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hibernia | quote unquote “While your thoughts are appreciated, I beg you to DO SOMETHING. This should not have happened to our niece Cara and it can not happen to other people’s families.”
Kelly
– Lindsay Fontana, the aunt of Loughran Cara Loughran, who was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14 in Parkland, Florida. Loughran, a 14-year-old Irish American, was a member of the Drake School of Irish Dance, located three miles from the high school. Two other Drake students are said to have been students at Douglas and witnessed the shooting that left 17 dead and 14 wounded. Facebook, February 15.
“It is strange that this onetime cardboard-cutout celebrity popping up at Gotham parties has turned into a psychic dentist drill, boring into Americans’ deepest, most painful schisms on race, gender, and inequality.”
Dowd
“There are 690,000 official DACA registrants and the president sent over what amounts to be two and a half times that number, to 1.8 million. The difference between that and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses, but they didn’t sign up.”
– White House chief of staff John Kelly, speaking in defense of Donald Trump’s proposal at breaking the impasse on immigration in Congress. The measure was voted down by the Senate February 15. The Guardian, February 6.
“These online hate groups are now more powerful than local churches. [But] I’m at total peace. I really am. An ocean of hate online is really wiped out by just a few tears from an LGBT person.”
– Maureen Dowd, on President Donald Trump’s former proclivity for showing up unannounced at celebrity-studded parties in Manhattan. New York Times, February 3.
“From a historical perspective, it’s always unsettling to see Irish Americans embracing Nativism. John Kelly’s family roots are of immigrants who arrived in Boston and elsewhere in America to encounter virulent prejudice simply because they were Irish and Catholic. Some of his ancestors likely knew full well the reality of No Irish Need Apply.”
– Author, journalist, and columnist Peter F. Stevens. Kelly, a former General in the U.S. Army, grew up on Bigelow Street in a Boston Irish family with strong Catholic beliefs. Boston Irish Reporter, February 1.
Martin
– Rev. James Martin, S.J., whose Irish ancestors hail from Castlebridge, County Wexford, responding to the successful critical pressure put on a small New Jersey parish to move a lecture called “Jesus Christ: Fully Human, Fully Divine” he was meant to deliver off church grounds. The anger was sparked by his most recent book, Building a Bridge, which called on Catholics to show more compassion to the LGBT community. New York Times, February 3.
“Working with [Bono] and Bob Geldof on debt relief was one of the greatest things I ever did. It’s up there with ‘We Are the World.’” Bono, Jones, and Geldof 34 IRISH AMERICA APRIL / MAY 2018
– Producer Quincy Jones. In 1999, Jones, Bono, and Geldof (who spearheaded 1985’s Live Aid charity concerts), traveled to the Vatican to meet with Pope John Paul II, hoping to gain his support in their effort to reduce third-world debt. Vulture, February 7.