experts in their respective medical specialties, but their primary focus is to teach medical students.

Developing a medical school at Quinnipiac was spurred, in part, by a 2006 nationwide call from the Association of American Medical Colleges for a 30 per-

Dr. Bruce Koeppen, Dean, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine.

cent increase in medical school enrollment by 2015. Predicting an alarming shortage of 150,000 doctors by 2025, almost a third in primary care, the AAMC called for the creation of new schools and expanded classes at existing schools Retirement of baby boomer physicians, coupled with an aging baby boomer population, a preference among many younger physicians to work part time, and the prospect of adding millions to the insurance rolls under the government’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 are contributing reasons for the projected shortage.

With this urgent need for well-educated and highly trained physicians, the focus on medical education has never been

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greater. For the first time since the 1990s, school’s curriculum. MESH places new there are now 18 medical schools in the medical students into a professional setUnited States in various stages of accredting only a few months into their first itation and development; 11 new schools semester, primarily with doctors who of medicine have opened in the last five specialize in general internal medicine, years. family medicine and general pediatrics.

Quinnipiac’s new medical school was “Part of our mission is to train the pridesigned to foster opportunities for intermary care workforce of the future,” professional health care education. The Koeppen said. “By placing our students 104-acre campus in North Haven (just a in these sites, they develop a positive few miles from the university’s Mount mentoring relationship with their physiCarmel and York Hill campuses in cian that will foster their interest, mainHamden) also serves as home to the tain their interest, and hopefully cause School of Health Sciences, the School of the student to seriously consider a career Nursing, the School of Education and in primary care medicine,” he added. other graduate programs. The School of Other areas of emphasis will be global Medicine is housed in the $100 million, public health and rehabilitative medicine.

325,000-square-foot Center for Medicine, Under Koeppen, the school has already Nursing and Health Sciences. attracted well-known faculty members With the addition of medical students, including Dr. Barbara R. Pober, an internathe university will have a rich environtionally recognized geneticist. Pober, a ment to train all its health care students in professor of medical sciences, comes to a new model that Koeppen compares to Quinnipiac from Harvard Medical School, the pit crew of a NASCAR race team. where she was a professor of pediatrics “Each member of the crew has a specific and a geneticist at Massachusetts General expertise and responsibility for the care of Hospital. Dr. Abayomi Akanji, a professor the car. Substitute patient for car and of medical sciences, will teach clinical you’re looking at a team of experts collabchemistry and endocrinology. Akanji orating to care for a patient,” he said. previously was a visiting professor of From a pool of several thousand applimetabolic medicine at the Warren Alpert cants, the medical school’s Medical School at Brown admissions office sent acceptUniversity. Other health proance letters to fill the 60 spots fessionals at Quinnipiac with for the first year. Attendance is Irish American links include planned to grow to a maxiThomas C. Brady, professor mum of 500 students over the of biomedical sciences, and next five years.

Karen M. Myrick, assistant These 60 will be the first to professor of nursing. use the all-digital “smart” Fewer than 100 universiclassrooms, examination ties have both law and medrooms and labs. The building ical schools, further enhanchas exam rooms, a gross anatoing Quinnipiac’s national my lab, clinical skills assessreputation. The university, Thomas C. Brady, professor ment rooms, two simulated of biomedical sciences, founded in 1929, has 8,500 operating rooms, study rooms, School of Health Sciences students enrolled in more a library, a fitness center and than 70 undergraduate and an auditorium. Students will graduate programs in busido clinical work at St. ness, communications, eduVincent’s Medical Center in cation, engineering, health nearby Bridgeport, the Netter sciences, law, medicine, school’s primary clinical partnursing, and the arts and sciner. Other partners include ences.

MidState Medical Center in Quinnipiac consistently Meriden and Middlesex ranks among the top regional Hospital in Middletown, both universities in the North in Connecticut. in U.S. News and World Koeppen is particularly Report’s American Best proud of the Medical Student Karen M. Myrick, assistant Colleges issue and recently Home program, or MESH, professor of nursing, was ranked second in the catwhich is central to the School of Nursing egory of universities that

About Frank H. Netter MD The School of Medicine is named for the late Dr. Frank H. Netter, a world-renowned medical illustrator whose drawings and atlases have educated medical students for decades.

NETTER IMAGE © ELSEVIER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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One of Dr. Netter’s iconic illustrations from the Atlas of Human Anatomy

Born in Manhattan in 1906, Netter was, in his 20s, a successful commercial artist whose work appeared in national magazines.

His family, however, urged him to study medicine. As a medical student, he drew as a means to study, producing visual representations to help him understand and recall material. After a brief practice as a general surgeon, he traded his scalpel for a paintbrush and began a prolific career as a medical illustrator. In 1989 he published his landmark Atlas of Human Anatomy, which has been translated into 11 languages and is widely used by undergraduate medical students.

A major gift from Barbara and the late Edward Netter, Frank Netter’s first cousin, pays tribute to “Medicine’s Michelangelo” in the naming of the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University. have made the most promising and innovative changes in academics, faculty, campus or facilities.

Of this latest addition to the growing university, Koeppen says, “If you aspire to be the kind of physician this nation needs in the coming decades, you will find no better place to accomplish your dream than here at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine. We welcome all applicants who IA share our vision for the future.”

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 15

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By Tom Deignan James Gandolfini

also planning to re-team with Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in Shutter Island, to make a film called Travis McGee. Lehane’s book Live by Night is currently being turned into a film to be directed by Ben Affleck.

The news that The Sopranos star James Gandolfini died of a heart attack at the age of 51 shocked Hollywood and the millions of Americans who were reluctantly seduced by the New Jersey gangster Gandolfini portrayed. Gandolfini’s life was the ultimate immigrant success story (his father was born in Italy). The actor was even in his father’s homeland to receive an award when he passed.

The Sopranos had its fair share of Irish connections, some more flattering than others. For one, the famed Satriale’s pork store where Tony’s crew often congregated was, in real life, located right next to the Kearney Irish American club in New Jersey.

At the time of his death, Gandolfini had completed two final films, one of them entitled Animal Rescue, written by another son of immigrants (from Ireland), best-selling author and fledgling movie mogul Dennis Lehane.

Based on his own short story entitled “Animal Rescue,” the film will star Gandolfini as well as Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace.

“Animal Rescue” first appeared in the story collection Boston Noir. Lehane’s tale revolves around a heist as well as a killing, which eventually drags an ex-con back into the life of crime he is trying to leave behind. Look for Animal Rescue in theaters later this year or early next.

Lehane’s books Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and Shutter Island have Dennis already been turned into Lehane acclaimed films. He is 16 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

A movie about Irish-American pundit Bill O’Reilly’s bestselling book Killing Kennedy, about President John F. Kennedy, is being planned. Rob Lowe – the 80s hearthrob who recently played a stiff-faced plastic surgeon in HBO’s Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas – is slated to play President Kennedy in the film, which is being produced for the National Geographic Channel. The film will explore the lives of Kennedy and his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, from 1959 to that fateful November day in Dallas in 1963.

Ginnifer Goodwin has reportedly signed on to portray Kennedy’s wife, Jackie, while Michelle Trachtenberg will play Oswald’s wife Marina. Killing Kennedy is filming now and is scheduled to be shown this November, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Rob Lowe

Jim Gaffigan

Also slated for TV is a new CBS comedy about a Boston Irish clan called The McCarthys, which will follow the trials and tribulations of a large Irish Catholic family.

The McCarthy family includes a gay son, but tension arises not from the son’s sexual orientation, but from his desire to be less wrapped up in his whacky family’s life. The McCarthys was created by Boston-born writer and actor Brian Gallivan. The initial pilot for The McCarthys starred Irish American Bronx native Jack McGee (Rescue Me), but final casting decisions have not yet been made.

CBS is also looking to produce a sitcom created by Irish American comedian Jim Gaffigan. Gaffigan is an acclaimed standup whose deadpan riffs on life and fatherhood (he has five kids) have earned raves.

Gaffigan has teamed up with TV and movie production veteran Peter Tolan (whose credits include Rescue Me with Denis Leary) to produce a sitcom revolving around Gaffigan’s family life.

Everyone was amazed in March when The Bible proved such a hit on the History Channel, drawing the biggest TV audience of 2013 to date. The ten-hour, $20 million mini-series was produced by Derry native and former Touched by an Angel TV star Roma Downey and her reality TV mogul husband Mark Burnett. Now, Burnett and Downey have announced they are going to produce a follow-up, tentatively entitled A.D.: Beyond the Bible.

This time around, Downey and Burnett are doing business

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Roma Downey and Mark Burnett on the set of The Bible.

not with a cable channel but with the NBC television network.

“I followed the development process of The Bible closely with Mark and knew that the story was far from over after Christ’s crucifixion,” said Bob Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, in a statement.

Brendan Gleeson remains as busy as ever. While still laboring away (along with his son Domhnall) at a big screen version of the famously difficult Flann O’Brien novel At SwimTwo-Birds (which will also feature a slew of Irish acting talent), Gleeson is also scheduled to star in an upcoming Ron Howard film entitled In The Heart of the Sea. Fellow Irish thespians Cillian Murphy and Sam Keeley will also appear in the whaling epic. Based on the Nathaniel Philbrick book of the same title, In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of a tragic 1820 whaling ship, that many say inspired Herman Melville to write the American classic Moby Dick.

Gleeson will also appear later this year in John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary, alongside other Irish actors such as Aidan Gillen, Chris O’Dowd and Kelly Reilly.

Two of the well-received films with Irish talent to come out of this summer’s Galway Film Fleadh were The Callback Queen and Mister John. Irish actress Amy-Joyce Hastings stars as Kate Loughlin in The Callback Queen, set in the cutthroat London film industry. Kate must navigate the dicey world of sleazy agents and competitive fellow actors, once she lands a prized role in a highly anticipated film. Sean T. O’Meallaigh

and Ger Ryan also star in The Callback Queen.

Meanwhile, aforementioned Dubliner Aidan Gillen (the mayor from HBO’s The Wire) has received raves for his leading role in Mister John, directed by the Irish team of Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor. In Mister John, Gillen plays an Irishman out of his element in Asia, where his brother built a satisfying life for himself only to die suddenly. Unhappily married to an unfaithful wife, Gillen’s character begins falling in love with his brother’s widow.

Sean Mister John has been described as Morton Downey an intimate character study which Jr. painstakingly explores the hard realities of life, love and death.

A new documentary worth checking out is Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie, which explores Downey’s coming of age and looks closely at the wild syndicated TV talk show that bore his name. He was born Sean Morton Downey Jr. in New York City in 1932. His father was a popular singer in the 1930s and 1940s, referred to as The Irish Nightingale. Downey Sr. also appeared on TV and in movies.

One of his many songwriting hits was “That’s How I Spell Ireland.” Downey wanted to match his father’s achievements, working in show business as well as politics. Downey even worked for Irish-American political legend Bobby Kennedy.

But most memorable about this movie and Downey’s life is the talk show that more or less invented trash talk TV– for better or worse.

Another interesting documentary making the rounds on the festival circuit is Our Irish Cousins, which began as a video diary of Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Houlihan’s book tour, but has since expanded into a broad exploration of the Irish diaspora and its impact on both sides of the Atlantic.

For upcoming screenings, visit ouririshcousins.com.

For Netflix users out there, the BBC production of the Belfast-set mini-series The Fall is currently streaming, and stars Gillian Anderson and John Lynch, as the former XFiles star attempts to link several unconnected murders in Northern Ireland.

Amy-Joyce Hastings

Aidan Gillen

Finally, Fionnula Flanagan was in Galway in July for the 2013 Film Fleadh where two movies starring her were shown in Ireland for the first time – “Tasting Menu” (Spanish) and “Life’s a Breeze” (Irish). IA

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Celebrating the JFK 50 and Judy Collins

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uring John F. Kennedy’s brief but powerful speech to the people of New Ross in 1963, he referred to his great-grandfather Patrick, who left the area in 1849 with nothing but “a strong religious faith and a strong desire for liberty.”

A powerful illustration of how JFK adhered to his ancestor’s faith is his rosary beads on display in the newly opened Kennedy Homestead museum at Dunganstown. These are the beads that were on his person the day he died. At the JFK50 weekend, June 21-23, 2013, the theme of faith was evident from the various members of his family who addressed the large crowds.

The weekend in New Ross began with The Kennedy Gala Homecoming Dinner, organized by Betti-Marie Burger-Smit, general manager of the Brandon House Hotel & Spa and the JFK Trust. The speeches were meaningful, with Jean Kennedy Smith and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend reaffirming the importance of their family’s strong links with Ireland.

Irish America’s own Patricia Harty spoke with passion of the strength, resilience and courage of all the Kennedy women.

Clockwise: Senator Jim Walsh and Patricia Harty induct Judy Collins into the Irish America Hall of Fame; Caroline Kennedy; John and Ann Hayes in front of the Emigrant Flame; Jack Kennedy Schlossberg.

She went on to induct music legend Judy Collins into the Irish America Hall of Fame, which is housed in the nearby Dunbrody Emigration History Center.

Judy entertained the crowd with a speech peppered with song, a cappella. She was followed by tenor Ronan Tynan, and the American Spiritualist Ensemble.

World Leaders Gathered in Northern Ireland for G8 Summit

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he Northern Irish village of Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh played host to the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. as they gathered for the annual G8 Summit. Held at the golf resort of Lough Erne, the summit lasted from June 17-18 and covered topics including the ongoing crisis in Syria, government transparency, trade and international tax evasion.

Before the start of the summit, President and First Lady Obama visited Belfast, where they held a town hall meeting with a group of local teenagers. President Obama’s charge to the teenagers was that they maintain and expand on the peace that has been established during their time. Quoting Irish author Colum McCann, he reminded them that “Peace is indeed harder than war, and its constant fragility is part of its beauty. A bullet need happen only once, but for peace to work we need to be reminded of its existence again and again and again.” And that’s what we need from you.That’s what we need from every young person in Northern Ireland, and that’s what we need from every young person around the world. You must remind us of the existence of peace – the possibility of peace.”

During the summit, Michelle Obama traveled with her daughters, Sasha and Malia, to Dublin, where they learned about their family’s Irish genealogy, saw the Book of Kells and the Long Room at Trinity College, and were treated to a performance of Riverdance at the Gaiety The G-8 Summit in Lough Erne.

Theater.

18 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

On Saturday June 22 approximately 300 people attended the official opening of the new Kennedy Homestead Visitor Center in nearby Dunganstown – the same home Kennedy visited in 1963, freshly renovated for visitors and expanded into a moving and unique museum experience that celebrates, above all else, family.

Caroline Kennedy spoke of her father’s and her family’s love for Ireland, Taoiseach Enda Kenny also spoke, and Kiley Kennedy and Grace Kennedy Allen unveiled a bust of of their grandfather Ted Kennedy. It was then on to a re-creation of the 1963 cup of tea in the Homestead yard, complete with cake and sandwiches.

Back in New Ross later that evening, a flame, lit from the eternal flame on President Kennedy’s grave in Arlington Cemetery in Virginia, was taken from the LE Orla naval vessel by Jean Kennedy Smith, former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, and presented to a group of Special Olympians who carried it to the Dunbrody Famine Ship and Emigration History Center. Taoiseach Kenny, Jean Kennedy Smith and Caroline Kennedy then lit New Ross’s very own Kennedy eternal flame – titled The Emigrant Flame.

The tributes flowed, with JFK’s grandson, Jack Kennedy Schlossberg, speaking on behalf of his family. “We’ve been told over and over that America is no longer the great country it was when my grandfather was president. But if we feel, even for a minute, that the solutions to the problems that confront us are beyond our reach … we must remember Ireland.” The evening drew to a close with a performance of IA “Amazing Grace” by Judy Collins.

– Enda Cullen

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Maureen O’Hara to Hold 93rd Birthday Party in Idaho F

or her 93rd birthday, Maureen O’Hara will celebrate with a cause.

The Irish queen of the silver screen returned to the U.S. in late 2012 to live near her grandson Conor FitzSimmons and his family in Boise, Idaho after rumors circulated that she had been a victim of elder abuse by her former executive assistant.

O’Hara has kept a full and meaningful schedule throughout the past few months – most recently visiting the John Wayne Birthplace Museum in Winterset, Iowa – and her upcoming birthday on August 17 will be no exception: O’Hara will use the occasion as a platform to raise funds for the Justice Alliance for Vulnerable Adults (JAVA), a local elder Maureen O’Hara with John Nicoletti, nephew Charlie FitzSimmons, grandabuse foundation. son Conor FitzSimmons, great-grandOn her birthday, O’Hara will greet fans at Boise’s children Everest and Baylee, and Elga Egyptian Theater before screenings of some of her FitzSimmons, Conor’s wife. biggest hits, including The Quiet Man and The Parent Trap. A gala at The Grove Hotel will kick off at 6:00 p.m., with special guests the McKay Sisters and Irish Dance Idaho and an address by Maureen herself. Net proceeds from the celebration will be donated to JAVA. “Maureen has picked a local charity that has a cause new and dear to her heart,” O’Hara’s manager and biographer John Nicoletti told our sister publication IrishCentral. “The event is first and foremost an opportunity for her to meet her new neighbors,” he added.

For more information visit maureenoharabirthdaycelebration.com

Concern Honors Carla Harris

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oncern Worldwide, U.S., the non-profit founded over 45 years ago by the late Fr. Aengus Finucane, held its annual Women of Concern luncheon on June 27 at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan.The organization, which implements programs in 25 of the world’s poorest countries and reaches 6.9 million people, recognized Carla Harris, managing director and senior client advisor at Morgan Stanley, as its 2013 honoree.

The event was emceed by Lynda Baquero, an Emmy-award-winning correspondent for NBC4. Aine Fay, Concern Worldwide U.S. operations director and the 2013 guest speaker, gave a moving speech about first leaving Ireland as a nurse to work with Concern 30 years ago; how far they have come since then, and how much further Concern is striving to go, especially in response to the crisis in Syria.

Dr.Anita Sands, a group managing director at UBS and the 2012 Woman of Concern, together with Concern Worldwide U.S.’ chairman Tom Moran and Joe Calahan, Concern’s recently appointed CEO, presented Carla Harris with her 4,500year-old bog oak sculpture award. Harris spoke powerfully of Concern’s work, especially its mission to empower women in poor communities as catalysts for change.

“They need us to recognize that as women, we are the lifeblood and the connectors to the future. If we don’t make it, then the future will not thrive. If my sister in the Congo or Bangladesh does not survive, then our children’s future will be compromised because it will be devoid of the contributions her children can bring to the world. Each of us is called to Aine Fay, Anita Sands, Joseph Calahan, honoree Carla do our part,” she said.

Harris, Carolyn Perla and Tom Moran.

20 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Scholarships Given in Memory of Two Inspiring Irish Lads

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his summer, youth leadership and philanthropy organization Grab the Torch (GTT) announced two new $2,000 scholarships to their summer leadership institutes in memory of two young and inspiring Irish leaders in their own rights: Brian Harty and Rory Staunton.

Brian Harty was a musician and computer technician at the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), with a kind and caring nature and a dedication to volunteerism and community action.

His strong spirit of generosity and adventure led him on a two-year leave of absence from WIT. He traveled to America, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, where he taught English in Tropang Sdock, Cambodia. Videos from these two years of Brian skydiving in Australia and leading his Cambodian students in song, testify to the great impact his travels had on both himself and on those he encountered.

He died in 2010, following a brain aneurysm brought on by a fall.

Rory Staunton, a 12-year-old with an inspiring passion for politics and helping others, died in April 2012 of sepsis contracted when he scraped his elbow in his school’s gym. Since his death, his family has carried on as Rory would have wanted them to – spreading awareness about sepsis to ensure that no other family experienced the loss they went through due to an infection that is highly treatable when detected in time. (Read more about Rory’s Regulations, new legislation concerning hospitals’ sepsis protocol in New York, on page 14.)

The two inaugural recipients were Mary Kelley and Fiona Donohue, who, along with all the GTT students, attended a week-long program in Northern Retreat, Maine, at the home of philanthropists Mary McFadden and Larry Stifler (see page 76).

Through conversation with a range of speakers, outings, site visits and extra curricular activities, Kelley and Donohue learned first hand about the empowerment that can be both gained and granted though giving back, taking action and leading in a responsible IA and ethical way.

A woman tells her support group in California about sharing her MS-related fears with her daughter for the first time.

A group member blogs about it, inspiring a woman in Dallas to reconnect with her own family.

Every Connection Counts at MSconnection.org

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Dublin Researchers Lead Promising Alzheimer’s Study n 18-month-long international study of a potential Alzheimer’s drug has begun, and Ireland is playing a big role.The project, coordinated

by Brian Lawlor, Connolly Norman Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, is set to be one of the most intensive and significant studies in over a decade of Alzheimer’s treatment research.

Professor Lawlor has worked on dementia for almost his entire career and in 2011 applied for funding from the European Union to test whether the drug nilvadipine, currently used as a blood pressure medication, has any effects on the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common form of dementia and gradually advances over time, affecting memory, thinking, and behavior. Fifteen million people worldwide and one in six over the age of 80 suffer from Alzheimer’s.

A

A healthy brain (left) and a brain in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, with visible cell loss.

After winning €6 million in funding, Lawlor created a consortium of Alzheimer’s experts from 16 organizations in the EU plus one Florida drug company to participate in a larger, 5-year study called NILVAD (Nilvadipine in Alzheimer’s Disease).

This 18-month study is the first major clinical trial of the larger research initiative and includes over 500 male and female participants (about 100 of whom come from Ireland), ages 50-90, who have been diagnosed with mild to moderate Alzheimers. Nilvadipine is already approved for use in humans for cardiovascular disease and showed promise in pilot trials as a treatment for Alzheimer’s where the drug led to improved memory and a reduced rate of progression of Alzheimer’s disease in subject mice. If proven successful in humans, nilvadipine will represent a big breakthrough in the field, as no new drugs have been approved for Alzheimer’s since 2002.

In an interview with Irish Medical News, Lawlor argued that Alzheimer’s disease “is one of the most significant health and social care problems that’s facing us with an ageing society and changing demographics; so it’s not just about the cost burden but also the impact on the person and on [caregivers] and society.” – A.F.

22 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Dr. John Cryan and Dr. Ted Dinan.

Cork Study Highlights Potential Link Between Gut Bacteria and Autism

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new study conducted by scientists at University College Cork (UCC) shows that mice lacking bacteria in their gut displayed autistic behaviors such as repetitive grooming and disinterest in social interactions with other mice.

Ted Dinan, psychiatry professor and a principal investigator in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Center at UCC has been studying gut bacteria and its effect on the brain for years. In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Professor Dinan explained that the serotonin system, which regulates mood, “doesn’t develop properly if you don’t have enough bacteria in the gut.” That conclusion was supported when scientists studying mice raised in a germ-free environment and therefore lacking in gut bacteria (microbiota) noted that they were more prone to autistic behaviors such as concentrating more on objects than other mice and showing disinterest in new social situations.

When those same mice were given doses of microbiota they demonstrated a reversal of “social avoidance” and repetitive behavior, though their social cognitive damage was not reversed.

Dr. John F. Cyran, senior author of the publication and head of the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience at UCC, told the Irish Examiner that the study “clearly highlights that the absence of critical bacteria during early life affects behaviors relevant to autism and thus further investigations into how the microbiota affects the wiring of the brain are required.”

The findings open a new door for potential therapy for autistic individuals: “The discovery may mean ‘way down the road’ that scientists could be able to develop some bacterial therapies for autism,” Professor Cryan told the Belfast Telegraph. – M.M

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Volunteers Patrol River Shannon to Prevent Suicide

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n Limerick, a group of sixteen local volunteers have joined together to prevent suicide. Over the last ten months, the CSR Suicide Prevention Team has been patrolling the River Shannon and four bridges in Limerick to rescue people who would otherwise attempt to throw themselves into the water. The volunteers patrol every Saturday from midnight to 5am and recently began patrolling on weeknights. They have met as many as four people contemplating suicide on some nights and have had to physically restrain some people from jumping.

Paul Hogan of the CSR Suicide Prevention told the Sun, “The people we meet are from all walks of life and are all ages, from 16 to 70.” He added, “There are people who have lost their business or their job, and there are those who have broken up with their boyfriends or their marriage has ended.”

A new study carried out by Prof Kevin

Malone of University College Dublin’s school of medicine and St. Vincent’s Hospital found that alcohol, mental illness, and bullying all contribute to suicide among young people. Of the 104 people involved in the study who committed suicide, almost two thirds had been diagnosed with a mental illness and 51 had abused alcohol within a year of their death.

The study, which involved interviews with suicide victims’ families, found that victims had problems with health services or the police. Some were turned away from hospital emergency departments without being admitted for treatment and some family members commented that the police did not seem trained to handle situations after a suicide.

The CSR Suicide Prevention aims to help these people before they become victims. Hogan said, “We see ourselves

Roma Downey Visits Foyle Disability Players

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erry’s Playhouse Theater celebrated the Disability Arts Festival during the first week in July.The performances included various projects by participants with learning difficulties, acquired brain injuries, are blind, partially sighted and Deaf sign language users. Events included the Digital Dialogue Derry~Londonderry Photographic Exhibition Launch with members from Lilliput Theatre Company, Foyle Down Syndrome Trust and The Willow Group.

The week finished the Foyle Disability Players’ originally devised performance of ‘Life is a journey ... and only you hold the map’ by Eddie Kerr.

Local actress, producer and Playhouse patron Roma Downey popped in for a visit.The Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actress became a Playhouse patron in November 2009.

as the eyes of the river- and we believe there is a need for this in every town in Ireland.” Over Christmas in 2011, 12 people jumped in Limerick City, but thanks to the patrols only one person did during the same time in 2012.

Team members of the CSR Suicide Prevention are trained how to speak to people who are suicidal and they wear a flotation suit with a lifejacket in case they have to enter the water. They also carry a flotation bag with a rope and float, which can be used to rescue those in the water.

It costs $450 to equip a team member and the CSR is looking for funding to add new members. To learn more, visit CSR Suicide Prevention Limerick on Facebook. – S.L.

Tay Saachs - Something About Study

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ummy text replace with leprosy piece. A new study carried out by Prof Kevin Malone of University College Dublin’s school of medicine and St. Vincent’s Hospital found that alcohol, mental illness, and bullying all contribute to suicide amongst young people. Of the 104 people involved in the study who committed suicide, almost two thirds had been diagnosed with a mental illness and 51 had abused alcohol within a year of their death.

The study, which involved interviews with suicide victims’ families, found that victims had problems with health services or the police. Some were turned away from hospital emergency departments without being admitted for treatment and some family members commented that the police did not seem trained to handle situations after a suicide.

The CSR Suicide Prevention aims to help these people before they become victims. Hogan said, “We see ourselves as the eyes of the river- and we believe there is a need for this in every town in Ireland.” Over Christmas in 2011, 12 people jumped in Limerick City, but thanks to the patrols only one person did during the same time in 2012.

Team members of the CSR Suicide Prevention are trained how to speak to people who are suicidal and they wear a flotation suit with a lifejacket in case they have to enter the water.

They also carry a flotation bag with a rope and float, which can IA

23 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

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Those We Lost Vincent Dowling 1929 - 2013

Vincent G. Dowling, a stage actor who had a decades-long association with Ireland’s national theater company, performed several times in the Reagan White House and was the artistic director for the Great Lakes Theater Festival, died May 10 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was 83.

Dowling, who left school in Dublin at age 16 to become an actor, was a poet, playwright, author, director and raconteur whose work at what was then the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival had a profound impact on a then 20-year-old unknown actor named Tom Hanks when Dowling invited him to the Ohio stage company in 1977. He had directed Hanks one year earlier in California.

“Vincent’s the reason I’m an actor, man,” Hanks would say years later. “To act with Vincent on the stage is to share the wings with a master.”

Dowling was a star in his own right, performing on stages from Moscow to Hong Kong to Washington, D.C., and, finally, in his adopted home of Chester, a tiny hamlet in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains.

“My reality was in who I could pretend to be,” Dowling said.

“Acting is to experience everything in God and the devil in yourself on stage.”

During his 27 years at the Abbey Theatre, he was artistic director, director of experimental theatre and a leading company actor. Dowling also acted and directed in the United States, London, Paris, Florence, Moscow and the Edinburgh Festival.

In his native Ireland, he was a well-known radio and television broadcaster. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1976.

At Great Lakes, Dowling was producing artistic director from 1976-84.

Although he described himself as a committed Democrat, he performed solo on three state occasions at the White House during the Reagan years.

He won an Emmy Award for his PBS television production and direction of “The Playboy of the Western World.” His oldest daughter, Bairbre Dowling, was a member of the cast.

In the early 90’s, he founded The Miniature Theatre of Chester, a professional theatre now in its 20th season. He resigned from MTC in 1997 and formed the Vincent Dowling Theatre Company, Dowling’s reputation attracted Academy Award winner Kim Hunter, Dan O’Herlihy, David Birney, Ireland’s David Kelly and a long list of other actors to the stage in Chester.

Two years ago, he brought Norman Corwin’s play about the Lincoln-Douglas debates, “The Rivalry,” to audiences in Boston and New York.

Asked once if he was retired, he replied no. “Old actors don’t retire, they only get less work,” he said.

Besides his wife Olwen, an artist, Dowling is survived by 26 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

children Bairbre, Louise, Valerie, Rachael and Cian. He leaves seven grandchildren.

Maureen Dunn 1963 - 2013

Maureen Dunn, co-founder of the National League of Families of POWs and MIAs, died on May 10 in West Roxbury, Massachusetts at the age of 72. Coming from a family of 10, Maureen always wanted a large family of her own, but on February 14, 1968 when her only son Joe Jr. was barely a year old, her husband Captain Joseph Patrick Dunn was shot down while flying over the South China Sea. Unwilling to accept the term “widowed,” Maureen became the wife of a soldier declared “missing in action.” This was the catalyst behind her co-founding the National League of Families of POWs and MIAs. Maureen was relentless in her quest to hold the government responsible for accounting for all those who were killed, taken prisoner, or missing in the line of duty. She was also a dedicated member of the Achilles Project which transports soldiers who lost limbs in the recent wars from the Walter Reed Medical Center in D.C. to compete in the Boston marathon.

Maureen Dunn, born Maureen A. Hoey, was the daughter of Irish immigrants. On April 26, 1963, she met her husband, Joe, on a blind date; she was 22. They were married two years later. Thirtyseven years after being declared missing in action, Joseph Patrick Dunn was finally given a headstone by the government in 2005 at Arlington National Cemetery. On May 10, Maureen lost her battle with cancer, “She was a fighter and she put herself through amazing amounts of pain,” her son told the Boston Globe. Besides her son, she leaves behind her daughter-in-law Beverly and grandson, Joe Dunn III. – M. M.

Father Andrew Greeley 1928 - 2013

Father Andrew Greeley once cheekily predicted that his New York Times obituary would be headlined “Andrew Greeley, Priest; Wrote Steamy Novels.” When he died in May at 85, the Times opted for something more lyrical and succinct, “Priest, Author, Scholar, Scold” – which he might not have preferred.

Greeley was born and raised, worked and died in Chicago.

Born in 1928 to Irish-American parents, he was ordained in 1954 at the age of 26, earned a Ph.D. in sociology in 1962 from the University of Chicago, and published his first New York Times bestselling mystery thriller, The Cardinal Sins, in 1981.

Greeley’s “parish” was one of readers and fans whom he shepherded with his more than 100 published non-fiction works,

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some 50 books of fiction, a weekly column in the Chicago SunTimes, regular contributions to the New York Times, and countless academic publications, which, all together, endure as one of the most significant bodies of literature and criticism on contemporary Catholicism in America.

Though he became famous for his genre novels, like the Passover Trilogy and the Nuala Anne McGrail series (many of which include steamy scenes), and his liberal critiques of the Catholic Church, specifically its hierarchical handling of child abuse cases, its official views on contraception and homosexuality, and meticulously researched appraisals of its role in the United States, Greeley always considered himself just a priest.

Writing in his 1986 memoir, Confessions of a Parish Priest, Greeley argued he was not “a priest-sociologist or a priest-journalist, or a priest-novelist, or any multiple variation of those hyphenates. I’m a priest, a parish priest. The other things I do in life: sociological research, journalistic writing, storytelling, are merely way of being a priest”—so too with author, scholar, and scold. – A.F.

an hour ago, and Shaughnessy is still up there with his practice pad, practicing the basic rudiments.”

Survived by his son Dan and three grandchildren, Shaughnessy was married to Ilene Woods, the original voice of Disney’s Cinderella, who died in 2010. Last year he published Lucky Drummer, a memoir about his drumming exploits. – A.F.

Edmund Sullivan 1941 - 2013

In 1973, Edmund Sullivan left a well-paying sales career to live on chicken, eggs, bread, and coffee so that he could, as he put it, “paint Ireland.” “I didn’t know what an artist was. I had to live it, every moment. It had to become a way. A way of being,” Sullivan wrote in 2004 for the Irish heritage website The Wild Geese. Living the life of a struggling artist for the early years of his career forced him to hone his craft, get to know his audience, and ultimately carve out a niche for himself as a beloved painter of Irish landscapes.

Ed Shaughnessy 1929 - 2013

Ed Shaughnessy was the literal beat of The Tonight Show for 29 years. A successful drummer in New York in the 1950s and 60s, Shaughnessy was skeptical when he was asked to be in The Tonight Show band and only signed on for a two-week trial period in 1963, but ended up staying on as long as Johnny Carson.

He died late May of a heart attack at the age of 84 at his Calabasas, California home.

Born in Jersey City in 1929 to a longshoreman father and a garment-working mother, Shaughnessy began playing the piano at age 12. His enthusiasm for the piano was lackluster at best however, so his father eventually bought him a starter drum kit.

By the time he graduated high school, he was a professional jazz drummer in the Manhattan scene, playing with the likes of Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday prior to joining The Tonight Show band.

For a man who wasn’t sure if he’d even like the gig with The Tonight Show, Shaughnessy soon saw it was a natural fit that highlighted his talent as a versatile and responsive drummer. In a 1986, post-rehearsal, pre-taping interview with Percussive Arts Society, The Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinsen said that a studio drummer must play “everything from Dixieland to ragtime to rock ‘n’ roll. Then there are novelty acts who come in and say, ‘When I step on my wife’s stomach, give me a drum roll.’

The drummer literally has to become part of the act.... Rehearsal was over

Born in the Bronx in 1941, Sullivan was an unlikely candidate for a fame based on pastoral Irish landscapes; but his father was from Kerry and his mother was from Derry, and his mother’s photos of Ireland inspired him like nothing he’d seen in the United States. At the beginning of his career, Sullivan said he wanted simply to paint Ireland “before modern man changes her too much,” but more recently he had come to recognize a deeper sense of personal belonging that could be achieved in painting the Irish countryside. In an introductory letter to an online retrospective of his work (eveswalm.com), Sullivan acknowledges that his paintings offer a “timeless connection between our ancestors’ daily experiences and Ireland’s luminous landscapes, rugged coast, and wildly expressive skies.”

That near spiritual sense of place Sullivan saw in Ireland is evident in his vivid works that incorporate bold color, epic shadows, and soft, scattered light.

Following a long illness, Edmund Sullivan died in May at the age of 72 after more than 40 years as a landscape painter and was laid to rest in Valhalla, IA New York. – A.F. AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 27

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Patrick Kennedy, Co-Fonder One Mind Research; Commissioner Máire Geoghegan Quinn; Dr James Reilly, Irish Minister for Health

Patrick Kennedy Addresses Brain Research in Dublin

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atrick Kennedy, former Rhode Island congressman and son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, delivered the keynote address at “Healthy Brain: Healthy Europe,” a conference devoted to brain health and research, held in Dublin at the end of May. Since publicly acknowledging his struggles with addiction, depression and bipolar disorder in 2006, Kennedy has become a strong advocate for mental health awareness. While in Congress, he was the coauthor and lead sponsor of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act, signed into law in 2008, which provided millions of Americans with better access to mental health care.

He is the co-founder of One Mind for Research, a nonprofit organization that strives to bring together the governmental, corporate and scientific communities in the U.S. in order to collaboratively further mental health and brain injury research.

The Dublin conference drew scientists, policy-makers, advocates and health care professionals from across Europe. Its aim was to promote awareness and to encourage the EU countries to further develop and collaborate on strategies for combatting brain disorders – from neurogenative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, to mental health and acquired brain injuries.

Highlighting the possibility of collaboration between the U.S. and the E.U., Kennedy declared “We need to work to build this alliance on brain research across the Atlantic.”

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University of Limerick Researchers Invent New Medical Alloy

A

promising new medical invention has come out of the Materials and Surface Science Institute (MSSI) at the University of Limerick: a metal alloy that is fully visible under x-ray and will mean a faster recovery time and shorter hospitalization period for patients around the world.

Medical devices like stents and valves are placed into the body using xray fluoroscopy so surgeons can see where they are operating. Current metals used for such devices are costly and still difficult to see in x-rays. And as the devices themselves become smaller, the problem is only amplified.

According to the researchers, because of the new alloy’s visibility under x-ray, building such devices

from the new metal will reduce the cost and invasiveness of the surgery itself, cutting down on patient trauma and out-of-pocket expense while greatly improving recovery time. For the roughly 600,000 Americans who receive stents each year, this news is monumental.

“Up to now many companies have used gold or platinum to modify existing alloys, which improve x-ray visibility but are very expensive,” said Dr. Syed Tofail, Lead Scientist of the Limerick research team in a press release. “We have identified a number of alloying elements that will make these devices as visible as those where platinum has been added to enhance the visibility, but at a significantly reduced cost. —A.F.

One Irish Scientist Plus One Irish Musician Equals Two Knights

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or his leading research in the field of the genetics of obesity, Professor Stephen O’Rahilly has become Sir Stephen O’Rahilly. O’Rahilly’s name was included on this year’s so-called “Birthday Honors,” a list released each June to coincide with the Queen’s birthday, naming new members of the various civil, military, and diplomatic orders of the Commonwealth Realms.

While he claims that his research is “only 2 per cent” completed, according to the Irish Times, O’Rahilly has already won numerous research grants, been elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Academy, and is a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Still, he said, there is much more to do “to uncover why some people go on to develop cancers and diabetes and others don’t.”

The 55-year-old, dual-citizenship-holding scientist is from Finglas in Dublin and studied at UCD before moving to England. “It is great to be honored by the country where I have lived for more than half my life and to be recognized for the contribution I try to make,” he also told the Irish Times.

The other Irishman who walked away with an OBE is John Gilhooly, director of London’s Wigmore Hall, widely held to be the premier chambermusic venue in the world.Thirty-nine-year-old Gilhooly was born in Limerick and also graduated from UCD. He is being honored for his role in IA developing the world-famous concert hall he now directs. – A.F.

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{hibernia} “Americans are gregarious, but they are not social. They eat in company, but, like a herd of cattle in a pasture, each one is too much absorbed in chewing his own cud to be conscious of the presence of his fellows . . . . The best influences of society are lost in the vortex of excitement, and what should enliven and strengthen, inflames and weakens. We deprive ourselves of the simple and healthful enjoyments of social intercourse for the wild revelry of fashionable dissipation. That our men and women should break down under such a high-pressure system, is naturally to be expected, and that they do so is clear from their pale faces, haggard expressions, shrunk bodies, frequent ailments, and premature old age. We must check our speed. We bring up our children too fast, we work too fast, we dissipate too fast, we eat too fast, live too fast and, consequently, always ahead of our time, we die too fast.”

– Pioneering journalist Fitz-James O’Brien in an article titled “How to Keep Well,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, December 1856

Quote Unquote Irish and Irish-American perspectives on health and wellness over the years

“I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. They should be more vivid. Here is one I would suggest: ‘Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was.’ ” – George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? 2004.

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body; it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. The relationship between the soundness of the body and the activities of the mind is subtle and complex.

Much is not yet understood. But we do know what the Greeks knew: that intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong; that hardy spirits and tough minds usually inhabit sound bodies. . . . In this sense, physical fitness is the basis of all the activities of our society. And if our bodies grow soft and inactive, if we fail to encourage physical development and prowess, we will undermine our capacity for thought, for work and for the use of those skills vital to an expanding and complex America .”

“Nowadays, most countries have ratified international treaties that make the right to health an international legal obligation that has to be progressively realised nationally. Yet inequalities in basic health services remain intolerably wide, even in many high-income countries. This is despite the fact that health is the fundamental basis of any successful nation: for social cohesion, economic prosperity, and even political stability.”

– President John F. Kennedy in his December 1960 Sports Illustrated article “The Soft American.”

– Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, writing in The Lancet, October 2009.

Mary Robinson at the Dollow Health Center in Somalia .

“Stay healthy and exercise. Be kind. Be good and enjoy life. Say your Hail Mary every night when you go to bed and just be as good as you can be.”

– Maureen O’Hara, talking to the Irish Times at a book launch in Foynes, 2009.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 29

Calling all Flynns, O’Malleys and Schweitzenburgs.

No matter how much, or how little, Irish you have in you, you’re invited to come and experience The Gathering Ireland 2013. The year-long celebration of Irish culture promises a trip like none other.

You can immerse yourself in countless festivals and events, incredible music and art, exhilarating sports, and there are thousands of ways to connect with your family, friends and Irish roots. If you’ve ever wanted to come “home” there’s never been a better time to do it.

Don’t miss this once in a lifetime chance. Be part of it.

ireland.com

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The Gathering Ireland 2013 is in full swing!

The year-long festivities calling the global Irish diaspora home started in January and the celebration continues for the rest of the year. Ireland is just waiting to welcome you home!

There’s something about Ireland that inspires worldwide wonder and affection, and that global affinity is being celebrated this year. All year. It’s called The Gathering, and it poses a wonderfully rhetorical question about Ireland:

bringing all aspects of Ireland – culture, music, the arts, sports, and heritage – to glorious, indelible life. It’s a grassroots effort. The people of Ireland, in villages, towns and cities have been powerful in organizing many of the events at a local level.

‘What’s not to love?’

One never needs an invitation to visit Ireland, but for those seeking the perfect moment, The Gathering offers a year’s worth of golden opportunities to be part of it. And as they say in Ireland ‘We’re only getting started!’

The Gathering Ireland 2013 is a year-long opportunity to connect with the entire island. A nonstop series of events and festivals are well under way,

A Cultural Force Ireland has influenced international culture for generations.

This is the home of literary giants such as James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, and Frank O’Connor, theatrical phenomena such as Riverdance, beloved sporting organizations including the GAA and musical legends U2.

A Year to Remember It’s no exaggeration to say that The Gathering offers an entire year to experience Ireland-its culture, people, places, and traditions-as never before, with 365 days of annual and grassroots events ranging from large-scale festivals to intimate family reunions. There are over 2,500 events planned to date!

Come Home to Ireland One of Ireland’s fondest wishes is that The Gathering inspires the millions of Irish diaspora around the globe, as well as their friends and extended families, to reconnect with their Irish roots. Ireland is opening its arms and welcoming home its sons and daughters from all over the world, and the ‘Cead Mile Failte’ (one hundred thousand welcomes) will be warmer than ever. And for anyone who has ever enjoyed a good Guinness, loved delving into the rich fabric of a Joyce novel or watched Riverdance with absolute amazement, The Gathering is your chance to connect with Ireland and experience its culture during this year-long celebration.

Be part of it! For more information on The Gathering Ireland 2013 visit Ireland.com TI advertorial.indd 1

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When It Comes to

Health

Kathleen Cares ’m a descendant of Irish immiSecretary of “ grants. My great-grandmother worked as a maid in the home Health and of William Howard Taft, before he became president.

Human Services Decades later, the grandson of the president and my father, the grandKathleen son of the maid, served back-to-back to represent the same district in Congress. that is the American dream. It’s Sebelius (née Now, my story, and it’s the story of millions others.” Thus spoke Kathleen Gilligan) on ofSebelius addressing the Democratic Convention at the Pepsi the future of National Center in Denver, Colorado in 2008.

Sebelius made that speech to American health theWhen delegates in support of Barack she was the very popular govcare, her father’s Obama, ernor of Kansas. (Time magazine had her one of five top governors in influence, and named the country.) But because of Kansas’s term limits law, her second term as was her last. On April 28, other topics. governor 2009, she officially resigned and was

I

By Patricia Harty 32 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

sworn in as the 21st Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and charged with lead-

ing the department’s some 65,000 employees.

Since assuming office, Secretary Sebelius has taken on the gargantuan task of re-shaping the U.S. health care system and leading the efforts to implement the historic Affordable Care Act. Making Obamacare work is an effort that she recently compared to the struggle for civil rights. There is no better person for the job.

Born Kathleen Gilligan in 1949, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sebelius (her husband Gary Sebelius is a federal judge, and they have two sons, Ned and John) earned a bachelor’s degree from Washington, D.C.’s Trinity College and a master’s in public administration from the University of Kansas in 1977.

While it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that she would run for political office, Sebelius and her three siblings grew up in a family concerned with education and politics, and her father, John Joyce “Jack” Gilligan, left her quite a legacy to live up to.

Jack, who served as a gunner in the

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U.S. Navy in WWII (he was awarded a and schools, Sebelius is proud of her time Silver Star for gallantry in action at as governor.

Okinawa), received his bachelor’s degree “I came in and the state was broke, lots from the University of Notre Dame and of people were out of work, and there was went on to become a Xavier University lots of hand-wringing about how we could English literature professor. But he also move forward. Having turned the state was interested in politics, a passion instilled around and now being back in positive by his father, Harry, who ran the family’s times is a pivotal moment that allows us to funeral service business and served as move forward and do better things,” she chairman of the Charter Committee said, speaking on her gubernatorial Reform Group. So in 1953, when Jack was achievements to Harvard Political approached to run for Cincinnati City Review, May 29, 2007.

Council, he did so and won. After serving When she was nominated to the job of for 10 years, in 1964 he was elected to Secretary of Health, Sebelius received Congress as a representative for Ohio’s 1st many ringing endorsements. “She has an District, serving from January 3, 1965 – excellent mind, she makes decisions careJanuary 3, 1967. He narrowly lost his refully and well, and her obvious empathy election bid to Robert Taft, Jr., when the Republican controlled Ohio General Assembly redrew his district to favor Republicans. (As irony would have it, Jack’s grandmother had worked as a maid in the Taft household.)

Undaunted by his loss, Jack remained active in politics and won the election for the governorship of Ohio in 1970, defeating Republican Roger Cloud, serving from 1971 to 1975 and implementing reforms in education, mental health and environmental concerns.

He went on to serve as a fellow of the John F. Kennedy Institute of Secretary Sebelius and her father, Jack Gilligan.

Politics at Harvard, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for for the plight in which so many Americans Scholars, Washington, D.C., and in 1999, find themselves will serve them and our at age 78, he was elected to the Board of country well,” Governor Phil Bredesen of Education of the Cincinnati Public Tennessee said, hailing Sebelius in a New Schools, a position he retired from in York Times article as an “absolutely first2008. At 92, he remains active and vocal rate” selection for the post. on politics.

One loud note of dissension came from Buoyed rather than intimidated by her the Church. Sebelius, who is Roman father’s formidable career, Kathleen Catholic, is pro-choice, and this did not moved to Kansas with her husband in sit well with the Church hierarchy.

1974 and quickly found her footing. She Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann pubserved for eight years as a representative licly prohibited her from receiving in the Kansas Legislature and eight years Communion. Sebelius has said that this as Insurance Commissioner before being was “one of the most painful things I elected governor, making her and her have ever experienced,” but affirmed that father the first father/daughter governor her position was that of upholding the pair in the United States. rights of an inter-faith constituency.

And like her father, who remains proud Now, less than three months before of his signature achievement, enacting the insurance marketplaces open for enrollstate income tax, which now accounts for ment under the Affordable Care Act, about 40 percent of Ohio’s budget and Sebelius is making a heightened effort to which supports state and county services raise awareness of the law by speaking to

community leaders, news talk shows and conferences across the country. She comes across as relaxed, quick-witted and has a good sense of humor (catch her interview with Jon Stewart on YouTube).

Speaking at the NAACP convention in Orlando, Florida, on July 17, she called on the group (who have publically supported the Affordable Health Care Act) to start spreading the word and help educate individuals in their respective communities on how to get health insurance coverage and better understand the law. They should approach it with the same passion as they did in the fight for civil rights.

“You showed it early in the fight against lynching and discrimination. You showed it by showing that inalienable rights are secured in the courtroom and at the ballot box,” she said. “You showed it by supporting a health law 100 years in the making.”

The intention of the law is to deliver affordable health care to the nation’s most vulnerable populations, including young children, the elderly and those with disabilities.

Under the Affordable Health Care Act, 32 million Americans are eligible for coverage, but only if they sign up for it. (One report stated that in order to keep insurance premiums down, at least 30 million need to be enrolled).

Under the law, Sebelius is also carrying out policies that put a new focus on wellness and prevention, support the adoption of electronic medical records, help recruit and train more primary care health providers, and implement reforms that are intended to end the insurance industry’s worst abuses.

On this last point, Sebelius’s past position as Kansas’s Insurance Commissioner has served her well. Under her leadership, the HHS has formed a partnership with the Department of Justice to stamp out health care fraud. HHS claims that already this joint venture has returned record sums to the Medicare Trust Fund.

The department is also working to build a 21st century food safety system that will prevent outbreaks before they occur. And it is collaborating with the Department of Education to help states increase the quality of early childhood education programs.

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Secretary Sebelius also leads the corner when the new Health the nation’s emergency health Insurance Market place opens response to crises and natural disfor enrollment October 1, with asters, including the Haiti earthcoverage that starts as early as quake, the Gulf oil spill, and the January 1. All you have to do is Joplin, Missouri tornado. And as visit HealthCare.gov to find a America’s top health official, she plan that fits your budget and continues to work on global needs. health issues like polio, In addition to giving millions HIV/AIDS, and the growing of Americans better options for costs of chronic disease around coverage, we’re also making the world. important progress in turning the Her department is looking into corner toward a health care sysgun violence prevention protem that focuses on wellness and grams. While Sebelius is known prevention, instead of sickness to be a moderate on gun control, and disease. There are incentives in her speech to the NAACP she in the law that help providers talked about gun violence and coordinate care better and help referred to the case of Trayvon hospitals reduce errors and costly Martin, saying the teenager’s readmissions. We’re also seeing death was a tragedy. “But so are technology driving health care the tragedies of all the children In this January 1971 portrait, printed in the Columbus innovation, like electronic health we have lost because of gun vio- Dispatch, Ohio's new first family got together. “With Gov.records that more doctors are John J. Gilligan and his wife, Katie, are their four chillence before and since Trayvon elect using to deliver better care that dren (from left): John (a Dartmouth College senior); Ellen (a was killed each and every day.” patients can understand, take with high school senior); Kathleen (who graduated from Trinity Forbes has named Secretary College last June and since has been working in her father’s them, and keep minor injuries and Sebelius one of the 100 most campaign); and Donald (a teacher at Bishop Hartley High illnesses from developing into School).” powerful women in the world. bigger, costlier ones.

The New York Times pegged her What are the biggest changes to What are you most excited about as most likely to be the first female U.S. health care Americans should be right now, with all the different president, which would be only the second aware of? How else would you like reform elements in motion? time in the history of the nation that a What’s exciting is that millions of to see the system progress?

Roman Catholic was elected to the highest The biggest change is that for 85% of families and small businesses – many of office in the land.

Americans who have insurance, their covwhom don’t have insurance or are lookWith the clock ticking on Obamacare erage and benefits will be stronger than ing for a better deal – will have access, implementation, Sebelius is on the road, ever. Already millions of Americans have some for the first time, to quality, affordvisiting with doctors and nurses and other received critical preventive screenings for able options in just a few months. The health care professionals. Congress has free. Millions of previously uninsured new online Health Insurance Marketrepeatedly rejected the Obama administrayoung people have gotten coverage on place at HealthCare.gov will provide tion’s request for extra funding to set up their parents’ plans. Starting in January millions of families and small businesses the Affordable Care Act, leaving 2014, insurance companies can’t deny you a new way to find health coverage that Sebelius’s HHS with the burden of implecoverage if you have a pre-existing condifits their needs and their budgets. All menting the plan. Operating on what some tion like diabetes or heart disease. plans in the Marketplace must cover a set have called a shoestring budget, Sebelius Women will no longer have to worry of essential health benefits, including has been criticized by Republicans for lobabout being denied coverage of benefits or doctor visits, prescription drugs, and bying for financial support from financiers charged more just because they’re women mental health services. Discrimination with connections to health care corporaor because of pregnancy or breast cancer. based on gender or pre-existing conditions. It is an unusually tight corner for the Millions of American families have tions will be outlawed. And many indisecretary to find herself in. She made a received more than $1 billion in rebates viduals, families and small businesses name for herself when she refused camfrom insurance companies, who now have will qualify for a break on the costs of paign contributions from health care corpoto spend most of your premiums on your their monthly premiums. rations when she was running for governor. actual care, rather than on other expenses, For the first time in history, in every Unbowed by criticism or a meager budgsuch as CEO bonuses and marketing. state insurance companies will have to et, Sebelius is taking the implemention of And what’s exciting is that, for compete for business based on price and Obamacare to the people, talking to as Americans who don’t have insurance, or service – not lock out, dump out, or price many community leaders as she can. We for folks who buy insurance on their own out of the market anyone who might get are grateful that she took the time to answer but don’t like it, better options are around sick. And the Marketplace will provide some questions from Irish America.

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“ Making sure people have access

to affordable health insurance is key to the preventive care they need to stay healthy.”

Americans with security and peace of mind knowing that they don’t have to worry about losing coverage if they’re laid off or change jobs.

And in just a couple of months, we have the chance to help our family, friends, and neighbors finally find that security and peace of mind. That’s why we’re doing everything we can to spread the word.

To get ready for October 1 when the marketplace opens for enrollment, people can visit HealthCare.gov today to sign up for information and updates. It’s not your typical government website – it’s much easier to use and understand.

And it’s the best way to find out about those benefits that will be available as early as January 1, 2014. There’s a web chat feature to help answer your questions – just like what you see when you’re shopping online. And if you don’t have access to a computer, there’s a 24/7 customer call center ready to answer your questions in 150 languages.

We know lots of people need information. We can all do our part to help them find it, so I hope you join me in spreading the word about HealthCare.gov.

Your father was serving in the House of Representatives when Medicare was originally passed in 1965. Many middle-aged Americans are worried that it won’t be around when they reach retirement age. What do you think?

My dad is 92 years old now – and Medicare is there for him, just as it was for the countless seniors who are able to enter their golden years with basic security of health care. And after recently turning 65, I signed up for Medicare Part A and it’s certainly a personal issue for me now. And let’s be clear. The Affordable Care Act actually strengthens Medicare, and adds years to its solvency. For our seniors it’s

closing the Medicare donut hole – saving more than six million seniors hundreds of dollars on prescription drugs. The law also provides free, critical wellness and preventive screenings, like prostate cancer screenings and cholesterol checks. The law also roots out waste and fraud in Medicare, saving taxpayer dollars from wasteful insurance subsidies and reinvesting those savings back into the system.

Medicare is stronger than ever – and it will remain a source of peace of mind, security, and a guaranteed benefit earned after a lifetime of hard work.

Do you think that the national focus can be shifted towards prevention rather than treatment?

Yes. Making sure people have access to affordable health insurance is key to the preventive care they need to stay healthy. And the Affordable Care Act goes one step further in trying to make it even easier for Americans to get the preventive care they need by eliminating copays and deductibles on many recommended services. After all, you’re more likely to get a blood pressure or diabetes screening or mammogram when you don’t have to pay a co-pay. You’re more likely to talk to your doctor about ways to stay fit and work on your diet when your insurance company covers the cost of the appointment.

And we’ve worked really hard on a first-of-its-kind National Prevention Strategy, which guides our efforts to help individuals, families, and communities promote healthy lifestyles and improve health outcomes. From reducing tobacco use to fighting obesity, we’re engaging public and private sector partners to find ways to address the chronic diseases – such as heart disease and diabetes – that can reduce health care disparities, and control the cost of care while we improve the quality of it.

How did your father influence you? What did you learn from his political career and from growing up with a father in politics?

My father first ran for office in Ohio when I was 5 years old. He served in City Council, in Congress and as governor and was an active leader on civil rights, anti-war efforts and always looked out for “the least of these” – those most vulnerable in our society who needed to have a policy champion. He went right from military service in World War II to community and public service. He taught my siblings and me that public service was an important way to make a contribution to our communities and that it was important to have a strong moral code as a guidepost, even if our positions were unpopular. He loved serving in Congress when some of the most important social legislation was passed, including Medicare, Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act.

Do you know where in Ireland your ancestors are from? Have you been to Ireland, and if not, are you planning a visit?

Both my mother and my father have roots in Ireland, in counties Sligo and Cork. My father’s family name is Gilligan, and his mother was a Joyce.

My mother’s family name is Dixon. I have been to Ireland a couple of times, but not recently. I would love to return sometime soon.

How do you keep healthy?

I have been very fortunate to be born in good health and not get sick very often. I exercise regularly, try to eat a healthy diet, get some sleep and try to find ways to reduce stress, though it doesn’t always work! My health motivation is that if I feel better, I’m able to be a better worker, and I’m able to do much IA more of what I like to do.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 35

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All About

Autoimmunity Ask the Expert: Dr. Noel Rose As a concept, autoimmunity can provoke unease – there’s something disconcerting about the thought of the body attacking itself; the processes that are meant to protect us running haywire and causing harm.

Equally disconcerting is the fact that the underlying cause(s) of most autoimmune conditions are still unknown. By Sheila Langan.

A

utoimmune diseases, a wide range of disorders whereby the immune system’s natural defenses turn on the cells or organs they are meant to protect, affect at least 23.5 million Americans, according to the National Institute for Health (NIH). The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association estimates that the actual number is closer to 50 million, as many autoimmune conditions go un- or misdiagnosed. As a point of comparison, cancer affects 12.5 million Americans, and around 22 million suffer from heart disease. The NIH estimates that annual healthcare costs for autoimmune diseases are in the range of $100 billion. In addition, women make up close to 75% of all autoimmune diagnoses.

Despite their overwhelming prevalence, autoimmune diseases reign as one of the most misunderstood health problems.

Many conditions – including some that are highly common among people of Irish ancestry, such as celiac disease (pg. 37), hemochromatosis (pg. 42) and multiple

36 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

sclerosis (pg. 84) – are autoimmune, but are not always widely recognized as such.

Lupus, Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, Addison’s disease, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and type 1 diabetes are among the most prevalent autoimmune conditions. At least 80 others are officially recognized, and still more are being discovered.

To set the facts straight, Irish America went straight to the source. Dr. Noel Rose, the “father of autoimmunology” and the director of the Johns Hopkins Autoimmune Disease Research Center, introduced the possibility of autoimmunity as a cause of disease in 1956, when he discovered that chronic (Hashimoto’s) thyroiditis could be reproduced in experimental animals by immunization with thyroglobulin, a major protein constituent of the thyroid gland.

Speaking over the phone from his office in Baltimore, Dr. Rose, who at 85 remains a leading voice in the field, said that he encountered strong resistance when he and his colleagues first brought their findings to the medical community fifty-seven years ago. “They were skeptical,” he said with a small chuckle. “People weren’t real-

ly prepared to believe it because it seemed so bizarre that you would develop an immune response to your own body. We had all been taught in medical school that the immune response is only directed to what’s foreign. But now we know that isn’t true.”

Once it became accepted, there was a rush of looking at other diseases that were idiopathic (of unknown causation) and finding that autoimmunity was at play. Now, there is at least one autoimmune disease for every system and organ in the body. Why there are so many remains unknown, but, as Dr. Rose explained, the immune system itself is very diverse because it has to respond to so many different kinds of organisms.

“We think it’s the fact that the immune system is always looking for new pathogenic organisms and being very broad in its abilities to recognize organisms that it also responds to things within our own bodies that are of the same or a very similar substance.”

Whether a person will develop an autoimmune disease in his or her lifetime is determined by both genetics and environmental factors. “Some of the genetic risks are general,” he explained, “meaning they make it more likely that you will develop some autoimmune disease, and then other genes are more involved in determining exactly which disease you’re more likely to develop.”

Within families, there is both the chance of passing on specific autoimmune diseases, and of inheriting a general predisposition to developing an autoimmune condition. “The first thing you look for [within a family] is either the same or a closely related disease. So if the patient has, for example, thyroiditis, which is a disease of an endocrine organ, you look for diseases in other endocrine organs, such as type 1 diabetes, Addison’s disease, or diseases of the parathyroid or pituitary gland.

But then they also may have some more

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AUTOIMMUNITY

distant autoimmune diseases like lupus or trying them and often feel better.” rheumatoid arthritis.”

Smoking tobacco is also becoming Correspondingly, there is often a highmore prominent as a possible trigger or er propensity for certain autoimmune aggravator. “It’s not only bad for heart diseases among different ethnic groups. disease and cancer but it’s bad for many “For example, lupus is much more comforms of autoimmune disease, including mon among African Americans than it is disease of the thyroid and for rheumatoid among white European Americans. arthritis. So it is a general risk factor,” Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, the common Dr. Rose said. cause of low thyroid, is much more comThe majority of autoimmune treatmon in white European Americans,” Dr. Rose explained.

In the case of the Irish, he said, “Most autoimmune diseases – not all but most – tend to be more prevalent in people who came from Northern Europe than people who came from Southern Europe, and so my guess is that the Irish – who are Celts, who are fair-skinned people from Northern Europe – probably have a higher prevalence of many autoimmune diseases than people from Italy or Spain or Greece. I don’t know of a study of this in Ireland so it would be good for the Irish Ministry of Health to look into it.”

As significant as genes can be in autoimmunity, they are really the minor part of it, Dr. Rose said. “All of the many genes together make up about only 1/3 of the risk. The other 70% of the risk is something external, usually something we encounter in the environment.”

With most autoimmune diseases, the environmental factor that triggers the immune system’s response is difficult – often impossible – to pinpoint. It can be exposure to a certain medication, toxin, or other substance. With a select few – particularly celiac disease – the environmental trigger is known, and its removal results in a diminishing of symptoms. In this sense, celiac and Top: Autoimmune diseases that disproportionately affect women. Above: All the parts of the body that gluten present the potential for bet- can develop autoimmune conditions. ter understanding of other autoimmune conditions. ments to date focus on managing symp“Interestingly,” he added, “the gluten toms rather than curing diseases. “We free diet may also be helpful for people still don’t have a cure, but new treatwho don’t have celiac disease but who ments have been introduced in the past have other forms of autoimmune disease.

15, 20 years for autoimmune diseases It’s just speculative, but as gluten free like lupus and MS that are remarkable diets are more available, other people are and very much improved,” he said with

enthusiasm. “As we understand more about the autoimmune response we find more ways of developing drugs that will intervene, that will benefit the patient by at least alleviating the symptoms even if they won’t cure the disease.”

At the same time, research towards better understanding the immune response itself has made significant progress, aided by the genome project and better understanding of environmental factors. Links between autoimmune research and cancer research are also of increasing importance. As Dr. Rose phrased it, “The investigator working on autoimmune disease and the one working on cancer are a little like the old story that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. We do the same things that the cancer researchers do, but whereas they’re in the position of trying to enhance an autoimmune response so that the patient responds to his own cancer, we try to decrease or get rid of the autoimmune response so that the disease goes away.”

As awareness and knowledge of autoimmune diseases increases, Dr. Rose’s hope is that more medical centers and doctors dedicated to autoimmune disease as a whole will emerge. “We have a very specialized system of medicine in the U.S. and specialists treat autoimmune diseases or a particular organ system, but we don’t generally study autoimmune diseases broadly,” Dr. Rose said. “From a patient point of view, it would be very helpful if there were critical autoimmune disease centers where patients who have multiple autoimmune diseases could be treated in the same place, by the same group of physicians.

“We will see economic advantage of that,” he maintained. “Our [current] way of doing it is too expensive, with multiple physicians and research often overlapping. So many of the autoimmune diseases are relatively rare, but it’s only if you put them all together that you realize the IA scope.”

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 37

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Was JFK the Victim of an

Undiagnosed Disease

Common to the Irish?

Dr. Peter Green, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, suspects that John Kennedy had celiac disease.

J

ohn F. Kennedy’s long-standing medical problems started in childhood. In Kennedy’s adolescence, gastrointestinal symptoms, weight and growth problems as well as fatigue were described. Later in life, he suffered from abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, osteoporosis, migraine and Addison’s disease. Chronic back problems, due to osteoporosis, resulted in several operations and required medications for chronic pain. He was extensively evaluated in major medical centers including the Mayo Clinic and hospitals in Boston, New Haven and New York. Among the multiple diagnoses were ulcers, colitis, spastic colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and food allergies. His medications included corticosteroids, antispasmotics, Metamucil and Lomotil. However, while it is not clear that his physicians obtained a definitive diagnosis, a review of his medical history raises the possibility that JFK had celiac disease.

Celiac disease is caused by ingestion of gluten, which is the main protein component of wheat and related cereals, rye and barley. The small intestine develops villous atrophy that results in difficulties in the absorption of nutrients. Diarrhea and 38 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

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abdominal pain are common symptoms. Elimination of gluten from the diet results in resolution of the inflammatory condition in the intestine and the associated symptoms and prevention of the complications of the disease. A life-long gluten free diet is then required. People with celiac disease, providing they adhere to the diet have normal longevity.

Celiac disease can present at any age. In infancy and childhood it may cause chronic diarrhea and abdominal pain, in addition to growth, behavioral and development problems. In older individuals the presentation of celiac disease is frequently due to the development of complications of the disease. These include anemia, osteoporosis, skin rashes or neurologic problems. The neurologic problems include neuropathy, epilepsy, ataxia (balance disorders) and migraine.

While the disease is more common in females, men are affected as well. Osteoporosis is common in patients with celiac disease; men often are more severely affected than women. Gastrointestinal symptoms in celiac disease persist for many years prior to diagnosis and are often attributed to an irritable bowel syndrome or spastic colitis.

Autoimmune disorders occur more frequently in patients with celiac disease than the general population by a factor of ten. Frequently the autoimmune disorder assumes greater clinical significance than the celiac disease and as a result is diagnosed first. The associated autoimmune disorders include thyroid dysfunction, psoriasis, dermatitis herpetiformis (an intensely itchy skin rash), Sjogren’s syndrome, and Addison’s disease. Relatives of patients with celiac disease have a greater risk, not only of celiac disease, but also of other autoimmune diseases.

THE IRISH CONNECTION Celiac disease was formerly considered a rare disease of childhood. It is now recognized as being very common in those of European descent, one of the most common genetically determined conditions physicians will encounter. Recent studies have demonstrated the country with the greatest prevalence to be Ireland.

In Belfast one in one hundred and twenty-two have the illness. The prominent familial association of the disease indicated by the occurrence in one of ten first degree relatives and in 80 percent of identical twins points to a genetic component of the disease. However, the actual genes responsible for the disease have not been discovered, though many groups are working on the problem. It is known that there is a strong association with specific HLA genes that are required for the disease to occur, but are themselves not sufficient for the disease to be manifested.

Kennedy’s Irish heritage, long duration of gastrointestinal complaints (since childhood), diagnosis of irritable bowel syn-

drome and migraine, presence of severe osteoporosis, and the development of Addison’s disease all lead to a presumptive diagnosis of celiac disease. Kennedy was given steroids for his problems. Steroid use is associated with the development of osteoporosis and Addison’s disease.

However, steroids were initially used in clinical practice in the 1930s and 1940s for many indications not considered appropriate now.

In the case of Kennedy, if he did in fact have celiac disease, the steroids would have suppressed the inflammation in the intestine and reduced his symptoms, making diagnosis of celiac disease less likely to be established. The occurrence of Addison’s disease in his sister, however, argues for a familial [genetic] cause of his Addison’s disease, rather than an iatrogenic one.

Could celiac disease have been diagnosed in Kennedy during his lifetime? Possibly. The disease was first recognized in 1887, as was its treatment with an elimination diet.

It was recognized to occur at all ages. However, it was not until the 1950s that the shortage of bread during the Second World War and its subsequent reintroduction in Holland prompted recognition of the role of wheat as a cause of this malabsorption syndrome. It was in the 1970s that physicians became aware of the more subtle presentations of the disease. The diagnosis of celiac disease initially requires consideration that it may be present in an individual patient, even now many physicians do not consider the diagnosis.

It would, however, be possible to diagnose celiac disease in JFK now, if biopsies taken during his life, or autopsy material of the small intestine had been archived and was now made available. Frozen blood samples could also provide diagnostic material, for there are serologic tests now available that are specific for the condition.

A diagnosis of celiac disease, if it had been made, could have been treated by diet alone. This would have prevented all the manifestations of the disease and its complications.

Because of the strong genetic component of celiac disease, Kennedy’s family may well be interested in obtaining the diagnosis as well.

(This article was previously published on HNN/History News Network)

DR. PETER GREEN

Dr. Peter H.R. Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University, is a professor of clinical medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University and attending physician at the Columbia University Medical Center. Celiac disease has been his focus for almost 20 years, with equal concentration on patient care and research. He is one of the few physicians in the United States with an intense clinical academic interest and expertise in celiac disease. He is the author of Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic, which has been called “the definitive resource for celiacs IA and those yet to be diagnosed.”

For more information on celiac disease visit: celiacdiseasecenter.columbia.edu/ AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 39

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Celiac Disease

C

eliac disease is an autoimmune disorder that is characterized by an intolerance for gluten (a protein most commonly found in wheat, barley, and rye). Consuming gluten triggers an immune response that causes inflammation in the lower intestine that can permanently damage the intestinal lining. This damage results in malabsorption of essential nutrients and can lead to stomach pain, bloating, and diarrhea.

Left untreated, celiac disease can cause serious complications, starving the brain, nervous system, bones, liver, and other organs of necessary nutrients. Studies show that celiac patients also face a higher risk of other autoimmune diseases such as thyroid disease, and various forms of cancer, including melanoma, and it has also been linked to candida, osteoporosis and schizophrenia.

The exact genes that cause celiac disease have not been discovered. It is very common among people of Northern European descent, and is very prevalent in Ireland. Studies have shown that

in Belfast one in 122 have the disease. Roughly one in 141 Americans suffer from the disease. Unfortunately, only about ten percent of those are officially diagnosed. The Coeliac Society of Ireland (where celiac is sometimes spelled with an “oe”) estimates that for every person who is diagnosed, between five and ten more people have it, leading some to call it the silent disease.

RISK FACTORS

SYMPTOMS

Celiac disease can happen to anyone, though it is more common in those who are genetically predisposed. It is sometimes accompanied by: • A family member with celiac • Type 1 diabetes • Down syndrome or Turner syndrome • An autoimmune thyroid disease • Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that most commonly destroys the glands that produce tears and saliva • Microscopic colitis, a disease characterized by chronic, watery diarrhea

Symptoms for celiac disease can vary by age, sometimes becoming less obvious as you get older, while the classic symptoms below are more commonly associated with celiac in children and young adults.

• Steatorrhea, marked by an excess of fat in the stool, causing it to appear oily and often float • Diarrhea • Abdominal Cramps • Bloating • Weight Loss

In addition to the risk factors above, adults over 40 may consider testing if they experience the following: • Chronic or intermittent diarrhea • Unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea or vomiting • Unexpected and sudden weight loss • Unexplained iron deficiency anemia or other unspecified anemia • Dermatitis herpetiformis, an itchy, blistering skin rash that sometimes accompanies celiac More importantly, complications from untreated celiac can be severe and sometimes are the only indicator of the disease itself, as not all people with celiac disease exhibit symptoms.

Complications include: • Loss of calcium and bone density • Infertility and/or miscarriage • Lactose intolerance • Cancer, especially intestinal lymphoma and small bowel cancer 40 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

TREATMENT There is no cure for celiac disease – the only way to treat it is by eliminating gluten from the diet altogether. Most commonly found in wheat, gluten is also found in: • Barley • Bulgur

• Durum • Farina

• Graham flour • Rye • Malt • Semolina

• Spelt • Triticale

Because of the ubiquity of these ingredients in most packaged foods, ingredient lists should be read before buying and consuming any foods like: • • • •

Cereal • Gravy Pasta • Baked goods Beer like bread, cake, Some candies pie, cookies

• Imitation meats or seafood • Processed lunch meat

• Soups, salad dressing and sauces, including soy • Self-basting poultry

The good news, however, is that you’ll probably eat healthier, because foods like the following are 100 percent okay: • Fresh meat, fish, poultry that aren’t breaded, battered, or marinated • Fruit, vegetables, and potatoes • Most dairy • Wine and distilled liquors, ciders, and spirits • Corn and corn flour

• Tapioca • Rice and rice flour • Quinoa • Buckwheat • Arrowroot • Amaranth

As celiac disease becomes more widely known, there are also an increasing number of gluten-free substitutes for all those grain-containing foods you’d want to eat.

Check out http://www.celiacdiseasecenter.columbia.edu, or the the 5,000-member-strong Coeliac Society of Ireland for more information, food lists, and cooking tips.

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The Great Hunger and the

Celtic Gene Thomas P. Duffy MD of the Yale School of Medicine explores why certain people survived the Great Hunger and reasons that the answer may lie in their gene pool.

PHOTO: SEAN SEXTON COLLECTION

Eviction scene: The descendants of the family in this photograph, taken in Glenbeigh, Co. Cork in 1888, may have survived the Great Famine, but one wonders what became of them following their eviction and demolition of their home.

S

hortly after the great Irish famine of 1847-49, the initial description appeared, in 1865, of a fatal disorder that compromised the liver and pancreas and resulted in bronzing or hyperpigmentation of the skin.

Many explanations for the excessive iron burden were suggested, with alcohol ingestion, infection, and high iron intake being the leading culprits indicted over the next four decades.

These etiologies were disproved in 1935 when the cause was correctly identified by J.H Sheldon, a British physician, as an inborn error of the metabolism of iron within the body.

Diagnosis of the disorder, named hemochromatosis, initially required measuring the iron content of tissue specimens obtained by liver biopsy. When it became possible in 1960 to measure iron levels in the blood that mirror iron stores within

42 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

the tissues, a simple means of screening patients for iron overload became available.

A drawback in the measurement of serum iron levels was that it only identified patients in whom the disease was already advanced with its attendant damage to involved organs.

Cirrhosis, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and impotency represented the myriad presentations of the disorder, with liver cancer its most frequent fatal outcome.

The full-blown disease occurred in men mainly in the fourth and fifth decades of life and in women in the fifth and sixth decades; the later onset in women was due to the iron loss that accompanies menstruation and child-bearing. In 1975, the discovery by French doctor and researcher Marcel Simon and his colleagues that family members who shared an HLA blood

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Above: The C282Y gene mutation.

grouping with a hemochromatosis patient would also develop the disorder, allowed prevention of organ dysfunction by the simple method of blood-letting as a means of keeping the iron levels under control.

The method of identifying candidates for hemochromatosis was greatly improved in 1996 with the identification by John N. Feder and colleagues of a specific gene mutation that results in malfunctioning of the mechanisms responsible for control of iron absorption within the body. The mutation, C282Y, results from a single amino-acid substitution of alanine for tyrosine on chromosome 6, with a loss of function of the normal gene. It is present in 85 percent of Caucasians with hemochromatosis and permits screening of populations and individuals who are at risk for developing the disease.

The screening of populations for this HFE gene has documented a remarkably high incidence in the Celtic population, leading to the description of the HFE gene as the Celtic Gene.

Among the Celts, HFE heterozygosity incidence is one in eight to ten individuals, and among the Irish Celts the incidence is as high as one in three to five.

The new field of historic genomics has made an estimation of the age of the mutation responsible for the HFE gene possible. It appears to have originated in a Celtic or Viking ancestor some two to four thousand years ago and it has since spread via migration through the rest of Europe and Scandinavia.

The switch from a meat and gatherer mode of living to a grains and cereal diet enabled by living off the land is a convincing basis for the initial appearance of the HFE gene. Its higher concentration among the Celts occupying Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Brittany is attributed to the Roman and/or Viking invasions of these regions. The relative isolation of island-based people may have impeded the diffusion of the gene that a larger canvas of Europe would have allowed. This would explain its prominence among the Celts in general but some additional factor(s) must have contributed to the highest frequency of the gene among the Irish Celts in Ireland, America and Australia.

A screening study of newborns in a Dublin hospital identified heterozygosity for the gene in one-third of the babies.

Another study of workers in the Polaroid Company in Boston found the gene mainly in Irish Celts. The question needs to be asked regarding the disproportionate frequency of the HFE

gene among the Irish and if it provided a selective advantage during the Great Famine.

The dietary history of Ireland was quite different from other European nations and other Celtic societies, with its ultimately self-destructive reliance upon the potato as almost the sole source of nutrition in the 17th and 18th centuries Levels of an essential factor in iron delivery are reduced in malnourished individuals. A further contribution to a negative iron balance among the Irish was their heavy consumption of tea. Tea contains tannins that complex with iron in the gut and inhibit its absorption.

Individuals possessing the gene for hemochromatosis would have been advantaged in the face of limited dietary iron availability and delivery. Those without the gene would have died in disproportionately large numbers since iron is one of the most critical elements within the body.

The Great Famine with its life-destroying absence of adequate nutrition magnified the importance of possession of the HFE gene for hemochromatosis. The mutation that can fatally exaggerate iron accumulation in the homozygote state may have made the critical difference of positive iron balance in the heterozygote during the famine. A concentration of individuals with the gene would occur among the survivors.

Many of these survivors emigrated to America and Australia, transporting the strain of hemochromatosis to these countries.

Ironically, the gene can now be used to document the wanderings throughout the world of the Irish people, many of whom carry in their genome the testimony to their ancestors’ iron advantage.

Screening of the descendants of those Famine immigrants would identify the HFE gene and prevent organ dysfunction by early detection, and thus prevent tragedy from befalling IA later generations of the Celts.

Famine-Related Illnesses

I

nfection was the major cause of death, with typhus and cholera the most common infections in a population made very vulnerable by Vitamin A deficiency, the vitamin responsible for important natural defenses against infection.(Early on, farmers were forced to sell their cows creating even greater nutritional deficiencies; milk contains both Vitamin A and D, the vitamins not contained in potatoes.)

Xerophthalmia, an ulceration of the eye caused

by Vitamin A deficiency, was increasingly recognized during the famine years. Scurvy also contributed to the death toll, with victims covered with bruises and bleeding lesions that are caused by Vitamin C deficiency; the potato famine deprived the Irish of a rich source of Vitamin C and a defense against the development of this bleeding disorder. Diarrheal disorders likely had infection as their cause, but a deficiency of niacin and riboflavin led to pellagra with its triad of diarrhea, dementia and dermatitis.

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Sisters Sharing Musical Talent and Health Issues Joyce and Ruth O’Leary are your average pair of young Irish sisters in their early twenties. They share outfits, finish each other’s sentences, and cheer each other up when one is having a hard day. There’s just one difference: together, Joyce and Ruth make up Sephira, an Irish crossover act that combines passionate violin playing, ethereal singing and showstopping choreography to entertain audiences around the world. They are their own managers, agents, publicists, and creative directors. Eschewing major labels and maintaining full control over their creative brand, the O’Leary sisters are making it all on their own. And between the two of them, they experience a number of autoimmune disorders that have layered serious physical and emotional challenges on top of an already hugely difficult business.

Story by Kara Rota.

44 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

T

he story begins in County Kildare, where the girls were born. They soon moved to Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, where they discovered music. “Joyce was two and a half when she started playing violin, and I was six,” says Ruth.

“Joyce saw me playing —” “And I copied my older sister,” Joyce smiles. At age three, Joyce played a Bach minuet at the National Concert Hall, and was named Ireland’s Most Promising Violinist at age nine.

As teenagers, they added singing. Soon their studies brought them to London, where Ruth studied at the Guildhall School of Music and received a BA in music performance. In Dublin, Ruth performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto at the National Concert Hall, and played with world-class acts like Rodrigo y Gabriela.

“That was one of the biggest learning curves of my life,” she remembers. “They were so disciplined; it was so many rehearsals. Instead of a string section, I was the featured performer. Everything we’ve done has taught us to be better at what we do.”

At fifteen, they tried their hands at songwriting. “In between classes I’d jot down melodies,” remembers Joyce. “I’m more of a melody person, Ruth’s melody and words.”

“She’s got the ear for the hook,” Ruth continues. “Whenever I write something, Joyce might change it slightly, and there you have your hook.”

“We’ve figured out over the years how to work together,” Joyce agrees. By 2006, they’d released their debut album, Believe, and by 2007 they’d performed alongside artists like Michael Bublé, Kanye West, and Clannad. Much of 2008 through 2010 were spent touring the US

and Canada with Celtic Thunder.

Listening to them speak, it’s clear that they are truly one another’s biggest fans.

Ruth is the big-picture thinker, while Joyce breaks ideas down into detail-oriented steps.

“She’s got a man’s brain,” insists Ruth.

“All the technical stuff. I like reading manuals, Joyce naturally knows what goes where. She’s a perfectionist.” And there are many things in show business that demand perfection. “Joyce has an amazing ear for producing and mixing.

Years ago [in Ireland], we did very close work with Brian McFadden, and we didn’t realize the scope of what we were capable of because we were young. He ended up contacting the guy who booked us and said ‘Oh my God, these girls are amazing, I need to get the recordings of what they did in the session’ so that he could use it for his album…As it turned out, he used the exact arrangement that we had done live, on his album. That was when we realized that’s another side to what we do.”

Together, they brought their career to America – beginning, of course, in New York. “We came here three years ago pounding the pavement,” says Ruth.

“When I say we were broke, we were BROKE. Joyce was making bread in the mornings. We went to the gym to be strong enough to lift our own sound equipment on the subway — we didn’t have enough money for taxis.”

“It grounds you,” Joyce points out.

“Within three months of coming here, we were booked solid,” Ruth adds triumphantly. “From literally going around and saying to people, ‘Have us play.’ We got 5,000 business cards and handed them out. Within a year, we were playing for Donald Trump, a year and a half, Prince Albert of Monaco—”

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Joyce and Ruth O’Leary

“—twice!”

“—in Monaco and in Dublin. In Monaco, we were seen by an affluent Irish businessman, and he flew us to Geneva to play at his private Christmas party, so that was another crazy adventure. Flying from New York to Seattle, Seattle to LA, LA to Geneva, all within five days, then back to New York.” Traveling often for performances in different cities and countries, while still managing all of the other parts of the business, contributed to high stress levels for both sisters. “We were going to bed at five a.m. because we had to work with the Irish schedule and American one,” Joyce remembers.

“We were booking ourselves, everything was going through us,” Ruth points out. “We were like, ‘No one else can handle this. We own our brand, we sell our brand,’ and we both were so exhausted,

particularly me. I had started kind of collapsing, and having various strange episodes. Joyce had to carry the whole business on her own. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t focus, but I didn’t know what it was. I mean, what do you do, go to the doctor and say ‘I’m so tired all the time and I can’t focus’? They say drink more water.”

They began to think it might be more than a normal performer’s wear and tear.

“A relation spoke to our mom and said, ‘Listen, get yourself checked for hemochromatosis.’ It’s an overload of iron in the blood. Mom got checked and it turned out that she was a carrier. Dad is a carrier as well, which meant that the chances of us having it were very high.

We got checked, and we have it. Thank goodness, we don’t have to get the bloodletting.” Ruth is referring to one treatment

for hemochromatosis, which consists of having blood leeched periodically to keep iron in a patient’s blood at safe levels. “We just have to get checked every six months.”

“Hemochromatosis is not the problem.

All our organs were checked, and they found out what was actually wrong with us,” Ruth tells me. “Joyce has three autoimmune disorders, [autoimmune hepatitis, autoimmune adrenalitis, and autoimmune thyroiditis] and I have something called Addison’s disease, which comes from autoimmune adrenalitis, where your adrenal gland is not producing enough cortisol.” This explains the extreme lack of energy and other symptoms that they had experienced. “The headaches, the dizziness, the collapsing, even not being able to adjust to temperature changes.”

Once going on medication, Joyce and Ruth found that their symptoms drastically improved. “[The medication] had a great effect on our careers. Our energy shot up, everything started working better and our whole focus was bigger,” says Joyce.

“We tell people to go get checked, because hemochromatosis is a Celtic disease…During the famine, we Irish didn’t eat much meat, so our bodies started storing iron. Then, when meat came back into our diets, we had such an ability to store iron” that it caused problems. Joyce and Ruth believe their uncle Michael may have passed away undiagnosed, and encouraged their cousin, Michael’s son, to get tested for hemochromatosis. He tested positive, and his liver had been damaged, but he is now working with doctors and making progress.

Ruth especially has found that yoga, reiki and other alternative treatments to lower stress levels make a difference, as well as focusing on a healthy diet. “We think a lot more about what we eat. We were going down a slippery slope, just eating out of convenience. Our lifestyle doesn’t really allow us to cook, so we eat out and on the go, but we get good food.

A lot of salads, smoked salmon and tuna.

And drink water!” They keep red meat AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 45

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Hemochromatosis (he-moe-krome-uh-TOE-sis) and alcohol to a minimum. All in all, Joyce and Ruth see the autoimmune issues as another learning curve, and a lesson for them to take care of themselves. “The doctor said, ‘You can’t put your career before your health. There is no career if you don’t take care of yourselves.”

For our interview, Joyce and Ruth arrived at my office looking like freshfaced showgirls, complete with glitter, cat-eye makeup, sparkling baubles and down-to-earth Irish charm. Their name, Sephira, references the Spanish goddess of creativity and intelligence. “Since we’ve come [to America] we’ve built up our team, we’ve rebranded ourselves. We don’t want somebody coming in and saying, ‘I think you should wear this; it would be much better if you sounded like this.’ When we recorded our Christmas album, a few months after we came to New York, we funded everything ourselves. It’s all independent.” Graphic design, sound mixing, makeup, costumes, photography and choreography are all passions that Sephira has allowed the O’Learys to pursue – many branches, as they put it, to the same tree.

“Although we’re classically trained, we didn’t want to be taken as classical musicians,” says Joyce. “And nor did we want to be put into the Irish traditional music bracket,” adds Ruth. “We wanted people to know the vibe as soon as they saw us…those aspects that whip us out of ‘Oh, look, a redhead! Celtic!’ We’re very proud of our heritage, but we want people to see that there’s so much more that we bring.”

Joyce and Ruth are especially excited about a new project coming down the pipeline. They couldn’t give me too much information, but they hinted at some of the details. “We just started aerial training,” explains Joyce, showing me pictures on an iPad of the sessions they’ve been working on for several months.

“We’ve been doing synchronized aerial choreography. Our trainer is pushing us to find the moves that work for us when we’re playing violin in the air.”

Ruth chimes in, “We’re collaborating with another group on a show that can be franchised…We will still be Sephira, but the show will have its own name. The idea is that we want to create an empire, and all the things that go along with that.

It’s a pretty big project!” They both laugh.

Later, Ruth looks up, her eyes gleaming.

IA “And then – Vegas.”

46 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

H

ereditary hemochromatosis is a disease caused by a recessive genetic mutation that makes the body absorb too much iron, resulting in excess amounts being deposited in vital organs, most commonly the liver, heart, and pancreas. Luckily, only a small number of people with the genetic mutation develop serious problems, but even so, excess iron can poison those organs, effectively “rusting” them, resulting in cancer, heart disease, diabetes, cirrhosis, and other life-threatening diseases.

Since the discovery of the mutation in 1996, hemochromatosis has been called the “Celtic Curse,” “Irish Illness,” “Scottish Sickness,” and the “British Gene” for good reasons. Research suggests that the mutation actually occurred in Ireland roughly 40,000 years ago to conserve iron in the body for the Celts who lacked an iron-rich diet. Now that we have iron-heavy foods readily accessible, the evolutionary development has become a disease that disproportionately afflicts people with Irish, Scottish,Welsh, and British heritage, who are three times more likely to suffer from hemochromatosis.

Because it is caused by a recessive gene, hemochromatosis will only occur if both parents pass on the mutated gene. People with only one mutated gene are carriers. Among the Irish, estimates suggest that one in four are carriers. And of the roughly 34.7 million Irish Americans, about 5.6 million are carriers. Organizations like the American Hemochro-matosis Society and the Irish Haemochromatosis Association are pushing for greater awareness and testing of the disease, especially for people with Celtic ancestry.

Risk Factors

Symptoms

• FAMILY HISTORY: If you have a family history of

Most times, signs and symptoms don’t appear until middle age—between 50 and 60 in men, and after 60 in women—and some people with hereditary hemochromatosis never exhibit signs of the disease. Unfortunately, early indicator symptoms are vague and can often be confused with those of other diseases.They include: • Joint Pain • Fatigue • Weakness

hemochromatosis, you are more likely to have inherited the gene that causes it. You can ask your doctor about genetic tests to determine if you carry the gene mutation.

• ETHNICITY: People of Northern European descent are at the greatest risk of inheriting the disease, while people of African, Asian, and Hispanic origins are much less commonly carriers of the mutated gene.

• GENDER AND AGE: Males show signs of the disease earlier than females, leading to increased complications from its development. Because menstruation and pregnancy naturally expel iron, women are at a lesser risk of early symptoms, though after menopause the risk factor increases significantly.

Treatment Standard treatment involves removal of blood from the body to reduce iron to normal levels in two stages.The initial treatment schedule usually consists of taking out about a pint of blood once a week for anywhere from a few months to several years, however long it takes to drop iron levels to normal. Once that has been achieved, a maintenance schedule begins, with draws usually occurring once every several months. If, however, phlebotomy is not an option (if you have anemia or heart conditions for example), medication that causes the body to expel excess iron through urine or stool can be prescribed by a doctor.

In most men with hereditary hemochromatosis, the first signs of the disease are usually from organ damage.They include: • Joint Pain • Diabetes • Diminished Libido and/or Impotence • Heart Failure

Homeopathic lifestyle options exist, but ideally should be done in conjunction with medical treatment.They include:

• Avoiding vitamin supplements with iron • Avoiding vitamin C supplements, which increase the body’s rate of absorption of iron

• Avoiding alcohol, which increases the risk of liver damage on top of the risk of iron poisoning

• Avoiding raw shellfish because shellfish contain bac•

teria that people with hereditary hemochromatosis are more susceptible to get infected by Drinking tannin-rich tea, which is thought to slow iron absorption

Once treatment has begun, the majority of patients see a reduction in primary symptoms and even the abatement or full-on reversal of secondary diseases caused by hereditary hemochromatosis like liver disease, heart disease, or diabetes.

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CANCER

Comfortable in

My Own Skin After a diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma at age twenty-eight, Emma Graves Fitzsimmons got smart about being in the sun.

I

wish I could say that I’ve always appreciated my porcelain skin.

But for as long as I can remember, I’ve preferred the way I look with a tan and longed to be outdoors with the sun’s rays on my face. That all changed when I was diagnosed with basal cell skin cancer last year at the age of 28.

Throughout my childhood in Houston, Texas, my mother was vigilant about using sunscreen. I have Irish heritage on both sides of my family, and she wanted me to protect my fair skin.

When I left for college in Austin, her reminders continued, but I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. I was young and fearless. I thought skin cancer was something that affected much older people.

I took road trips to the beach with friends and went tubing on rivers. During my senior year, I had a pool at my apartment complex and would catch a few rays between classes. I usually put on sunscreen but didn’t consistently reapply every few hours or wear a hat.

Last summer, I was at the beach in Brooklyn with my brother when he spotted a dark mole on my arm and urged me to make an appointment with a dermatologist. My doctor took a biopsy of that mole and another one on my right cheek. The one on my face was basal cell carcinoma.

A few weeks later, I had Mohs surgery, a procedure where the doctor removes a layer of skin, then tests the borders to determine whether the cancer-

ous tissue is gone before removing another layer. Mine was completely gone in the first take. That same afternoon, I received stitches from a plastic surgeon.

The 1.5-inch scar running between my eye and ear looked pretty bad at first. I was grateful that the cancer was gone, but upset to have a noticeable scar on my

Emma Graves Fitzsimmons with her husband, Gerry, a few weeks before her Mohs surgery last summer.

face before my 30th birthday.

I learned from my doctors that I’m not alone. All three types of skin cancer – basal cell, squamous cell and melanoma – are on the rise among young women.

Millions of people are diagnosed each year with basal cell and squamous cell

carcinoma. These types of skin cancer are usually not life threatening, but the area must be removed because it can spread and lead to disfigurement.

Melanoma is far more serious.

Malignant melanoma can spread quickly to other parts of the body and causes about 9,400 deaths in the United States each year.

My grandmother and my aunt on my mother’s side of the family have both had melanoma.

Fortunately, they were able to treat it quickly and survived. My aunt, who has beautiful red hair, had melanoma on her arm when she was young, while my grandmother didn’t get it until after she was 70. My grandmother was living with us then, and I remember watching her heal from the complicated procedure she underwent to remove part of her nose and then repair it with skin from her forehead.

My mother and her brother have had basal cell carcinoma as well. We all have fair skin and grew up in places known for hot weather. My mother and her siblings were raised in Phoenix, Arizona.

While our ancestors lived in a rainy, colder climate in Northern Europe, we Texans had almost constant sunshine and could spend 12 months of the year outdoors.

My doctor said that both my upbringing in Texas and my family history made it more likely that I would get skin cancer. My fair skin, blue eyes and light hair were also risk factors.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 47

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CANCER

Now that I’ve had basal cell skin cancer, I have a higher likelihood of getting skin cancer again.

Patients with one diagnosis of skin cancer are 40 percent more likely to be diagnosed with new skin cancer than those who have never had it.

I can’t change the damage I’ve already done to my skin, but I can prevent more damage from occurring and try to detect any other problems early. I’m visiting my dermatologist every three months for a full body scan. I examine my skin often to look for changes.

At the same time, I have completely changed the way I interact with the sun. I wear 30 SPF sunscreen on my face every day. I slather sunscreen on the rest of my body if I’m going to be outdoors for more than a few minutes. I avoid the sun during the worst hours of the day for direct sunlight, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. I have purchased several sun protective shirts and hats. When I’m at the beach or the pool, I always sit under an umbrella.

My husband Gerry, who also has Irish roots and fair skin, has become more concerned about skin cancer after supporting me throughout this process. He made an appointment with my dermatologist this summer to receive his first body exam in years.

On a recent vacation to the Caribbean with a friend, she teased me for my new beach wardrobe. I wore a pink large-brimmed bucket hat and a blue long-sleeved, almost knee-length sun protective shirt with a zip up collar. She couldn’t even see my swimsuit. I definitely stood out next to the other women in bikinis.

I’m going to have my skin for the rest of my life, and I want it to be healthy. For the first summer in a long time, I am pale — and IA proud of it.

Emma Graves Fitzsimmons is a contributing writer at The New York Times. She lives in New York with her husband, who also has Irish roots.

48 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Skin Cancer S

kin cancer, like all cancers, is caused by cell mutations that grow uncontrollably to form a mass of cancer cells. Because the skin is comprised of three main types of cells, there are three primary forms of skin cancer with different treatment methods: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and melanoma, the most virulent, yet rare form of skin cancer.

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common form of skin cancer, according to the Irish Cancer Society. Basal cells are located at the base of the outer layer of skin, and their primary function is to produce new skin cells. If left untreated, BCC will eventually form what is known as a “rodent ulcer,” a pearly or waxy bump that usually occurs in the most sun-exposed areas of the body, i.e. the face, ears, or neck. It can also manifest as a flat, fleshcolored or brown scar-like lesion.

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common form of skin cancer in Ireland. It forms in the squamous cells, which are the top-most layer of skin and usually manifests on frequently sunexposed areas like the face, ears, hands, and arms, generally taking one of two forms: a firm, raised red lump, or, a flat, crusted and scaly lesion. Because both BCC and SCC are located in the outer layers of skin cells, which have fewer blood vessels, they are unlikely to spread to other parts of the body – unlike melanoma.

Melanoma is the most severe form of skin cancer and grows in melanin-producing cells, which are responsible for giving the skin its pigment. Because melanin is produced in other tissues, like the eyes and intestines, melanoma can occur anywhere on the body and is not necessarily restricted to sun-exposed areas of the skin – sometimes occurring under the fingernails or toenails, on the palms of the hands, and on the soles of the feet. If melanoma is not removed, the enlarged cells can grow deeper into the skin and spread via blood vessels to other areas of the body, complicating treatment options.

Skin cancer is an especially prevalent issue in Ireland, where cases have more than doubled in the past 20 years, according to the Belfast Telegraph in June.

Moreover, between 1998 and 2008, according to a 2010 National Cancer Registry of Ireland report, melanoma rates

in Ireland have increased 91%, from 393 diagnosed cases to 752 in 2008. The same report documented that Ireland has among the highest national rates of skin cancer: one in eight Irish men and one in ten Irish women will be diagnosed by the age of 74.

In comparison, in the United States, one in five people will be diagnosed with skin cancer during their lifetime. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, since 2000 melanoma has been the only one of the seven most common cancers whose incidence increased rather than decreased in the U.S.. Melanoma rates are steadily rising at a rate of 1.9 percent each year, and in 2013 alone, the American Cancer Society estimates that 76,690 new cases of invasive melanoma will be diagnosed.

One of biggest misconceptions about melanoma is that it isn’t a concern for young people. “Melanoma is the second most common cancer in young people ages 15–29. It is a myth that melanoma is an older person’s disease,” said Deb Girard, executive director of the Melanoma Foundation New England.

Young people must get skin checks too, especially if they have any risk factors.

Risk Factors There are many risk factors for developing any type of skin cancer, though almost all of them have to do with the sun and skin tone. They include: • Having fair skin: Because melanin protects the skin from harmful UV radiation, people with darker skin tend to have lower rates of skin cancer, while people with fair skin, especially people with blond or red hair and light eyes, are at a greater risk.

• Blistering sunburns: Having one or more sunburns that blistered, especially as a child, increases your risk of skin cancer.

Sunburns in general also increase your risk.

• Excessive, unprotected exposure to

sun (including regular tanning bed use).

• Having atypical or numerous moles

(over 100) indicates a greater risk for melanoma, which can begin as a benign mole.

• Having a family history or personal history with skin cancer.

Because skin cancer can take 20–30 years to develop fully, it is important to recognize these risk factors and maintain a close watch on any skin abnormalities that develop, especially moles.

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Symptoms

Treatment

As forms of skin cancer vary, so do the symptoms. They can include: • A small lump • Flat, red spot • Firm, red lump • A lump or spot that is tender to touch • An ulcer that will not heal • A lump with a scaly or horny top • Rough, scaly patches

Fortunately, the majority of skin cancers are benign and treatable. Up to 97% of melanoma cases are treatable if diagnosed early enough. Treatments vary depending on a number of factors, including location, size, type of cancer, its depth, or the patient’s age, but the most common form is excisional surgery, where the cancer is removed along with a small amount of normal skin around the growth. Other treatments may include: • Cryotherapy, or freezing with liquid nitrogen.

• Laser therapy • Radiation treatment if surgery is not an option.

• Chemotherapy in the form of a cream that is applied directly to the cancer.

• Biological therapy, or immunotherapy, consists of training the body’s own immune system to fight the cancer cells.

• Photodynamic therapy that uses a beam of light in conjunction with light-sensitive drugs to destroy superficial cancers.

For melanoma specifically, you can follow the ABCDE checklist: 3 Asymmetry: melanomas have two distinct halves and are not symmetrical if cut in half.

3 Border: as opposed to a regular mole, melanomas have rough and ragged edges that are clearly defined.

3 Color: melanomas have two or more colors, light brown to black, and may be an entirely different color from other moles.

3 Diameter: melanomas are larger than 1/4 inch in diameter (6mm).

3 Evolution: a mole that changes in shape, size, or color, whether over time or rapidly, is likely melanoma.

Importantly, while not all skin abnormalities are cancerous, some cancerous skin conditions may not follow these guidelines exactly, so it is important to consult a doctor if anything concerns you.

Prevention Nearly all skin cancers are avoidable. You can significantly lower your risk by: • Wearing at least SPF 15 sunscreen year-round and reapplying every two hours, even when it’s cloudy. A golfball-sized drop is recommended. (See the new sunscreen regulations and a buying guide below) • Avoiding the sun when it is the strongest, in the middle of the day.

• Avoiding tanning beds • Wearing protective clothing, including sunglasses and a broad-brimmed hat if you expect to be in the sun for extended periods of time.

Most importantly, frequently check your skin, including areas not usually exposed to the sun, for changes in existing freckles, moles, and bumps, or for new growths, and report any changes to your dermatologist. For those who need a little help resisting the allure of tanning, the Melanoma Foundation of New England offers a No Tanning Pledge – with different variations for highschoolers, college students and the general public – in conjunction with its Your Skin is In initative. Visit mfne.org/prevent-melanoma/ for more information.

New Sunscreen Regulations and Tips This summer, the FDA introduced new sunscreen labeling regulations. Here’s your quick guide to understanding what they mean and what to look for: • “Broad Spectrum Protection” on a bottle will mean that the sunscreen protects against the two types of ultraviolet light the sun produces, UVA and UVB. Until recently, most sunscreens only protected against UVB rays, which directly cause sunburn. However, experts now believe that UVA rays, while not sunburn-causing, contribute to the risk for skin cancer, especially melanoma.

• Products can no longer claim to be “waterproof,” only “water resistant,” and must include a time limit of either 40 or 80 minutes before the protection becomes ineffective and reapplication is necessary.

• All sunscreens with an SPF under 15 must carry a warning label saying they do not protect against skin cancer.

• Even though sunscreens with SPFs greater than 50 are still on the market, the FDA is considering banning them because they are not proven to provide greater or longer protection, despite the public perception of their effectiveness.

• Endorsements and private approval ratings are still allowed, but consumers should be weary. According to the New York Times, the Skin Cancer Foundation gives a “seal of recommendation” to sunscreens only after the company has given $10,000 to become a member.

Buying Guide

• Use SPF 15-50 depending on your skin type.

•

Lower SPFs are ineffective and higher SPFs are unnecessary.

Only buy sunscreens labeled “Broad Spectrum Protection.”

• Avoid sprays, which usually don’t cover all the surface area of the skin and can be accidentally inhaled. The FDA has banned powder sunscreens and requested more information on sunscreen sprays.

• The Environmental Working Group recommends purchasing products with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide as active ingredients.

These compounds do not degrade with exposure to light and are usually found in heavier, oily, opaque “sunblocks.” (Think lifeguard with a white nose.)

• Use fragrance-free sunscreens, which avoid unnecessary chemicals and potential allergens.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 49

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Finding the Other Molly McCloskey, the author of Circles Around the Sun, shares how one profound reading experience led her to better understand her older brother who suffers from schizophrenia.

I

can still recall, in the way one recalls the most powerful reading experiences of one’s life, lying on the bed in my studio apartment in Portland, Oregon, and reading “The Metamorphosis” for the first time. I was twenty-three years old, the age my eldest brother was when, in 1973, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

By 1987, the year I was living in that studio and reading Kafka, Mike’s illness had passed through its more florid stage.

He was on a good deal of medication, and his life, if extremely limited in scope, had at least acquired a certain stability. His hospital admissions were a thing of the past. He was in subsidized housing on the other side of the city. He was thirty-seven years old. I did not see him often, usually only if my mother was visiting from the East Coast.

But in a sense, I had never known him.

There are fourteen years (and four siblings) between us. I was too young to remember him before he became ill, and I grew up and into adulthood taking it on faith – on the evidence of photographs and family lore – that he had once been a beautiful, bright boy of enormous promise. Perhaps it is because I did not know him that the things that down the years spoke to me of him often came from unexpected sources, and that they spoke to me obliquely, associatively, metaphorically.

Kafka’s famous short story opens with the line, “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” Gregor’s transformation is a fantastical conceit embedded within an other50 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

wise realistic story; there is never any explanation of why or how the change occurs, though Kafka tracks it in detail – beginning with the horrifying image of Gregor lying on his back that first morning, trying in vain to control his numerous legs, which are now waving helplessly before his eyes. Over the next fifty or so pages we witness the fallout of his metamorphosis from human to a being – physically, at least – other than human.

Gregor is a traveling salesman, living in an apartment in Prague with his mother, father and sister, all of whom are dependent – or so he believes – on his wages. Initially, each of the three family members reacts differently to the fact that Gregor is now a very large insect (large enough to stand on the lowest pair of his legs and turn the door handle with his jaw), though not one of them, understandably, is comfortable with the change.

Shock, fear, pettiness, revulsion, shame, anger, impatience – these are the emotions that dominate.

But if Gregor’s situation evokes little compassion within the family, it summons enormous compassion from the reader, in large part because we see events unfolding from Gregor’s point-of-view. The figure who appears in so many stories, films, fairy tales as the inscrutable and frightening “other” – disrupting normality, throwing all into disorder – becomes here our eyes and ears on the world. (The story is told not in the “I” of the first person, but in the “close third” – the point-of-view of a single character prevailing, and prevailing here until near the story’s end, when Gregor dies). This point-of-view is possi-

ble because even though Gregor has changed outwardly beyond recognition, he remains capable of human feeling and thought. It may be said, in fact, that as the story rolls on, Gregor’s humanity intensifies in inverse proportion to his family’s growing callousness and indifference.

Crucially, Gregor does not retain the capacity for speech, and one of the most heartrending aspects of the story is the fact that he can understand what his family is saying about him, while his own voice has been rendered alien. The family, crowded outside the locked bedroom door that first morning, is horrified by the sound. The “chief clerk,” who has come to find out why Gregor hasn’t appeared for work, is heard to say: “That was no human voice.”

Gregor, mistakenly, takes solace in their response: “Yet at any rate people now believed that something was wrong with him, and were ready to help him . . . He felt himself drawn once more into the human circle and hoped for great and remarkable results from both the doctor and the locksmith. . .”

Alas, Gregor’s intimations could not be more wrong. His ostracization from the human circle has only just begun. He opens the door, his mother falls to the floor in shock, the chief clerk flees in disgust. His father knots his fist, “as if he meant to knock Gregor back into his room,” then weeps until his chest is heaving. Gregor retreats to his bedroom. For the next forty or so pages, he will report to us from his strange locked-in world, alone, unrecognizable, helpless to intervene in his own fate – and yet possessed of human sensibilities and sensitivities.

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Above: The McCloskey family on the beach at Ocean City, 1968.

In 1983: Jack, Steve, Molly, Tim, John and Mike.

At the time I read this story, it had been fourteen years since my brother’s illness was diagnosed. For much of the first few years after the diagnosis, he had lived in the family home. During those years, he spent an enormous amount of time in his bedroom, mostly in bed, fully dressed, under layers of blankets and often wearing a woolen hat. Medication to quell the psychotic episodes was no doubt taking a toll on his energy levels, and he was almost certainly depressed. He was also extremely apathetic, one of the so-called negative symptoms of schizophrenia. I imagine that his bedroom was for him a refuge from the churning world – from overstimulation, from expectations he could not meet, from the squealing antics of his adolescent sister and her pals, from the strapping good health of his teenage brother.

For me, that bedroom was a site of mystery, its closed door a seal on a world I could not imagine and of which I wanted no part. When I think of my brother’s transformation from golden boy – he was an honor student and an athlete who attended Duke University on an academic scholarship – to a young man in the throes of serious mental illness, I think of his bedroom in the house on Fourth Street. I think of how time must’ve weighed terribly on him during those long, dull medicated days. And I think of myself, sitting in the living room and seeing the bedroom door swing slowly open, and I recall how I would flinch a little, for as unnerved as I was to think of him lying in there all day,

I was just as unnerved by the prospect of facing him. My brother was never violent or aggressive. But he was, understandably, seldom in a light or a friendly mood, and his presence and his appearance and his often strange utterances were disconcerting. They also made me feel guilty of something – frivolity and good health, I suspect.

Those were the years of upheaval and uncertainty, when the illness as a permanent debilitating presence seemed not yet a fait accompli. When those long spells in bed were interspersed with periods of lucidity, what appeared to be fresh starts.

My mother, in an effort to support any sign that a recovery, or a partial recovery, was possible, must have moved a hundred times between hope and the effort to check that hopeful impulse, as a kind of protection against the soul-destroying effects of witnessing yet another psychotic break. The soul-destroying effects were not, of course, limited to her – Mike himself must have felt them, the terrifying, painful frustration of having everything fall apart, all over again.

About midway through “The Metamorphosis,” there is a scene in which Gregor’s sister, who has taken over her brother’s care and feeding, decides that in order to give Gregor as much room as possible for crawling about she might remove the bedroom furnishings – which Gregor, in his present incarnation, has no use for.

To do this, she enlists the help of her mother, who enters Gregor’s room for the first time since the change. (Gregor, not

wanting to upset his mother, makes sure he is covered by a sheet, thereby renouncing the pleasure of seeing her.) Once in the room, Mrs. Samsa begins to doubt the wisdom of the enterprise: “. . . doesn’t it look as if we were showing him, by taking away his furniture, that we have given up hope of his ever getting better and are just leaving him coldly to himself. I think it would be best to keep his room exactly as it has always been so that when he comes back to us he will find everything unchanged and be able all the more easily to forget what has happened to him.”

On hearing his mother, Gregor experiences a new shock, when he realizes how thoughtlessly he had been in favor of the plan to have his room made empty. “Did he really want his warm room, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture, to be turned into a naked den in which he would certainly be able to crawl unhampered in all directions but at the price of shedding simultaneously all recollection of his human background?”

This passage causes me a particular shiver.

At what point does one give up hope?

What does giving up hope even mean in a context of chronic mental illness? Might it sometimes be a form of compassion – the acceptance of a new reality, the acceptance of another not as one would like him to be, but as he is? Can refusing to give up in fact be a kind of unintended cruelty?

How do you know? How do you know you aren’t giving up just at the moment your unwavering belief in someone’s AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 51

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At what point does one give up hope?

What does giving up hope even mean in a context of chronic mental illness? “recovery” (whatever that might mean under the circumstances prevailing) might’ve helped to lay the foundation for it? These aren’t questions with answers. I am certain they are questions my mother grappled with.

The point is not to liken my brother to Gregor Samsa, nor to liken my family to the Samsa family; nor is it to suggest that “The Metamorphosis” is a story about mental illness. (The “aboutness” of any story comes down to the big abstract nouns – love, death, loss, betrayal, fear, desire, identity, isolation, joy – realized through anecdote, and we bring to those abstractions our own histories and psychologies.) “The Metamorphosis” renders its world with such precision while resist-

ing a single interpretation; it insists on its own openness.

The point is rather the way in which the story, when I first read it and on subsequent readings, seemed to cut through layers of my habituated point-of-view. I felt I had been dropped through a trap door, and wherever it was I’d landed, it seemed like a place a little closer to my brother.

This is presumptuous, of course, because really I know nothing of my brother’s inner world, or of what he has suffered. But I felt something I hadn’t much felt before: the beginnings of curiosity, the desire to better understand what it was that had befallen him, what it was that he had lost – which is to say, I hope, that I felt the beginnings of compas-

sion. I saw in Gregor’s isolation – physical, intellectual, emotional – a glimpse into the terrible, transforming effects of schizophrenia, an inkling of just how lonely, excluded, and afraid my brother must have felt as he watched himself receding from a world he had known and loved and in which he had thrived.

I was not prepared for what “The Metamorphosis” made me think and feel.

But this is the opportunity literature offers us: to step outside of ourselves.

Reading doesn’t make us moral, by any means; it only offers us other ways of experiencing the world, alternative points-of-view. But this is no small offering: it is the necessary starting point of empathy, and of compassion.

IA

Hunger and its Children Schizophrenia and other diseases associated with starvation. By Peter Quinn

T

he outward physical consequences of famine and severe malnutrition have been long known. They are the same everywhere. In his recent history of the Irish Famine, The Graves Are Walking, John Kelly describes them this way: “In the later stages of starvation, the eyelids inflame, the angular lines around the mouth deepen into cavities; the swollen thyroid gland becomes tumorsized; fields of white fungus cover the tongue, blistering mouth sores develop, the skin acquires the texture of parchment; teeth decay and fall out, gums ooze pus, and a long silky growth of hair covers the face … Hunger edema—a grotesque swelling—is also common.”

It wasn’t until World War II, however, that the first scientific efforts were made to understand and chronicle the effects of starvation on the metabolism and circulation. The pioneers in this field were a score of Jewish doctors locked up by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto. Victims as well as observers, these doctors methodically recorded the withering impact of caloric deprivation on bodily functions.

There has never been much doubt that starvation has psychological as well as

52 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

physiological consequences. But as Lizzie Collingham points out in her instructive and enlightening book, The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food, it wasn’t until after the war that scientists got around to considering exactly what the long-term implications might be.

According to Collingham, studies done on the survivors of the Leningrad siege and the Dutch Hunger Winter “suggest that the foetus of a woman exposed to famine, especially in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy, will be adversely affected later in life. Dutch adults with a genetic predisposition to suffer from mental disease were more likely to suffer from schizophrenia and psychotic depression if they had been in the womb of a woman starved in the winter of 1944-45.”

In Famine: A Short History, Irish economist and historian Cormac Ó Gráda adds that studies done of “subjects born before, during, and after the 1959-61 famine in the badly affected Wichu region of China’s Anhui Province has also found that children conceived during the crisis stood a much higher risk of schizophrenia.”

The surface manifestations of hunger

may heal and go away but, Collingham concludes, the inner wounds endure: “ … mothers who suffer from unusually severe conditions will pass on the impact of their experience over two generations.” Along with weakened constitutions that left babies with lifelong vulnerabilities to disease, disablement and early death, “there is sufficient medical evidence to confirm that the physical repercussions of the famines of the Second World War are still echoing down through the generations, to the present day.”

The genetic scars and mutations inflicted by famine on the body and mind are still coming into focus. Yet it’s already clear that they are more punishing, profound, and enduring than previously imagined. Given the depth and duration of hunger in places like 19thcentury Ireland, the legacy will probably never be properly reckoned. And today, with a billion people living day-to-day on the cusp of starvation—the majority of them women and their children—we can only wonder at what winds are being sown and what whirlwinds will be IA reaped.

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DRINK

PHOTO: DAVID ALLEN

Sober

Malachy McCourt writes about being an alcoholic and what it was that finally made him stop drinking. as I born alcoholic? That’s not clear but I know that the disease does not discriminate against race, gender, age, position, or religion.

It is an incurable disease that can be handled by taking certain precautions, foremost of which is putting down the drink – anywhere but in your mouth.

I found the life of the alcoholic to be one of denial and deceit. I was not like my father, who disappeared to England from where tales of his generosity to his fellow boozers in Birmingham pubs filtered back to his poverty-stricken family in Limerick.

I wasn’t like that at all.

I was the “hail-fellow, well met” Irishman in New York, rarely home, rushing from bar to bar. I was the life of the party while my first wife was stuck in a tiny apartment with two small children.

My partners in the bar business rarely saw me, though I was getting more than my fair share of the profits.

In the alcoholic world honesty disappears and is followed by huge, inevitable, losses.

Being an alcoholic is a very lonely condition. It is all about loss: loss of dignity, loss of morality, loss of decency, loss of family, loss of house car, money, and job. Most importantly, it’s about loss of love, health and sometimes even life.

I was fortunate that my liver held out and that I was not assaulted or killed when I ventured into dangerous situations.

W

First Drunk y first drunk was with my boyhood pal Jackie Adams in Limerick.

The local pub seemed a warm, friendly place with electric light and wafting aromas of whiskey, stout, cigarettes and pipes, and many times, singing voices floating out into the air.

Jackie pilfered a pound note from his older brother’s savings-stash and off we went to the pub.

We were scruffy, scabby-kneed, 11-year-

M

olds in short pants. We ordered two half pints of Bulmers cider (you have to ask yourself what sort of barman would serve two kids), followed by two more, then two glasses of Guinness, after which, I decided we should have two full, imperial pints.

I had heard that one should address one’s social inferiors as “My good man.” My addressing the barman thusly led to us being unceremoniously booted out. Out on the sidewalk on the bright sunny afternoon a passerby would have observed two very drunk slum kids reeling about helpless with laughter, the cause of which was the memory of the bar man’s face when I called him “My Good Man.” In another pub we secured a couple of baby Powers (whiskey in two-ounce bottles) and proceeded down to the banks of the Shannon where we sat sipping whiskey and watching the sunset over the glinting water.

I dozed off, or more likely passed out, and found myself floating in the stratosphere in the company of a friendly, smiling, compassionate being – a different kind of God from the terrifying, vengeful one we heard about from the ranting Redemptorist priests.

When I awoke it was dark and it was raining and I had pissed in my trousers. I was back to the reality of cold, hunger and deprivation. But I never forgot my mystical odyssey and I spent far too much time and money in a vain endeavor to repeat that ecstatic experience.

I never did.

Last Drink went with my brother Frank to perform in A Couple of Blaguards in Limerick. For years I had an almost pathological rage against the city. I was going to show them how well we McCourts had done in spite of deprivation, misery and the pitiful snobbery we endured growing up.

The memories of the humiliations were

I

still raw: going to the dispensary to get the 13 shillings relief money that was supposed to feed, clothe and house a woman and four kids for a week; begging from the St. Vincent de Paul Society for a docket to get a bag of turf. I remember too, the hypocrisy of the clergy and the pub keepers who donated huge sums to Holy Mother Church.

I nearly drank myself into a Limerick grave on that visit. All the enemies were dead and gone so there were none to vent my spleen on, so I came home to New York depressed with a huge spiritual hangover and feeling rotten that all those bastards had to go and die before I had a chance to give them hell.

Then I asked myself, “Why am I killing myself with the drink, the cigs, and the eating, among other things, for the iniquitous them?”

So I went on a 12-stepper which everyone knows about. That was 28 years ago and I have been sober ever since.

Sobriety eing Irish it is culturally accepted that we drink alcohol, but I have learned that I don’t have to drink alcohol. My years of sobriety have been happy years. I begin my day by telling my wife Diana that I love her.

My children and my grandchildren delight me. I obey Oscar Wilde’s dictum: Forgive your enemies, it will annoy them.

B

A day a time, I don’t drink alcohol.

A day at a time I get at least one laugh.

A day at a time I mention love to those I love.

A day at a time I talk to another alcoholic.

A day at a time I remember I am a recovering alcoholic, not a recovered one.

A day at a time though not a singer I sing a song.

A day at a time I keep free of fear and superstition, religion, shame, guilt and remorse A day at a time I live one day at a time. IA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 53

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The Laughter and the Drink The Irish are known for ‘the craic and the drink.’ These comedians have given up the drink. By Sheila Langan.

P

eople of Irish descent face a host of notions and expectations – some based in reality, others plucked from the air and given weight over time – of how they should be. Chancers, charmers, affable but discerning, fiery but kind, quick-witted storytellers, and good drinkers. It’s these last two that so often seem to go hand in hand: the laughter and the drink.

Whether they aim to or not, a number of the funniest and most successful comedians of Irish heritage working today are challenging these ideas. Colin Quinn? Sober since the ’80s. Greg FitzSimmons? Since 1990. Des Bishop?

Hasn’t had a drink for nineteen years.

Denis Leary? Sober. Kathy Griffin?

Never had a drink.

In doing so, they’re also achieving something the best comedians shine at above all others – asking us to take a real look at ourselves.

For Greg FitzSimmons (best known for his stand-up, podcasts, TV writing, and work with Howard Stern), who grew up in a very Irish family in Tarrytown, NY, drinking and laughter were constant parts of his environment. “The dinner table was a place where you told funny stories,” he said, speaking over the phone from Portland, Oregon where he was doing five shows in early July. “And if someone’s story was boring, you’d give them shit for being boring. It was like the family business.

“My family also drank a lot,” he added. “We had parties at the house, and of course all the holidays revolved around booze, drinking and laughing. It’s the lubricant for good times, for sure.”

Greg started drinking when he was 13, and continued throughout high school and into college. “I was arrested a few

54 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

times for drinking and fighting,” he recalled, “and I was managing my feelings with alcohol and escaping into it.

They were all signs that maybe somebody else wouldn’t have been sensitive to, but I was very sensitive to not ending up unhappy because of my drinking.”

He quit drinking after his first year of doing comedy, when, after being drunk on stage a few times, he realized it wasn’t sustainable. “I can handle bombing, but I couldn’t handle bombing because I had made a bad decision to drink,” he said.

“That felt like I just wasn’t trying hard enough, and if I was going to cripple myself in this way then there was no way I was going to make it.”

Once sober, comedy became his new escape. “It’s like therapy – I get to unload anything,” he enthused. “A lot of my stand-up is just talking about what’s going on in my mind right now, my midlife crisis or my frustration with politics. I get it all out and everybody shuts up and listens, and then they laugh, which gives me immediate gratification. . . . So I don’t miss drinking when I’m doing that, because, as opposed to being the drunk who thinks he’s the center of attention, I actually am the center of attention.”

Other comedians with a history of alcoholism have noted the cathartic nature of their profession. Rob Delaney, the LA-based comedian famous for his Twitter prowess, didn’t start pursuing comedy seriously until a severe drunkdriving accident in 2002 forced him to confront his addiction and depression.

“Comedy brought me to feelings I had never allowed myself before,” he said in

an interview with popular therapists Phil Stutz and Barry Michels. “I was too afraid to try [stand-up] before the accident. Some people would say “but wouldn’t booze help to take the edge off?” It might have, but I know I wouldn’t have been as funny. . . . The happier I am, the funnier I am, even if I’m talking about dark material or things that I’m angry about. If I’m not depressed and

Greg FitzSimmons

I’m not drunk, then hopefully I can see the world more clearly and translate it into the jokes that people enjoy. Mental health and happiness and creativity go together real well, so I always seek to torpedo the idea that you should be a tortured artist.”

Both Delaney and FitzSimmons use their past experiences with alcohol as comedy material. This can sometimes be tough, Greg explained, in comedy clubs where the two-drink minimum more or less guarantees the crowd is mildly buzzed. “Sometimes I will turn the table entirely and talk about how weak people

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are who drink and how I’m better than they are, because I’m so tired of the dynamic of people treating me like there’s something wrong with me because I quit drinking,” he said.

“They’ll go ‘Hey, you want a shot?’ and I’m like ‘No, I quit drinking,’ and then they treat you like an 8-year-old. They’re like ‘Oh, do you want a Coke, or a lollipop?’ So I try to play with that dynamic of not feeling ashamed or less-than because of the fact that I chose clarity in my life.”

Another comedian who is keenly aware of this is Des Bishop. “I know what Irish people think when they hear me say [I’m an alcoholic],” he has said.

“They think ‘Oh, Des Bishop thinks he’s an alcoholic. Typical Yank. I’d say he got sick once and went Oh my God, I lost

Des Bishop

control! I’m an alcoholic! I need to do something about my drinking.’”

Born and raised in Queens, NY, Bishop began drinking at age 12, and at 14 he was sent to Ireland, to study at a boarding school near relatives in Wexford. There, he continued drinking heavily, and by 19, after failing his first year at University College Cork, he decided to do something. He had his last drink at 7:30 a.m. on July 16, 1995, by himself in a pub in Cork. He didn’t do his first gig until he was nearly two years sober, encouraged by someone he met through AA. In the years since, he has become one of

Ireland’s most famous comedians.

Bishop’s humor is decidedly sociallyminded, featuring observations of Irish life from his insider/outsider perspective.

His latest TV series, Under the Influence, a funny but unflinching look at Ireland’s relationship with alcohol, aired on RTE in February and caused a divide among viewers – some lauding it for its insight and courage, others protesting that it paints far too negative an image of Irish life. “You hear a lot about Irish drinking habits these days, and not a lot of it is positive,” he says in the pilot. “The aim of this series is to take a look at what’s driving alcoholism, from the weather to addiction. Why do Irish people drink so much?” It’s not so much a question of tackling behavior, he adds, but of exploring identity.

Over the course of four episodes, he speaks with passersby on the street, revelers with pints, journalists, doctors, comedians and marketing experts. Late on a Friday night he attempts to drive through Dublin city center (or Stumbleville, as he calls it) and encounters a “modern Irish traffic jam” of drunk pub-goers stumbling zombie-like through the streets clutching their high heels and styrofoam takeout boxes. He questions the role of beer companies in sponsoring Irish sports and other national events, travels back to Queens to talk to his mother and aunt, and visits Ireland’s only rehab center for teens to speak with some of the patients.

Not surprisingly, some of the people he speaks to who prove the most adept at analyzing alcohol in Irish life today are his fellow comedians. “It’s become a thing you can blame,” says Abie Philbin Bowman. “‘Oh yeah, of course I’m drunk, I’m Irish. . . . ’ Having the ‘Ah sure everyone does it, it’s fine’ helps us as a people to get over the fact that we’re really guilty about everything.”

“If the only way you can have a good time is by being drunk, what you’re essentially saying is, you don’t actually

know how to have a good time,” David McSavage declares. “And the fact that it baffles people that you can have a good time without drink shows you how insanity has actually been normalized in Ireland.”

Journalist Michael Clifford adds that the association with booze in Ireland has been “overall a hugely negative thing. It projects this image of the jolly, happy, clappy Paddys having a few jars and laughing and coming out of themselves – being funny, talking. That’s great, that’s 8:00 at night stuff. . . .What they leave out is the rest of the night.”

Bishop, who is currently in China taking lessons in Mandarin and filming a new documentary series, has no qualms about stirring up these deep-seated issues. “I’m not trying to make a controversial program, but people are very defensive of alcohol,” he said. “Sometimes my sober presence alone can challenge people, let alone talking about it. I think when you’re challenging people’s behavior, particularly around something as ingrained as Ireland’s drinking habits, there’s going to be some kind of response, sometimes not so positive. I don’t mind rocking the boat to a certain degree, so it’s possibly not the worst thing in the world to not be around when that’s happening, because I’m easily wound up,” he told the Irish Examiner.

Segments from Bishop’s live stand-up routine about alcohol, filmed in Ireland, are interspersed throughout the episodes. In a sense, these are the most interesting scenes, simply because you can see how the audience responds to him. They’re enjoying themselves because he presents his message in such a genuinely funny way. But you can also see the unease – some slight hesitation before laughing, or hearty laughter followed by pause as what he’s really saying settles in.

“My mother was raised in a proper Irish family – she was raised by two alcoholics,” he begins, and the audience releases peals of laughter. “See, that shouldn’t be funny!” he pounces. “That’s the whole thing, this shouldn’t be funny. And on one level you say Ireland doesn’t have a problem, but if it doesn’t have a problem then why the IA fuck is that joke funny?”

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SUICIDE

When They Want to End It Suicide in Ireland, particularly among male teens, is on the rise.

Sharon Ní Chonchúir reports.

F

ew teenagers make a mark on Irish society in the way 16-year-old Tralee native Donal Walsh did. Having battled cancer on three separate occasions, Donal finally succumbed to the disease in May. But before he died, he spread a serious message. He spoke out urging people, especially young people his age, not to commit suicide.

“I was given a timeline on the rest of my life,” wrote Donal in an open letter.

“No choice, no say, no matter… I couldn’t believe all I had was 16 years here and I began to pay attention to every detail that was going on in this town. I realized I was fighting for my life for the third time in four years and this time I have no hope.

Yet I still hear of young people committing suicide and it makes me feel nothing but anger. I feel angry these people choose to take their lives and here I am with no choice.”

Donal took to the national airwaves with his message and even made a memorable appearance on The Late Late Show.

He’s not the only one to have spoken out about suicide in Ireland either. IrishAmerican comedian Des Bishop made reference to it in his latest TV documentary Under the Influence when he linked Ireland’s high alcohol consumption with high rates of suicide in the country.

But what exactly is the situation with suicide in Ireland? Is it as worrying as both Donal and Des maintain?

In Ireland, approximately 500 people commit suicide every year, a figure that gives us the sixth lowest suicide rate in the EU (Greece has the lowest and Lithuania has the highest).

56 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

However, many people who work in the field of mental health believe that suicide figures are underreported and that the true figure from Ireland is likely to be closer to 700 a year.

“That’s two people every day,” says Noel Smyth, Chairman of Turn the Tide of Suicide, “3Ts,” a charity founded in 2003 to raise awareness of the problem of suicide in Ireland and to raise funds for research, educational support and intervention.

“It’s three times the rate of people who die on our roads,” he continues. “We have made dramatic inroads into what used to be described as ‘the carnage on our roads,’ where we have seen young male driving deaths reduced by 50%.

This has not been attained by accident.

Surely this model can be embraced in our fight against suicide and a dedicated Suicide Prevention Authority can finally begin to turn the tide of suicide.”

In a 3Ts report called Suicide in Ireland published in May this year, Dr. Kevin Malone, a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Mental Health at University College Dublin, looked at 104 Irish families bereaved through suicide between 2003 and 2008 and found worrying results.

It was already common knowledge that most suicide victims are male, roughly 80%; what people hadn’t realized is how serious the problem was among younger men.

Dr. Malone’s report found that suicide was the leading cause of death for young men in Ireland and that the country was the fourth highest in the EU in the 15-to24-year-old age group. By analyzing almost 12,000 suicide deaths in those

aged 35 and under, the report identified a four-fold accelerated suicide count up to age 20, leveling off from the age of 21 onwards.

“John B. Keane wrote his famous play Many Young Men of Twenty Said Goodbye, about young men heading off to war,” Dr. Malone says. “Fifty years later, suicide is our war for young men.”

Families interviewed for the report stated a general lack of satisfaction with the treatment given to their loved ones before they died and the services they received in the aftermath of their deaths.

Sixty-six percent reported dissatisfaction with health services, 20% with justice services and 8% with education.

Case studies included a family whose son had been “stitched up in A&E, given a month’s prescription and sent home” after trying to commit suicide, and another family with a suicidal youngster being sent to another hospital with a note that read “sorry, not our area.”

For the first time in Ireland, the report also identified the true extent of suicide clusters. “I think this has been previously under-estimated,” says Dr. Malone. “Our findings suggest that up to 50% of our under-18 suicide deaths in Ireland may be part of couplets or clusters. A young suicide is a powerful and destabilizing social force that can reverberate intensely.”

This report isn’t the only worrying recent finding. A 2011 Mental Health Barometer conducted by pharmaceutical firm Lundbeck found that stigma and embarrassment still surround depression in Ireland. Forty-two percent of those interviewed said they would not want someone close to them who is dealing with depression reaching out to them for

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help, although they did acknowledge that talking and having someone listen is a step towards recovery.

We can conclude then that Ireland has a problem. But what is being done about it? Who, apart from Donal Walsh, Des Bishop and 3Ts, is speaking out and trying to do something?

Console, the national suicide charity, is backing some of the recommendations made in Dr. Malone’s report. They are especially interested in his call for the creation of a real-time database for teen and young adult suicides.

“We need to find out why these trends are happening, but the figures we have are provisional when what we need is accurate and timely data,” says Ciarán Austin, Director of Services with Console. “We need significant changes and investment in research, as the lack of accurate information is impeding our ability to understand and respond to the awful tragedy of suicide. If we could identify trends and clusters, this would help agencies and services to understand the specific problems and, hopefully, to respond sooner.”

Aware, an organization that provides support, information and education about depression and related conditions, takes the view that the threat of suicide is increased in times of recession.

“There may be an increased sense of hopelessness for the future in challenging times like this,” says Aware’s Sandra Hogan. “This can impact especially on people who may already be vulnerable.”

Aware are calling on the government to increase funding for mental health services. “They need to be more widely available and more accessible,” says Sandra.

“There is also a need for a sustained positive awareness campaign highlighting mental health, how to look after it and the sources of support that are available.”

Recognizing that the national budget may not be able to stretch to such services and campaigns, Sandra also emphasizes peoples’ personal responsibilities. In what could be seen as a retort to the Lundbeck Mental Health barometer findings, she says that mental health needs to be normalized. “People need to be able to talk more openly and responsibly about it,” she says. “This would ultimately help people to find it easier to reach out for the help that is available when they need it.”

If that’s what mental health organizations would like to see the government

World Suicide Day poster.

doing, what are they actually doing at the moment? The National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) is in charge of the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of “Reach Out” – the national strategy for action on suicide prevention 20052014. In this ten-year plan the NOSP works with more than 50 agencies and organizations nationwide.

“Partnership is the foundation to effective suicide prevention work in Ireland,” says Michelle Merrigan on behalf of the NOSP. “Suicide prevention is best achieved when individuals, families, health and community organizations, workplaces, government departments and communities work collaboratively to build an infrastructure of suicide prevention and support from local through to national level.”

In 2011 (the last year for which information has been collated), the NOSP had several key achievements. They allocated €1million extra to 22 new projects including training programs for frontline medical staff and improving intervention services for people who engage in suicidal behavior. They developed “Your Mental Health,” a campaign involving radio advertisements and a website that focussed on the importance of good mental health. And they also started work on responding to suicide clusters and developing national guidelines for post primary schools on mental health and suicide prevention.

However, their work has only just begun and in the meantime, organizations such as Console and Aware, academics such as Dr. Malone and committed individuals such as Donal Walsh and Adam Harris are trying to fill the gaps.

Eighteen-year-old Adam from Greystones in Wicklow designed the GraspLife phone app after witnessing the effect of suicide on his own community.

His app enable users to find help in their locality quickly by bringing together all contact details for organizations such as Aware, The Samaritans and Console.

Adam is currently in talks with Three (one of Ireland’s largest mobile phone providers) about pre-installing the app on all new handsets.

“People are embarrassed to talk about mental health with their friends and they don’t know where to go,” says Adam. “I wanted a resource they could use discreetly that had all of the information from Ireland’s largest charities in one place.”

The statistics show that Ireland has a suicide problem. A cursory glance at the figures implies that we compare favorably with other EU countries but in-depth investigation belies this. Irish men and particularly young Irish men have a higher risk of suicide than those in other countries, and more needs to be done to address this at an official level.

All of the organizations working to tackle the problem of suicide and all government departments should be spreading Donal Walsh’s message: “As a 16year-old who has no say in his death sentence, who has no choice in the pain he is about to cause and who would take any chance at even a few more months on this planet, appreciate what you have.

Know that there are always other options IA and help is always there.”

Sharon Ní Chonchúir lives and works in West Kerry. Much of her writing is concerned with the changing face of modern Ireland.

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SUICIDE

Knowing When to Help If you suspect something, do something. April Drew writes of personal experience.

I

t was a little after 8 p.m. on a cold and dark Sunday evening. It was the first Sunday of 2009. Christmas was just over and the January blues were setting in all around the world.

I was sipping tea at my desk in our Bronx apartment and working on the computer when I heard my phone barely beep.

I recognized the sound – an incoming text message.

I contemplated getting up off my chair, putting down my tea and taking a two minute break from work to retrieve the text, but it could wait, I thought. I was busy putting our paper Home and Away (or as it’s known now IrishCentral Community News) to bed. It goes to press on a Sunday evening in New York so I was under the constraints of time.

I left it another few minutes, but curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know who was texting me on a Sunday evening.

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and choosing to follow my curiosity that dark Sunday evening in New York was probably one of the most important decisions I ever made in my life.

When I picked up the phone I saw it was from one of my best friends in the whole world, a male friend (early thirties).

We had been through a lot together through the years. We confided in each other, had a lot of laughs together and got up to silly antics.

He would often text to see how things were going for me in New York, so I could have left it until later to read, but I decided to see what he had to say.

The message read “I always loved you April.”

Now that knocked me for two, because my friend’s messages were always very lighthearted and jovial. The message felt wrong.

I didn’t take it to mean that he loved me romantically, but rather that he loved me like a sister, but why was he randomly telling me this in a text message at 1 a.m.

Irish time?

A dark fear creeped over me. This particular friend had been going through a

58 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

very tough time emotionally for a few years. We had spoken about it many times.

He had been bullied relentlessly as a child. He was in a dark place, and only a few months before this message he told me he had been battling depression for many years.

I was gob-smacked because the same fella was always the life and soul of the party, not a big drinker, but just a big personality and extremely kind hearted.

Something felt wrong about this message. It felt final. My thoughts were racing.

I instantly drew two conclusions. He was either very drunk or was about to take his life. I battled with it another minute, called my then fiancé, now husband, John into the room and filled him in.

Before he got a chance to say anything I called my friend’s phone.

“Hello,” said a very groggy voice at the other end of the line. “Who’s this?”

“It’s April, are you okay, what’s wrong?” I frantically asked.

“I can’t talk, I have to go,” he said and hung up.

He switched his phone off. Again I wasn’t sure if he was drunk (which was a little out of his character) or if he had taken something in an effort to end his life.

I had to make a decision there and then. I was 3,000 miles away in New York. I was helpless but there were others close by.

I called his brother. My instincts told me to. My friend had never told his family he was depressed and didn’t want them to know so I kept it to myself all this time, but that particular Sunday night I couldn’t do it anymore.

The brother’s phone rang out the first time. I tried again, and another groggy voice met me on the other end. I hadn’t time to explain everything. “I feel (friend) has taken an overdose or something. He has been depressed for a long time and I got this strange message that leads me to believe he might be harming himself. God, I hope I’m wrong but you have to go to his house now,” I blurted out.

My friend’s brother was in the car in minutes and arrived at the house by about 1:40 a.m. Irish time. This was 30 minutes after I received the text.

I waited patiently by the phone hoping and praying I was overreacting, and was already getting embarrassed at the thought of it. I went back to doing the paper. I watched the phone every few minutes.

John checked in with me every 10 minutes.

There wasn’t a peep for about an hour.

And then the phone rang.

This time it was the brother in tears. I knew it was bad.

I listened as he explained that my best friend, his younger brother, had taken a large quantity of pills – medication he was on for his depression – and by the time he reached him he was unconscious in the bed, alive but unconscious.

An ambulance was called and he was taken straight to hospital. He was immediately pumped of all the medication in his system, and doctors said he would survive because his brother had gotten to him in time. He was lucky to be alive, they said.

I was relieved and devastated at the same time. I was the only person to receive a text from him that night. I thank God so many times that I chose to look at my phone, because if I waited the outcome could very well have been different.

My friend was saved. He battled with depression (and guilt) for a few weeks after his suicide attempt. He then sought out a wonderful counselor who he claims put him back on the road to recovery.

He didn’t go back on anti-depressants.

Instead he took up cycling (a natural antidepressant). He will tell you to this day that cycling has been his life saver.

He cycles for leisure, for exercise and now has recently begun competing in races throughout Ireland. He loves cycling but he loves his life more. He is ever so grateful that he wasn’t successful in ending it all that dark January evening in 2009. IA April, who now lives in Ireland, works with the Irish Voice and IrishCentral, and will soon launch her own magazine, Brides of Limerick.

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The Doctors

A selection of doctors, many of whom have been honored as Top 100 Irish Americans by this magazine, are working to understand the pressing topics of our time.

Neuroimmunology “This is such a hopeful time — a hopeful era for MS. We’ve seen this disease become a treatable disease in the last decade. But clearly the current therapies need to be started as soon as possible to minimize the ongoing damage, to really control it, to keep people intact.”

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r. Patricia K. Coyle, M.D., is known internationally for her expertise in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), neuroimmunology, and neurological infectious disease (in particular Lyme disease).

In addition to lecturing around the country on MS and other neurological topics, Dr. Coyle has a busy clinical practice and also maintains a research laboratory. She is a professor and vice chair of neurology and the director of the Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center at the Stony Brook University Medical Center, Stony Brook, New York.

Currently, she is involved in many therapeutic trials testing new immunotherapies for MS and says, “The most important thing is to emphasize how critical early diagnosis of MS is.

Our current therapies have the most impact if they’re used very early. Some of the signs of MS include an unexplained neurological problem such as unexpected loss of vision in one eye or sustained double vision or pins and needles or numbness on a body part that’s lasting more than a day, weakness of arms and legs that comes on fairly abruptly over hours to a day or two, or unsteady gait that may occur. A critical diagnostic test should include an MRI brain scan, and/or spinal scan, and analysis of spinal fluid via a spinal tap may be extremely helpful in diagnosis.”

Dr. Coyle received a BS degree with highest honors from Fordham University, Bronx, New York, and got her medical training at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is the oldest of six children and grew up in a lively Irish household (lots of parties and cousins) in the Bronx. All four of her grandparents emigrated from Ireland and she has roots in Counties Donegal, Leitrim and Clare. Family names include Coyle and Dowd on her father’s side, and Conboy and Tuohy on her mother’s.

Grandmother Kate Tuohy lived with the family in their five-room apartment throughout Coyle’s childhood, and Coyle told Irish America that she remembers her as “a strong, dominant force.”

60 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Drug Risks “Evidence has been gathering that nearly all Nsaids pose some cardiovascular risks in heavy users. The real challenge is to manage the risk while treating the patient.”

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r. Garret FitzGerald, was the first to predict that Vioxx and other popular drugs used to reduce the pain and inflammation associated with arthritis could cause heart attack and stroke. (Merck withdrew Vioxx in 2004.)

Back in 1999, FitzGerald, who chairs the Department of Pharmacology directs the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that the use of the popular arthritis drugs were a time bomb waiting to happen. A recent new analysis, as reported in the New York Times, confirmed FitzGerald’s conclusion “that people who take high doses of NSAIDs daily increase their cardiovascular risk by as much as a third. The one exception is naproxen (Aleve), which may actually have a protective effect against heart attacks.”

FitzGerald, who was born in Dublin, has also conducted studies on the molecular clock and its relevance to cardiovascular, metabolic and neurodegenerative disease. He studied medicine at University College Dublin. He has worked in the UK, Germany and Nashville and from 1991-94 he served as Chairman, Department of Medicine and Experimental Therapeutics, UCD, before accepting his post at UPenn.

A fellow of the Royal Society, FitzGerald is the recipient of many honors for his work, including an honorary degree (D.Sc.) from UCD and the Irish Times/ RDS Boyle medal.

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The Doctors MATTHEW CARASELLA/SOCIALSHUTTERBUG.COM

Sports Injuries “Surgical care of the injured athlete is an important part of what we do, but as orthopedic surgeons, we need to remain involved in all aspects of the treatment of our athletes.”

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r. Jo Hannafin, M.D., Ph.D., an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City, has been named the first female president of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM). She will begin her term as president of the 3,042-member organization in July 2014.

“Non surgical care and prevention of sports-related injury remain a critical part of our mission as sports medicine physicians. If you’re a worker who has an injury, people know what to do. Some of what we’ve learned from athletes to get them back to competition faster now helps the rest of the population,” said Hannafin. In a recent interview, she pointed out that “studies of muscle movement also have guided designers of office furniture and equipment to reduce injury risk from repetitive motion, and in the next five to ten years, we’ll learn more about the effects of physical activity on the risk of developing progressive diseases.

We’ll learn more about the effects of changes in exercise and fitness patterns, together with changes in other lifestyles and their roles in [the] prevention or delay of recurrent or extended disease.”

In March, 2013, Dr. Hannafin was honored as Physician of the Year by Castle Connolly Medical Ltd., at a dinner at the Pierre Hotel, New York City. She is currently head team physician for the Women’s National Basketball Association New York Liberty. A lifelong rower – she was a three-time national rowing champion and silver medalist at the 1984 World Championships – she serves as a team physician for the United States rowing team. She is the coauthor, with Marian Betancourt, of PHOTO ABOVE: the book Say Goodbye to Knee Dr. Jo Hannafin, M.D., Pain.

Ph.D., of Greenwich, Dr. Hannafin’s great-grandparents with John J. Connolly, Ed.D, president and on both her mother’s and father’s CEO of Castle side immigrated to the U.S. from Connolly Medical Ltd. Ireland. She traces her roots to counties Kerry and Cork.

62 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Traumatic Brain Injury “Recovery from brain injury varies by individual and degree of damage. Although little can be done to reverse the initial damage, immediate medical treatment is essential for stabilizing, preventing further damage, and beginning physical and mental rehabilitation.”

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r. James P. Kelly, a neurologist and one of America’s top experts on treating concussions, serves the director of The National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), which opened in 2010 and is located on the campus of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. The center was built and equipped through the philanthropy of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, Fisher Foundation and other individuals and groups, in answer to the increasing number of soldier who suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). According to military reports about 230,000 troops – 10 percent of those deployed – have suffered combat related traumatic brain injuries and related psychological health conditions.

When service members with severe TBI fail to respond to conventional medical treatment, they often are referred to NICoE’s program, which finds the best methods to treat their conditions on an individual basis. The patients must also have a co-existing psychological health issue, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety.

“If you add together all of those things in a person, that’s a very complex human condition,” Dr. Kelly said. “It is our job to characterize that complex condition … and its effects on the brain, and look at what works to help them.”

While serving as the NICoE’s Director, Kelly is professor of neurosurgery and physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He has also served as director of the Brain Injury Program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and was the neurological consultant for the Chicago Bears football team. He was the first chairman of the Defense Health Board’s Traumatic Brain Injury External Advisory Subcommittee for Military Clinical Care, Research and Education.

Kelly, who is Irish on his father’s side, explained: “My father, William A. Kelly, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the seventh of eight children of second-generation Irish immigrants who left Ireland around the time of the potato famine. He was 11 years-old when the family moved to Chicago where his father, Dennis Kelly, had found work at the Pullman Standard Railroad Car Company. My father married my mother, Lorraine (nee Sweeney, in Chicago where I was born their sixth (and last) child in 1952.”

After attaining a bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology from Western Michigan University, Kelly graduated from medical school at Northwestern University and completed his neurology residency and behavioral neurology fellowship at the University of Colorado. He co-authored the sports concussion guidelines of the American Academy of Neurology and the Standardized Assessment of Concussion that is widely used in athletic and military settings.

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Orthopedics r. John Kennedy, born in Dublin and educated at Ireland’s Royal College of Surgeons, is a surgeon at New York Hospital for Special Surgery. Dr. Kennedy met Flip Mullen, a retired NYPD and FDNY officer, six years ago at Irish America’s Top 100 awards dinner. Both were being honored for their work helping others: Kennedy for performing orthopedic surgeries free of charge in Santo Domingo, and Mullen for his work with the Wounded Warrior Project, an organization that provides programs and assistance to wounded veterans and their families. The two met and began to talk, and out of their conversation a new partnership was born.

Mullen and other members of the Wounded Warrior Project counsel injured soldiers to consult Dr. Kennedy, for a second opinion. In turn, Dr. Kennedy and his associate, Dr. Austin Fragomen, meet with the wounded soldiers, look at their injuries, and have in certain cases performed surgeries that have saved soldiers from amputation. Mullen and his wife, Rita, house the soldiers and their families while they are in New York. With the increased survival rate from battlefield injuries, the collaboration of Mullen and Dr. Kennedy is ever more important to wounded veterans.

Dr. Kennedy is currently the clinical director of the running clinic at the Hospital for Special Surgery. His interest in sports medicine of the lower limbs is generated by a long personal history in sports, where he competed at national and international levels in track, rugby, fencing, and water skiing.

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Flip Mullen and Dr. Kennedy

Making House Calls “Provide highly individualized and proactive medical care with one goal – optimal patient care.

Health optimization requires a strong, ongoing patient-physician relationship.”

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r. Joseph Mulvehill. For those who are tired of waiting around for a doctor or have a mortal fear of hospital emergency rooms, Dr. Joseph Mulvehill, a New York-based physician, offers “Concierge Medicine.” In other words, patients enjoy 24/7 direct cell phone access to Dr. Mulvehill, unhurried visits (in office or home) and a promise that the patient will never waste their valuable time in a waiting room again.

Many of the county’s premier families and top executives entrust their health to Dr. Mulvehill, who deals with all medical issues, including travel medicine, and efficiently coordinates and monitors additional medical specialists as required. He graduated with a BS in biochemistry from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and earned his medical degree from SUNY Stony Brook in Stony Brook, NY. He completed his residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, and is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine on the staff of Mount Sinai Medical Center and an Attending Physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and is a member of The New York County Medical Society, The American Medical Association, The American College of Physicians, The International Society of Travel Medicine, and The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dr. Mulvehill is from County Westmeath, Ireland.

Cancer “Physicians have a very limited amount of time, so we are putting the same trusted and critical information from our journals at their fingertips, on-demand. All of the journals’ content an resources can be immediately retrieved wherever they are!”

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r. Martin ‘Marty” Murphy is founding chairman and CEO of AlphaMed Consulting, Inc., a company that provides strategic support for academic cancer centers and cancer drug development programs of global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. As chief executive officer of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer, he is a prominent proponent for cancer research on the international scene. He is also the founding executive director of The Oncologist, a top-tier clinical cancer research journal published in the United States; the founding executive editor of both Stem Cells, a journal of stem cell biology; and of the journal Stem Cells Regenerative Medicine.

Dr. Murphy championed the All Ireland Cancer Concord, a bilateral agreement focused on cancer research. For his his promotion of cross-border cancer research collaboration by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, Queen’s University Cancer Center in Belfast and cancer centers in the Republic of Ireland, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University School of Medicine in Belfast, where he is a charter member of the International Review Board.

Co-founder of the Society for Translational Oncology, he is a member of the National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a director of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, a charter member and director of C-Change, founded by former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, and was recently named a fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Murphy was formerly CEO and president of the Hipple Cancer Research Center, which he founded in 1977 and led for 20 years. He is married to Dr. Ann Murphy, president of AlphaMed Press.They have five children and 10 grandchildren. In 2003, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern presented Dr. Murphy with his Irish citizenship. His ancestors are from Achill Island, County Mayo.

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 63

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The Doctors Oncology “The two key things are to find better screening methods for earlier detection [of pancreatic cancer] and to develop better treatment options. Perhaps the one that is likely to have the greatest impact is earlier identification of the disease.”

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The Underprivileged “Nothing changes in the life of a homeless person unless you can take the time to win their trust, be present — all the things that we don’t get a chance to do when you’re training in the health care system where you’ve got about seven minutes with each person or somebody’s going to be on you to move on to the next person.”

Dr. Jim O'Connell talking to Sacha Pfeiffer of 90.9 WBUR

r. James Joseph O’Connell’s accomplishments cannot be adequately covered in just a few words. He is a brilliant physician, tireless philanthropist and conscientious advocate for the underprivileged.

Dr. O’Connell graduated Salutatorian in 1970 from the University of Notre Dame, and earned an MA in theology at St. John’s College, Cambridge, England in 1972. He then went on to study medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Upon completion of his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, he became one of the founding physicians of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP). Dr. O’Connell recalls that when he initially got involved with the BHCHP, he never thought it was going to be his career. He says at that time he was aided by his sense of “sixties social conscience” and thought of it as a temporary position. It has now blossomed into a $20 million a year program with equivalent programs popping up in major U.S. cities around the country. Besides being the President of the BHCHP, Dr. O’Connell is also a practicing physician at one of the program’s many clinics throughout Boston.

Dr. O’Connell has established respite care programs for the homeless and served as the National Program Director for the Homeless Families Program which is instrumental in placing families from shelters and the streets into permanent housing.

Dr. O’Connell has also taught medicine at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston University. He holds seats on many health care boards and is a prolific author of books and journal articles. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, he was recently awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism – past recipients include Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter.

Dr. O’Connell’s father’s family hails from the Dingle Bay in County Kerry while his mother’s family comes from Cork. Both sides immigrated after the Great Famine to Newport, RI, and it is in that city that Dr. O’Connell was born, raised, and which he “still thinks of as home.”

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r. Eileen O’Reilly, Associate Member of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Associate Professor of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, received her medical degree at Trinity College, Dublin. She completed her fellowship training at MSKCC and has been a faculty member in the GI Oncology service at MSKCC since then. Pancreatic and biliary cancers are the major focus of her clinical and research activities. Research initiatives include integration of molecular-based therapies and novel therapeutics for the treatment of pancreatic cancer along with development of adjvuant and neoadjuvant therapy.

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma, remains one of the most challenging malignancies. Of 44,000 people diagnosed in 2012, 37,000 died from the disease. “To have a major impact in terms of outcomes, we need to be able to screen successfully and diagnose this disease earlier, and both of those are elusive challenges at the moment,” O’Reilly, who is Irish-born, said in an interview with Joe Cavallo. Research on the disease continues. “We have a number of clinical trials underway at MSKCC in pancreatic cancer. One area of particular interest is a study of BRCA-related pancreatic cancer. BRCA mutations affect a relatively small subset of patients with pancreas cancer (about 5-7%), but in the Northeast we see a somewhat higher frequency of BRCA-related pancreatic cancer because New York has a large Ashkenazi Jewish population, in which BRCA mutations are relatively frequently found. This subgroup of patients may have selectively increased benefit to platinum agents and PARP inhibitor drugs (experimental agents). In several ongoing clinical trials we are currently elucidating the benefit of this treatment approach and looking to understand mechanisms of resistance.

At a national level, Dr. O’Reilly is the Chair of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Pancreas Task Force, and a member of the Alliance Co-operative group Gastrointestinal core committee. Dr. O’Reilly is also an Associate Chair of the MSKCC IRB and Privacy Board, a member of Research Council and is the recent past president of the MSKCC medical staff.

IA

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Pharma Leaders A selection of leaders in the pharmaceutical industry who have been featured on Irish America’s Business 100 list and who continue to shape the future of medicine.

Melanoma “We hope to make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients living with metastatic melanoma.” eirdre Connelly is president, North America Pharmaceuticals for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

The global health care company announced on July 25 that Health Canada had approved a BRAFinhibitor, Tafinlar, and MEK-inhibitor, Mekinist, for melanoma patients with BRAF V600 mutation, offering new hope for those afflicted with metastatic melanoma.

Deirdre is a member of the global Corporate Executive Team and co-chairs, along with the Chairman, Research and Development, the Portfolio Management Board. She has also serves as the CEO and President of Human Genome Sciences Inc. Consistently recognized by Fortune as one of the 50 most powerful women in business, Deirdre was named Woman of the Year by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association in 2012.

In 2008, she was appointed to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.

Deirdre was born in San Juan to an Irish father and a Puerto Rican mother. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and marketing from Lycoming College in Pennsylvania and graduated from Harvard University’s Advanced Management Program, and in January 2013 was appointed to the Harvard University Public Health Policy Council.

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Pompe Disease “You think about what we were able to do with so many people along the way; that was really cutting-edge science.” ohn Crowley is the Chairman and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. John’s involvement with biotechnology stems from the 1998 diagnosis of two of his children, Megan and Patrick, with Pompe disease – an often fatal neuromuscular disorder. In his drive to find a cure for his children, he left his position at BristolMyers Squibb and became an entrepreneur as the co-founder, president and CEO of Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, a biotech start-up conducting research on a new experimental treatment for Pompe disease (which he credits as ultimately saving his children’s lives).

Novazyme was acquired by Genzyme Corporation in 2001.

John and his family were the inspiration for the motion picture Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford. John’s personal memoir is Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope and Joy. John is also a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, assigned to the United States Special Operations Command and is a veteran of the global war on terrorism, with service in Afghanistan.

He earned a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School and an M.B.A. from Harvard. He is also a member of the University Council on Science & Technology at Notre Dame. He serves on the executive committee of the National Board of Directors of the Make A Wish Foundation of America and is a founding board member of the Global Genes Project. John is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He and his wife Aileen have roots in Co. Cork.

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Arthritis A rheumatoid arthritis treatment has been approved for patients who had an inadequate response to existing therapies. acDara Lynch has a long association with Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant that announced on July 13, that a breakthrough drug, tofactitinib, had been approved for rheumatoid arthritis. Lynch is vice president/team leader of Pfizer’s Global External Supply Division.

Born in Bandon, Co. Cork, MacDara joined Pfizer

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66 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

in 1972 having graduated from University College Cork with a BSc degree in chemistry. He has served in leading positions in many countries with Pfizer.

Throughout his travels, he has been active in the local community – he served as Honorary Irish Consul in Indonesia for two years. He is a member of the board of directors of the Ireland-U.S. Council and Cooperation Ireland. MacDara and his wife Ita have three children and two grandchildren and live in Connecticut. He says being Irish “helps to refocus on what is really important in life.”

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Stem Cells

Multiple Sclerosis

His research led to the discovery of pleiotrophin, a novel growth factor that regulates stem cell differentation.

Developing a drug candidate for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and cognitive dysfunction in multiple sclerosis.

eter G. Milner, M.D., is CEO of Heart Metabolics, a company that makes drugs for treating heart disease, and President and CEO of AshHill Pharmaceutical Investments, LLC. A Co. Tipperary native, Peter was a finalist in the 2012 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards. He was educated at the University of Liverpool, receiving a medical degree in 1980, and completed postgraduate training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the University of Virginia, and Washington University in St. Louis.

In 1992, as an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, Milner’s research led to the discovery of pleiotrophin (PTN), a novel growth factor that regulates stem cell differentiation, organ development, and the epithelial mesenchymal transition. Dr. Milner, who co-founded Optivia Biotechnology, Inc., a private company recognized as a leader in the emerging field of transporter biology,. is co-inventor on 48 issued patents, and an author of 28 scientific articles in Science, Biochemistry, Circulation, Cancer, JCI, and JBC. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC), and a board certified physician and cardiologist.

He serves as adjunct clinical faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine, and as a board member of the California Healthcare Institute.

Heart Metabolics recently received orphan designation from the US Federal Drugs Administration (FDA) and in the past week raised four billion dollars in Series A funding. If a major trial of the drug is successful, Heart Metabolics could be well on its way to being the next threebillion-dollar pharmaceuticals business.

r. John Monahan, Ph.D., serves as Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Synthetic Biologics Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the development of biologics for the prevention and treatment of serious infectious diseases, and developing a drug candidate for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and cognitive dysfunction in multiple sclerosis. John joined Synthetic Biologics as Senior Vice President, Research & Development in 2011. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada in 1974 and his B.S. in Science from University College, Dublin, Ireland in 1969. In 1992, he founded and built Avigen, Inc., a biotech company that pioneered and led the development of gene medicines based on AAV vectors, an industry standard. He co-founded Tacere Therapeutics, Inc. in 2006 and serves as Director. He served as Chairman of Genable Technologies Ltd. and serves as Non-Executive Director. He serves as a Director of Cellix Ltd., Genable, Pharmatrin and GK Technologies and as Director of IdentiGEN Ltd. since 2007 and Heat Biologics, Inc. since 2009.

John has published scientific writings extensively and has made hundreds of presentations including public TV interviews, to scientific groups, investors and the public in general over the years.

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Dennis Purcell ennis Purcell has served as the Senior Managing Director of Aisling Capital since February 2000. The fund has approximately $1.7 billion of assets under management.

Prior to joining Aisling Capital, Dennis served as Managing Director of the Life Sciences Investment Banking Group at Chase H&Q for over five years.

While at Hambrecht & Quist, he was directly involved with over two hundred completed transactions and supervised over $10 billion of financing and advisory assignments in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical products industries.

During his tenure, BioWorld and other industry publications cited H&Q as the leading underwriter of life sciences securities. Dennis is a frequent commentator on the industry and has been honored in the “Biotech Hall of Fame” by Genetic Engineering News, named to the Biotechnology All-Stars list by Forbes ASAP and cited as one of the top 100 contributors to the biotechnology industry. Prior to joining H&Q, Dennis was a Managing Director in the Healthcare Group at PaineWebber, Inc. Dennis currently serves as a director of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Previously he served as a director of Aton Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Bridge Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Cengent Therapeutics, Inc., Dynova Laboratories, Inc., and Valentis, Inc. He has served as a member of the Advisory Council at Harvard Medical School, the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Industry Association, as well as the New York Biotechnology Association and the Irvington Institute. He also serves on the board of L.E.K. consulting.

Dennis received his M.B.A. from Harvard University and his B.S. in Accounting from the University of Delaware.

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An Irish Tradition:

Nursing Compassion mixed with equal doses of technical competence and good humor has enabled Irish nurses to help generations of American patients.

By Teresa O’Dea Hein

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urses were Ireland’s biggest export in the late 1980s when Anne Kelly finished her five years of training, first as a nurse and then as a midwife. “The job situation at home was bad and everyone was going somewhere else,” she recalls.

Kelly herself was recruited to come to New York City in 1987 from Kilconnell, Co. Galway, to work at Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center but it wasn’t her first time working outside Ireland.

Earlier, Kelly had spent 10 months as a midwife in Saudi Arabia, where one of her head nurses had worked a few years before. “It was a major experience for me, working with Irish, English and American nurses and doctors. I helped deliver a lot of babies there and studied Arabic to learn enough to communicate.”

Kelly credits her successes to her nursing studies at University Hospital, Galway, where the nuns were in charge.

“Wherever we go, our training has stood to us,” she notes. “It’s in us to do the best we can for every patient. I think Irish nurses get on very well everywhere.

“The nuns were strict — insisting that our skirts were a certain length, for example — but they taught us from the very beginning that the patient is the most important person,” Kelly recalls. “‘Imagine that’s your family member there in the bed,’ the nuns always told us.

“So I always think, what if this was my relative? How would I feel?”

While Kelly insists “I’m no Mother Teresa,” she admits, “It’s always been in my head: How can I help the patient more? I think it’s in our DNA as Irish people to be kind, to go that extra mile,” Kelly continues, “and the patients feel it.

68 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

They know we’re on their side. It may mean taking a few extra minutes to pick up on little things. Often, when you talk to a patient you hear worry in their voice and you try to find out what specifically is causing that concern.”

Without a doubt, Kelly makes it clear that nursing skills are number one, but to be able to reassure a fearful patient with a kind word – that’s the ideal combination.

“Illness can unravel the most organized, successful person, so to be able to help them to be calm and develop a posMary Anne Gallagher

itive attitude is invaluable,” Kelly notes.

“The patient is not just a number. Even when dealing with a huge volume of patients, we need to remember that.”

Strong, independent spirits “Irish women tend to be very independent and like to take charge, so what better type of person to be a patient advocate?” asks Mary Anne Gallagher, Director for Patient Care Services at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.

With the right blend of humor, firmness and, yes, stubbornness, Irish nurses have the ability to engage the patient, she says. “They can cajole, encourage and get a patient to do the right thing, such as prompting post-operative patients to get out of bed and mitigate potential complications.”

Gallagher, whose grandparents emigrated from Creeslough, Donegal; Ballinalee, Longford, and Kenmare, Kerry, earned her Bachelor’s degree in nursing from Hunter College and Master’s in nursing from New York University. Currently, she’s in the process of applying for Irish citizenship.

To demonstrate the independent nature of Irish women, Gallagher points to historic patterns of immigration. “Irish women were unusual in that, unlike most other immigrant groups, many of them emigrated on their own to America.”

Indeed, one of Gallagher’s grandmothers came over by herself in 1916.

Gallagher remembers back when her supervisor went on recruiting trips to Ireland to interview Irish nurses, who were very much in demand in the States.

“We knew the standard of training there was very high, so Irish nurses who came over were likely to pass their state licensing exams, and they were English speaking.”

Naturally, there were some adjustments to American ways of doing things, which were covered in training sessions.

For example, she explains, the Irish nurses had to adapt to increased paperwork requirements “because we work in a more litigious country.”

In the Irish spirit of sociability, Gallagher also consulted with two fellow Irish-American nurses at Beth Israel on this topic and found that all three shared similar perspectives.

Cathy Sullivan, who holds a Master’s degree as a Family Nurse Practitioner, and is also a director of Patient Care Services, points out, “Independence and

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Anne Kelly and Maryellen O’Sullivan who work at Memorial SloanKettering

understand the power of language and the distinctions between being sincere and patronizing. “We’re going to take good care of you,” she promises, rather than just using a pat, overworked phrase like, “You’re going to be alright.”

Engaging styles

PHOTO: KIT DEFEVER

opportunities for education were big factors in Irish women entering a nursing career. Back in the early 1900s, nursing was considered well matched with Christ’s teachings, and Irish orders of nuns encouraged women to enter the healthcare industry,” Sullivan says.

“Education for women was encouraged in this field.”

Another Beth Israel colleague, Catherine Coughlin, the emergency department’s nurse manager, highlights the fact that “the nursing profession was respected by the Irish – nursing was not equally respected in all cultures.” In the past, she says, smart girls became nurses (or teachers) because those professions were considered acceptable for women.

Coughlin identifies two other factors that contributed to the popularity of nursing as a career choice: “Public service is part of the Irish culture, and a strong work ethic is instilled by parents and the church, and that got passed down in Irish American homes also,” she says.

Kind words Anne Shea Flynn, who also earned her nursing degree from Hunter College, is a first-generation Irish American whose parents hailed from Port Magee, Kerry and Mountbellew, Galway. When she was considering career choices, it was her mother who inspired her to study nursing.

Flynn now works at St. Francis

Hospital in suburban New York but during her years at Roosevelt Hospital in midtown Manhattan, she had the opportunity to interact with a number of nurses from Ireland who impressed her with their skills and attitude. “They were well Anne Shea Flynn

trained, were kind and well spoken, had a good work ethic, and had a wonderful rapport with patients and doctors.”

While Flynn takes care of cardiac patients in a high-tech environment, she makes sure to put her warm Irish personality to work as well. “People come in for tests and because they’re going under anesthesia, they’re often nervous and worried,” she explains.

Flynn reassures them, choosing her words carefully, as the Irish instinctively

Maryellen O’Sullivan, whose grandparents came from Tipperary and Kerry, received her Bachelor’s degree in nursing from Wagner College and an advanced practice degree from NYU. As a nurse leader at Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center’s Sidney Kimmel Center for Prostate and Urologic Cancers, O’Sullivan has five nurses on her staff who were trained in Ireland and also works with many nurses of Irish descent.

In comparing the approach of Irish nurses in greeting patients and doing assessments, O’Sullivan has observed that culturally, “they tend to have a softer, more engaging style and use some humor, which makes patients feel more at ease.”

Even the Irish accent can sometimes be a nice talking point that patients enjoy picking up on, she adds. “In a big institution, if you can humanize the experience and make personal connections, it’s very helpful.”

During the more than 25 years that O’Sullivan has been in nursing, she has seen the first wave of Irish nurses who arrived in the 1980s and a second wave in the last 10 years, as more return to the workforce after a break to raise children or do other things.

O’Sullivan reports that Irish nurses “have a strong history of being extremely well schooled and competent, very hard workers and exceptionally dependable.”

Technology has become much more of a presence in nursing today, O’Sullivan says, but the “key thing is meaningful use of technology, and while it can be a learning curve for some people, it doesn’t take away from their ability to do a nursing assessment or to develop an individual plan of care.”

No matter the specialty or sub-specialty, Irish nurses have demonstrated their abilities to bridge the Old and New worlds with grace, good humor and IA ability.

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Hospital Nuns From the Civil War to Chicago’s Mercy Hospital, the extraordinary history of Irish nuns in health care. By Mary Pat Kelly

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he Sisters of Mercy were the first women to go with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War in 1854. They worked with her to make nursing more effective and to improve sanitary conditions.

In America, the Sisters of Mercy would make their impact on the battlefields in the Civil War, beginning a legacy in health care that is still going strong today.

“Veritable angels of mercy” are the words President Abraham Lincoln used to describe the nuns he saw tending wounded soldiers at one of the 25 military hospitals hurriedly set up around Washington to receive the more than 20,000 casualties – Union and Confederate – of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. “Of all the forms of charity and benevolence seen in the crowded wards those of the Catholic sisters were among the most efficient,” Lincoln wrote after visiting Stanton Hospital, staffed by the Sisters of Mercy, the order founded by Catherine McAuley in Dublin barely 30 years before. “More lovely than anything in art are the pictures that remain with me of these sisters going on their rounds of mercy among the suffering and dying.”

A nice sentiment, but by sanctifying these sisters he unintentionally diminished their human accomplishments. The 36 sisters who nursed at Stanton Hospital, near Washington, D.C., were not angels but women. Tough, determined, intelligent women with names like Murphy, Byrne, Ward, Leahy, and Maguire. Surely, they had to push themselves beyond their fears to face the horrors of war.

Six hundred nuns from twelve religious communities served as U.S. Army nurses during the Civil War. They served on the battlefield and gave their lives. A group of Sisters of Mercy traveling to St. Louis on a Union steamboat took fire from a Confederate 70 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

TOP: Sisters of Mercy with Union soldiers.

ABOVE, left to right: Rev. Mother Xavier Warde; Sister Mary Veronica Ryan, the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Loyola University; Mother Mary who ran the Mercy School of Nursing.

gun battery and worked through it, tending the wounded. At Gettysburg one St. Joseph sister wiped the blood-covered face of a young soldier to discover that he was her 18 year-old brother.

When the Sisters of Providence (the community I was a member of for six years) took over the military hospital in Indianapolis during the Civil War, they found, as hospital inspector Dr. John M.

Kitchen would write in a report, “a miserable state of filth and disorder, the sick in wretched conditions,” and would go on to create “a clean comfortable house for the sick soldiers . . . Whatever success may have attended our efforts is due in great degree to these meek and worthy women.”

Worthy? Yes. Meek? No. The orders who sent their sisters to the front line did so despite the fact that Dorthea Dix did not want them. All biographical information on Dix, who had been appointed by the U.S. government to recruit nurses, mentions her anti-Catholicism. She

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refused to accept Catholic women and nuns as nurses.

But nuns were already operating 30 hospitals around the country, and the doctors and public officials who knew their work by-passed Dix and welcomed them.

The Irish Sisters of Mercy, like orders of Polish, German and Italian, opened their hospitals to all no matter their religion, background or ability to pay.

The Sisters of Mercy in Chicago, who founded Mercy Hospital in 1847, also founded a nursing academy and subsidized the hospital with the tuition collected from the young women in their academic programs.

A great number of the hospitals and education academies throughout the U.S. were built with money raised by nuns. Yet they were always at the mercy of the bishops. In 1871, Mother Theodore Guerin, the French founder of the Sisters of Providence, was excommunicated by Hal Italiandiere, the local bishop, for refusing to hand over the deed to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods women’s college in Indiana. She appealed to Queen Amelie of France, the bishop was replaced, and she was reinstated.

In 1864, Bishop James Duggan of Chicago, whose sister Mary Jane was a Mercy nun, decided to take over Mercy Hospital and gave the Sisters two days to evacuate their patients. Led by Mother Frances Monhalland, the nuns moved 100 sick and dying people to St. Agatha’s Academy, which would become the core of the new hospital.

As it turned out, the bishop’s hospital burned down in the Chicago Fire of 1872 and the new Mercy Hospital was much needed. By that time Bishop Duggan had been institutionalized as mentally incompetent.

In the years following the Civil War, nuns established 800 hospitals, the basis for a network of Catholic hospitals that now serves one in six patients, the largest private group in the U.S. Two recent books tell that story. John Flalkas in Catholic Nuns and the Making of America looks at the service of nuns, especially the Sisters of Mercy in the West, including their encounters with Billy the Kid. In Collect to Serve: A History of Nuns in America, Margaret M. McGuinness documents the growth of religious orders. In 1968 there were about 204,000 women religious in the U.S. Most were involved in education, staffing the largest parochial school system in the world, while running 10,000

of their own schools, colleges and universities. But we’re going to focus on the nuns in health care.

Chicago’s Mercy Hospital is an example of how these early pioneers continue to inspire and shape patient care today.

Sister Sheila Lyne, R.S.M., first served as a C.E.O. and president of Mercy Hospital and Medical Center from 1976 to 1991. She left when Mayor Richard N. Daley asked her to become Chicago’s Commissioner of Public Heath, the first non-doctor to hold that post. She returned to Mercy in 2000 because the male team hired to succeed her had mismanaged the hospital into near-bankruptcy. She turned Mercy around, and this year, helped negotiate a merger with the Trinity Health Corporation, one of the nation’s largest hospital systems. It is comprised of many facilities founded by Religious Sisters, and will provide Mercy with the funds necessary to continue its mission.

Sister Sheila, 77, just turned over her CEO position to Carol Schneider but she will remain on the Mercy Foundation board. When we spoke, she was readying herself for a trip to Ireland. She would visit family in Killarney and enjoy a retreat at the Mercy Convent on Baggot Street, Dublin, where Catherine McAuley had begun her ministry, and with whom Sister Sheila shares a bond.

“When Catherine McAuley was a young child her father told her, ‘You must go out every day and feed the poor’ and my father told me the same thing,” Sister Sheila said. “He was from Killarney, Ireland, and he was a strong union man. I remember right before he died at 86, I said, ‘Maybe the day was over when it took a union to make employers do the right thing.’ And he gave me this look like ‘You can’t teach her anything!’ He was a really good man.

“Catherine McAuley’s father died when she was five but she never forgot that lesson. We [Mercy nuns] have emulated her.

CLOCKWISE: Sister Sheila Lyne; Bishop James Duggan; Mother Theodore Guerin, founder of The Sisters of Providence; Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy.

Not perfectly. You can’t take care of everybody, and yet can we send people away? I don’t think so. Even though I’m officially retired now I’m around the hospital a lot and I keep my eyes open to make sure no one is turned away because they can’t pay.

“Mercy has never made a distinction between those who can pay and those who can’t. That’s the spirit here and the doctors are part of it. In the 1980’s we decided to employ our physicians so they became a part of the hospital and even though they may not earn as much here as in other places, we don’t have many who leave.”

Sister Sheila grew up in Chicago’s Little Flower Parish and went to Mercy High School. She remembers, “The Sisters were so dominant in and of themselves. Their attitude was, this is what should be done, do it. And they did. I wanted to be a sister and a nurse but wasn’t sure if I could do both, as most of the sisters worked in education and only a few got to train as nurses. Two of us got chosen from my group and I was one. And then soon after I finished Basic Nursing, President John F. Kennedy decided we needed more psychiatric nursing care and made grants available. We had a sister very active in health care trends and she was right there. So we got money to train eight individuals – six lay people and two sisters and I was one of them.

“After I got my Master’s I went to our hospital at Davenport, Iowa. At that time the Sisters of Mercy had 69 hospitals.

After a few years in Iowa, I came back to Mercy Chicago. There always has been a psychiatric unit at Mercy hospitals. The tradition started with soldiers suffering from shell shock after World War I. The sisters also opened a unit to treat those suffering from venereal diseases. That’s AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 71

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The Mercy nursing class of 1905. The graduates are: (L-R) Genevieve Conway, Margaret Butler, Grace O’Brien, Mate Gorman, Agnes Blewett, Isabel Devlin, Miss Knaup, Nell Armstrong, Sue O’Hara, Bertha Langdon, Grace Mathieu, Ethel Stonerock, Miss Cudian, Katherine O’Donnell, Maud McGinnis, Margaret Flaherty and Julia McGurn. Also graduating in 1905 class but not shown in photograph were Sister Mary Martha Devine, Sister Mary Victorine Lippert, Sister Mary Lidwina Zens.

how the Sisters work. If that’s the disease you have, that’s what we’ve got to take care of.”

Sister Sheila became head of the hospital in 1976 and held that position until 1990. “And then Richard Daley, who, by the way, was born in this hospital, asked me to help him find a doctor to head up the City Health Department. A doctor always held that post. But as the Mayor looked, we’d meet and I’d give him suggestions about the department until one day he said, ‘Why don’t you take the job?’

So I did. I was there until 2000, and I’m happy that we were able to bring down the state of infant mortality from 17 in 100 to 10 in 100, though it should be two or three. And I greatly increased the funding for AIDS patients.”

In 2000, Mercy needed Sister Sheila again. She didn’t elaborate on the financial crises or her role in solving it, but she spoke vehemently about one proposed solution for Mercy Hospital.

“When Loyola University was moving their Medical Center to the suburbs they wanted us to move out with them. But how could we leave Chicago? We were born and raised here and have served the city since 1847. There were those who urged us to move so we’d get away from poor people. But we’re not running from the poor! What would Catherine McAuley think of us if we did?”

It was hard to get Sister Sheila to talk about her own accomplishments, but you can’t spend any time at Mercy Hospital without hearing stories of sisters in charge.

Dr. John Picken has been on the staff at Mercy Hospital for nearly 50 years as an obstetrician and gynecologist. He and his wife Ginny live a five-minute walk away.

John got his first job as a medical student in 1959.

“I applied to the medical records office and the Sister in charge hired me. She was very old but surprisingly innovative. In 72 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

those days every time you got admitted to the hospital you got a new medical record number and your papers would be filed away. And of course no one could find them the next time. Sister invented the idea of a Universal Lifetime Medical Record Number. She was preparing for electronic medical records long before computers existed, and also divided charts into sections so all the information could be found easily.

“I also remember that all the hospital security at night consisted of was one large nun and her German Shepherd.

Believe me, no one got past them.

“When I started here as a doctor every one of the 16 nursing units had a nun in charge – Surgery, OB, Emergency Room, Finance, Supplies, Billing – everything.

And their convent was on the top floor of the hospital so they were available night and day, 7 days a week. And they wanted to be awakened if they were needed.” The nuns didn’t just have excellent skills. They were compassionate and caring, but they also had tons of good business sense.

Picken recalls that when Sister Sheila came back to take over Mercy in 2000 after a disastrous period of mismanagement by CEO and CFO there was only enough money for 60 days of salaries.

“We were 60 days from closing,” Picken said. “The CFO had closed the billing department so the hospital wasn’t getting reimbursed. Sister Sheila had enough clout so that when we submitted our back bills to Medicare, Medicaid and the insurance companies, they paid up. She found we weren’t getting the correct bed-per-day payments from one of the biggest insurance carriers. She had a meeting with them and said, ‘You know you’re doing wrong. Now you can redeem yourselves.’

And they did.”

Ginny Picken, a Feldenkreis practitioner, talked about Sister Sheila’s hands-on approach. “The Feldenkreis method [a

therapy used to improve health through increased awareness of movement] can dramatically help children who suffer from various palsies. I was working with a little girl who was making enormous progress, but her mother had very limited resources.

I showed Sister a picture charting the child’s improvement. ‘We’d be stupid not to support this [method]. It works,’ she said. She went and got a grant so that I could continue to work with the child.”

Ginny, who is married to Dr. Picken, produced and directed a documentary called Promises To Keep to mark the 150th anniversary of the hospital.

Promises highlights the amazing foremothers of the hospital, including Sister Mary Agatha O’Brien, a young woman from County Carlow, who was one of the seven Sisters of Mercy who left Ireland for the wilds of Pittsburgh in 1843. Four years later, she led a group of five religious to Chicago. She was 24, the oldest of the five.

Two were novices, and two postulants.

One novice, Sister Mary Vincent McGirr, would head the group of nuns that established Mercy as the first permanent hospital and first teaching hospital in Chicago.

Her doctor brother joined her at Mercy.

Sister Mary Vincent was the only one of the original five to survive the rigors of the frontier. The others died within 10 years, but not before they’d established the first high school in Chicago, as well as three other schools and an orphanage.

And then there was Mother Mary Frances De Sales Monhalland, an Armagh native who arrived in Chicago to join the Sisters in 1847. She had run her father’s grocery business in New York, and her business acumen became essential to the Sisters’ mission. In a time when women could not own land, she set up a corporation to hold the Sisters’ property, thus protecting their schools and hospitals from more takeovers by male clergy. She was the visionary who raised the money to

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build and expand Mercy Left: Mercy Hospital and Medical Hospital and the many Mercy Center, Chicago. Below: Sister Mary Ignatius Feeney, the first education institutions. woman pharmacist in Illinois.

Then there was Sister Mary Ignatius Fenney, the first woman pharmacist in Illinois.

She was the only woman among a group of forty to sit for the first licensing exam, and one of only three who passed.

Another innovator was Sister Mary Ethelrida O’Dwyer who became the grasses of the Illinois prairie first woman anesthetist and worked with – tamed now and a very difDr. John B. Murphy, who pioneered surgiferent place from the wild cal breakthroughs that changed medicine. frontier town Chicago used to The list of heroic sisters goes on and on be. And yet challenges and the stories accumulate. remain. Abraham Lincoln One favorite of all the Mercy stories is concluded his discussion of from 1904, about a man who was hit by a the Sisters of Mercy by saystreetcar. He was brought to Mercy and ing “they had the courage of cared for though he could not pay. Months soldiers” with only “hope to after his release, a letter arrived from a Mr. sustain them in contact with such horrors.” saved my life. I’m sorry all those terrible Ferris Thompson, a friend of the man who In 2010, at another Sisters of Mercy things happened to you because of me,” had been treated. He enclosed a check for Hospital, St. Joseph’s in Phoenix, Sister the woman said. And I told her I had $250,000. Thompson was the son of a Margaret McBride, a member of the hosreceived lots of support from the doctors, New York banker. He’d married a countpital’s ethics board, acquiesced with a the employees, the board of directors and ess and moved to Paris. Every year until medical decision to terminate the 11Catholic Health Care West.

1945, a check for $5,000 arrived and then week pregnancy of a 27-year-old mother “In some wonderful and beautiful way a final bequest of $200,000. The money of four. Neither she nor her baby had any when you go through challenges and diffiwent toward housing the newly set up chance if the operation was not perculties, grace comes. I never would have school of nursing – another first. formed. When Bishop Thomas Olmsted realized that except for this experience,” “The philosophy of Mercy Nursing is heard of this he declared Sister Margaret Sister Margaret said. She reconciled with inspired by Catherine [McAuley] and excommunicated. The media descended the Church and the excommunication has based on unconditional love, tenderness – and she was caught in a controversy that been lifted. The bishop required that she engaging the heart and soul of the nurse in almost destroyed her life. Yet Sister go to confession and resign her position, the work of caring for all we serve,” Margaret found healing through a conwhich she did, but she is now back on the Ginny explained. versation with the young mother whose staff of the hospital. She remains with the I asked Nurse Eileen Knightly, the life had been saved. The woman made a Sisters of Mercy who supported her durdirector of the Sister Sheila Lyne Breast return visit to the hospital in 2011 and ing her ordeal.

Center, how that philosophy worked in asked to see Sister Margaret. “ I walked The hospitals that the Sisters of Mercy practice. She cited the atmosphere and into the room and burst into tears and so and other religious orders of nuns, design of the Center – quiet, comfortable did she,” said Sister Margaret. ‘You brought into being more than a century and private. – as examples. She ago, continue to serve the also pointed to a sign on her public. Though the nuns wall that says in effect, If you who maintained them have don’t like our customers you’re passed the torch to a new in the wrong job. “Patient satisgeneration, the legacy of faction comes first,” she says.

Catherine McCauley, who Eileen has been at Mercy since started a movement that at her teens, and her story of one time had nine thousand Sister Sheila concerns meeting hospitals, endures throughthe hospital director on a stairIA out the country. way. “I was 16, working as a ward secretary, the lowliest of Note: Sister Sheila more than 1.500 employees. arrived in Ireland in July ‘How are you, Eileen,’ Sister for the best weather in 100 Sheila said. She knew my years. I’m sure the sun was name! She knows everyone’s Nuns of the Battlefield, a sculpture by Irish artist Jerome Connor, is a trib- shining in Killarney when name!” the Lynne clan gathered ute to the more than 600 nuns who nursed soldiers of both armies durMy last stop at Mercy ing the American Civil War. It is one of two monuments in Washington, and there probably were that mark women’s roles in the conflict. The 1924 dedication was Hospital was on the green roof, D.C. some angels around too. attended by Sister of Mercy Madeleine O’Donnell who as a 19-year-old planted with wildflowers and nursed wounded soldiers at Stanton during the Civil War. AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 73

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AGING

A World to Care For Mary Manning Walsh, a nursing home for the elderly, proves that the twilight years can be joyful if the people in charge really care. By Rosemary Rogers

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truly the least among us – the aged, the handicapped, the sick, the destitute, all in the last stages of life – deserve the very best of medical care and comfort.

It took me a while to reconcile my childhood memories of nuns with the sisters at Mary Manning Walsh. Our 1950s Bronx classroom was filled with 60 squirming city kids, all kept under control by a formidable, and often intimidating, nun. Like my parochial school teachers,

PHOTO: PETER FOLEY

he massive stroke that left my mother speechless and paralyzed also left her family despondent. Having a stroke had always been her greatest fear, and now, somewhere in the mists of her intelligent mind, she understood that the terrible thing had happened to her. Our mother, who loved bustling about, telling stories and, most of all, being with her grandchildren, had overnight become a twisted, vacant woman in a wheelchair.

She was a resident in Mary Manning Walsh for just a few days when I wheeled her into its lounge to listen to music. The pianist was in the middle of a number when a nun, a stranger to us both, sat on the other side of my mother.

I assumed she was there for the music but I was wrong. Somehow, the nun knew my mother’s name and turning to her, said softly, “Hello, Rose.” She took my mother’s hand, put it in both of hers, and for the first time since her stroke, my mother moved her arm. My mother’s gesture was small, Sister’s smile was large, and together they shared a sense of triumph. For me, it was a blessed relief to know that her physical, emotional and spiritual needs would all be met.

New York City is known for its wealth and power, and within this competitive world, Mary Manning Walsh has become the gold standard for nursing homes.

How did a place founded by a nun, an Irish immigrant, become the residence of choice for the very rich, the very poor, Catholics and non-Catholics? Its success lies in its heart, its literal sisterhood, the Carmelite Sisters of the Aged and Infirm.

These nuns believe that those who are

Sister Sean William O’Brien, O.CARM.

the Carmelite Sisters are focused, fearless and wear traditional habits. But their vocation took them on a different path.

I asked Sister Sean William O’Brien, the current head of Mary Manning Walsh, “Did you ever want to teach?”

“Never.” She continued, “I always knew I wanted to be a nurse. I always knew I wanted to take care of the elderly.

And I always knew that I wanted to make sure they would be treated the same way

I wanted my grandparents to be treated.”

The story of the Carmelite Sisters begins with Mother Angeline Theresa McCrory. She was born in a small village in Ireland’s County Tyrone, a place known as much for its beauty as its centuries of strife. She moved to France to enter the Novitiate of the Little Sisters of the Poor and after her final profession was assigned to the Little Sisters of the Poor Nursing Home in Brooklyn.

Mother Angeline soon recognized that the French orientation of the Little Sisters was out of sync with American culture and traditions. She saw that there was a need for a new order, one that accommodated itself to the New World.

So, in 1929, Mother Angeline withdrew from the Little Sisters to found the Carmelite Sisters of the Aged and the Infirm. With just six other nuns she began her ministry, one dedicated to the aged sick, regardless of income.

Another Irish Sister, Mother Bernadette de Lourdes, was assigned to work on the plans for the new Mary Manning Walsh Home and became its first administrator.

During that time she met the famous Dr. Howard A. Rusk, “the father of rehabilitation medicine” whose Rusk Institute in Manhattan is still ranked as one of the best in the U.S. The nun from Dublin and the doctor recovering from World War II devised a system of rehabilitation that would be as effective for the aging bodies as it was for the young, injured soldiers.

Sister Bernadette and Dr. Rusk formed a partnership and a friendship that lasted until their death. In his autobiography, A World to Care For, Rusk says of his associate, “Mother Bernadette is not only a great person…she’s why the Carmelite

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PHOTO: PETER FOLEY

Clockwise: Little Rosemary Rogers (center) and her parents and sisters on Rockaway Beach; Mother Angeline Theresa McCrory, who founded the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm; Mary Manning Walsh residents enjoying a musical evening.

PHOTO: PETER FOL EY

Mary Manning Walsh resident Mary McCarthy, a New Yorker, who was one of the first women detectives. Mary was on the Pickpocket and Confidence squad.

Her husband Philip was a crime reporter for the Daily News, while her brother-inlaw, Jack McCarthy, was an announcer and host for WPIX, Channel 11, New York City, and best know for hosting the St. Patrick’s Day Parade for 42 years.

order now has 35 splendid geriatric centers throughout the world.” He personally trained the staff at Mary Manning Walsh and passed away in the home with Mother Bernadette by his side in 1989.

And who, everyone asks, was the eponymous Mary Manning Walsh? She was a woman with a large estate and a husband looking to honor her memory.

Mr. Walsh went to Cardinal Spellman, who, as fate (or luck) would have it, was trying to establish a geriatric center.

According to Dr. Rusk, Mr. Walsh suggested the center simply post a plaque with his wife’s name, apologizing, “I can only give you a million dollars.”

The cardinal stood up, extended his hand. “For a million dollars we’ll name the institution after your wife.” And so he did – the original Mary Manning Walsh opened on Manhattan’s elegant Sutton Place in 1952.

In 1967, it was evident that the new res-

idence couldn’t keep up with the demand for admission. Fortunately, its administrator, Mother Aloysius, was a savvy businesswoman who put her moxie and her motto – “If you don’t move forward, you move backward” – to work. With state funding, she built the new home in its current building on 72nd Street.

The home soon became as famous for its superior medical care as for its belief that the end of life should be about living and not simply surviving. The possibility of living life well, even as you approach your 100th birthday, is everywhere in Mary Manning Walsh, starting with its elegant building, chapel, lounge and dining room. The home offers classes in art, fitness, cooking, painting, music, gardening and poetry. And should a resident want her hair done before heading to one of the home’s many parties, there is, yes, a beauty salon.

Then there’s the famous Irish pub, the Emerald Lounge, known for its generous drinks and convivial volunteers. It was in the Emerald Lounge where I spent some of my best times – ever – with my mother. Of course I did all the talking, but I knew she could hear and understand. It was therapy, unconventional therapy to be sure, but it worked. For both of us.

Bette Davis once said, “Old age isn’t for sissies” and while that’s true, it’s a gift to be under the care of the sisters at Mary Manning Walsh. Whether they perform as nurses, administrators, or social workers, the nuns are devoted to the residents. The sisters endure sights and sounds that would distress most of us. In the middle of the edgiest and speediest city in the world, they remain serene.

Sister Sean William O’Brien has been in charge of Mary Manning Walsh since 1997. Her faith will sustain her through any and all transitions, “My daily prayer is that the Walsh home will always uphold the Carmelite philosophy of care and commitment.” She and her staff hold to the code of treating every resident with dignity and respect as they live their IA motto, “To care for and to care.”

“When you are old and gray and full of sleep/ And nodding by the fire, take down this book/ And slowly read, and dream of the soft look/ Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.”

– William Butler Yeats AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 75

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OBESITY

Promoting

Health and Philanthropy Dave Aldrich writes about philanthropists Mary McFadden and Larry Stifler.

M

ary McFadden and her husband Larry Stifler were well ahead of the curve in recognizing the need to combat obesity, which is at an epidemic level in the U.S. In 1983, Stifler founded the Boston-based Health Management Resources (HMR), offering clinic-based and athome diet options, and integrating calorie-controlled meal replacements with healthy lifestyle behavior. It was a new idea back then and it’s one that continues to work today.

In its first five years, HMR was the fourth-fastest-growing privately held company in the U.S. and has since become the number one provider in its field, working with healthcare providers, corporations, clinics, and insurers across the U.S. The company has also conducted more than a hundred studies

Mary McFadden and her husband, Larry Stifler, pictured in Maine, and below right with Grab the Torch students.

on obesity – groundbreaking work that continues to inform medical professionals and practices.

Mary, who describes herself as 100 percent Irish, and Larry, who is part Irish, worked hard to make HMR and their family life a rich and rewarding experience. Mary took on the responsibility of raising the kids while Larry was on the road growing the company. And now that their own financial future is assured they are helping others by providing access to the arts, and encouraging conservation, education and social enterprise.

Mary, a qualified attorney, is the founder of the Wareham Land Trust in Massachusetts. Seeing the lack of open space in Wareham and the surrounding areas of Buzzards Bay, where just three percent of land was designated for open space, she raised over 15 million to protect 76 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

open space, which has since increased to 15 percent.

Meanwhile, their Northern Retreat project in Albany Township, Maine has grown to 10,000 acres with 100 miles of public-access hiking trails. The Stiflers built the Peabody Lodge atop the 1,550foot Peabody Mountain and made it available to hikers. To date, their visitor log has over 2,000 names from around the world.

Through the Stifler Family Foundation, formed in 2000, Mary and Larry practice intelligent and informed giving. They support non-profits that can prove they have a clear business plan, strong financial goals, and long-term sustainability.

If a non-profit does not meet the required standards, the foundation will often lend support by connecting the organization with professionals who advise on financial, marketing, grant writing and strategic planning.

Mary and Larry, neither of whom came from affluent families (Mary earned a scholarship to Boston University and later paid her way through Suffolk Law School; Larry earned a full scholarship to Calvert Elementary, the Gilman School and Dartmouth College), are strong believers in earning your way, and opportunity versus entitlement. “You can’t expect success when everything is given and not earned,” says Mary.

George M. ‘Dooie’ Isdale, board chair of Grab the Torch (GTT), a leadership, ethics and philanthropy summer institute for high schoolers, compares Mary and Larry to Paul Newman and his passion for helping others: “They’re not only walking the walk, they’re running a marathon for the greater good in the same fashion of Newman,” he says.

The couple’s association with GTT goes back to 2009, when their daughter, Molly, attended the institute and described it as a life-changing experience. In a recent session with GTT students, Larry and Mary shared their life-mantra of “Wisdom, Work and Wealth,” and their belief that the success of non-profits and the greater good community depends on all three.

“There’s a philanthropist in all of you,” Larry told the youngsters. “You have a role and a responsibility to make the world a better place.” IA

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THE NEEDY

Spotlight On: Community Health Care

Far left: Theresa M. Butler with Cardinal Dolan.

Left: Sybil Medina, Dir. Human Resources, MCHC; Adrian Flannely; Theresa M. Butler; Jack Boyle, Sr. Mgr Development, MCHC.

Providing for Those in Need Theresa Maloney Butler, CEO of Middletown Community Health Center, uses the values she learned growing up in St. Brendan’s Parish in the Bronx to bring affordable health care solutions to hundreds of New Yorkers. By Michelle Meagher.

T

heresa Maloney Butler, the highly successful Chief Executive Officer of Middletown Community Health Center Inc – a growing network of health care facilities in Orange County, New York – got her start in medicine mostly by chance. But what started simply as a four-month temp-position at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx has resulted in a life-long mission to better the healthcare industry on the local level.

Theresa, a second-generation Irish American with ancestors hailing from Cork and Mayo, was born, raised and educated in a tight-knit Irish community in the Northern Bronx. St. Brendan’s, the local parish, became a permanent fixture in Theresa’s life – she attended St. Brendan’s school, where she was instilled with a desire to give back – and it remains an enduring presence – her three children, Peter, Caitlin and Kelsey were baptized there.

Theresa holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Mercy College and her Master’s in Public Administration from Marist College.

After first getting a taste for the health care field while temping at Montefiore, Theresa was asked to stay on permanently. Eager to explore the more administrative side of the industry, she later joined the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a premier academic medical center affiliated with Yeshiva University in the Bronx, to work on research grants for their department of psychiatry.

As Theresa continued to climb the corporate ladder with positions at Albert Einstein, the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, and Volunteers of

78 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

America, her passion for helping others drew her to broader administrative positions at the leadership level. Since 2006, she has helmed MCHC, and has made an increasing impact on the lives of residents of Orange County, NY. In Middletown, one of Orange County’s three cities, MCHC has 10 locations offering primary care services. Theresa handles a $12 million budget and oversees the priTheresa Maloney Butler

mary care and 162 staff members. Where MCHC once struggled, it now thrives.

Recognizing the changes occurring in health care and the need for health care providers to collaborate with one another, Theresa has fostered partnerships with community colleges, hospitals, community leaders and patients. Her efforts have seen fruitful outcomes resulting in better delivery of affordable, accessible and quality care not only throughout Orange County but to surrounding areas as well, with programs such as New York State

Women, Infant and Children; New York State Aids, and many more.

Speaking to Irish America, Theresa credited her mother with showing her how to use resources wisely and effectively. In the same way that Mrs. Maloney was able to stretch a basic chicken dinner to feed Theresa, her five siblings and many more, so too does Theresa stretch MCHC’s initiatives as far as they are needed.

MCHC now offers numerous services including OB/GYN (which delivers over 700 babies annually), pediatrics, dental services, internal medicine, podiatry, and social work. They hold outreach programs at fairs and community events, in order to inform Orange County residents of daily and annual care practices that will keep them healthy and out of the ER, which can often be devastatingly costly, especially for those without health insurance.

To further MCHC’s outreach, Theresa has spearheaded the O & W project, also known as the “Pathway to Health,” which will transform a 30,000 sq. foot brick abandoned railroad station in Middletown into a primary care headquarters where patients will be able to receive a broad range of services. The O & W project has received support from Senator Chuck Schumer, who has pledged to seek a $4 million tax credit for the $10 million restoration project.

At the heart of things, Theresa attributes her passion for improving the lives of others to her Irish heritage. As she told Irish America, “The Irish culture is a very giving culture, very friendly culture; we like to make people happy, feel comfortable. . . . It’s very important for my staff to be happy, want to come to work and it shows in the longevity of the retention of the staff that stayed working with me. I really believe in treating others as I IA want to be treated.”

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Irish Herbal Medicine The oldest form of healing, long practiced in Ireland, proved just the thing for writer Jonathan Self.

A

leafy lane, not much more than a boreen really, dissects the middle of the Kingstons’ farmyard in Church Cross near Skibbereen. On one side lie the whitewashed farmhouse, weathered stone barns and tidy vegetable gardens typical of a traditional West Cork smallholding. On the other side, however, are signs that this is no ordinary farm. There is a large, somewhat chaotic herb garden, a greenhouse (also full of herbs), a drying shed, a dispensary and a surgery. This is the home of Ireland’s foremost medicinal herbalist, Rosari Kingston.

Ironically, for reasons that I will explain in a moment, it was an English doctor who suggested I consult Kingston.

I had developed a severe intolerance to the drug I was taking for high cholesterol and he felt confident that herbal medicine would be able to supply an equally effective solution without any unpleasant side effects. It did. Within a few weeks of starting to take the herbal remedy prescribed by Kingston, my cholesterol was well within the acceptable range. Ever since, I have been a keen advocate of Irish traditional medicine, a school of medicine that deserves much wider recognition.

Irish traditional medicine is based on herbalism: the study and use of medicinal properties of plants. Herbs have been employed in this way all over the world for untold thousands of years. The earliest written documents, clay tablets created by the Sumerians around 5,000 years ago, list hundreds of medicinal plants, including myrrh and opium, and their uses. Knowledge about medicinal plants

80 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

seems to have passed from civilization to civilization and from generation to generation. In Egypt, according to the Ebers Papyrus, a medical guide produced around 1500 B.C., over 850 plant medicines were regularly prescribed, including garlic, juniper, cannabis and aloe. The first Chinese herbal guide, the Pen Tsao, believed to be from around the same period, lists 365 medicinal plants, including ephedra (the shrub that introduced the drug ephedrine to modern Medicinal herbalist, Rosari Kingston

medicine) and chaulmoogra (one of the first effective treatments for leprosy). In India, the Sushruta Samhita, a 6th-century B.C. Sanskrit text, describes 700 medicinal plants, 64 preparations from mineral sources and 57 preparations from animal sources. In Greece, in Persia and throughout the Roman Empire, it was a similar story.

Herbalism may have been popular, but

was it — is it — effective? Kingston, who helped to found the Irish Institute of Medical Herbalists (IIMH), has plenty to say on the subject: “The modern pharmaceutical industry is built largely on natural remedies. There are thousands of examples, not least asprin, which comes from willow bark; digitalis, which comes from foxglove; quinine, which comes from the cinchona tree; and morphine, which comes (albeit indirectly) from the opium poppy.

In clinical trials St John’s wort has proved itself an effective antidepressant, ginger has cured nausea, and hops has helped patients with sleeping disorders. If you have a cough, try catnip; acne, try pokeweed; and headlice, try pawpaw. If you are suffering from a fungal infection then you may be interested to know that garlic, when crushed, produces a large quantity of an antifungal agent known as allicin.”

To date, according to Kingston, some 12,000 compounds derived from plants have been discovered to help human health. These compounds do not differ a great deal from conventional drugs in terms of how they work.

Ireland’s legends and myths contain many examples of herbal medicine at work. Macha Mong Ruadh, the daughter of Aed Ruadh, is credited with establishing the first hospital in Ulster. It was called Broin Bhearg (House of Sorrow) and was used by the Red Branch Knights.

It also served as a royal residence until its destruction in 322 A.D. Among the Tuatha Dé Dannan was a physician called Dian Cécht, which means God of Health. He had seven children, among them Miach and Airmed who were also herbal physi-

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Foxglove

cians and surgeons. He had a grandson called Lugh, who was the crowning glory of the Gaelic pantheon. Lugh had a magic spear that so thirsted for blood that outside of battle it was kept at rest by steeping its head in a sleeping draught of pounded poppy leaves. The Irish name for P. somniferum, the common opium poppy, is codalian, from ‘codal’ or ‘cada’ meaning sleep. Dian Cécht was jealous of his son Miach’s superior surgery and struck his head with a sword. The blow was superficial and only cut the flesh. Miach healed it easily. Dian Cécht struck again and this time cut through to the bone. Again, his son healed it and this so enraged Dian Cécht that he struck his son with a sword for the third time. This time the blow penetrated the membrane of his brain but, again, his son was able to heal it.

Unfortunately for Miach, Dian Cécht assaulted him for a fourth time and succeeded in cutting out his brain. This time he died. Dian Cécht buried his son and subsequently 365 herbs grew up through the grave corresponding to the number of his joints and sinews. His sister, Airmed, uprooted these herbs according to their properties and spread them out on her cloak. Dian Cécht mixed up the herbs so no one would know their proper healing qualities.

These ancient tales suggest that Irish traditional medicine was well advanced before the introduction of Christianity and the advent of more formal, written records.

From the fifth century A.D. onwards a clearer picture emerges. According to surviving documents, early Irish doctors held positions of considerable status and the importance of their work was recognized by sizeable grants of land. Many communities had their own hospitals (considerable stress was placed on cleanliness and access to running water) and patients were treated by an ordinary physician (liaig), a master (ollam) or an expert (saineolaí).

There were medical schools throughout the country and it took many years to qualify as a doctor. There were hereditary physician families. For instance, Ó hÍceadha (Hickey) and Ó Leighin (Lane) mean literally healer and leech respectively.

A good description of medical care in Gaelic Ireland comes from the seventeenth-century Flemish chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont, who wrote: For I remember the Chieftains of Ireland used each to give a piece of land

to a healer who lived with them; not one who came back trained from the universities but one who could really make sick people well. Each such healer has a book crammed with specific remedies bequeathed to him by his forefathers.

Accordingly, he who inherits the book inherits also the piece of land. The book describes the symptoms and ailments and the country remedies used for each, and the people of Ireland are cured more successfully when ill, and have generally far better health than the people of Italy.

Poppies

Van Helmont was writing about the very recent past. By the early part of the seventeenth century the profession of liaig had been destroyed by English colonization. Under new penal laws, no Irish person could practice their profession or receive an education. Some Irish doctors went abroad, and those who stayed behind were forced to find other occupations. The hospitals and medical schools closed. The huge body of knowledge that had been built up over many hundreds of years largely disappeared. Largely, but thankfully not completely. Some of it was preserved in the form of folk cures. These were gathered by the Irish Folklore Commission, which, in 1937-38, enrolled

school teachers in a campaign to record folk remedies, resulting in 4,500 notebooks full of information that would otherwise have been lost for all time.

What of Irish traditional medicine today? There are some promising signs of its resurgence. The IIMH has thirty members and sponsors a three-year BSc in Herbal Science through Cork Institute of Technology and a two-year master’s program in association with the Irish College of Traditional and Integrative Medicine. It is actively lobbying both the Irish government and the EC to support herbal medicine. Kingston points out that: “Herbal medicine is proven, natural and environmentally friendly. Unlike conventional drugs, it is relatively inexpensive and has few side effects. It frequently offers solutions where conventional medicine has failed.” As someone who has benefited, I definitely concur IA with that.

Jonathan Self is an author and journalist. He lives in Glandore, West Cork, Ireland.

He is a regular contributor to the UK press including The Times, Mail on Sunday, Vanity Fair and Country Life. He mostly writes about the environment, farming and country life. His next book, about the emerald trade, Emerald, will be published

by Thames and Hudson in November.

• Rosari Kingston www.rosarikingston.com

• Irish Medical Herbalist blog irishmedicalherbalist.blogspot.ie

• Irish Institute of Medical Herbalists www.iimh.org

• The Irish School of Herbal Medicine www.herbeire.ie

• Irish College of Traditional and Integrative Medicine www.irishcollegeoftraditionaland integrativemedicine.com

• To find a U.S.-based herbalist check out americanherbalistsguild.com

AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 81

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David and Honora Harty, just before he was diagnosed with MS

Old Roman Road

Caitriona Hughes MS Ireland group leader

A Way of

Healing In memory of her brother David, a victim of MS, Honora Harty joined a group of MS Ireland walkers on the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), the ancient pilgrimage route. The walkers picked up the trail in Estella in northeast Spain and walked to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia on the west coast.

I

land in Dublin at 7 a.m. on the first of June, having left San Francisco the morning before. After 13 hours in the air, I am tired but awake with memories of my brother David young and alive – as he will always be for me – and in whose memory I am making this trip.

I walk through the airport, weary from lack of sleep. But with each sighting of a red tee shirt bearing the MS Ireland logo (by 10:00 a.m., there would be 30 of us), I’m energized. The first to greet me is Caitriona Hughes with whom I’d corresponded over the last two months. She

gives me the kind of warm, familiar hug one gets from someone they’ve never met, but somehow knows. We’re members of the same tribe. Kindred spirits.

We all board a plane to Spain, each with our own hopes and anxieties about the trip ahead.

I hope that my training over the past six weeks – walking up to eight miles a day – will get me through this roughly 200km journey, and that my six-monthold hip replacement will hold up.

We’re met at Bilbao airport by our trusted and wonderful coach driver Gustavo.

Straight from the get-go he looks out for

us – a wise, gentle shepherd watching over his flock. It’s a good feeling.

At our hotel in Puente La Reina I take a quick shower and taste the local vino blanco (coffee aside) while getting to know the group by name.

I instantly warm to my roomy Marie Therese Wall – with her head of red hair and quirky sense of humor. She’s a bath girl while I favor the shower, and she always lets me go first and says it’s okay for me to grab the bed by the window.

To bed, then early up at seven for breakfast and on the road by eight, which will become our morning routine for the next ten days.

Day one of the walk we take turns telling our stories as to why we’re walking the Camino. Not one of the thirty aspirations is the same – to each his own.

Yet every one is a lesson in life, and a step closer to where we’re going; towards something that has meaning.

As we leave the town of Puente La Reina we pass over a Romanesque bridge and continue for a time on what was an old Roman road. I contemplate the history of the Camino and the thousands of pilgrims over the centuries, each carrying their own dreams and sorrows, who walked this way before me.

Each day we begin anew, trekking different terrain. Today, surrounded by open

John and Gorthie

Santiago at last!

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Photos left to right: A field of red poppies; This strange little house begs the question ‘Who lives there?’; A milepost marks the way.

fields of red poppies; tomorrow something else. Some days the paths are all climbing; others, an endless descent. But boy, the view from the top of these mountains is just beautiful, and if I may say, not unlike Ireland.

Most days we walk through small villages, sometimes stopping for coffee and to have our pilgrim passports stamped; always enjoying the locals and other peregrinos (pilgrims). We meet so many people from all over the globe that the world seems small and undivided.

Lunch is always a welcome treat. After coming off a mountain or through a forest or pasture, our bus is waiting for us.

Gustavo, Ruth and Gabriel who have walked many a Camino and made many a hike with MS Ireland, look after us on the trek, always armed with some local delicacy to try, and ready to bandage a blister or massage a cramping foot.

One day after hiking through a beautiful forest we came upon a plaque dated 1936, when the Spanish Civil War was raging. At this spot mass graves have recently been discovered and are still being excavated. It was here that Franco ordered the killing of hundreds of loyal-

ists young and old. I shivered imagining.

And chided myself for not knowing more about this period.

On the day we walked to Cruce De Ferro (the iron cross), the highest point on the Camino, it was raining, but as the ancient cross came into sight the clouds cleared to a bright blue sky. We had been told to bring a stone that could be left at the cross – it’s a long tradition since medieval times when pilgrims after traveling through the mountains would leave a stone in thanks and pray for safe passage and protection on the rest of their journey.

There are different stories about what the stone is meant to represent, but the general one is that it represents burdens from your past that you have been carrying. Or you can place a stone in memory of someone.

I took the small stone from my backpack and went to lay it at the cross.

Smooth and cool, it weighted my hand. I could feel my brother with me, hear him whisper, “Good on you, Sis. Don’t cry.”

But of course I did.

I had a moment then when I thought I had lost my backpack. After looking around frantically for a couple of minutes, I realized that it was still on my back, but it felt weightless now. I sup-

pose it was some physical manifestation of a psychological burden laid down. I felt lighter in my heart too. I was letting go of my grief over David’s untimely death from MS and remembering the good times we had together.

The final leg of the trek into Santiago de Compostela is bittersweet. We are anxious to get to the cathedral and finish our journey, but we are not ready to say goodbye to new friends.

We walk towards the Cathedral of St. James as a group singing: “We’re on the one road/ sharing the one load/ We’re on the road to God knows where. ...” A street artist playing the bagpipes picks up our tune and walks along with us. What an entrance we make into the square where our earth angels Gabriel, Ruth, Caitriona and Gustavo have bottles of champagne chilled and waiting.

On our last night, to celebrate at a Galician restaurant where after what feels like endless courses of local fish and other delicacies, we each receive a certificate of completion and get our pilgrim passport stamped.

And so it is that I raise a glass to my fellow pilgrims and give thanks to friends and family who donated to MS Ireland, IA and encouraged me along the way.

For more on MS Ireland see www.ms-society.ie Cruce De Ferro (the iron cross), the highest point on the Camino.

Sign post points the way

Mountain trail

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MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Profile in

Courage Christian O’Toole writes about his younger brother Coleman who was studying to be an actor when MS struck. His long struggle with the disease hasn’t dampened his humor or his fighting spirit.

B

orn in Boston in 1976, Coleman Sean O’Toole is a 37-year-old second-generation Irish American who has lived with Multiple Sclerosis for over twenty years.

Diagnosed with the debilitating disease at the age of sixteen, Coleman was at the time one of the youngest confirmed cases of male pediatric MS on record.

In the children’s ward of Massachusetts General Hospital, as he received his first round of what would become a lifetime of ongoing treatment, Coleman came to view his situation in contrast to the other young patients around him, including some who had spent most of their lives in hospitals and a few who would not live to see life outside of one. Inspired by their innocent optimism and incredible courage, Coleman resolved to live the rest of his life to the fullest and never give in to self-pity.

He attended the private school Milton Academy from kindergarten through high school, where he developed many enduring friendships and discovered passions for literature, acting and sculpture. He continued to develop his crafts at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, where he graduated in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and double minors in theater and sculpture.

While at Skidmore, Coleman became a founding member of the award-winning independent theater company Fovea Floods, which developed a cult following in Saratoga and eventually Off Broadway, and would launch the careers of several successful producers, directors and actors including Walking Dead star Jon Bernthal.

Over time, as his symptoms progressed, Multiple Sclerosis has taken 84 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

many things from Coleman and ultimately robbed him of the ability to pursue his love of art and acting. MS is a disease in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system, damaging and then scarring the myelin coating that insulates the neural pathways the brain uses to communicate with the rest of the body. As the signals from his brain have become slowed or even blocked completely, Coleman has lost his ability to balance and walk. His vision has steadily deteriorated. The tremors in his hands have prevented him from holding a hammer and chisel to sculpt stone as he once did. His short-term memory has been impaired

Above: Coleman visits his buddy Robert Downey, Jr., filming The Judge at Milton Academy. Top: Coleman’s studio shot. Right: Coleman with his parents and Robert Downey, Sr.

and his speech has become slowed to the point where he has learned to choose his words carefully. But despite all of the things this disease has taken from Coleman, it has never diminished his spirit or robbed

him of his overwhelmingly charming personality. He once remarked, “My doctors once told me that I could eventually become completely color blind, but today I can still see colors and I’m happy about that.”

After traveling throughout Europe, Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska and briefly living in Brooklyn, NY with me, his younger brother, Christian, Coleman now lives at home in a handicapped-accessible suite that our parents built onto their house in Milton, MA. Our mother and father, Frances and Robert O’Toole, have worked tirelessly over the years to provide him with a loving and supportive environment and have always been mindful of treating him the same way that they always have and remembering to respect his independence, limited as it may be.

Today he enjoys books on tape, following the ups and downs of the Boston Red Sox, practicing Pilates and focusing much of his energy on being the beloved uncle to my boys, Owen, 6, and Callum, 2.

Coleman has been a source of inspiration to many friends and family members whose lives he’s touched, and his condition has served as a constant reminder of the precious gift of a healthy life that so many take for granted. He retains his killer smile, his quick wit, his sense of humor, and his incredible ability to IA enjoy life in the face of adversity.

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The Irish of

Medical History The history of medicine spans millennia – from before the invention in 5th century Greece of the Hippocratic oath, which doctors still take to this day, to the life-changing breakthroughs of the 21st century. The following pages share the stories of some of the most important, illustrious and idiosyncratic Irish and Irish Americans in the history of medicine, from the inventor of the defibrillator to the surgeon who performed the first successful kidney transplant, and beyond.

Dr. James Barry

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ne of the most fascinating figures in medical history, Dr. James Barry was a military surgeon in the British Army who rose to the rank of Inspector General of military hospitals. Among Barry’s many achievements Dr. James were the improvement of conditions for woundBarry ed soldiers, and the first caesarean section operation in Africa to see the survival of both the mother and baby. Upon his death from dysentery in 1865, it was discovered that Dr. Barry was in fact a woman, a secret she had hidden her whole life, and one that made her the first woman in the British Isles to qualify as a doctor.

Accounts vary of her early years, but the general consensus is that Dr. Barry was born in Ireland around 1790, the second child of Jeremiah and Mary-Ann Bulkley, and was named Margaret. Her mother was the sister of famed Irish painter James Barry. With Jeremiah in prison and Margaret’s older brother married and estranged, she and her mother were left to fend for themselves. A series of correspondences with the family’s lawyer has led historians to conclude that in 1809 Margaret disguised herself as a boy, assumed the name James Barry, and sailed with her mother to Scotland, where she enrolled in the medical school at the University of Edinburgh, and lived as a man from there on.

Barry qualified as an MD in 1812 and moved to London where he continued his studies. In 1813, he took the examination for the Royal College of Surgeons of England and qualified as a Regimental Assistant, taking up posts in Chelsea and Plymouth, and then India and South Africa. Further promotions would take Barry around the world: to Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Malta, Corfu, the West Indies, Jamaica and Canada. He was known for his advocacy of improvement of living and hospital conditions for women, children, soldiers and the poor, but also for his tendency to ruffle feathers of those in local politics.

Barry retired – reportedly against his wishes – in 1864. After the discovery of Barry’s sex, the British Army sealed all records relating to him for 100 years. He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery under the name James Barry, and with full rank.

– Sheila Langan

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The Fitzpatrick Factor

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he father of modern academic dermatology and a giant in the advancement of clinical and investigative dermatology, Dr. Thomas B, Fitzpatrick was born in Madison, Wisconsin on December 19, 1919.

Fitzpatrick went on to serve nearly 30 years as the chairman of the Department of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Dermatology Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. His contributions to the field were tremendous: his renowned multi-author book Dermatology in General Medicine is used to this day; he was a passionate teacher and trainer, and his discoveries and research led to therapies that combat psoriasis and forms of skin cancer. His innovative pursuits led to more effective treatment of skin diseases.

Dr. Fitzpatrick received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and went on to graduate with an MD from Harvard Medical School. He interned at Boston City Hospital and it was there that he recognized a significant imbalance of priority between dermatology and other medical specialties. It became Fitzpatrick’s quest to remedy that imparity. At the University of Minnesota, where he earned his PhD in Pathology, Fitzpatrick met fellow MD and PhD Adam Lerner, with whom he conducted substantial research on skin pigmentation that led to ultraviolet light therapies to treat psoriasis and other severe skin diseases. Fitzpatrick continued advancing his knowledge and took up dermatology training at the University of Michigan and the Mayo Clinic. At 32, he was recruited by the University of Oregon to be Professor and Chair of Dermatology. Harvard would invite

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him only seven years later to assume the chair of the Dermatology Department. At 39, he became the youngest professor and chair at Harvard.

Among his scientific contributions are the Fitzpatrick Scale, developed in 1975 and used to this day, a numerical classification of skin color and how UV rays affect different skin tones.

This discovery led to his quantitative research of the effectiveness of sunscreen. He also helped establish clinical criteria that improved the diagnosis of malignant melanoma, and his research on the epidermal melanin unit fundamentally changed modern dermatology’s understanding of skin pigmentation. Fitzpatrick passed away in Massachusetts in 2003 at age 83.

– Michelle Meagher

Oliver St. John Gogarty

Oliver St. John Gogarty

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“

tately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and razor lay crossed.” James Joyce’s Ulysses begins with this comic representation of his contemporary Oliver St. John Gogarty. This solidified the public persona of Gogarty, an accomplished Irish writer, poet, politician, athlete and wit. While he is best known for his connections with W. B Yeats, Arthur Griffith, and Joyce; his own writing; and his political initiatives for Ireland, Gogarty’s greatest immediate contribution to Ireland was his career in medicine as a successful otolaryngologist.

Gogarty’s passion for medicine was passed down to him by his father and grandfather, who were both medical doctors. He was raised Catholic, but due to his family’s affluence was able to gain access to influential schools where Catholics normally were not permitted. He was an accomplished athlete, playing soccer, cricket, and cycling while studying medicine at the Royal University of Ireland and Trinity College, Dublin.

Gogarty also relished the bohemian underbelly of Dublin. Under the wing of John Pentland Mahaffy, a former tutor of Oscar Wilde, he was swept away by poetry and literature, publishing poems and stories in various Dublin journals.

In 1906 Gogarty married Martha Duane and by 1907 had passed his medical examinations, receiving both an MB and MD. Gogarty left Ireland to continue training in Vienna with Sir Robert Woods, a specialist in otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine), an area Gogarty would himself master upon returning to Dublin and securing a post at Richmond Hospital in 1908. By 1912, he was a successful surgeon at Meath Hospital where he showcased his love of the theatrical by spouting clever witticisms while operating on patients both wealthy and not, some of whom he saw free of charge. Gogarty’s practice also influenced his political outlook, leading him to see sectarianism as a detriment to Irish health care as it prevented the centralization of medical services.

In the early 1920s, Gogarty became active in the Irish Free State, as a senator and a friend of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, whose autopsies and embalmments he later performed.

He was kidnapped in 1922 by a group of antiTreaty militants, but narrowly escaped. After Renvyle, his estate in Galway, was burnt down some months later, he moved his family and his practice to London, but returned to Ireland in 1924. Gogarty remained a senator until 1936, after which he devoted the rest of his life to writing. He tried enlisting to fight in the RAF in WWII, but was denied due to age. After a lecture tour of America in 1939, Gogarty settled in New York, where he wrote novels and early reminisces of his life in Ireland until his death in 1957.

– Matt Skwiat

Dr. Robert James Graves

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r. Robert James Graves only lived 57 years, but in his lifetime brought more permanent change to the Irish medical system than perhaps any other doctor. He is best remembered for the first comprehensive description of Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes enlargement of the thyroid gland, affecting mood, weight, and mental and physical energy levels. Though not the first to note it, in 1835 Dr. Graves was the first doctor to recognize the full symptomatology of Graves’, specifically the correlation between exophthalmos (bulging eyeballs) and an enlarged thyroid. Subsequently, the disease was named after him by famed French physician Armand Trousseau. Although his name most notably lives on in this form, his credits range far beyond that of a namesake.

Born in 1796 to a wealthy Anglo-Irish Dublin family of Cromwellian-era descent, Graves graduated with a medical degree in 1818 from Trinity College Dublin (where his father and maternal grandfather were both Senior Fellows) and proceeded on a three-year tour of medical schools on the continent that left a profound impact on his pedagogical style.

Known as a bit of a rake, at times rambunctious and avant-garde, Graves returned to Ireland in 1821 eager to implement what he had seen abroad. He became chief physician and lecturer at Meath Statue of Dr. Robert James Graves at the Hospital, where he was responsible for two Royal College of major achievements. First, Graves Physicians, Ireland eschewed Latin-language medical lectures, which were then still common practice, in favor of English lectures, making the subject more accessible to students. Then, having seen students participate in doctors’ rounds at patients’ bedsides in Germany, he resolved to introduce that method of learning. Under Graves, students were able to observe patients in the hospital, ask questions, and assist the primary physician in diagAUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 87

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noses and treatment plans.

Graves was one of the first Irish doctors to promote the use of the stethoscope, which was invented in France in 1816, and is also purportedly the uncredited inventor of fixed second hands on watches. Allegedly, he developed the second hand to be used in conjunction with the stethoscope to measure heartbeats per minute and is said to be the first doctor to use the method to measure heart rate.

A profile of Dr. Graves in volume 19 of Dublin University Magazine, published in 1842, calls him “the first great medical teacher we have had in this country,” and welcomes his arrival on the medical stage as “a new light.” Though he died from liver cancer in 1853 (apparently before he could patent the second hand), Graves was undoubtedly a pioneer in his field. He brought the latest advancements from the continent to the more conservative English-speaking schools and ushered in a new era of medical learning in Ireland.

– Adam Farley

Charles McBurney

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nyone who has ever suffered the pain of appendicitis is familiar with the term “McBurney’s point,” the area on the right side of your abdomen where your appendix can be found. Discomfort from light pressure applied to this area is a sign of appendicitis. Charles McBurney, the doctor for whom the point is named, was one of the preeminent surgeons of nine-

teenth century medicine.

Dr. McBurney was born in 1845 in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

McBurney’s father, Charles, was a native of the north of Ireland and had immigrated to the United States when he was a boy.

McBurney’s mother, Rosine, was a native of Massachusetts with Scottish ancestry, who together with her husband provided a remarkable education for their young son. He was trained in the Roxbury Latin School and other elite private schools around Boston, and would eventually attend Harvard. He graduated from Harvard in 1866 and entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, receiving his MD in 1870. After completing an internship with Bellevue Hospital he traveled abroad, continuing his studies in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and London.

Upon returning to the States in 1872, McBurney became assistant demonstrator of anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

McBurney’s knowledge of and respect for the medical profession secured him various positions in hospitals around New York in the 1880s and 90s, including St. Luke’s, Bellevue, and Roosevelt hospital.

While working as a surgeon at Roosevelt Hospital in 1892, McBurney established the Dyms Operating Pavillion, a facility that specialized in surgical teaching and research. One of McBurney’s other specialJames McHenry ties was research for and treatment of the appendix.

In 1894, he described the incision which now bears 88 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

his name, but which was first described by Louis MacArthur. In addition to the appendix, McBurney published work on gallstones and shoulder dislocation. When President William McKinley was shot in 1901, McBurney was among the consulting surgeons.

McBurney continued to work until the end of his life, becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh and publishing numerous articles in the medical field. He died in 1913 at the age of 68, but left behind a prestigious array of work that solidified his prominence in the medical world.

– Matt Skwiat

James McHenry

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rriving on the shores of the American colonies in 1771, the young Irishman James McHenry embarked on a life of patriotic zeal and noble medical prowess. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland in 1753 to a prosperous mercantile family, McHenry had a prominent upbringing, receiving a classical education in Dublin. McHenry journeyed to the American colonies in 1771, the first member of his family to do so. He began a career in medicine, another first for his family, and studied at the Newark Academy in Delaware (later the University of Delaware). From there, McHenry relocated to Philadelphia, studying for two years under Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Continental Congress. McHenry gained from Rush both a love for the medical profession and a patriotic fervor for his new home. This led him to volunteer as a military surgeon at Cambridge hospital in Massachusetts when hostilities broke out in 1775.

As military surgeon of the Continental Army, McHenry proved resourceful in both his care of wounded patients and bravery on the field. In 1776, McHenry, then surgeon of the 5th Pennsylvania Battalion, was captured by the British along with 5,000 other soldiers at Fort Washington. While imprisoned he cared for the sick and wounded in the prison, writing of the cruel and meagre conditions that the prisoners were confined to, concluding that it “made up altogether a scene more affecting and horrid than the carnage of a field of battle wherein no quarter is given.”

McHenry was exchanged and put on parole in 1778, later joining General George Washington’s staff in 1780 and striking up a lifelong friendship with the Marquis de Lafayette. He entered the Maryland senate in 1781 and served in the Continental Congress, becoming a signer of the Constitution, one of only three physicians and four Irishmen to do so. He continued serving in the Maryland senate until 1796 when Washington made him Secretary of War. McHenry would hold his post until he was relieved by President John Adams in 1800, but during that time he had reorganized the United States Army and established the Department of the Navy.

McHenry spent his remaining years in retirement living in Fayetteville in Maryland. He died in 1816, leaving behind an indelible print on the trajectory of early American history and medicine.

– Matt Skwiat

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Joseph Murray

Sister Anthony

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pioneer in the field of transplant surgery, Joseph Edward Murray was the surgeon responsible for the first kidney transplant, the world’s first successful allograft, and the first ever cavaderic renal transplant. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Murray was born in 1919 and grew up in Milford, Massachusetts in a family of Irish and Italian heritage. He attended College of the Holy Cross, studying English and philosophy, and then received his medical degree from Harvard. He fulfilled his military service in the plastic surgery unit at Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania, where he worked with Dr. Bradford Cannon on reconstructing the faces and hands of soldiers wounded in WWII, inspiring Murray’s life-long interest in transplant and plastic surgery.

At Peter Brent Bringham Hospital (now Bringham and Women’s Hospital) in Boston, he performed the world’s first successful kidney transplant in 1954, between identical twins Ronald and Richard Herrick. In 1959 he completed the first successful transplant from a non-related donor, and three years later the first kidney transplant from a deceased organ donor. A leader in the field of transplant biology, he later worked with scientists to develop the immunosuppressive drugs that allow bodies to accept donations from unrelated donors. Murray also went on to teach at Harvard Medical School and served as the chief plastic surgeon at Bringham and Women’s and Children’s Hospital Boston before retiring in 1986. In 2001, he published his autobiography, Surgery of the Soul: Reflections on a Curious Career.

Following a stroke, Murray passed away in November 2012, aged 93 at the same hospital where he made history 58 years earlier.

– Sheila Langan

Sister Anthony

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(Mary Murphy O’Connell)

ubbed the “Irish Florence Nightingale” and the “angel of the battlefield,” Sister Anthony was one of the bestknown names of the American Civil War and the 19th century medical field who devoted her life to caring for orphans, the elderly, new mothers and babies, and war-wounded soldiers in the field. She was also responsible for creating some of the first programs for training female nurses.

Born Mary Murphy O’Connell in 1814 to Limerick farmers William and Catherine O’Connell, little is known of her early life. Sometime in the 1820s, the family immigrated to Boston and settled in the growing Irish community of Charlestown. Mary was enrolled in the prestigious Ursuline Convent Academy, a small Catholic secondary school, and in June of 1835, at age 21, joined the convent of the American Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Shortly after taking her final vows two years later, she was assigned to St. Peter’s Orphan Asylum in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Under Sister Anthony’s leadership, the Cincinnati Sisters

founded St. John’s Hotel for Invalids (now St. John’s Hospital), an alternative retirement home and hospital, and later a new orphanage called St. Joseph’s in 1854. Sister Anthony was elected procuratrix of St. John’s when it was founded, and was the director of St. Joseph’s for about a year before devoting her attention to running St. John’s, where she inaugurated a visiting nurses training program.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Sister Anthony had nearly 25 years of medical training behind her and enlisted her fellow Sisters of Charity to volunteer at the nearby Union Camp Dennison during a measles outbreak. By 1862, Sister Anthony was more often on the field than off and had earned praise from Generals George C. McClellan and Ulysses S. Grant. During Grant’s campaign along Kentucky’s Cumberland River, Sister Anthony introduced the first recognizably modern triage tactics by ordering the most gravely wounded soldiers off the field first to be treated by doctors on the “floating hospitals” along the river. The less severely wounded soldiers were cared for on the field by nurses. Her medical knowledge and innovations led her to be hand-selected by the famed American surgeon George Curtis Blackman as his personal assistant at the Battle of Shiloh in April, 1862. In September, 1862, at the request of the U.S. Sanitation Commission, the Catholic Church officially assigned Sister Anthony to the Army of the Cumberland.

After her military service, Sister Anthony returned to her post at St. John’s. According to one historian, “she made no distinction between Union and Confederate soldiers; she only saw the extent of the wound,” earning her commendations by both President Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Though she died in 1897, a 2003 Pentagon report gives testament to her enduring legacy, explaining that “her innovative triage techniques remain standard practices in every theater of war where American troops fight.”

– Adam Farley AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 89

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James Francis Pantridge

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nown as the “father of emergency medicine,” Professor James Francis “Frank” Pantridge, MD produced the first ever portable defibrillator with colleague Dr. John Geddes in 1965. The initial device was powered by car batteries and weighed 70 kg. By 1968, they had refined the design so that it weighed only 3 kg. Pantridge was also responsible for installing his instrument in ambulances, creating the pre-hospital coronary care unit known as the Pantridge Plan. The portable defibrillator would be essential to EMS and has been modified over the years to become the automated external defibrillator (AED). In 1967, The Lancet medical journal published an article hailing Pantridge and Geddes as “revolutionizing emergency medicine.”

Pantridge was born to small landowners in Hillsborough, County Down on October 3, 1916. He attended the Friends School and graduated in medicine from Queens University in 1939. He joined the army as a medical officer after WWII erupted. Pantridge’s heroism was immediately acknowledged and he was awarded the Military Cross for his work during the battle of Singapore. After the city fell to the Japanese, Pantridge was taken captive and held on the Siam-Burma railway and in the notorious death camp. It is believed that his interest in cardiology resulted from his survival of the usually fatal cardiac Beriberi – a disease in which the body does not have enough Thiamine – which he contracted there.

Pantridge returned to Belfast in 1945, but at the time he was only able to acquire a position as an adjunct lecturer in the Queens Department of Pathology.

However, the University of Michigan offered him a scholarship and he worked with F. N. Wilson, the world authority on electrocardiology at the time. In 1950, Pantridge was appointed Physician at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, where he remained until he retired in 1982, but not before chartering an internationally renowned cardiology unit. Pantridge died in 2004, at 88 years of age.

– Michelle Meagher

Margaret Sanger

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redited with founding what is now Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger’s advocacy for birth control and women’s health overall stemmed from her own personal tragedy. Sanger was born on September 4, 1879 in Corning, New York to Anne Purcell and Irish immigrant Michael Hennessy Higgins. Margaret was one of her mother’s 18 pregnancies, only 11 of which survived. The pregnancies took a great toll on Anne’s body and her health deteriorated: she lost her life to tuberculosis at the age of 40. Margaret was only 19 years old and took her passing very hard.

This event propelled Margaret into fighting for women’s right

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to use contraceptives, which were illegal under the Comstock Act. After becoming a nurse and seeing firsthand botched back-alley abortions and women with unwanted pregnancies, Margaret took her cause to the courts. She coined the term “birth control” in 1914, was indicted in 1915 for sending diaphragms via mail and then arrested in 1916 for opening the first birth control clinic in the country. Margaret continued on her crusade regardless, and in 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League, which would become the Planned Parenthood Federation. She also used her extensive knowledge to write health articles about birth control devices, providing information to interested parties.

Margaret’s mission was not limited to the abolition of the Comstock Act (which she would witness in 1965) and greater information for women worldwide but also that more effective birth control would be made available. In 1951, Sanger sought the help of medical expert Gregory Pincus, who took on the Margaret Sanger project of inventing an oral contraceptive, and Katharine McCormack, who funded the research. In 1960, the first birth control pill, Enovid, was conceived. Margaret’s life-long dream and mission came into fruition and her battle was finally won.

– Michelle Meagher

Anne Sullivan

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orn in 1866, the eldest of five children of Limerick emigrants, Anne Sullivan did not have an easy childhood.

Her parents, Thomas and Alice Sullivan, had departed for America at the peak of the Famine. They arrived illiterate and penniless, and settled in an Irish parish in western Massachusetts where Thomas earned a meager living as a farmhand. He was an alcoholic, reportedly abusive, and when Alice died when Anne was eight years old, he found the task of raising five children too trying and abandoned the family.

Anne Sullivan was a pioneer of blind and deaf education and is most famous for her work with Helen Keller. After their father left, Anne and her brother Jimmie were sent to an almshouse in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Sullivan, who had been nearly blind since the age of five when she contracted a bacterial infection in her eyes, recognized that the best way out of the poorhouse was through a special education at the Perkins School for the Blind.

She convinced Frank Sanborn, an inspector with the Massachusetts Board of Charities, to remove her from the house and sponsor her education.

Despite beginning at Perkins illiterate and, by all accounts, uncouth, unruly, and hardened by life in the orphanage, Sullivan graduated from Perkins at the age of 20 as one of the most promising students, befriending numerous professors, and giving the valedictory address at the graduation ceremony.

Formatively, while at Perkins, Anne befriended Laura Bridgeman, a resident of the institute who was deaf and blind.

From her, Anne learned the hand sign alphabet she would later

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Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller

teach to Helen Keller, and learned techniques that aided Bridgeman (who was the first deaf-blind person to learn language) in acquiring sign language in general. When the Kellers wrote to Perkins asking for an instructor for Helen, the director of the school recommended Anne.

It is for this relationship that Sullivan is best known and their story has been well-documented. But less remarked on are Sullivan’s achievements in the field of deaf-blind education.

Instead of maintaining a strict, grammarian method of instruction that had worked with Laura Bridgeman, she shifted the locus of education from language to aspects of Helen’s life.

Anne ceaselessly “talked” to her, naming items Keller frequently used, to teach the association between word and object.

Sullivan also expanded on a fledgling method of teaching deaf students to speak. By allowing Keller to touch Sullivan’s cheek when she spoke, Sullivan taught Keller to recognize the vibrations and eventually mimic them with her own mouth.

Sullivan died in 1936, after spending her entire adult life as a companion to Keller. “She occupies a commanding and conspicuous place,” Bishop James E. Freeman said at her funeral.

“The touch of her hand did more than illuminate the pathway of a clouded mind; it literally emancipated a soul.”

– Adam Farley

Dr. William Wilde

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r. William Wilde, the father of Oscar Wilde, was a true Renaissance man of Victorian Dublin: an ear and eye surgeon, commissioner for the 1841 and 51 census, historian, Surgeon-Oculist to Queen Victoria, writer of medical journals and Irish folklore, and archaeological surveyor of the west of Ireland.

Dr. Wilde was born in 1815 at Kilkeevin in County Roscommon, the youngest of five children. His father was a doctor, inspiring William’s interest in medicine from an early age. Wilde earned his medical degree in 1837 at the age of 22 from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Ophthalmology, the study of the eye and ear, was still very much in its infancy in the 1840s. Wilde immediately made a name for himself in the

medical world by opening an ophthalmological surgery, which led to the founding of his own hospital, St Mark’s Ophthalmic Hospital for Diseases of the Eye and Ear, in Dublin. It was among the first in the British Isles to teach aural surgery, and would later prove an important center for research. In 1841, Dr. Wilde’s medical ability earned him a spot as medical commissioner for the 1841 census, a role he repeated in 1851. The 1851 census would later prove invaluable to Irish Famine research as it documented the severe population decline following the blight, and led to a knighthood for William Wilde in 1864.

Wilde’s literary output was equally brilliant. He became editor of the Dublin Journal of Medicine in 1845, and his Practical Observations on aural surgery and the nature and treatment of diseases in 1853 became the standard text on ear and eye surgery. A lover of the Irish countryside, he published numerous books on the archaeological landscape of Ireland. Wilde also retained a passion for Irish folklore, which he shared with his wife Jane. When visiting patients Wilde would sometimes accept stories and superstitions in lieu of payment. His writings are credited with establishing a cultural awakening of Irish folklore years before the Celtic Revival, a fact William Butler Yeats would comment on in his autobiography.

Dr. Wilde’s personal life clouded many of his achievements.

Prior to marrying Lady Jane in 1851, Wilde had three children out of wedlock, whom he supported his entire life. Caricatures and gossip also surrounded the doctor. A local riddle of the time asked: “Why are Sir William Wilde’s nails so black?” Answer, “Because he has scratched himself.” The end of Wilde’s life was particularly tragic. A rape charge made by a former patient Mary Travers damaged his reputation, resulting in a libel court case in which Travers was awarded only one farthing in damages. Even in the midst of scandal, Wilde’s medical colleagues stuck behind him, openly supporting him in The Lancet magazine during the trial. Wilde died in 1876, at the age of 61, having left a strong imprint in the world of Victorian medicine and in the realms of Irish writing and folklore.

– Matt Skwiat

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{what are you like?}

By Sheila Langan

Mary Roach n acclaimed, adventurous and hilarious science writer known for her fearless, approachable style and delightful footnotes, Mary Roach is the author of such best-selling and award-winning books as Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (2010). Her latest work is Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, which explores what happens along the whole length of the digestive tract, from the production of saliva to the bitter (and fascinating) end. Every step of the way, Roach introduces readers to a new expert or enlightening experience – from competitive eaters to a pet food taste test.

She has contributed to Outside magazine, Nature,

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Scientific American, The New York Times Magazine, and was a regular columnist for Salon.com. Previously, she was a PR rep for the San Francisco Zoo, working out of a trailer office next to Gorilla World.

Roach’s Irish ancestry lies in her father’s side of the family. He grew up in a tiny row house on Wood St. in Widnes, a factory town that employed a lot of Irish laborers, including her grandfather and some of her uncles (all of whom stayed in the U.K.). Had her father stayed, his schooling would have stopped at the 8th grade level.

Instead, he immigrated to the U.S., got his high school equivalency, a bachelor’s degree and, at age 40, a master’s, and taught speech and drama at Dartmouth.

Mary grew up in nearby Etna, New Hampshire. She now lives in Oakland, California with her husband, Ed Rachles.

After writing Gulp, did any of your own habits change?

Yes, I became a dreadful dinner partner, nattering on about bolus formation and nasal regurgitation and such.

What do you know about your Irish heritage?

My father’s grandfather lived in Ireland in a thatch-roof village house. I have a photograph of him standing out in front of it, but know nothing else about him.

In the Irish tradition, my father enjoyed an extended bachelorhood. He married in his 50s – was 65 when I came along. He had immigrated to the U.S. in 1915, age 21, aboard the Lusitania – a story my brother never believed until I tracked down the ship’s log in the National Archives. He was a gifted storyteller and artist, a lover of theater and travel and bantering with strangers. I have loads of first cousins in the UK, some of whom I am close with, and many second-cousins in Ireland, though I have never, alas, met them.

How do you figure out such interesting ways (for you and your readers) of approaching what you want to know?

I write with a sense of my future readers being ever on the verge of setting down the book and pronouncing it a bore. Fear and insecurity are great motivators.

Why do you use your own body for your research?

Because no one else will let me use theirs. When I was working on Bonk, part of which dealt with sex labs, I had a hard time getting access to these places. Frequently the only option would be to volunteer myself. There are only so many times you can do that before you begin to seem like a questionable sort of individual. At one point I leaned on my editor to be a subject in an orgasm study at Rutgers University. She thought about that for a moment, and then she said, “Mary, I’ll ask one of the interns.”

What makes you squeamish?

Okra snot – that mucilaginous filament that stretches up from the gumbo to the bottom of your spoon.

What do you do for your health/fitness?

Promise, procrastinate, pray.

How do your footnotes develop?

Via writerly self-indulgence. My footnotes are stuff that has no place in the tidy flow of the narrative but is too delightful to leave out.

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What was your first job?

When I was 16, I had a job on the cleaning crew at a local hospital. I wore a pink uniform and cleaned bathrooms and buffed the hallway linoleum. Oddly, I don’t recall hating the job. I recall getting choked up at the end of the summer when I went to turn in my uniform and say goodbye to the ladies.

Do you strike up conversations on long plane journeys?

Always. That could be your next book, sitting in the seat to your left, leafing through SkyMall. You do need an exit strategy, however.

What is on your bedside table?

Honest to crap, a book of short stories entitled Irish Girl. By Tim Johnston. Dark, but amazing.

What is your most prized possession?

A tiny welded metal cube. It was a gift from my husband. Years

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Your most embarrassing moment?

Fifth grade. Gym class. The class has just begun, all of us gathered in a circle in the center of the gym, dressed in our cotton onepiece sleeveless gym suits, listening to Miss Merriman. During a pause in the proceedings, Mary Jane Pierce points to the pubic region of my gym suit. “What’s that?” she asks, not softly.

Someone has drawn there a curlicue mass of pubic hair.

Your favorite place?

Somewhere on the Pacific Coast in the late afternoon, sun glittering on the water. Also: a wood booth in an old restaurant, with good friends.

Favorite sound?

The clicking noise when you peddle backward on a bicycle. ago, we had a running joke about a sign across the street from where we grocery-shopped: “SHEET METAL BOXES. NO JOB TOO SMALL.” Of course they didn’t mean the size of the box; they meant that they’d do small runs, accommodate small orders, but we liked to imagine going in and asking for a half-inch-square box. And when they’d say they couldn’t possibly make one that small, we’d lead them out to the sidewalk and point to the sign.

One day Ed went in and told them about our dumb little joke, and they happily welded the smallest metal box they could manage.

“What’s in it?” people ask. And I think, “love.”

Where do you go to think?

I used to do my best thinking while staring out airplane windows.

The seat-back video system put a stop to that. Now I sit and watch old Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond episodes. Walking is good, but here again, technology has interfered. I like to listen to iTunes while I walk home. I guess I don’t think anymore.

What quality do you seek in friends?

The ability to collapse into uncontrollable laughter over some shared silliness.

Best opening line in a book or piece of music?

I can’t think of a first line, but I’ll give you a last line that I like.

It’s by Donovan, from “Lay of the Last Tinker.” It comes right after “You have a muzzled dancing monkey.” Here it is: “A little cup in a hairy hand.”

Movie you will watch again and again?

Fargo. Spinal Tap. La Jette. Blow Up. Your greatest fear?

My husband has a fear of death, of not existing. I don’t fear death so much as I fear its prologues: loneliness, decrepitude, pain, debilitation, depression, senility. After a few years of those, I imagine death presents like a holiday at the beach.

Favorite smell?

Take your pick: jasmine, lilac, lily of the valley, cocoa butter, gin, freshly ground coffee, the back of Ed’s neck when he first wakes up.

Favorite drink?

Gin martini, very dry, very cold, with a twist, served in my dad’s old martini glass.

Favorite quote?

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhaustive struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” – George Orwell Best advice ever received?

A saying on a Salada tea bag: “The world is full of cactus, but we don’t have to sit on it.” My mother handed it to me one day, without comment. Runner-up: a fortune cookie fortune that I got around the time I was considering writing my first book proposal.

It said, “Try something new.”

Best advice ever given?

“Don’t send it.”

What trait do you most deplore in others?

Narcissism. Entitlement. The belief that you – your time, your opinion, your preferences – matter more. As Ann Landers said, “Nobody better, better than nobody.”

In yourself?

I have a tendency to shove the lawn mower. That’s a reference to an old joke: Guy goes to borrow a neighbor’s lawn mower. On the way over, he’s muttering to himself, “Bet he won’t let me borrow it, he doesn’t trust me, never did, thinks I can’t run a lawn mower without breaking something, thinks I’m some kind of idiot…”

The neighbor opens the door, all smiles, and the guy yells, “You can take your frickin’ lawn mower and shove it up your ass!” IA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 93

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{ review of books} Stand-out books by Irish-American authors that cover a range of health-related issues A Drinking Life

Hero Foods

ete Hamill's autobiographical A Drinking Life is an important portrayal of the real life of an addict. He is unapologetic in this memoir taking readers from his childhood on to his drinking years and to his ultimate decision to put drink down forever. A talented journalist and fiction writer, Hamill hits a stride in A Drinking Life, which seems to effortlessly combine the best of his literary hats, the richly worded novelist and the direct and observational journalist.

Hamill’s book is a masculine exploration of his fascinating life, of Brooklyn saloons and the Korean War, of jail time in Mexico and chasing women. He carefully but forcefully guides the reader along the streets of his childhood to the New Year’s Eve that halted his drinking life forever and began a sober one.

Among the most wonderfully portrayed characters in A Drinking Life are Hamill’s parents, both immigrants from Belfast settling in the working-class Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope. Hamill’s treatment of his father’s drinking is brutally honest, and while drawing parallels between the losses addiction cost his father and himself, Hamill does not succumb to placing the fault for his own struggles on his father.

Hamill’s approach to the personal subject matter is both courageous and masterful.

Perhaps even more important to the story than Hamill’s addiction is the picture he paints of New York City in near perfect detail. Hamill balances presenting the environment, his family and his time in the Navy Yards all as heavy influences on his addition without ever placing blame. It is a unique, refreshing and realistic portrayal of addiction in which Hamill neither condemns drink nor mystifies it. –T.D.

fter being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, Manhattan restaurateur Seamus Mullen began experimenting with his diet, modifying it in ways that resulted in more manageable symptoms. His debut cookbook, Hero Food: How Cooking Delicious Things Can Make Us Feel Better, tells this story through his collection of tantalizing recipes.

The cookbook focuses on 18 ingredients that Mullen calls his “Hero Foods” which were most effective in relieving his symptoms. His recipes are a combination of traditional Spanish cuisine he mastered from years of working in Spain and traveling its countryside and influences from his own Vermont farm.

Mullen writes, “I know there's no silver bullet, but I have discovered that some foods can make dramatic differences.” Each chapter is an ode to one of those foods.

Deliciously illustrated, Hero Food contains mouth-watering recipes for Crispy Tuscan Kale on the Grill and Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder just to name two. A virtual guidebook to a fresh, tasty and healthy lifestyle, Hero Food is an exciting tool for anyone looking to feel and eat a bit more heroically, because, as Mullen shows, the physical benefits of these foods can be just as delicious as the recipes themselves. – T.D.

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(Published: 1995 / Back Bay Books / 265 Pages) 94 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

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(Published: 2012 / Andrew McMeel Publishing / 320 pages)

Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family’s Schizophrenia

atrick Tracey’s book, Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family’s Schizophrenia, is a memoir, a research document, a medical

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ethnography, and certainly a page-turner.

The story Tracey has to tell begins years ago, with a woman named Mary Egan.

The Egan line is the one Tracey chooses to follow in his search through Ireland, as Mary Egan serves as the historical link that brought the “Irish madness” down to Tracey’s grandmother, May Sweeney, and eventually to two of his beloved sisters, Chelle and Austine.

The diagnosis first of creative, theatrical Chelle, then later of Tracey’s confidante and best friend, Austine, smashes a fragile family dynamic and sends Tracey into the depths of his own drug addiction and despair. Out of this period came the decision to undertake the journey to Ireland that shaped and became Tracey’s book.

Tracey is clear about the fact that Stalking Irish Madness was written, first and foremost, for Chelle and Austine.

This emotional attachment to the subject matter shines through on every page, but the book is also a gritty and engaging travelogue that pulls the reader along with it through the gorgeous Roscommon landscape as well as the muddy campgrounds where the author sleeps. While his own story is not the focus of this book, the writing and the experience clearly belong to Tracey.

As anyone who has gone to Ireland to search for their genealogical roots can tell you, the journey can be filled with dead ends and frustration. The process becomes even more difficult when the focus of the search is schizophrenia.

Along the way, Tracey does encounter refusals to discuss what is often seen as a private family matter.

Transforming generations of shame and suffering into an open dialogue between those who have schizophrenia, those who love them, and the medical communities in both Ireland and America is an

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ongoing process, and Tracey’s book is indeed a great contribution. – K.R. (Published: 2008 / Bantam Books / 288 pages) Circles Around the Sun

ike McCloskey, the eldest child of Nita and Jack McCloskey (a former basketball coach and general manager of the Detroit Pistons), was a golden boy in his youth. As a toddler, he is beautiful, snuggling up to his mother on the cover of Ladies Home Journal. In high school he is smart, cool (if a bit introverted), the star of the basketball team, and has a gorgeous girlfriend. At Duke, where he attends college on an academic scholarship, things start to slip away. He quits basketball, he takes acid, but he’s still functional. After college, he can’t settle, can’t hold a job.

Friends gradually fade away. He has his first psychotic episode and is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

This is the Mike that his sister Molly, fourteen years younger, remembers most from growing up. Between his phases of wandering and hospitalization, he lives on the couch at their parents’ house in Oregon. Molly and her friend, not really realizing what they are doing, have fun aggravating his paranoia by ringing the doorbell and running away.

After various attempts at getting back into the world, not ill enough to be permanently hospitalized, Mike joins a house in Portland where he tolerates his housemates and spends most days at a nearby coffee shop.

Those are the facts of his life, carefully detailed in Molly McCloskey’s memoir Circles Around the Sun, published in October, 2011. Here, years of research, soul-searching, and interviews with family members, friends and distant acquaintances behind her, McCloskey (who now works as a writer and journalist in Dublin) takes an unsparing look at everything leading up to and following Mike’s diagnosis: their family, their childhood, the isolation of schizophrenia. Alongside this she reflects on her own struggles with alcoholism and paralyzing anxiety; the fear that what happened to Mike might happen to her. One of the toughest but most penetrating passages concerns her unraveling while living isolated in Sligo, two nearby pubs “the lodestones” of her existence, and

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the eventual forgiving of the self that came with sobriety.

To call the book a form of amends is to simplify what McCloskey has achieved.

But poring over the pages, one can’t help but think about the difference between the Molly who played tricks on her brother as a child and the one who wrote this brave, beautiful and completely consuming account of his life and illness. – S.L. (Published: 2011 / The Overlook Press / 240 pages)

Forgotten Ellis Island: The Extraordinary Story of America’s Immigrant Hospital

pposite the dedication page of Lorie Conway’s Forgotten Ellis Island is a full page photo of the nurses and doctors who staffed the Ellis Island Hospital – many Irish faces among them. Another photo shows a young patient on the steps of the hospital with nurse Jennie Colligan, who went by the nickname “Mother.” But no matter how kind the medical staff, the physical exam was grueling. “The doctors were seated at a long table with a basin full of potassium chloride and you had to stand in front of them…. And you had to reveal yourself…. Right there in front of everyone. It’s a very unpleasant memory,” recalled one Irish immigrant. “We went to this big, open room, and there were a couple of doctors there, and they tell you, ‘Strip.’ And my mother had never, ever undressed in front of us. In those days nobody would. She was so embarrassed….” recalled an immigrant from Wales. Page 37 shows a photograph of a dozen young men with a chalk mark X on their coats identifying them for further medical and mental testing. The X usually signaled the beginning of deportation proceedings.

The book has many neverbefore-published photographs and stories from patients and medical staff. We learn that “Often times a child with trachoma would be denied entry, requiring one parent to [return home] with it. Often times the mother and the rest of the children would have to return to Europe with the diseased one,

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and until the boat sailed, the father, wretched and unhappy, would haunt the detention quarters, while his family kept up a constant wailing and crying.”

Many immigrants who never made it out of the hospital were buried in paupers’ graves in cemeteries around New York City. As one record noted: “Received from the chief Medical Officer, the following property of Edward Moran, age 55 years, admitted to the hospital, Feb. 14, 1928 and died Feb. 18, 1928: 1 hat, 1 pair shoes, 1 gray suit, 1 white shirt, 1 pair socks, 1 pair garters, 1 union suit, 1 belt, 1 overcoat, 1 pair gloves, 1 watch, keys, rosary beads, $23.15.”

As tough as it was, there was also much kindness. Rev. Grogan, Catholic chaplain at Ellis Island 1900-1923, wrote: “I have been in daily contact with the doctors and nurses and can testify to the kindness and care that the patients receive at their hands. It is not generally known that the hospital physicians and surgeons often call in specialists from the city in doubtful and obstinate cases.” – P.H (Published: 2007 / Smithsonian / 208 pages) The Long Goodbye

s eloquent and thoughtful as it is brave, The Long Goodbye is poet/ writer Meghan O’Rourke’s account of her mother’s battle with cancer and the strange, difficult months following her death.

O’Rourke’s taxingly honest account of her experience transcends the category of memoir as, in addition to sharing her personal story, she turns her critic’s eye to the question of what it means to lose someone and to grieve that loss in today’s culture.

O’Rourke re-lives and tries to make sense of her mother’s diagnosis of stage IV colorectal cancer at the age of 52, her remission and relapse, her care and her death, and the impossible settling of reality that came after. A voracious reader since childhood, O’Rourke turned to literature – from psychology to poetry – to help ger her through, and here she also shares the bits and pieces and larger ideas that were able to penetrate. The Long Goodbye is a difficult but cathartic read for anyone who has ever lost a loved one and is ready to reflect. – S.L. (Published: 2011 /

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Riverhead Books / 320 pages) AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 95

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{books}

From the Ground Up Chicagoan Jeanne Nolan talks to Kara Rota about her new book and her commitment to growing organic food.

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“

am all about people growing their own food,” Jeanne Nolan says to me when we get on the phone to discuss her just-released book, From the Ground Up: A Food Grower’s Education in Life, Love and the Movement That’s Changing the Nation. When we met nine years ago, Jeanne had just moved from a communal farm back to her parents’ house in a gated community on the North Shore of Chicago. That year, I watched her turn her unconventional experience in growing food into the business of patiently, kindly, and relentlessly teaching organic vegetable gardening to everyone who would listen, starting with suburbanites whose perfectly manicured Miracle-Gro cookie-cutter lawns would never be the same.

“My message is that anyone, anywhere can grow food,” Jeanne continues. “That may mean, for somebody, a few pots of herbs on a fire escape. That may mean renting a community garden plot. That may mean starting to compost with a worm bin in your apartment. There’s something about the lifestyle change that happens when you get involved in growing something you’re going to eat that is, I think, for some people, a gateway or a first step into being able to examine other aspects of their life where they may want to make changes.”

As a teenager, Jeanne dropped out of her demanding and affluent high school on Chicago’s North Shore where she excelled academically but felt that there was something seriously lacking.

Yearning for a whole and less materialistic life, she moved to Zendik Farm, a commune in rural California that practiced organic farming. Seventeen years later, the extreme and unreasonable restrictions on members’ personal lives, including romantic relationships and child-rearing, led Jeanne to escape the commune and go back to her childhood home, bringing her then-two-year-old daughter with her. Awash in culture

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Jeanne trains teachers in using the vegetable gardens as teaching tools. “Particularly in underserved areas, food desert locations, a lot of the vegetables that kids are growing at school they’re not used to eating at home. Kids will harvest carrots, maybe even rainbow carrots, and they come home like, ‘Mom, we’ve gotta get carrots! We can get them in all different colors!’A lot of kids are pushing the envelope at home. When they come to our garden in Lincoln Park Zoo, we’ve got tomatoes that are gold and they’re so sweet, and kids who’ve never liked tomatoes try them and love them. And then they want them. There are a lot of kids who are leading the charge with their parents to eat better… With some children it’s a real match, the activity of growing food. It just captivates them.”

Most of all, Jeanne insists that this movement is for everyone, and that it affects all of us. “Growing your own food, shopping at farmers markets, wanting to know where your food comes from, wanting to be involved in the process, wanting schools to provide better food, wanting schools to provide gardening programs, urban farming, it’s all in there.

The awareness of it is cross-cultural.

Inner city kids who live in food deserts need better food at their schools and community gardens, and affluent kids who have everything but have no idea where it comes from, no sense of connection with the earth…they need it just as much. The benefit of growing our own food, of getting in on this conversation, is there for everybody. In cities, in suburbs, rurally, the message is relevant…It’s part of being human. To use your muscles, moving a wheelbarrow, digging, planting. I think it’s in us, the need to interact with the IA earth that way.”

Jeanne Nolan

shock and unsure how to build an adult life in the community she had renounced, Jeanne began doing the only thing she felt she knew how to do: grow food.

First in her parents’ backyard, then for neighbors. Before long, she capitalized on her skill to found The Organic Gardener Ltd. and had a contract to create the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Edible Garden. Since then, she’s helped countless families, schools, organizations and companies grow their own food organically.

“People are really getting it that we have to change our ways,” Jeanne says.

“I interact with a lot of moms, and more and more parents are making the connection. Of course you want your kids to eat fresh and healthy food. Kids who grow vegetables, either at school or at home, eat more vegetables – there’s a lot of data now backing that. But parents who have kids who have challenges like focus issues, ADHD, ADD, even more severe issues, or physical health issues – I’ve talked to so many moms who are turning to food and making sure that their kids are eating less processed food, less sugar, and really finding that that is a way they can help their kids with these mental or physical health issues.”

Kids have become powerful advocates in what Jeanne calls the “seed to table” movement. In Chicago public schools,

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DANCE

Reel Life Miracle Irish Set Dancing Found Therapeutic for Parkinson’s Patients

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talian neurologist Dr. Daniele Volpe direction frequently. Directional change Movement Disorders in Dublin. Following has long been a fan of Irish traditionand the need to maintain reasonably conhis presentation, a group of dancers from al music, making yearly trips to sistent step lengths require the dancer to Venice, most of whom suffered from Ireland and playing in a band under constantly transfer weight from one leg Parkinson’s, were asked to dance a figure the stage name Dan Fox. Little did he to the other. from the Corofin Plain Set, before an audithink, however, that he would be able to But how? Volpe believes the answer ence of nearly one thousand. incorporate his love of trad music with his may be the music. The strong upbeat Follow-up testing is now underway work as head of the Parkinson’s Rehabilirhythmic pattern of an Irish reel or jig may with an international randomized trial tation Unit at St. John of God Hospital in provide the brain with periodic acoustic being conducted by researchers from the Venice.

In June 2010, Volpe was playing alongside Charlie Piggot, one of the founding members of De Dannan, at the famed trad hot spot Peppers Pub in Feakle, Co. Clare. As the band was about to start, a man with an unsteady gait entered the pub and Dr. Volpe immediately recognized his symptoms as Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s, which affects an estimated 7 – 10 million people worldwide, the majority of whom are above the Members of the Parkinson’s Foundation of Ireland gathered to practice their set dancing. age of 50, is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. A procues that somehow enable it to bypass University of Limerick in Ireland and the gressive loss of dopamine-producing brain transmission disfunctionalities in the University of Melbourne in Australia. Dr. cells results in the impairment of motor Basal Ganglia (BG) and in the SMA Volpe is hopeful the initial success will be skills, with symptoms including tremors, (Supplementary Motor Area) networks. validated, and in time, Irish Set Dancing rigidity, slowness of movement, and poor When Volpe returned to Venice, he Therapy (ISDT) will become part of the balance and coordination. conducted a small study to determine conventional rehabilitation options availWhen Dr. Volpe and the band opened whether his observation was simply coinable to patients everywhere. the floor for a set dance, he was surprised cidence. He recruited a group of 24 subAdditionally, he wants to investigate to see the man with Parkinson’s set aside jects, all of whom presented moderate the efficacy of ISDT in Alzheimer’s his walking aid and join the dancers. stage Parkinson’s symptoms (average Disease and has begun development of a When the music started, he went through Hoehn-Yahr score of 2.5). randomized control Trial process to better the moves effortlessly, and without any The subjects were divided into two understand the therapeutic effects of assistance. Amazed, Dr. Volpe asked groups. Group 1, the control group, ISDT on both diseases.

Charlie Piggot about a particular leg received conventional physiotherapy.

The village of Feakle will celebrate movement he noticed, which Charlie Group 2 was introduced Dr.Volpe’s discoveries with two identified as the reel step. to Irish set dance coursmajor events. As part of the For many with Parkinson’s, posteriores. Testing after the six26th annual Traditional Music Dr. Daniele anterior advancement of the lower limbs month trial showed that Festival on August 7, organizers Volpe during the swing phase of the gait’s cycle while all forms of therahave invited Dr. Volpe’s dance is compromised. Yet, as Volpe observed, py were beneficial, the group of Parkinson’s patients to the reel step seemed to allow the Irish set dance group be special guest performers. On Irishman to override this impediment. showed much more sigAugust 6, Volpe will present his As he thought about the reel step, nificant improvement. latest findings at the first-ever Volpe noted a few key things about Irish Dr. Volpe presented his Feakle Health Conference, set dancing: It is patterned, but steps are initial findings in June devoted to the effects of Irish set not overly repetitious. Execution of the 2012 to the International dancing in the treatment of IA pattern requires the dancer to change Congress of PD and Parkinson’s disease.

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HOME

Let the

Healing Begin While it has not been labeled an actual illness, the longing to return home can cause psychological and social problems that get passed down to future generations.

Fionnula Flanagan writes that it’s time to welcome everyone back into the fold.

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f the historians are to be believed, early on we left in high-prowed small boats stuffed with monks and their concubines to found schools of learning in Iceland, the Scottish isles and the far-flung Continent of Europe. As one of the conditions of the Treaty of Limerick, we left into exile with our tribal leaders and joined the armies of France and Spain, rising in the ranks, distinguishing ourselves by our courage and tenacity in battle and enduring to found dynasties among the royal houses of Europe.

Fleeing starvation, we left in coffin ships, carrying our few belongings, our sorrow, our rage and our hope to the New World. Deported by the Crown, we left in prison barges for Australia and Tasmania, where waist deep in icy water we were condemned to build the cells in which we would rot and die.

In two world wars we left in droves to fight for King and Country, many uncertain as to which, if either, was ours. We left to defend the Spanish Republic in the late thirties and those of us who returned were rewarded with excommunication and isolation by an increasingly conservative Catholic Ireland.

Over three decades we left by the thousands, bastard babies, our secret export a collusion between Ireland’s religious orders and her government, our young unmarried mothers whose names we would never know, whose eyes we would never see, shamed and coerced into giving us up for adoption to unknown, childless, worthy Catholic couples in America.

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Throughout the grey fifties, fleeing poverty and unemployment and a repressive Church and State, we left with shabby cardboard suitcases on the Liverpool boat for work in Britain’s hospitals, in her factories, in her underground tunnels and on her building sites. With entire families to see us off we left Dublin and Shannon on planes for relatives in the United States, distance and expense making it unlikely we would ever return.

And then the boom times came and we left for the weekend on the same planes for shopping trips to New York and Paris and Milan and the undocumented began leaving Boston and New York, coming home, confident of opportunity and a future in the newly prosperous Ireland.

Until now. Sadly, the recession generated in the death throes of the Celtic Tiger has reintroduced the brain drain from Ireland. Young, eager and educated they are leaving daily by the hundreds.

Government quotas abroad, however, have narrowed the options and opportunities for immigrants, making Irish emigration less available as a national solution.

Living as I do in the United States and having been involved in the efforts to gain legitimacy for the Irish illegals there, I watch with concern as I see borders being tightened and stricter rules being introduced to limit the inflow and opportunities of all immigrants, the Irish included. What are they to do now but enter illegally, keep the head down and try to gain a toe-hold in the melting pot of urban America?

And what are their families at home to do, as they wait and worry, their financial

circumstances severely curtailed by recession, struggling to keep homes, businesses from going underwater? No money now for the quick trip to Boston or New York to see how Mary or Brian are doing, their hard-earned degrees in architecture and economics qualifying them to work as waiters and bartenders – if they are lucky. And keep the head down.

My own entry into the United States was easier. It was 1968 and I was invited

by Hilton Edwards who had directed the original production of Brian Friel’s Lovers in which I had played Maggie, the young schoolgirl, to go to New York along with the late Anna Manahan and Eamon Morrissey to play in the Broadway production. We had entered the U.S. on special H-1 visas which only permitted us to work in that production and expected us to leave when that play closed. During the Broadway run I applied for my green card and assembled the requisite number of letters from the producers with whom I had worked who, bless their hearts, were willing to state in writing that they believed I would never be a burden to the American economy!

In the many visits I had to pay to the offices of the Department of Immigration (now more frighteningly renamed the Department of Homeland Security), then in the Wall Street area, it seemed to me each time I saw the same sad families sitting patiently, murmuring softly in languages other than English, their children clustered around them, faces from all the ends of the earth, weary from endlessly waiting on bureaucratic decisions which

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n

The "Hands Across the Divide" sculpture in Derry signifies the letting go of past grievances to make room for peace in the hearts of those afflicted by the Troubles. The sculpture, by hometown artist Maurice Harton, also serves a reminder that there are many divides, on a national and personal level,often within our own families, that need to be crossed in order to let the healing begin.

could give them a shot at a new life or send them by instant deportation back to their home countries, to who knew what poverty, hunger, repression or even death.

I think of them still. Sometimes they come into my mind’s eye in incongruous places. When I’m on the red carpet being asked some question about “Your Career” or “What You’re Wearing” or some such. I think of them then and it puts it all in perspective. They are the ones who left. And somewhere back in their country of birth they have parents who wait and worry and struggle with poverty and illness and ignorant repressive regimes, secular and religious, with no way to hop on a plane and follow to see how they are doing. They are us.

Then along came an Irish Government initiative called The Gathering and

spokespeople came from the Irish government to Los Angeles to promote it. It was originally conceived as a plan to help the Irish economy by encouraging Irish people living both at home and, like myself, living in the diaspora, to invite their relatives abroad to make a return trip to Ireland, to increase tourism and open up possibilities for financial investment by the visitors. With 34.7 million people in the U.S. claiming to be of Irish descent, the potential pool from which to draw tourists seemed like a mother lode.

I thought it was a brilliant initiative. I still do and have tried to lend it support where I can. To be sure, it is not perfect (what plan conceived by government is!) and lacked the kind of funding which could have pushed it into international significance as an initiative. But it has within

it one great element – it makes an appeal to Irish families at home to extend an invitation to those who left to come back.

This is good if it is exercised, because those of us who left and particularly if we “made it” abroad, are held in a certain suspicious contempt at home, as if we have in some way betrayed our national birthright. Believe me, I know. I feel it aimed at me along with the admiration and congratulations whenever I come home. And my strongest evidence for its existence is that I myself, prior to leaving Ireland, used to keep a store of it handy to pour, like confetti at a wedding on the unsuspecting heads of returnees.

I realized, when I was preparing to take part in the television programme on The Gathering, that the families I was to speak to were being encouraged to invite back their “loved ones.” All well and good I thought, but what about their “despised ones?” The ones they were glad to see leave, the trouble makers, the difficult ones, the ones they made leave, the ones who shamed them? The bastard babies now grown, educated, successful?

Might they not be invited back to invest? Many of them surely had “made it” abroad and surely their shilling or lira or dollar is as good as the next? And even if they didn’t invest money, could not a healing take place that would invest good will and the opportunity to grow relations and partnerships of many and varied designs? And isn’t it time to start such a healing?

The rifts and divisions within Irish families, my own included, are legendary. They are sources of great shame, secret and never mentioned of course, and sources of great pain, suffering and loss. Also shrouded in secrecy. Not to be spoken of for fear the world might get the idea we are not the jolly, funny, amusing, generous bunch we wish we were if we could only shake off forever our suspicion and treachery and shame.

Perhaps The Gathering, if exercised in its broadest, most generous sense, can enable such a healing. Or at least open the door to a dialogue about it. As a way to come home at last for all of us. Those IA who are here and those who left.

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YOGA

Breathe...

The Breath Is Key

An introduction to Yoga by Irene McLaughlin Narissi.

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y introduction to Kundalini of Sikh warriors) until 1969 when it was Yoga in 1982 was a game freely introduced to the West by Yogi changer. My type A personality Bhajan. After 30 years of determined effort changed to a more patient and under his leadership it has widespread certainly chilled out A-. When asked how acceptance in the West, and featured artiI stay so calm and centered I’m clear that cles have graced the covers of Time, the three-days-a-week practice is conNewsweek and The Wall Street Journal. tributing and I consider it my health insurThis form of yoga works on the glanance. Other than a slight cold every coudular system, strengthens the nervous ple of years, I haven’t had any illness, pain system, and enables us to harness the or discomfort for decades. The list of very energy of the mind and the emotions. The real benefits from regularly practicing kryas (sequence) have been created to yoga is long. Yoga itself is a practical, methodical, and systematic discipline or techniques “The greatest that help us to become more education is the aware of our nature. An experiscience of self. ential science of self-study.

The science Practicing yoga is not only of self and an effective stress reliever, but self-awareness also a way to ease symptoms is the highest of anxiety. By transferring knowledge a focus and attention to the body man can possess.” and breath, yoga can help to - Yogi Bhajan temper anxiety while also releasing physical tension.

Anxiety is the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting roughly 40 million adults nationwork on various parts of the anatomy to wide, or about 18 percent of us. My anxachieve specific outcomes and are iety went out the window and has not designed for all (beginners to advanced) returned. By focusing on your breath as and all levels of physical fitness. you move through the poses and closing Yogi Bhajan called yoga an exact sciyour eyes, you relax and go within to ence, meaning that specific sets and medachieve a more meditative state. itations can be “prescribed” for a specific Meditation also is a tool that has been outcome, including relief from addictions. practiced in some form since antiquity. It In the turbulent drug culture of the 60s is often used to clear the mind and ease he recognized that youth experimentation many health issues, such as high blood with “altered states of consciousness” pressure, depression and anxiety. expressed a deeper desire for self-awareMany types of yoga are being taught. ness and connectedness. And he showed Hatha, Jivamuhti, Raja, Kriya, Kundalini them that through the practice of this yoga have become more mainstream. yoga, you could experience a holistic and After experiencing Kundalini yoga, I liberating sense of awareness and inner chose this 5,000-year-old yoga that was euphoria without the damaging effects of kept secret in India (for building strength pharmaceuticals.

100 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013

Although yoga is an increasingly popular form of exercise in the U.S., there are those caught in judgment and fear that it is a religious practice. Usually these are people who have never experienced yoga.

“Despite the quasi-spiritual trappings, yoga, as it’s widely practiced by millions of Americans of all faiths, is no instrument of religious indoctrination,” says Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times. “It’s exercise.”

Medical doctors are becoming more accepting of certain complementary and alternative medicine therapies, such as yoga, meditation and deep breathing, than they have been in the past.

And recently a California judge allowed that a school could accept a half-million-dollar grant to introduce yoga instruction to students.

Integrated is the umbrella word. In today’s fragmented society, where high-tech living has created isolation instead of intimacy, and has caused increasing physical ailments such as carpel tunnel, computer addiction and overstimulation, yoga and meditation have the ability to balance the disharmony and strife that is accepted as normal every day living. To quote Yogi Bhajan, “The greatest education is the science of self. The science of self and self-awareness is the highest knowledge a man can possess.”

Bottom line: healthier bodies, and mental and emotional well-being add up to a happier population.

I invite you to increase your mental and physical flexibility, and try something new that’s been around for ages – yoga!

Irene has been practicing Kundalini Yoga for 30 years and teaching the science for 15.

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{crossword}

By Darina Molloy

ACROSS 1 (& 1 down) Island off the coast of Cork (4) 2 Part of this village lies in Roscommon, with the other part in Longford (11) 8 See 11 across (1, 8) 11 (& 8 across) Lions ultimately won their series despite the controversial dumping of this popular player (5) 12 (& 10 down) This doctor, suffragette and Sinn Fein TD established a children’s hospital in Dublin in 1919 (8) 13 The ___ Healer: Brian Friel play (5) 14 Uttered in a monotone (7) 16 (& 7 down) Ireland’s only science Nobel Laureate (6) 20 See 34 down (5) 22 Early Irish law (6) 23 (& 21 down) This doctor wrote a popular 2012 book called Flourishing (7) 24 Questionable or dodgy (4) 26 Canadian equivalent of U.S. ‘huh?’ or ‘right?’ (2) 28 Physician, heal ______ (7) 30 A centuries-old cure for the common cold, still used in Ireland (5) 32 See 35 across (5) 35 (& 32 across) NY-based doctor and humanitarian who specialized in tropical medicine (5) 36 A new novel which brings the story of Typhoid Mary vividly to life (5) 38 Lengthen (6) 39 (&5 down) The ___ _____: hugely popular Tuam band (3) 40 Regarding, in short (2) 41 New competency test for those hoping to study medicine in Ireland (1, 1, 1, 1) 42 (& 22 down, & 29 down) Author of 36 across (4)

June / July Solution

DOWN 1 See 1 across (5) 3 These mountains run along the border between Counties Carlow and Wexford (11) 4 (& 25 down) Long-running goat celebration in Kerry, held in August (4) 5 See 39 across(7) 6 See 17 down (5) 7 See 16 across (6) 9 Patrick Kavanagh wrote of this road on a “July evening” (9) 10 See 12 across (4) 15 Grey’s Anatomy fans refer to Patrick Dempsey’s character as Dr. _____ (6) 17 (& 6 down) Born in Waterford in 1627, he was known as the ‘father of chemistry’ (6)

18 Hit Marie Jones’ play: ____ in his Pocket (6) 19 Traditionally, the ____ son (of a ____ son) has the power of healing (7) 21 See 23 across (7) 22 (& 29 down) See 42 across (4) 25 See 4 down (4) 27 Novel by Eamonn Sweeney: Waiting for the _______ (6) 29 See 42 across (5) 31 To turn something so as to show a different surface (6) 33 (American) Foundation for Aids Research (1, 1, 1, 1, 1) 34 (20 across) This ‘wise woman’ of Feakle was renowned for her use of magic in healing (5) 35 Hold on to or maintain (4) 37 Female sheep (3)

Win a subscription to Irish America magazine Please send your completed crossword puzzle to Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001, to arrive no later than September 5, 2013.

A winner will be drawn from among all correct entries. If there are no correct solutions, the prize will be awarded for the completed puzzle which comes closest in the opinion of our staff. Winner’s name will be published along with the solution in our next issue. Xerox copies are acceptable.

Winner of the June / July Crossword: Pat Boyle, Houston, TX AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2013 IRISH AMERICA 101

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By Edythe Preet

Irish Healing Arts Edythe Preet writes of herbs and holy wells, charms and secrets of Irish healing arts. y friend Michael says he has a charming mother. He hastens to add: “I know you think we all do, but my mother’s charms stop bleeding and cure burns and headaches and sprains and sties in the eyes just by laying on her gentle hands and chanting words handed down through the centuries.”

The concept doesn’t surprise me at all. Folk remedies are not exclusive to the Irish. When I was a child and came down with a fever or sore throat my Italian grandmother used to place her hand lightly on my forehead and murmur a string of singsong syllables. Almost immediately my temperature would drop and my discomfort would diminish.

Neither my mother nor her siblings knew how their mother achieved her cures, replying when questioned only, “It’s a secret.” Since my grandmother didn’t speak English, I couldn’t ask her to teach me her folk remedy, but I listened carefully and memorized the sounds. Years later when my own daughter expe-

Tain Bo Cuilange, or Cattle Raid of Cooley, when CuChulainn and Ferdia are so badly wounded that they are beyond the help of herbs and plants and “nothing could be done but lay magic amulets on them and say spells and incantations to stop the spurts and spouts of blood.” After the boxing match ended, Patricia’s father-in-law wrote down his charms, cautioning her to mind the confidentiality caveats or their potency would be lost forever. His admonition to secrecy reeks of Irish faerie lore.

Illnesses and injuries were thought to result if one of the faerie folk was treated with unkindness or disrespect, or if their activities were disturbed in any way, such as building a house atop one of their favorite pathways. Conversely, it was also believed that physicians and healers received their curative skills directly from the faeries. A tale told around the hearth fire speaks of three women from Dingle who needed to cross a river and encountered a beautiful lady on its bank. When she asked for their assistance in fording the water, two of the women said they were already carrying too heavy a burden but the third generously put aside her own parcels and carried the lady to the opposite side. On reaching dry land, the stranger told her: “When you wake to-morrow morning you will know fully every plant and herb that grows in Ireland.” Next morning on awakening the kind-hearted woman knew all plants and herbs by name, where they grew, and the power of each, and from that moment she was a great doctor.

Knowing the healing power of herbs and flowers is the backbone of the Irish folk pharmacopoeia. All healers, then and now, prize their apothecaries of herbal remedies. Some faerie herbs that were widely used for healing include dandelion (heart disease), eyebright (eye infections), vervain and rowan (general health and prosperity), elder twigs (pain), calendula (fever), and St. John’s Wort (dimentia and depression).

Dandelions, widely used in healing.

Water, especially that from sacred wells, also plays a great part in the history of Irish folk cures. In prehistoric times, pools of water appearing without a rienced an occasional fever, I mimicked Nana’s ritual and found seeming source were thought to spring from the Otherworld, a it to be as effective as ever, even though to this day I have no place of power and wisdom. A well in the palace courtyard of idea what I was saying.

Manannan Mac Lir, the faerie king, was encircled by nine magic Michael is more fortunate than I. His mother Patricia, born hazel trees and inhabited by a large salmon, which ate the hazeland bred in Belfast, still has the yellowed slip of paper inscribed nuts and acquired the wisdom of the ages. From the well, flowed with words that were passed on to her more than fifty years ago. five streams representing the five senses through which knowlHer charms can only be revealed to a family member of the edge is obtained. In Echtra Cormaic Maic Airt i Tir Tairngiri opposite sex, but she did share how it was that she came to learn (Cormac Mac Art’s Adventure in The Land of Promise), third them. While watching a boxing match on television with her century A.D. King Cormac Mac Art meets Mananan Mac Lir father-in-law, who was a devoted fisticuffs fan, his sparring who explains that only someone who drinks from the streams favorite received a blow that bled profusely. When the elder gent can attain true knowledge. whispered a few words and the bleeding stopped, his son chuckAs sources of precious life-sustaining fresh water, sacred led, “Ah, Da’s charmed another one.” wells were presumed to be the abodes of powerful goddesses. In Stopping bleeding, a most useful charm, is mentioned in the Echtra Mac nEchach Muigmedoin (The Adventure of the Sons

PHOTO BY PETR KRATOCHVIL/PUBLICDOMAINPICURES.NE

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RECIPES Tisanes (Herbal Teas) Note: In all cases, use pure water without chemical additives.

To Soothe Nerves Wash and shred one head of lettuce. Place in a pot, cover with 1 1⁄2 pints boiling water and steep for 30 minutes. Strain and either sweeten with honey or add a pinch of salt.

To Relieve Headache Crush 1⁄4 ounce anise seeds and place in a heated teapot.

Add 1 pint boiling water and steep for 10 minutes.

To Combat Insomnia The Holy Well, Tobernalt, County Sligo.

of Eochaid Muigmedon), Niall and his four brothers are tested to determine who is best suited to become king.

One by one they go in search of water and find a well guarded by a hideous hag who offers to exchange a drink of water for a kiss. Only Niall accepts the challenge and kisses the hag, whereupon she transforms into a beautiful goddess who names him sovereign of the land.

In addition to power and knowledge, the sacred wells were believed to be places of healing, with different wells having unique healing properties and specific methods of employing the water, often as teas steeped with herbs.

Drinking from one well would restore sight to the blind or lucidness to the insane; bathing in another would cure gout or arthritis or bestow fertility on a woman who had long been barren. In almost all cases, rituals were required in order for the healing to occur. “Making the Rounds” consists of walking around the well three times deosil (left to right), the same path taken by the sun.

In the mythological tale Cath Maige Tuired wounded Tuatha De Danaan are healed by being immersed in the Well of Slaine into which had been placed “every herb that grew in Ireland.” Four legendary physicians, Dian Cecht, his two sons Octriuil and Miach, and his daughter Airmed, surrounded the well. They chanted spells and incantations over the water and each warrior emerged healed and rejuvenated, ready for the next day’s battle.

Modern science has proved that bathing can relieve muscle tension, dilate blood vessels, and slow the heart rate. Herbs can contribute to these benefits. Bathing with infusions of fragrant herbs is used traditionally to treat many diseases, ease physical and mental tiredness, and benefit the skin and hair.

In 2009, the Cork Institute of Technology in conjunction with The Irish Institute of Medical Herbalists initiated a four-year Herbal Science Honors Degree that takes the information contained in oral tradition and the old manuscripts and integrates it with the knowledge gained from current scientific research. For more information visit the website: www.iimh.org/training.php Whether it is the chanted sound of a charm, the miraculous effect of curative herbs, or the soothing sensation of immersion in water, modern medicine has only begun to investigate and validate the healing arts of times past.

Sláinte!

IA

Place chamomile flowers in a heated teapot, add 1⁄2 pint boiling water and infuse for 10 minutes. Sweeten with honey and drink hot just before bedtime.

To Aid Digestion For every cup of tea use 4 mint sprigs. Infuse in a teapot of heated water for 10 minutes. Drink hot after meals.

From: The Cookin’ Woman: Irish Country Recipes

by Florence Irwin.

Gluten Free Orange Almond Cake – Personal recipe Note: One of the more recent medical discoveries is that segments of the population experience gastro-intestinal distress from eating wheat products that contain the gluten protein, a real problem for someone with a sweet tooth. One way to have your cake and eat it too is to substitute nut flour for wheat flour, a practice that dates from medieval times when wheat flour was available only to the very wealthy.

4 whole oranges 5 eggs 1 ⁄2 cup sugar 1 1⁄2 cups almond meal (can be made by whirling sliced almonds in a food processor) 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder Place whole oranges in a deep saucepan and cover with water.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook oranges until they are soft (approx 30 minutes). Remove oranges from cooking water, cut in halves, remove seeds, cut in chunks and whirl in a food processor until reduced to a puree. Cool to room temperature.

In a small bowl combine almond meal with baking powder and set aside.

In a large bowl, place 5 eggs with sugar and 1 cup of orange puree. Beat until thoroughly combined. Add almond meal mixture and combine. Pour into an 8-inch springform pan that has been oiled and lined with waxed paper. Place on a rimmed cookie sheet and bake at 350F for approx 40 minutes or until center stops jiggling and a cake tester can be inserted and withdrawn clean. Let cool for 15 minutes. Remove cake from pan, remove waxed paper. Cool completely on a wire rack. Cake will keep at room temperature for 24 hours. After that refrigerate it. Makes 8-12 servings.

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{photo album} Family Pictures

Two Saints, a Surgeon an In the 1930s and 40s the neighborhood doctor was vital to the community. By Emmett O’Connell

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r. Hubert Kubel’s office was on the ground floor of a five-storyover-basement apartment house of the type with low-rise stoops leading from the sidewalk up to the hallway entrance. Across the broad cobblestone thoroughfare and trolley tracks of 138th Street stood the Gothic-style edifice of St. Luke’s Catholic Church. Rising gently from Brook Avenue, 138th Street reached its crescent just beyond. A hollow-sounding “gong” would announce each patient entering Dr. Kubel’s office.

Inevitably, they would have to shuffle in sideways as the office door struck the leg of a chair in a crowded waiting room.

Body odors mixed with the astringent smells of antiseptic lotions and bandages, but most notably it was always warm.

Even on the coldest days, the heavy cast iron radiators hissed and gurgled a chorus of comfort. Dr. Kubel was slightly built with a widow’s peak of steel-gray hair. He wore wire-framed glasses over his twinkling eyes and sported a small 1930-style mustache. Always smiling, he greeted each patient or supplicant by name. You would imagine he was greeting an old friend not seen in years. Jewish doctors held a special position in the Irish, Italian, Eastern European immigrant mix that made up much of the South Bronx.

Catholic mothers-of-five could discuss matters with a Jewish doctor that couldn’t be mentioned elsewhere. Working men of the 1930s, often of socialist inclination, could seek character references for employment from the only professional dignitary they were likely to know, complete with personal letterhead, initials before and after their names, and a telephone number to boot. Dr. Kubel’s office served as a secular confessional in addition to a medical practice. He, and others like him, provided much of the adhesive that held together the disparate social structure of the neighborhood. In the evenings, he made his rounds of house calls. If unsure of directions to the building or apartment, he would ask for assistance from any of the young men gathered at street corners or in hallways. As likely as not, he would be personally guided to his destination. Everybody knew Dr.

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Kubel. There were five children in the O’Connell household, and Dr. Kubel was a frequent visitor when the usual childhood lumps, bumps and fevers needed curing. My mother always had the twodollar doctor’s fee (that’s right, two dollars) ready on the kitchen table, along with a fresh cup of tea. If I was to be the subject of his ministrations, the story would be told again how special I was, as it was Dr. Kubel who brought me into the world, and how he had to leave his wedding day celebrations to make the delivery. The story was told to me so often, and from such a young age, I never questioned the Nellie O’Connell

circumstances. Some forty years later, in the early 1970s, I finally discovered the full details. By the 1960s, the O’Connell children had grown up and shipped out to Rockland County, Texas, and Europe. My parents retired on my father’s modest pension and, after 47 years in New York, moved back to their native Ireland. In 1974, my mother was taken seriously ill and I went to visit her in hospital in Dublin. When I inquired of her condition the doctors mentioned the necessity of getting a full disclosure from my mother of previous illnesses and operations.

Apparently, she had been less than forthcoming. The doctors had noted during

examination a large scar across her abdomen, which was too extensive to be appendicitis. What caused it, they had no idea. I gently chided her for not helping “the poor doctors” sort out the mystery.

“Oh that,” she said. “It’s a story of long ago. We were living in a cold-water flat on 136th Street, near where the Triboro Bridge begins. I was heavy with child when severe pains struck my stomach and side. Really bad pains,” she added, placing a hand on her abdomen. Dr. Kubel was summoned. A pregnant mother in distress was high on his priority list. Hastily, she was admitted to the public ward in the old Lincoln Hospital and an operation was scheduled. It was serious, Dr. Kubel told her. The baby would be lost, aborted. “I refused the operation,” she said “and Dr. Kubel pleaded that both our lives, mine and the baby’s, would be lost if action wasn’t taken. Still, I refused to lose the child.” Dr. Kubel left the ward and returned with the surgeon who was to carry out the critical operation. “He was a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jew,” she said, “and I have prayed for him every day of my life since then.” In a final attempt at persuasion, the surgeon spoke of the dangers and risks involved unless the suggested provision was followed.“Still I refused.

Dr. Kubel was crying by now. He was sure it would all end in tragedy. The surgeon promised to do everything possible to save the baby, and I was wheeled away to the operating theater.” The following day she awoke, groggy and sore, but still carrying the child. “The surgeon was as good as his word, and two months later I gave birth to a healthy baby. Do you know which of the five of ye it was?” she queried. “No,” said I, in a monosyllabic reply, my mind now frozen in the unfolding drama. “It was you,” she said, pointing a finger in my direction, “and when I wonder how it was that you got on so well in life, I put it down to God making up for the hard time you had coming into the world.” We buried my mother shortly after her telling me that story, and at her funeral mass I lit a candle and said a silent prayer: Thanks be to God, to my mother, to the blond-haired, blue-eyed surgeon, and to Dr. Kubel.

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n and Other Family Stories The Carrolls

Catherine Norah “Norrie” Egan

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his is a photo of my parents, Anne Connolly and David Carroll, right after they were married in Ireland.They met at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, where my father worked as a doctor and my mother was a nurse. In 1971, he was offered a position at UCSF in San Francisco. After he was offered the job

they got married in Ireland and then moved to California.

My older sister Aisling was born in 1972, I was born in 1973, and my younger brother Rory was born in 1977.

My father worked on staff at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco as the infectious disease consultant. In 1980 he opened an internal medical practice in Stonestown, San Francisco. After a short illness, my father died of lymphoma on August 10, 1981. My mother raised the three of us on her own, and she was greatly supported by all our Irish and American friends in the Bay Area. She returned to the medical field and worked at a pediatrician’s office in Marin County for 15 years.

On New Years Eve 1994, she was introduced by friends to Christopher Cochrane, a Scottish businessman.They were married on March 21, 1998.

Although he’s not Irish, he is a fellow Celt, and Chris has been a great addition to our family.

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y mother, Norrie Egan, born in Dublin, graduated from St. Vincent’s Hospital/UCD with a Diploma in Radiography in 1940 and worked at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London during WWII. She was injured during an air raid – not from a bomb – she was cycling her bicycle to work when she was hit by a cab. Though it was wartime, she loved her job and being in London. She had many stories about the war, one being that because she spoke French, she was sent to meet the injured soldiers, French and English, who were brought to England after the Battle of Dunkirk.

Another story was of working with St. Mary’s alumnus Sir Alexander Fleming who won the Nobel Prize in 1945 for his discovery of penicillin. He was conducting a trial using penicillin on returning army vets who had contacted syphilis. The trial involved follow-up x-rays, and thus they met.

After the bicycle accident Norrie returned to Ireland to recover from a broken pelvis, and honored her mother’s wishes not to return to London until after the war. She took what was to be a temporary posting at Nenagh Hospital in Tipperary, met the man who became my father, Patrick Harty, a farmer, with whom she had 13 children.

But medicine was her first love, and after her youngest started school she returned to Nenagh Hospital’s X-Ray Department, where she worked until she retired at 65. Soon after retiring, my father having passed away some years before, she immigrated to San Francisco to be with her many children and grandchildren who had settled there.

She was an amazing woman, ahead of her time. Her father was a doctor in the British Army and her young life was spent in India, Scotland, and Jamaica, where her father is buried. Following his untimely death the family returned to Ireland and she went to a convent boarding school in Northern Ireland. Throughout her life she never lost her love of medicine or her love of travel. She encouraged her children to spread their wings with the refrain “Travel broadens the mind.” She passed away on New Year’s Eve, 2008.

– Patricia Harty

– Louise Carroll Catherine Norah Egan, pictured far right, with friends, circa early 1940s.

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{photo album} Jeanne Fergus O’Donnell

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he O’Keeffe family was driven by the Angelo Normans from their original homeland in East Cork. If I am not mistaken, the original Irish spelling is O’Caoimh, which means they were descendants of Caemh. The family is descended from Art Caemh, whose father was King of Munster in the 9th century. Our family originated in County Cork around Dunhallow, a name most commonly found in County Cork.

My grandfather migrated over from Ireland into Canada, and then from Canada down to Hadley, New York. He was previously married and had three children.

After his wife died, he met Margaret Maginn, whose maiden name was Margaret McSweeney. One of fifteen, she was a widow with one daughter. My grandfather married Margaret McSweeney-Maginn, and together they had seven children: Jim, John, Dan, Ed, Leo, Marguerite and Anna. Often my grandmother would say to my grandfather, “David, your children and my children are fighting with our children.”

In the O’Keeffe family, of the five boys, there ended up being three physicians and two pharmacists. My father, Jim O’Keeffe, was the oldest and never graduated from high school, but still passed an equivalency test to go to Albany Pharmacy.

He attended Albany Pharmacy for one year when he came back home, worked on the farm and sent his younger brother to Albany Medical, where he spent a year.

He came back, worked on the farm and sent my dad back to pharmacy school.

With all the brothers working and taking time off, three became physicians and two became pharmacists. Of the two girls in the family, Margaret and Anna were both school teachers.

Subsequently our family has been affiliated with medicine for a long time. My uncles were the first generation; I am the second generation. My three children, Jim, Dan and Kate are all physicians. They are the third generation. Now, my granddaughter, Katie, is the fourth generation of O’Keeffe’s to attend Albany Medical College.

The original physicians were Dr. John, Dr. Dan and Dr. Ed. I am Dr. Dan II, my son is Dr. Dan III. Dr. John had two sons, John and David, and my uncle Ed had one son, Dr. Ed. My uncles all worked on the farm part time to help pay their tuition. There was a famous club on Albany called the Fort Orange Club which would often feature venison. My father and uncles would supply venison to this club to help pay their tuition through school. The work ethic of my father and uncles fits with the O’Keeffe family motto: “forti et fideli nihil difficile” (To the – Daniel O’Keefe IA strong and faithful, nothing is difficult.)

y mom, Jeanne Fergus O’Donnell, was a nurse for almost her whole life. She graduated from St.Vincent’s Nursing School in New York City around 1958.

When I was growing up, my parents worked multiple jobs to support the family. In addition to working on Wall Street, my dad would teach business at the New School at night. My mom would take care of the family and then work nights as a nurse. She worked very, very hard – both my parents did.They really inspired and instilled in me a passion for work, commitment to family, and an incredibly strong work ethic.

My mom also, in addition to working and taking care of the family, went back to school and got her bachelor’s degree in nursing from St. Joseph’s out on Long Island. I’d watch her type her papers and study in between working and cooking and cleaning (we children certainly weren’t the most helpful in that regard).

Eventually she decided to become a school nurse, and she absolutely loved it.

She spent almost 30 years working with elementary school kids. All the kids loved her and she loved them. She just retired two years ago at 73.

I respect my dad’s entrepreneurship and work ethic; my mom’s determination in going back to school. From them, I only know one speed, which is, if you’re going to do something you make sure – Jim O’Donnell you do it well.

Please send photographs along with your name, address, phone number, and a brief description, to Sheila Langan at Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001. If photos are irreplaceable, then please send a good quality reproduction or e-mail the picture at 300 dpi resolution to submit@irishamerica.com. No photocopies, please. We will pay $65 for each submission that we select.

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Over 180 no- and low-calorie choices

Fifty years ago, to help a generation of Americans eager to “keep tabs” on their calories, we introduced our first diet beverage, Tab. In 1982, we introduced Diet Coke. Since then, our portfolio in the US and Canada has grown to include more than 180 no- and low-calorie choices.

Today, they represent nearly one out of every three drinks we sell. Over the last 15 years, this has helped reduce the average calories per serving across our industry’s products in the US by about 22%. Together with the beverage industry, we have also voluntarily changed our offerings in schools to be primarily waters, juices and no- and low- calorie options. This has helped reduce the calories from our industry’s beverages in those schools by 90% since 2004.

Portion-control sizes and nutrition information

Anyone who’s ever tried to manage their weight by cutting calories knows that it’s not just what you consume, it’s also how much. To help, we’ve created smaller, portion-controlled mini-cans of our most popular drinks and will have them in about 90% of the country by the end of this year. And we put the calorie counts of nearly all our beverages on the front, where it’s one of the first things you see.

Partnering for innovation

New thinking is critical, so we’ve teamed up with some of the very best. For example, our partnership with Cargill has already led to an all-natural, no-calorie sweetener called Truvia. While it’s only been available for 4 years, Truvia is already the second most popular sugar substitute in the country. It’s found not only in a wide variety of foods and beverages, but also is sold as a tabletop sweetener for use in peoples’ homes.

Centers in communities

across the US, giving children access to safe places to exercise and enjoy sports.

Balance matters

We believe that beating obesity will come down to acting on one simple, commonsense fact: when it comes to weight management, all calories count.

And if you eat and drink more calories than you burn off, you’ll gain weight. Achieving a weight that’s right for you is about balancing the calories you take in with the calories you burn up.

Let’s come together

Obesity won’t be solved overnight, but we know that when people come together around shared solutions, good things happen.

Promoting physical activity

Talk to any expert, and you’ll hear a call to get children active again. For the past 65 years, we’ve worked with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, where its Triple Play program has helped hundreds of thousands of kids learn the importance of a balanced diet and regular exercise. We’re leading sponsors of programs in major cities like Troops for Fitness in Chicago.

And we’ve begun building Live Positively Fitness

To find out more about the commitments we’ve made and the actions we’re taking, visit us at comingtogether.com.

©2013 The Coca-Cola Company. All rights reserved.

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