Irish America October / November 2005

THE AMERICAN IRELAND FuND

YOU CAN SHARE IN OUR COMMITMENT TO SUPPORT PROJECTS DEDICATED TO ARTS AND CULTURE, PEACE AND RECONCILIATION, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION IN IRELAND. YOUR MEMBERSHIP GIFTS WILL GO FURTHER TO HELP THAN EVER BEFORE. PAST FUNDS HAVE HELPED IN THE FOLLOWING DIVERSE WAYS:

Books were given to a community library in a rural area in County Cork.

A heating system was provided for the children of a playgroup in County Down.

Soccer balls were purchased for a cross community project in Northern Ireland to promote friendship and understanding for children from Loyalist and Republican areas.

Three weeks of art workshops were run for children with disabilities from a local residential home in Castlerea, County Roscommon.

During the tense marching season a friendship group brought boys and girls to Dublin away from the events surrounding the marching in Drumcree.

A second chance education program was organized for a group of marginalized women in Dublin THESE AND MANY OTHER PROJECTS ARE IN NEED OF ONGOING SUPPORT. YOUR MEMBERSHIP DONATION WILL MAKE A REAL AND LASTING DIFFERENCE!

eECOME A

Fll-.1 END

OF THE AME/l-.1 CAN

MEMBERSHIP IS EASY-YOU CAN DECIDE

$1000 A YEAR OR $84 A MONTH

11embershipCard subscription to our magazine Connect Annua~ subscription to Irish America magazine Special Gift from Ireland Invitations to Events 11onthly 11embership Fax and more member benefits to come ...

HOW YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THESE

Annu~

IMPORTANT EFFORTS

As a member of The American Ireland Fund, you can pay your membership support all at once or your membership gift can be transferred each month from your checking or credit card account to The American Ireland Fund. A record of each gift will appear on your bank or credit card statement.

1 /l...EL-.AND FUND TODAY

sdver

$500 A YEAR OR $42 A MONTH

11embership Card Annual subscription to our magazine Connect Annual subscription to Irish America magazine Special Gift from Ireland Invitations to Events and more member benefits to come . ..

There are three levels of membership , each with a set of benefits that help to keep you connected to Ireland and the efforts of your friends and colleagues throughout The American Ireland Fund:

$ 100 A YEAR OR $9 A MONTH

11embership Card Annual subscription to our magazine Connect and more member benefits to come . ..

TO MAKE YOUR FULL ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DONATION IMMEDIATELY:

The American Ireland Fund can count on my suppo rt with my membership donation of:

0 0 0

$1000 $500 $100

OR TO CONTR IBUTE YOUR ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP

BY MEANS OF A MONTHLY DO NATI ON:

Expiration Date ameoncard For office use only All gifts provided to The American Ireland Fund originating asACH transactions comply with U.S. law. A reco rd of my gifts will appear on my bank or credit card statement and I can increase. decrease or suspend my giving by writing to:

The American Ireland Fund can count on my suppoi1 with a monthly gift of:

THE AMERICAN IRELAND FUND MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM

0 0 0

$84A MONTH

OR MEMBERSHIP@IRLFUNDS.ORG

$42A MONTH

PLEASE PRINT

$9AMONTH

211 CONGRESS STREET, BOSTON. MA 02110

Name

I have enclosed a check for my first gift: Please transfer my monthly gifts from my checking account.

I understand my future gifts will be transferred directly from my account to The American Ireland Fund.

Address

OR

Email

Here is my credit card information: Please transfer my monthly gifts frcim my credit card. I understand my future gifts will be transferred directly from my credit card to The American Ireland Fund.

Si nature

City/ State/ Zip Phone

Fax

Date I understand my gifts will begin transferring in a bottt fottr weeks.

" ANNIVERSARY 20 SPECIAL

Top Twenties: In celebration of our 20 years of publication , we've p ut together a medley of twenties - clips from past interviews and indisp en sable bits of wisdom and information to boost your knowledge of Irish America. With a Mortas Cine introduction b y Irish America publish er Niall O ' Dowd as h e r eflect s on the past 20 years (page 42) .

50 20 Great Interviews 56 Moments in History 80 Movies with an Irish-American theme 85 Books by and about Irish-Americans 89 Best Traditional Music in America

DEPARTMENTS 10 16 106 108 109 110

News from Ireland Hibernia Slainte Crossword Photo Album The Last Word

FEATURES 34

Discovery~ Down to Earth Commander Georgina Brennan find Eileen Collins' feet firmly on the ground after a successful miss ion in space.

44

How Ireland Has Changed Frank Shoulclice chronicles the changes in heland in the pa t 20 yeru and look to what the future has in store.

94 Changes in Irish America Have the h ish become red? Tom Deignan writes about the changes in Irish Ame1ica, political and otherwise, in the past 20 yeru¡s.

98

An Irishman Named English T.J. English, author of The Westies and Paddy Whacked, and a fo undi ng member of the Irish America tea:tn, writes about what it means to be an hish-Ame1ican.

100 The Tunnel and How One Thing Led to Another Angela 's Ashes author Frank McCowt writes abou t his inauspicious strut.

102 Our Legacy of Loss Director and WI¡iter Terry George wTites about three thousand six hundred and thirty-eight stolen lives.

104 Banishing Misfortune Englishman Ian Worpole's journey of discovery in the Catskills leaves him with a love of hish traditional music.

In just two and a half years, Bristol-Myers Squibb has introduced several major medicines: a treatment for cancer, a medication for serious mental illness, a therapy to help treat HIV, and most recently, a treatment for hepatitis.

What's next? Bristol-Myers Squibb continues to demonstrate a commitment to the research and development of novel compounds for serious disease areas such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. These compounds were discovered and developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Close behind them, we have several more investigational medicines in full development.

Bristol-Myers Squibb is focused on the world's most serious diseases.

We've never been more committed to our mission. Today, and tomorrow.

~I~ Bristol-Myers Squibb www.bms.com

Hope, Triumph and the Miracle of Medicine™

VOL XXI · October/November 2005

CONTRIBUTORS Georgina Brennan, who [nterviews Eileen Collins in this issue, is a writer for the Irish Vo ice newspaper. She has written for Ireland On Sunday and the Irish Independent. A native of County Carlow, Ireland, Georgina wrote about Tom

875 SIXTH AVENUE, SUITE 2100, N.Y., NY 10001 TEL: 2 12-725-2993

Westman in our Aug./Sept. Issue

FAX: 212-244-3344 E-MAIL: irishamag@aol.com

Tom Deignan is the author of Irish American: Coming to America, and so it was

WEB : http://www. irishamerica.com

no trouble to him to contribute an essay on the changes that Irish America has experi enced in the past two decades. He al so writes in this issue about his favorite 20 books by and about Irish-Americans. A columnist for Irish America and the Irish Voice, where he was an editor from 1999-2004, he cutTently teaches English at the Automoti ve High School in Brooklyn.

Mortas Cine Pride In Our Heritage

Founding Publisher: Niall O'Dowd

Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief:

-:e;~ r_i ·~

3

Patrici a Harty

Advertising Director: Patricia Daly

Art & Design Director: Patrick Cahalan

Assistant Design: Genevieve McCarthy

Assistant Editor:

T.J. English writes on what it mean to be an Irishman with a name Like English.

He is the author of The Westies and Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster (ReganBooks), due out in paperback in March 2006. T.J., a founding member of Irish America, contributed greatly to the magazine in the early years. Two of hi s intervi ews, John Huston and Bill Munay. are excerpted in this issue.

Terry George was bom in Belfast in 1952. A director and writer, he began his career in drama at the Irish Arts Center in New York in 1986 with his first play, The Tunnel. Hi s work incl udes the Oscar-nominated movies In Th e Name of the Father and Hotel Rwanda. George, who in hi s early career contributed to Irish America and the Irish Voice, is co-creator and executi ve producer of the TV drama series Th e District. He, hi s wife Rita and two children di vide their time between ew York and County Down.

Joseph McBride, who writes about 20 of his favorite llish-American themed movies. is a fonner film columnist for Irish America and the author of biographies of John Ford, Frank Capra, and Steven Spielberg, as well as of The Book of Movie Lists. Hi s latest book is the forthcoming What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career. He is an assistant professor in the Cinema

Declan O'Kelly

Department at San Francisco State University.

Copy Editor:

Frank McCourt has been a contributor to Irish America since before he stmck fame and fonune and a Pulitzer Pri ze for his blockbuster memoir Angela Ashes,

John Anderson

Marketing & Events Coordinator: Christine Rein

Financial Controller: Kevin M. Mangan

Intern: Julie Grates

Irish America Magazine ISSN 0884-4240) © by Irish America Inc. Published bi-month ly. Mai li ng address: P.O. Box 1277, Bellmawr, NJ 080995277. Editorial office: 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 2100, New York, NY 10001. Telephone: 212-725-2993. Fax: 212-244-3344 E-mail: lrishamag@aol.com. Subscription rate is $21.95 for one year. Subscription orders: 1-800-5826642. Subscription queri es: 1-800-582-6642, (212) 725-2993, ext. 16. Periodicals postage paid at New York and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster please send address changes to Irish America Magazine, P.O. Box 1277, Bellmawr, NJ 08099-5277 . IRISH AMERICA IS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

6 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

which was made into a movie directed by Alan Parker. Frank, a fom1er teacher. has a new memoir aptly called Teacher Man to be published in ovember. In tlli s issue he contributes a light-heru1ed piece call ed "The Tunnel'' whi ch offers an insight into his earl y days when he wasn' t so famous.

Don Meade, who di scusses his top 20 traditional music record ings by IrishAmericans, says his earliest exposure to Irish music was hearing his mother sing "Who Threw the O veralls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder " while she washed the di shes. Don plays several instruments, including the harmonica (on which he won the All-Irel and championship in 1987), tenor banjo and fiddle . He is the producer of a long-running Iri sh concert series currentl y at New York University 's Glucksman lrelru1d House, and the founding Artistic Director of t11e Catskills lJ·ish A.l1s Week. He has written on Irish music for publications that include New Hibernia, Current Musicology, New York Irish History, Irish America and the Irish Voice.

Abdon M. Pallasch, who writes about U.S . Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, covers legal affairs and politics for the Chicago Sun-Times. He has also wri tten fo r Th e Irish Tim es and Th e Belfast Telegraph. He spent a year of co llege in Maynooth studying the Irish language, geography and theology. He lives with his wife.

De irdre, and their three chiJdren in Chicago. His mother is a Kerrywoman and hi s father is Polish, wllich accounts for the nan1e.

Frank Shouldice, who contributes an essay on how lJ·eland has changed in t11e last 20 yeru·s, was born in Dublin and has worked in all forms of media, including print journali sm. television, radio and theater. He was scriptwriter of the awardwinning short film In Uncle Robert's Footsteps and has written and directed a number of plays in Dublin, Belfast and Glasgow. Hi s play Journeyman was produced by RTE Radio Drama. He writes regularl y for the national press in Ireland.

THE FIRST WORD

Happy Birthday To Us! "We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

- President John F. Kennedy.

Patricia Harty - Editor-in-Chief

xactl y 20 years ago when we set out to explore the story of the Irish in Ame1ica we used M01tas Cine - Pride in Our Heritage - as our motto. Every a1ticle that has appeared in our magazine over the years flows from this guiding principle.

We . couldn ' t be more proud of Commander Eileen Collin s and her Discovet)' crew, and we are delighted to celebrate our anniversary with a cover story on Eileen, who as Georgina Brennan discovers, is as down to earth a they come.

In fact, when you take into account crew members James Kelly and Stephen Robinson (we will bring you interviews with both in future issues), there was a pretty strong Irish presence on the Discovety Crew, which is fitting. After all , it was John F. Kennedy's dream that sent that first mission to the moon.

This spirit of adventure and exploration, perhaps born out of necessity, is one we have encountered many times over the years in st01ies of the Lrish as they spread out across the country in search of the American Dream. We find them prospecting for gold in Nevada, building canals in New Orleans, and working on the railroads.

I like to think that it' s that same spirit that prompted iall O' Dowd and me to move from San Francisco to ew York in 1985 to found Irish America.

Forourbirthdaycelebrationwe havea melange of twenties- moments in history, movies, books and recordings, and clips from our top interviews. And there

E

is a common thread that links all our stories. On our book list, for instance, you will find Ship Fever, Andrea Banett's story of the famine Irish landing in Grosse Tie in Canada in 1847, the worst year of the famine. In a 1995 interview (excerpted in this issue) Senator George Mitchell , the man who helped bring about the Good Friday Agreement, talks of Grosse Ile and the early Irish settlements in Maine. "They walked to Maine," he told me, "meeting vigilante groups along the border."

Those early immigrants didn' t have much, but wherever they went they took their music with them. As our list of 20 recordings by Irish-Ame1icans shows, the music not only survived but thrived.

And today's young Irish-American musicians are as skilled and knowledgeable as their Irish counterparts.

In our movie section you will find Raoul Walsh ' s Regeneration, which conveys the harsh conditions that led some impoverished Irish immigrants to turn to a life of crime.

T.J. English , a founding member of Irish America's team, has written extensively on this subject, first in Irish America and then in notable books, including his recently published Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster. We are delighted to welcome T.J. back to the pages of Irish America. In this issue, he writes about growing up IrishAmerican with a name like English.

Angela 's Ashes author Frank McCourt, a longtime friend of the mag-

azine, writes about the days before he became famou s, when he taught school and acted in a play called The Tunnel

by Terry George.

And Teny George, who is the director/writer of such movies as Some Mother 's Son about the 1981 Hunger Strike, and last year' s Academy Award-nom inated Hotel Rwanda, writes in a personal way about the death toll The Troubles exacted in Northern Ireland.

In our original proposal for Irish America, we listed helping to find a solution to the problems in Northern Ireland as one of our aims. Over the ensuing years I have witnessed efforts

by Irish-Americans, including our publi sher Niall O ' Dowd, in achieving this goal. At a recent lunch in New York hosted by Mutual of America' s Bill Flynn , with Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness and others in attendance, we celebrated the IRA's announcement that they would begin " dumping" weapons . I couldn ' t have asked for a better anniversary present.

Thank you dear readers , for inviting us into your homes , and your hearts.

Yours is an invigorating, awe-inspiring story that continues to evolve. I'm thrilled every day to be part of it. m1 Mortas Cine.

OCTOB ER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 7

LETTERS

Russell Crowe Great article on Russell Crowe (Aug./Sept. issue). Besides the overall excellent writing, which gave him a lot of credit, your (gentle) indictment of his ill behavior with the phone, gave it a certain dimension. As a testosteroneburdened male, it would suit me fme to find an excuse for what he did. But sometimes a tantrum's just a tantrum.

Kevin Shea Falls Church Virginia

Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man

The Champ

Cousin Chuck

and then covering up like the Mafia. It is this revulsion that has stung Sinn Fein and The article on James J. Braddock in the the Provo leadership. "Double standard" August/September issue was excellent.

Jimmy surely was a great guy. I remember indeed, Mary. Take a look in the mirror.

On a happier note, I enjoyed your stories him as a regular spectator at the Friday and on Jimmy Braddock. My own father's fam - later Saturday night fights at the old Madison T. Feeeney, Jr. ily came from a similar background, Square Garden back in the early 1960s. He Received by e-mail Leeds/Birkenhead Irish who came to always had a nice word for everyone, as America well before the Depression but did Jack Dempsey who at the time was still working as a meeter and greeter at the never forgot their Irishness.

Albert Regan Doyle restaurant of his name on Broadway.

At that time a ringside ticket to the fight Sanibel, Florida After I read Tom Deignan's interview cost eight dollars and you could bring a with T.J. English in the June/July issue, I date for New York State Tax, which at the just had to buy the book Paddy Whacked. time was four percent or 32 cents. After the I was flabbergasted, amazed and well Congratulations on a truly spectacular fights you would adjourn to Dempsey's for informed. Anyone interested in Ireland and Irish America needs to read this book, June/July issue. I always find something BLT's and a few drinks and for a $20 night which Mr. English has put some time into interesting in your magazine and this one your date thought she was with the reincarresearching. Though it's on the dark side of was no exception. You covered everything nation of Diamond Jim Brady. from "the Troubles" to Vietnam, from A few coiTections: When you say the list American history, it's a great book.

I've been a subscriber for many years now Maeve Brerman to T.J. English, from the of heavyweight champs from the 1880s to Irish Wolfhound to the possible wolf in the 1930s often reads like a roll call at an and look forward to every issue.

Ancient Order of Hibernians meeting Steward Kellum, sheep's clothing Gerry Adams.

I absolutely loved the Irish Wolfhound (Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Burns, Dempsey, Kernersville, North Carolina P.S.: AnoTher powe1jul book is Bandit Country by article, which shows that not all fascinating Tunney and Braddock), you left out the most Irish history is political. You even saved the famous and possibly the best, the great John Toby Harnden. IT Too will open your eyes. best bit for (almost) last, a lovely review of L. Sullivan. Also, Tommy Burns was not Irish, not close, be was born Noah Brusso in Larry Kirwan ' s Green Suede Shoes.

Lany Kirwan is a Renaissance man. I Canada, a Canadian of German extraction.

I found the personal attack on the have been a fan of his band Black 47 for a And Bob Fitzsimmons was born in McCartney family for their campaign seek- long time now and have seen bow difficult Cornwall, England and grew up in New ingjustice for the murder of their brother and it is for a group that does not fit into the Zealand. I never heard of him claiming to fiancee to be in appalling bad taste coming established Top 40 mold to get recogni- be Irish.

Once again, it was a good article and I'm from Sinn Fein and Provo supporter sources. tion for their wonderfully unique Irish (The Last Word piece by Mary Nelis sound. Your reviewer did his fine book, glad you mentioned the fact that Braddock Aug./Sept.) Somehow, Ms. Nelis has not Green Suede Larry, justice by actually volunteered for World War II at a time noticed that the failure to obtain witnesses to reading it. I have seen so many reviews when he was 38 years old and had a wife the killing has been attributed to intimidation that look like they were copied verbatim and three children.

Jim Lundrigan, of the many witnesses by her heroes. This of from the press release. Bravo. I can ' t New Haven, Connecticut course, has not been lost on the ordinary cit- possibly think of how you are going to try izens of Northern Ireland. They don't see it to top this issue with your next but I Address letters to Irish America, as a routine "death of a man in a pub brawl" can offer a suggestion: more Larry, less 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 2100, NY, NY 10001. as Mary tries to pass it off. A pretty awful Liam [Neeson].

Or Email: irishamag@aol.com. Fax: (212) 244-3344.

Laura Vona excuse anyway, isn't it? They see it as the Tel: (212) 725-2993. Please include full name Provo bullyboys killing an innocent man Randolph, Massachusetts and address. Letters may be edited for clarity.

I was pleased to see the name Feeney covered in your Roots section. Chuck Feeney i my cousin, and Congressman, Thomas C Feeney ill, is my son. Thanks for a very interesting story.

Paddy Whacked

Green Suede Larry

Last Word on McCartney

8 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

THE NATIONAL AIRLINE OF

SWIFX

JOYC~

BECKET~ /

AND LOW FARES. CONGRATULATIONS TO IRISH AMERICA ON ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY For the Irish living in the United States, Ireland can sometimes seem like a far away memory. For more than 20 years, Irish America magazine has been their lifeline to the events, people, politics, and culture of home . Please join us in thanking Irish America for its commitment to the Irish community.

Aerlingus ~

Fighting for cheaper skies.

Five Jailed Over Refinery Protest

Rossport Five supporters demonstrate in Dublin over the five North Mayo men who are in prison as a result of opposing the laying of a gas pipeline across their lands by oil company Shell. ontroversy continues to plague the multi-million-dollar gas refinery project in north County Mayo.

Tension sun·OLmding the project has heightened co nsiderably si nce June when five local men - now known as th e Rossport Five- were jailed in Cloverhill Prison for obstructin g the project. The men have refused to withdraw their opposition to the proposed high-pres ure gas pipeline, claiming that Shell E&P Ireland·s plan endangers the health and safety of their fam ilies.

Shell intends transp01ting gas reserves from the Co1Tib field 50 miles off Mayo's Atl antic coast to an ons hore refinery at Bellanaboy. some seven miles inland. Local groups are trongly opposed to an onshore faci lity, and the ' Shell to Sea· campaign fronted by the Ros port Five has gathered regional and national public support.

Under increased public pressure, Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources Noel

C

Dempsey ordered Shell to dismantle sections of a high-pressure gas pipel ine that were constructed without legal authori zation. Shell has consent only for "preparatory" work on an onshore pipel ine, and when it was revealed that secti ons of piping were already welded into place. the minister demanded that the pipeline be dismantled until the company received official sanction.

The fo ll owing day however he gave Shell the all-clear to construct the supply pipeline at sea, add ing to widespread fears that the onshore refinery is already a done deal.

"The c urrent license regime was agreed by the Fianna Fail government and a Fianna Fail minister and it was Fianna Fail who controlled Mayo Co unty Council wh ich granted the initial planning permission for the terminal," sa id Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny , who holds a Dail (parli amentary) seat in the Mayo constituency .

"The real consent at stake is that of the

10 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

people of Rossport:· commented Dr. Mark Garavan , a spokesman for ·shell-to-Sea.' " And they do not consent to this high-pre sure pipeline."'

Werner Blau, a professor of physics at Trinity College Dublin , has come out strongly against the proposed onshore terminal. Prof. Blau suggests that with construction already underway any safety review commissioned by Minister Dempsey would be of no particular benefit.

"They are afraid to ask the simple question: How many would die and what extent the damage would be (in the event of pipeline failure)" he told Th e Irish Times.

In a further twist, Mayo County Council voted 13-9 against ordering Shell to move the refinery offshore. Council lawyer Michael Browne warned an emergency meeting of councilors that compelling Shell to build an alternative facility could leave Mayo County Council exposed to costly litigation.

NEWS FROM IRELAND

O'Loan States Her Case N

uala O' Loan, Police Ombudsman for Northem Ireland. repeated her insistence that police must be accountable if the security forces are to have any credibility among both communities in the NOith.

"We must be evidence-based, not influenced by political expediency or any other cause," she said, speaking at the MacGill Summer School in Co. Donegal. "ln my Omagh in ve tigation and in others, I have found failures of intelligence-handling and management and the consequence of this appears to be that those who might have been made an1enable for crime have not always been apprehended. They have remained at large to commit fmther seriou s crime."

In a strongly-worded address O ' Loan referred to abuse of position by police forces both sides of the Irish border. "I do not need to rehearse the stories of pol icing in Donegal and in the North," she began, in reference to an ongoing investigation into garda COITuption in Co. Donegal.

Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan "This is not to suggest that all police officers are corrupt. That would be nonsense.

Nor do I think that people become police officers because they will have extensive power over others. I firmly believe that most people who become police officers do so because they are motivated by the desire to protect life and property and to prevent crime.

"Something happens somewhere along the Line, often to those who are the best police

officers. Sometimes it is noble-cause corruption, the corruption which arises because people decide to do wrong things to achieve what they see as proper ends."

The Ombudsman 's office deals with public complaints against the Pol ice Service for Northem Ireland (PSNI) - the body which replaced the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Last year 2,885 complaints were made, with the Protestant/Catholic divide 47/37 percent.

Colombia Three Face Uncertain Fate

T

he Colombian government has demanded that the Irish government capture and return three Iri sh republicans who evaded prison sentences in Bogota. The men- dubbed the "Colombia Three" - were sentenced to L7-year jail terms for allegedly assisting FARC rebels in an ongoing campaign against state forces in Colombia.

The three men - Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley - remain in hiding in Ireland but were welcomed home by Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.

Following a highly controversial court trial and appeal, the trio di sappeared from view in Colombia. It is unclear how they made their clandestine journey home from South America, but James Monaghan said in a secretl y filmed RTE television interview that Irish republican sympathizers had made safe passage possible.

To date, Bogota's call has gone unheeded in Dublin. Ireland and Colombia do not share an extradition treaty, so there is no Jegal••basi for their return . However, the nio' s sw-p1ise re-emergence in Ireland has placed BeJtie Ahem's government in a very awkward position. Despite the dubious nature of couJt evi-

soon in Ire land, it may be even more problematic for Ahem what exactly to do with them.

Should Washington apply pressure to have the men extradited or serve out their jail terms in Ireland, it would be seen a an endorsement of a highly suspect legal admi nistration in Colombia. Their high-profile court hearing and appeal in Bogota reached a divided verdict at odds with the severity of their jail sentences. Even so, the Dublin government is now faced with a diplomatic nightmare on what to do with three "fugiNiall Connolly,Martin McCauley and tives" with alleged connections to internaJames Monaghan. tional terrorism.

Their arriva l in Ireland a lso provoked a dence presented against the Irishmen, U.S. furious response from Northern loyal ists President George Bush is a known adversary of the leftist FARC organi zation. Any asso- who see the men's liberty as part of a litany ciation between the Colombia Three and of concessions made to republicans.

FARC would be viewed with strong di sapproval in Washington.

Note: As we go to press, the three men Garda (Iri sh police) sources suspect remain in Ireland. At the end of August the men aJTived ho me in March, and the fact they m·e stiI I at large is a source of th ey vo luntarily presented themselves at embarrassmen t at diplomatic level. The gru·da stations accompanied by legal repreTaoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) met with sentati on. After undergoing questioning all U.S. Ambassador James Kenny to update were released without charge. the situation, but if the men m·e re-arrested OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 11

NEWS FROM IRELAND

Limerick Woman Wins €115 million

Dolores McNamara holds her bumper check aloft.

DOLORES McNamara, 45, from Limerick became the first Irish person to win the EuroMiUions lottery. After avoiding publicity for two days she claimed prize money worth € 115 million and picked up the check at the National Lottery headquarters in Dublin. Her solicitor David Sweeney told reporters his client would keep her feet "firmly on the ground."

Coincidentally, a Hungarian man living in Ireland also won big on the same draw.

The man - a chef now resident in Dublin collected €667,248 , an amount he calculated to be worth "about 100 years' wages" in Hungary.

Call for Payment to GAA Players M ick O'Dwyer, manager of the one penny going to any one player - and Laois senior Gaelic football they ' re the ones putting on the show. I team, has called for payment to think that ' s wrong."

O ' Dwyer' s comments provoked a strong be made to GAA players who reach the final of the All-Ireland football champi- reaction among GAA fans. Gaelic games onship. "The two teams that get into an All- hold amateur status with revenue raised Ireland should get € I 0,000 a man," he sug- through ticket sales and TV coverage gested, on the eve of the Leinster provincial poured back into facilities around the coundecider between Laois and Dublin . try. However, the 69-year-old O'Dwyer has "Players are out of pocket no end for the spent long enough in the game to hold an amount of work they put into this game. A audience. Having p layed with great distinclot of players have to break off work at four tion for his native Kerry, be has successfulin the evening to make training and they are ly managed teams in both Kildare and losing money. You ' ll have over 80,000 Lao is . people in Croke Park on Sunday and not He suggested € 10,000 would "just cover

the loss of earnings and expenses over the year- and I don't think that' s asking too much. They should certainly get better expenses than they are getting. No one wants to be paid for play or anything like that, but they should be looked after better than they are."

He referred to an unnamed Wexford player going to a club in New York to play a match for cash, as happens regularly with many U.S.-based GAA clubs. "The day has come when we have to see after them in a financial way," he added.

For the record , Laois were narrowly beaten by Dublin.

RESPONDING to a report by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, Health Minister Mary Harney made a case for contraception to be available for girls as young as 11. The report revealed that girls aged 11-14 years are involved in sexual relationships and that pregnancies are possible in that age group. "I think we have to deal with d1e reality and the consequences of that," said Hamey. "We have to make sure that if the moming-after pill is. required d1at it is available to somebody in that age group. Clearly their parents have to~be involved if they are underage" ...

A VAST improvement in the Leaving Certificate results has led to suggestions that the school examination is now graded more easily than before. The State Exams Commission revealed that the honors rate is up by almost 16 percent over the past decade

with the exception of Maths results, where the fallure rate continues to rise . . . " WE want to take Ireland ' s economic model and replicate it in our own country," concluded Eddy Martinez, secretary of state from the Dominican Republic. Martinez led a 27-member delegation to Dublin to assess similarities between the two countries and attempt to apply successful formulas from the Irish model.

The visitors felt that Ireland had been transfom1ed from one of Europe' s poorest countries in the 1980s to a leading EU performer by 2000. "Both from an economic and social point of view I have seen no other country that has so many similarities with the Dominican Republic," he said, adding that he hoped his country would become the "Ireland of the Caribbean."

12 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

Prudential ~ Financial Congratulations to

J~IJm&UcaA1~ and especially to Niall O'Dowd Patricia Harty Trish Daly

NEWS FROM IRELAND

Muted Response to IRA Statement

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams speaks to the med ia. uly' s announcement that the IRA was to prove that decommissioning is actuall y ending its military campaign drew a taking place. The DUP has threatened to muted response from political quarters hold off sharing power with Sinn Fein for nmth and soutl1 of the Irish border. Although two years, during which time the decomthe statement was potentially historic by call- missioning process can be as essed. "If ing on IRA activists to unconditionally dump they do things openl y and transparently, anns. unionist politicians again reacted skep- then obviously the period of assessment tically to how decommissioning would take could be significant ly shortened ," said deputy leader Peter Robinson. place and be independently verified.

On previous occasions the procedural The arms call, however welcome, was also greeted with caution in Dublin. Even means of monitoring and verifying the before the statement was issued, Minister destruction of weapons has presented a serifor Justice Michael McDowell, an outspo- ous stumbling block to the peace process. ken adversary of armed republicanism, Unionists want clear photographic evidence questioned whether an IRA declaration while republicans refuse to provide evidence amounted to fundamental change in policy that could be construed as humiliating surrender. Republicans are prepared to resolve or a publicity stunt.

"The real issue is whether the actions the impasse through the Independent match the words," he wamed, before taking International Decommissioning Body headhis summer vacation. "We are no longer in ed by John de Chastelain, a mechanism in which unionists have shown very little faith. the business of fudge or equivocation At constituti onal level, the Northern there has to be clear, unambiguous language used and the people of these islands ar¡e enti- Ireland assembly is currently suspended and the next elections are not due until 2007. tled to clear and unambiguous language."

The Democratic Unionist Par¡ty (DUP), Government sources in Dublin and London the dominant party within unionism, has expressed some hope that the IRA initiative already put pressure on London and Dublin might kick-start the Stormont assembly

J

14 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

back into life next spring. However, unionism' s cool response to recent developments makes it more likely that devolved government will stay on ice somewhat longer.

Unionist leaders have condemned the early release of republican prisoner Sean Kelly, who had been jailed for planting a bomb in a Shankill Road fish shop, killing ten people in 1993. They are also aggrieved that a number of significant concessions have been made to republicans on foot of the IRA announcement. They argue that these concessions were made without any proof that the military order to dump arms has been put into effect.

It is seven years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. Although political progress has been frustratingly slow at times, its very survival in a time of re lative calm stands partly in tribute to the efforts of former Northern Secretary Mo Mowlem, who died several weeks after the IRA announcement. The 55-year-old suffered from a brain tumor and underwent radiotherapy in 1997 prior to collaborating on the historic Belfast Agreement the following year.

l/1;

lre&:!Ni, -there ~re ~s h'Vi!~ W1JS tv re&:r.( ~s -there ~re slwr.ies crf~ruJ't;.

~

Ireland T ere's something of Ireland in all of us. www.shamrock.org or I -800-Shamrock.

Who Is Patrick Fitzgerald?

Abdon Pallasch profiles the Irish-American prosecutor who is charged with trying to figure out who leaked the name of a CIA agent whose husband criticized Bush's invasion of Iraq .

Who leaked the CIA agent's name? U .S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is on the case.

e's deliveting an indictment a day to shady Chicago politicians. He's jai ling joumalists as he closes in on President Bush's top aides, trying to fig ure out which one leaked the name of a CIA agent whose husband criticized Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Pauick Fitzgerald serves at the pleasure of the President as the U.S . Attorney for the Nm1hern Disu·ict of Illinois. That is traditionally a four-year term and Fitzgerald hits his four-year mark in October. And he has stepped on a lot of big toes in both parties.

Will President Bush replace him in October, short-circuiting the investigation of his top advisor Karl Rove and the prosecutions of Republican and Democratic bigwigs in illinois such as fmmer GOP Gov. George Ryan?

The White House refers questions on Pau·ick Fitzgerald ' s future to Attorney General AJbeJto Gonzales, who refers questions back to Bush, though Gonzales, following a brief meeting with Fitzgerald at the

H

Ametican Bar Association convention in August, said, "I have great confidence in Patrick Fitzgerald."

The quietly relentless Fitzgerald coyly answers questions about his fut ure with quips such as, ''I'm just doi ng my job. And if the phone doesn't 1ing and someone tells me to leave, I j ust keep doing my job."

Fitzgerald sat down with Irish America last year and talked about growing up in Queens, New York, the son of Irish immigrants, playing the accordion while his sisters petformed Irish dance, getting into Regi s High School on a scholarship, working his way through Amherst and Harvard Law School as a janitor in New York's public schools.

He never considered it beneath himself to scrape gum off the bottom of desks and swab down the floors. It sure beat the summer he u·ied his Dad' s job as a doorman and never knew if the quirky condo dwellers would yell at him for calling them at five in the morning to say someone had

16 IRISH AMERI CA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

j ust dropped off a package or yell at him for not te]]jng them .

"It' s easier if someone just tells me, 'I want the building scrubbed.' You j ust start scrubbing. You don't have to worry about anyo ne's quirkiness," Fitzgerald said .

After a few years at a high-paying New York law firm, Fitzgerald worked as a federal prosecutor and convicted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 accomp]jces for their roles in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He helped convict a!

Qaeda-linked terrorists for bombing the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He won convictions for-John and Joe Gambino.

He impressed fellow prosecutor James Comey who would become Deputy Attorney General, as "Elliot Ness with a Harvard degree. " When maverick former U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-ill.) (no relation) decided to look outside Chicago for a take-no-p1isoners prosecutor to come in and clean house in Illinois, he asked FBI Director Louis Freeh for the name of the "toughest prosecutor in Ameiica." Freeh named the Iising star in New York.

When Senator Fitzgerald announced he was bringing in an out-of-towner, tl1at outraged Chicago ' s silk stocking law firms who had come to see an appointment of one of their own as an entitlement during Republ ican administrations .

But Senator Fitzgerald wanted someone with no ties to anyone in lllinois; no sacred cows. So Pau·ick Fitzgerald came to town and "just started scrubbing."

He brought indictments all the way up to the governor's office and to Mayor Daley's pau·onage chief. Prosecutors under Fitzgerald said they were to work fo r a boss who encouraged them to pursue cases wherever they led. Coming in to work to

charge. Fitzgerald is bringing fraud charges against City Hall officials for falsifying documents and interview records used to justify the patronage hiring.

Ironically, many of Fitzgerald's public corruption prosecution cases that help build his dragon-slayer image started with newspaper stories made possible by whistle-blowers in government leaking information to the press, confident reporters would never reveal their names.

Fitzgerald now declines sit-down interviews. He does not want to appear to be lobbying for a second term in his job.

Senator Fitzgerald is gone. The two Democratic senators from illinois, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin, both say they want Bush to keep Fitzgerald. The ranking Republican in Illinois, House Speaker Denny Hastert, gives only the lukewarm sentiment that if Bush asks his advice, he will not tell him to replace Fitzgerald.

But that may be all the endorsement Fitzgerald needs. For Bush to replace him while he ' s wrapping up an investigation into Bush ' s inner circle - even to kick him upstairs at tlle Justice Dept. -could make the cover-up look worse than the crime.

find e-mails the boss sent them at two a. m. inspired them to work hard.

Fitzgerald's work ethic was already legendary in New York before he came to Chicago. Friends discovered that for 14 years he never had the gas connected in his Manhattan apartment because he spent so many hours working at the office.

The editorial pages cheered the fearless bulldog tackling corruption head-on. But along the way, some defense attorneys complained that Fitzgerald was too strident, too determined to get convictions.

Unlike some predecessors, he did not allow defendants to turn themselves in , often showing up at their houses at 6 a.m.

"He's a sole practitioner-he does what be wants to do," said DePaul University Law Prof. Len Cavise.

"So when it comes to putting repot1ers in jail, which makes people vety nervous, when it comes to indicting people for things no one has ever been indicted for before, like patronage hiting, be sees himself as a u¡aiJblazer, a knight in shining armor. He winds up doing things a more level-headed person would not do."

When former Attorney General John Ashcroft needed to rescue himself from the

Valerie Plame investigation, Corney suggested Fitzgerald. Corney left the Justice Dept. in August. The Plame grand jury is set to end in October.

The press was confronted fust-hand with Fitzgerald' s blinders-on approach investigating crime when he irnptisoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to discuss whether an administration official talked to her about the Plame case for a story she never wrote.

Is "Repm1er' s Privilege," the notion that people can confide in reporters, confident that repot1ers will not sell them out, worth destroying in order to investigate a leak that, in the end, caused no harm, journalism ethicists asked.

Fm1hermore, the authors of the law against leaking covert agents' names say it doesn' t apply here because Plame has had a desk job at CIA headquarters for more than five years, meaning she is not "covert."

But Fitzgerald has proven himself resourceful at finding novel ways to charge people. Chicago newspapers have done exposes for years about City Hal l officials hiring and promoting less-qualified hacks with clout over better-qualified workers.

But prosecutors could find no crime to

John Roberts' Irish Wife

to enter the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass., where she attended Mass several times a week, tutored football players in mathematics, her major, and carved a path as a student leader," the Times continued . "A budding feminist even with her traditionalist streak, she was one of four students who represented the student body in a heated dispute when the feminist scholar Marilyn French, who taught at the college from 1972 to 1976, was denied tenure."

Eyebrows were raised over the sununer when it was revealed that Sullivan once served on the board of a group called Feminists for Life. The group attempts to do the seemingly impossible: bring together the fight for women's rights while also opposing abot1ion.

"Abortion is a reflection that our society has failed to meet the needs of women," i one motto Feminists for Life has used.

"Women deserve better than abortion."

Will Sullivan's devout Catholicism affect her husband ' s confumation? For now, politicians on both sides of the aisle are saying it won ' t.

Even liberal stalwart (and Sullivan's fellow Irish-American) Ted Kennedy was quoted as saying that Sull ivan's religion as well as her legal work, should have nothing to do with Roberts' confirmation.

"I think [she] ought to be out of bounds," Jane Su ll ivan Roberts with her Kennedy said to reporters.

- By Tom Deignan children , Jack and Josie.

It was a long, hot summer for Jane Sullivan.

Sullivan, the wife of President Bush ' s Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, was tluust into the headlines because of her devout Catholic faith. It was a faith nurtured in a New York Irish enclave.

In the early 1970s, Jane Sullivan attended St. Catherine's Academy in the Morris Park section of the Bronx, then a largely Irish and Italian neighborhood.

Jane was the oldest of fom¡ children, the daughter of a technician for the U.S. Postal Service. Her mother worked as a medical secretary.

The fan1ily ' s ties to Ireland are strong; an uncle still lives in Charleville, County Cork, and the family purchased a home in nearby Knocklong, Limerick, where members of the clan try to meet at least every two years.

Sullivan went on to become a highly successful lawyer and marry fellow lawyer Jolul Robert in 1996. The two have since adopted two children.

As The Ne w York Times put it in a¡recent profile, Jane Sullivan ' s "Catholic faith has long played a central role in her life." Her husband is said to be equally devout.

Sullivan "joined the first class of women

OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRIS H AMERICA 17

IRISH EYE ON HOLLYWOOD

By Tom Deignan

Bridget Moynahan hits the screens this fall with Nicolas Cage and Ethan Hawke in Lord of War. aving conquered the world of music and shed light on global poverty, U2 lead singer Bono is now eyeing Hollywood . Presumably this is the charismatic crooner's way to kill time until he is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Until then, Bono is developing a film project wh ich revolves around an Irish mus ician who comes to the Un ited States to work with a show band in Las Vegas.

Entitled A Version of Las Vegas , the film is being described as a comedy-drama.

The main character is a musician who left a son back in Ireland. The son unexpectedly tracks hi s father down in Vegas.

To make the movie, Bono is teaming up with fellow Iri sh musician Bany Devlin , a former member of Horslips who also wrote episodes of the BBC' s famed Ballykissangel series. Devlin pre-

H

viously worked with Bono on a 1998 TV movie about the making of U2's earli er documentary Rattle and Hum .

Thanks to his fight against starvation in the third world, Bono al so reportedly helped Briti sh screenwriter Richard Curtis with his recent HBO movie The Girl in the Cafe, about a man and a woman who fall in love amidst a backdrop of global pove11y.

Let's hope the new project turn s out better than Bono' s last foray into film.

Bono was a producer/co-writer on the 2001 Mel Gibson film Million Dollar Hotel, whi ch was roundl y lambasted by critics. liish hotshot director John Moore is working frantica ll y o n hi s third Hollywood movie. That's because the film, a remake of a Ho ll ywood horror classic entitled The Omen 666, must be

18 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMB ER 2005

released on June 6, 2006- 6/6/06, in an attempt to capi tali ze on the satanic association with the biblical " number of the beast."

The 1976 original Omen starred IrishAmerican legend Gregory Peck, who played a character forced to confront a family into whi ch the child of Satan bas un wi ttingly been born.

Moore, a 34-year-old native of Dundalk, recently was quoted as saying: ''There are a lot of hardcore fans [of the origi nal] that are going to want to burn my house down when they hear that I'm going to remake it, but that comes wid1 the job," he said. "I was a huge fan of the original and I think the time is good to re-do it so I said, "Let' s go." There are a couple of new twists.

Fans of the original won' t be di sappointed.

It's very true to the original but it has a more modern context."

Moore, whose fu¡st film was the hitech war thriLler Behind Enemy Lines with Owen W il son, later directed anodler remake, Th e Flight of the Ph oenix, based on a 1965 film about airpl ane crash victims who try and put their pl ane back together to get home.

Also on the Irish directorial front, Jim Sheridan 's gritty film based on the life of rapper 50 Cent is due out in November.

Get Rich or Die Trying may seem like a radical change of pace for Sheridan, whose film s include In the Name of the Fath er, The Field and My Left Foot.

But, actuall y, the story of the rapper's rise up from d1e drug-ridden streets of Queens is just another tough New York story about an outsider, not unlike In America, Sheridan's 2003 mov ie about Iri sh immigrants in Manhattan. In fact, recent repo rts suggest Sheridan wi ll return to Hell 's Kitchen in a fi lm to be caLled Em erald City. Sheridan will direct the film , based on real events . abou t the Iri sh mafia in New York City.

The script for Emerald City will be written by Lukas Reiter, who previously worked a an assistant district attorney in New York City and has penned scripts for TV hits such as Boston Legal and The Practice. It should be added, however, that thi s is just one of many projects

IRISH EYE ON HOLLYWOOD

Anjelica Huston guest stars on the Showtime series Huff.

Sheridan has been linked with. There is also his reported film about a Kennedylike Irish-American political dynasty.

It has also been reported that Sheridan will be remaking Akira Kurosawa's 1952 Japanese cfassic lkiru with Tom Hanks struTing and acclaimed author/screenwriter Richard Price doing writing duties.

Whether all of these projects ever make it to the big screen remains to be seen.

There is no doubt, however, that IrishAmerican actress Bridget Moynahan will be hitting screens this September alongside Nicolas Cage and Ethan Hawke in Lord of War. The film revolves around an arms dealer, played by Cage, who is the best in his illicit business, yet who is also plagued by guilt about the damage he may be doing to the world.

This sounds a bit like Pierce Brosnan's next film.

His future as James Bond may be up in the air, but Bro nan is still keeping busy.

In November his latest action film , The Matador, hits theaters. The suave Irish actor plays a hit man who suddenly has a crisis when it strikes him that his jet-setting life has left him with no friends or frunil y to care for.

Brosnan's character then tries to befriend a straight-arrow businessman following a chance meeting in a hotel bar. The Matador also stars Hope Davis and Philip Baker Hall and was directed

by Richard Shepard.

Michael Moore has announced what his next documentary project will be, following his mega-smash hit, the ultra-controversial Fahrenheit 9111 . Next up for Moore - who has said his Irish Catholic

roots influenced him to fight for the little guy - is a documentary about Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) called Sickos. Already, there are reports that some HMO employers have been telling workers what they should and shouldn't say if they are approached by the maverick fllrnrnaker. "We haven't shot anything yet," Moore was recently quoted as saying, "and they're totally discombobulated."

Speaking of controversy, there was much less of it than might have been expected when director Michael Winterbottom recently released the film 9 Songs, which featured several sex scenes in which the actors, well, were not acting.

Many critics were impressed, if somewhat baffled, by the minimalist, yet explicit, exploration of one couple's brief romance. One of the film's producers, Irish-born Andrew Eaton , certainly impressed one important fan with the bold film: his 17-year-old daughter. According to The New York Times Magazine (which dubbed Eaton "an exuberant Irishman") Eaton's daughter sent him a text message while shooting 9 Songs which read: ''I'm so proud of you, you are changing the world."

Eaton and Winterbottom have teamed up on a number of other indy hits, most recently 24 Hour Party People from 2002, which starred Steve Coogan, whose parents were Irish irrunigrants to England.

Two Irish-Americans recently signed on to star in TV series. Aidan Quinn's Book of Daniel, in which he plays an

Episcopalian minister plagued by doubt and other problems, will run for at least 13 weeks on NBC this fall. Also, Anjelica Huston will appear in three upcoming episodes of the Showtime series Huff Finally, an Irish acting legend who spanned generations and earned an Oscar nomination has died .

Geraldine Fitzgerald starred in films such as Watch on the Rhine (1943), Ten North Frederick (1958), The Pawnbroker (1964) and Arthur (1981). She also played a tyrannical Irish matriarch in the trashy, forgotten Rodney Dangerfield gem Easy Money (1983).

In 1939 Fitzgerald earned an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for Wuthering Heights, and later embarked on an illustrious theater career.

The daughter of a Dublin solicitor, Fitzgerald was introduced to the Gate Theatre by her aunt Shelagh Richards, a Gate star. Fitzgerald performed alongside James Mason and Orson Welles, with whom there have always been rumors about an affair. She married Edward Lindsay-Hogg and had one son, Michael, who has had a long career in British TV and film. Despite a striking resemblance, Michael has long denied being the son of Orson Welles.

Interestingly, Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed the 2000 tete-movie Two of Us about the Beatles, which featured Aidan Quinn as well as another son of an Irish acting legend, Richard Harris' son Jared.

Geraldine Fitzgerald was 91.

Aidan Quinn wi ll star on NBC's Book of Daniel this fall season.

OCTOB ER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERI CA 19

HIBERNIA

Soldier Ride t' s a long way from California to New York, especially on a bicycle, but what makes tbis 4200 mile ride even more remarkable is that it was undertaken by two soldiers both of whom lost limbs in Iraq.

Ryan Kelly, 24, and Heath Calhoun, 26, are part of a group called Soldier Ride, wbich raises money for wounded veterans.

They were joined on the ride by the group's co-founder, Chris Carney, 35, a bartender from Long Island, who was inspired to found Soldier Ride after visiting the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where returning wounded soldiers undergo rehabilitation.

Carney, who completed the cycle on his own last year, said, "it was tougher because I was alone. This year it was good to have someone to talk to. The motivation the soldiers have is amazing. Heath drove himself across the Rockies with his arms. He went from trailing up to having no problems keeping up."

The three statted out in Marina Del Ray "Mother's Beach" in Los Angeles on May 31 and finished in Montauk, New York on July 18. Calhoun, who had both his legs amputated after a rocket-propelled grenade bit a truck in which he was traveling, powered across the country in a three-wheeled hand cycle using his arms to pedal, while

I

Heath Calhoun , Ryan Kell y and Chris Carney who cycled across country to rai se money for wounded veterans.

Kelly, who had his lower leg blown off in an ambush near Baghdad, wore a prosthetic leg to complete the trip.

So far the group has raised over $500,000 for Wounded Warrior Project. They also can1paigned tirelessly to Congress for assistance for wounded soldiers and their families. Their efforts paid off recently with the passing of the Wounded Soldier Bill - a $2,500 to $100,000 disability insurance policy for soldiers and other servic.e members on active duty.

The funds raised by the second Soldier Ride have helped the Wounded Warrior Project with their backpack program, an initiative to give all returning wounded sol-

diers comfort items and toiletries and help finance fanlily visits.

As Calhoun told Fox News recently, the importance of this backpack cannot be underestimated, "I know myself when I came back to the States I was wearing a towel, so to be able to get a nice, clean t-shirt and a pair of shorts was something special."

For more infmmation on the Soldier Ride and the Wounded Warrior Project visit www .soldierride.com.

- By Declan O'Kelly Note: As we go to press we received the news that The Walter Reed Medical Center will close as part of the Army' s restructuring of its bases.

Rockaway Irish Honor Injured Veterans rish-American fanlilies in Rockaway, New York, played host to injured soldiers recently with a pat¡ade and street party organized by the community.

"We had to turn families down the support was so strong," said Flip Cullen, who organized the the visit of 28 wounded soldiers from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. to the Rockaway area.. During their visit, the soldiers took in the local attractions, water skied and visited the New York Stock Exchange, an event that saw the entire floor stop trading, turn and applaud the

I

soldiers in the viewing gallery.

The highlight of the weekend for many was the pat¡ade, which attracted a huge local Flip Cullen, center, marches with injured soldiers in the parade. turnout and had a profound effect on the visiting soldiers.

Chris stayed with the Moriarty family 'The parade has been exhilarating, it and had nothing but praise for the hospimakes me feel proud to be a soldier and tality of the Rockaway locals, "Everybody proud of the sacrifice I made," said Chris has treated us amazingly, they have been Bain , a third-generation soldier who like moms and dads, grandmothers and almost lost his arm in a mortar attack at al- grandfathers," he said.

Taji on April 8.

- By Declan O'Kelly

20 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

HI BERNIA

The First U.S. Immigrant Gateway W

hen many Americans think of their ancestors at long last arriving in New York Harbor and catching their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty they assume that their predecessors then headed straight to Ellis Island to be processed. However, many of their relatives probably didn 't go to Ellis Island, but instead were sent to the little-known immigration center called Castle Garden at the Battery.

Castle Garden was the city's first official debarkation point for immigrants, from 1855 until 1890. In 1892, Ellis Island took over the immigration process.

According to The New York Times, "More than one in six native-born Americans are descendants of the eight million immigrants who entered the United States through Castle Garden in Lower Manhattan."

Castle Garden was originally built as a fort in case foreigners tried to attack New York.

The fort was later renamed Castle Clinton after a former mayor and governor. Four years after being built, the army abandoned Castle Garden. The city added a roof and turned it into an opera house and theater.

In 1820, the U.S. government decided to start keeping records on all immigrants. The

process was extremely chaotic, •• since there wasn't an official center.

In order to make the process more orderly, the state turned Castle Garden into an immigration center in 1855.

From 1855 to 1890, eight million immigrants passed through Castle Garden, mostly Germans, l.Jish, English, Scots, Swedes, Danes, Russians and Italians.

This year, Castle Garden celebrates its 150'h anniversary. The Battery Conservancy was formed to rebuild the area into a 23-acre park. To celebrate the anniversary the Conservancy hosted a free music festival at the Castle during the end of July. The premise of the festival was to showcase all the different cultures that came to the United States during the Castle era. Different performers showcased the rhythms, beats and sounds of their respective cultures. Dublin native Susan McKeown, now residing in New York City, perfmmed at the festival. The Irish Voice deemed her, "one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in Irish music." Her music can be described as fus-

ing traditional folk music with a harder contemporary adult rock sound.

In addition to creating a park at Castle Garden (or Castle Clinton as it is now called), and hosting a music festival , the Conservancy has also started a website to honor Castle Garden and its 150th anniversary.

Castlegarden.org is a free website, providing a database of 10 million of the 12 million immigrants who arrived at the Port of New York during 1820-1892. The website will be a great help for Americans looking to trace their genealogy.

-By Julie Grates

Irish Citizenship: Are You Eligible?

rish-Americans are fiercely proud of their m sh heritage, as is evident in the number of Americans who apply for msh citizenship and passports. Last year the msh Consulate in New York received 1,200 applications for an msh passport. However, with 40 million people claiming at least some msh heritage in the United States alone, there are some constraints for issuing both the passport and the citizenship.

According to Christina McElwaine, the press officer for the New York msh

I

Consulate, there are three main ways to obtain Irish citizenship. Firstly, a U.S. citizen with one or more msh-born parents can apply for an m sh passport.

The second way to apply for an l.Jish passport is through a Foreign Birth Registration (FBR) . A person having at least one grandparent born in Ireland can apply for msh citizenship through FBR. Documentation must be presented to one of the five m sh consulates throughout the United States. McElwaine says, "to apply for citizenship through an l.J·ish-born grandparent (FBR), the applicant must supply original documentation which demonstrates clearly the identity of the applicant and the relationship between the applicant, the parent and the msh-born grandparent." In order to do that, the applicant must show the msh birth certificate (where not available, a baptismal certificate is accepted), along with a marriage certificate, and a death certificate, or if they are still alive, an identification card of some sort.

Finally, up until November 30, 2005, one will be able to obtain msh citizenship

22 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

through a process called Post Nuptial Citizenship (PNC). If a U.S. citizen is martied to an Irish citizen (for at least three years), they are eligible to apply for citizenship. However, after November 30, people Living outside Ireland will not be able to apply for citizenship through PNC. There is better news for msh seniors at least 65 years old. From August I, Irish senior citizens may obtain an Irish passport free of charge. This includes seniors living abroad and Americans who wish to apply through the FBR. Dermot Ahern, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ireland, said in a recent press release, "I am very pleased that the life-long contribution to society of our senior citizens is being further recognized by the introduction of free passports.

This will benefit over 60,000 such persons annually - about ten percent of those who apply for passports annually."

To learn more about applying for l.Jish citizenship or passpmts, contact your Irish Consulate or visit the Embassy of l.J·eland's website at www.irelandemb.org.

-By Julie Grates

HIBERNIA

In Memoriam: best when he said, "She is blunt and outspoken and he swears a lot. She is also intelligent, decisive, daring and unpretentious. The combination is irresistible. The people love her, though many politicians do not."

Many U.S. politicians paid tributes and complimented the woman who helped lay the groundwork for the Good Friday Agreement.

Senator Edward Kennedy said, "I had immense respect for her ability and dedication to the peace process in Nmthern Ireland. She was extraordinarily committed and effective, and we're closer to a lasting peace today because of her."

Former President Bill Clinton agreed. "Mo was an integral part of building a peace process in Northern Ireland that has endured for over a decade. All of us who worked to support peace in Nmthern Ireland owe her our gratitude."

Marjorie Mowlam was born in 1949 to a middle-class family in Coventry. She did not have an easy childhood-her family was always short on money and her father was an alcoholic. Needless to say, she overcame those hardships and became a college lectur-

er. She entered politics at the late age of 38, when she won a seat in Parliament in Redcar, on the North Sea coast.

She soon made herself heard in Parliament and became an essential part of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party. Blair was elected in 1997 and quickly appointed Mowlam as Northern Ireland's Secretary of State. Her goal was to come up with a peace process for the violence occurring in Northern Ireland.

While Mowlam worked tirelessly to establish a good relationship with Sinn Fein, many unionists criticized her efforts, saying she sympathized with the Republican cause too much and she should concentrate on keeping Ireland united.

Mowlam became an intricate part of the peace accords. She had no fear of shouting at politicians, mostly men, on both sides of the Northern Ireland conflict. In fact while helping to negotiate the Good Friday peace settlement in 1998, she said to Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, "Bloody well get on and do it; otherwise I'll head-butt you!"

Eventually, Blair and Mow lam had a political falling out and he replaced Mowlam in her post against her will. She complained and criticized the government, saying they made her like a "tea lady." Mowlam was demoted to a less important job in the cabinet and ended up quitting politics for good.

In 2002, she wrote a memoir entitled Momentum.

-By Julie Grates Mo Mowlam is survived by her husband and two stepchildren.

has won international attention, and hundreds more anti- war protestors gathered to join her campaign.

Sheehan released Casey 's last two letters to the media, showing his excitement at arriving in Shannon for a brief layover before being flown to Kuwait.

Both letters mention hi s meeting with Linda Ward, a bar supervisor at Shannon airport who told him about the Sheehan family and its links to Limerick and Cork.

Speaking from her home in Ennis, County Clare, Ward said that she remembered Casey Sheehan as polite and very curious about his family background. He told her that he wanted to meet Sheehan family members in Limerick and Cork when he finished his Iraq tour. The pair began talking after she noticed his Irish name on his military ID badge. She heard about his death about three or four months after he and six others were killed in a bomb attack whi le trying to reach injured soldiers in Baghdad.

In a letter written to his fami ly's California home from a staging camp in Kuwait, Sheehan, 24, recalled meeting Ward and said "she told me about the country and the different things to do. She also informed me that my fami ly name is well known here."

Four days before his death, he added a second letter, again mentioning Shannon and that the Sheehan family was well known in Ireland .

According to Cindy Sheehan, Casey woke her up in the middle of the night to talk about Shannon and hi s hopes of returning to Ireland.

"He was on his way to Mass, and we talked about when he stopped in Ireland to refuel. We' re Irish, so he found an airport employee that was telling him about the history of our name, the Sheehan name," she told a San Francisco newspaper after his death.

- By Sean O'Driscoll

Mo Mowlam, unique and respected British politician.

M

o Mow lam, the former Secretary of State of Northern Ireland, lost her long battle with a brain tumor in late August. She was 55.

The former Secretary of State served from 1997-1999 .and was an intricate part of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Mow lam was a very candid and feisty woman who worked tirelessly to promote peace.

When appointed to the post in 1997, she was a fresh face for the job. Her style in dealing with politics was quite different from her predecessor. Many remember her as an extremely frank, direct woman who used very colorful language.

U.S. Senator George Mitchell put it the

Casey Sheehan's Irish Links

asey Sheehan, the American Soldier whose mother is holding an anti-war vigi l outside President Bush's Texas home, was planning to tour Limerick and Cork when he returned from Iraq.

His mother Cindy ' s protest outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas

C

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 23

HI BER NIA

Bad Boy Bi.lly Bob oh1my Depp isn ' t the only Hollywood star who is interested in his Irish lineage.

Bad boy Billy Bob Thornton has been looking into tracing his ancestry as well.

Thornton, star of this summer's remake The Bad News Bears, recently poke to Sean O' Driscoll of the Irish Voice about his new film and his Irish roots.

Thorton' father's family is Irish, while his mother's side is part Irish, Italian and Native American.

"That' s the side [his mother's] we know quite a bit about. That's the Italian-Choctaw Indian side. So ethnically, I was screwed from the beginning. Italian, Choctaw and Irish. Boy oh boy. My uncle used to say, 'Lock up the

J

Goodbye James Bond

Johnny Depp's Irish Roots ohnny Depp recently spoke to the Irish Independent promoting his remake of the popular film, Charlie and the Chocolate Fact01y. In the interview he spoke enthusiastically about hi s love for Ireland and the Irish culture.

Depp 's Irish roots come from his mother, Betty Sue Palmer. In addition to being Iri sh, Depp is also German and Cherokee. He is very curious about his Irish side and wants to travel in the Emerald Isle in order to trace his ancestry.

"I'd reall y like to [trace Irish roots], because there's a part of me that says, hey , I might be related to Phil Lynott or someone great like that."

He continued, "I want to meet up with J.P. Donleavy too, see if I'm related to him. I'm hoping to get over to Ireland again soon."

Depp was in Ireland in the mid 1990 ' s to work on the ill-fa ted film Divine Rapture with the late Marlon Brando.

"That was a shame," he says. "I turned up there purely because Marlon asked me to. Didn't have a script and I didn ' t find out until 24 ' hours before cameras started rolling that I was supposed to have an Irish accent. " Depp would later get the chance to use hi s Irish accent in hi s star turn as a wandering gypsy in Chocolat.

J

1

liquor, the firerums and white women'"' he jokes.

Thornton began his search for blood relatives in 2003. His assistant has been extensively searching the Internet and genealogy records in Ireland. The seru¡ch has led him to the West oflreland and the Galway area.

Thornton has only been to the Dublin area while touring with his country rock band, but now he wants to go to the West of Ir¡eland to search for his family.

"It turns out that most of my people were from around the Galway area which is beautiful. I do want to get there. It's something I'm real proud of and now I want to find out more."

S

ince 1995 , Irish actor Pierce Brosnan has been James Bond . He has played the role of 007 in fo ur movies: Golden Eye (1995) , Tomorro w Never Dies, (1997) , Th e World Is No t Enough (1999) , and Die Another Day (2002). However, via one phone call, Brosnan learned the producers did not want him to be James Bond anymore.

Bros nan told Entertainment Weekly that before the phone call and before they stopped negotiations, producers of the film series had asked him to play the role of the suave agent for a fifth time in Bond 21: Casino Royale.

When he first got the phone call , he was shocked, but later expressed a bit of relief that he will no longer be playing the role of James Bond.

Matt Dillon in Galway H

ollywood ac tor Matt Dillon was recently in Galway for the Arts Festival. He brought a film he is extremely prO Lid of, City of Ghosts. Dillon wrote, directed and stars in the film along with James Caan and Gerard Depardieu.

The movie is about a con man (Dillon) who travels to Cambodia to collect his share from an insurance scam . Since the movie did not do well in the U nited States, Dillon is bringing it to Ireland in hopes that it will fare better and get a bet-

24 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMB ER 2005

ter response from audiences.

"I was in Galway once with a friend . We drove from Dublin to Galway and I really loved the fact that there wasn ' t an autobahn or whatever. We had to drive through every town to get here and I really loved that. I know there is a tech boom here, but I really think you have respect for the past and I hope you can retain that."

Dillon has Irish roots and in the past has spoken to the press about his pride in his heritage.

HIBERNIA

GerN~J9.J Q,~ Fitzgerald eraldine Fitzgerald, the beautiful and talented screen and stage actress, died from complications of Alzheimer' s disease on July 17, 2005 at her Upper East Side home in New York.

Fitzgerald had been battling the disease for over a decade and ultimately succumbed to a respiratory infection.

Fitzgerald was born in 1913 in Dublin where she lived during her childhood. She was intrigued by the stage and was encouraged to go into acting by her aunt, Shelagh Richards. Soon, Fitzgerald joined Dublin ' s famous Gate Theatre, where her aunt was one of the leading stars. During her tenure at Gate Theatre, she acted alongside James Mason and Orson Welles.

Before moving to New York in 1938, she married an Irish aristocrat, Edward Lindsay-Hogg. Her husband was looki ng to dive into the songwriting business, bringing the couple to New York, where he could achieve his dream.

However, her husband 's songwriti ng

business was not faring as well as anticipated, and Fitzgerald turned to her old friend Orson Welles, who gave her a part in a play, Heartbreak Hotel, he was directing at the Mercury Theatre.

Her longtime friend Norman Lloyd, also of the Mercury Theatre, said about her, "She was a staggeringly beautiful girl with the most delightful speech, a slight Iri sh tinge, not a thick brogue, and this glorious red hair."

Soon after her theater debut, Fitzgerald was discovered by Hollywood. Warner Brothers signed her, and in 1939 she acted alongside Bette Davis in Dark Victory and Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights.

Her role as Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights won her an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress.

During World War II, Lindsay-Hogg moved back to England, while Fitzgerald stayed in Los Angeles with their son. The couple di vorced in 1946. That same year she met and married Stuart Scheftel. They stayed together until hi s death in 1994.

26 IRISH AMERICA OCTOB ER /NOVEMBER 2005

During the 1940s, Warner Brothers suspended Fitzgerald for refusing certain roles.

"My mother was just way too feisty to be in bondage to the Warner Brothers," recalled her daughter, Susan Scheftel. The suspension didn ' t stop her fro m staning in films such as Ten North Frederick ( 1943) and Wilson (1944) .

When she returned to New York with her new husband, Fitzgerald formed the Everyman Street Theatre, which recruited actors and street performers from some of New York ' s poorest neighborhoods .

Soon , Fitzgerald developed an interest in stage directing, and she won a 1982 Tony nomination for directing the play Mass Appeal.

Fitzgerald is survived by her son , Michael Lindsay-Hogg, a director; her daughter, Susan Scheftel, a clinical psychologist in New York, and two grandchildren and a step-grandchild.

-By Julie Grates

CONGRATULATIONS TO

IRISH AMERICA ON YOUR

~

nmoersary ANDY McKENNA

~--7 SCHWARZ

Irish Festivals of Summer

LEFT: Musicians playing at the Sioux Falls Irish Festival. RIGHT: Children enjoying fun at the Festival

s the summer came to an end, once again, Irish-Americans took advantage of the muggy days and sultry nights to hold festivals celebrating their Irish culture.

This summer saw festivals throughout the Uni ted States. Hundreds of IrishAmericans traveled from near and far for a chance to witness traditional music and dance.

The Sioux Falls Irish Club of South Dakota celebrated their Irish culture by hosting the Sioux Falls Irish Festival for the 6th year in a row. In late July, Irish enthusiasts were treated to a festival that inc! uded traditional music, song and dance.

Despite the extremely hot temperature soaring near 100, everyone was treated to

and ring in autumn , the Newport Waterfront Irish Festival was held during Labor Day weekend. The festival was a very popular three-day affair. For eight years, Newport has held the festival at the historic Newport Yachting Center. The festival celebrated not only Irish arts, music, culture and food, but also the beautiful, historic town of Newport, as well as the famous waterfront. There were five stages with continuous entertainment by over 100 entertainers and exhibitors. The line-up included Tommy Makem , Screaming Orphans, The Barley Boys, step dancing by the Nevin Academy Dan~ers and many more.

-By Julie Grates

A

the sounds of five bands, including Gaelic Storm and Ellis Island, traditional Irish dancing and food and drink for the entire fami ly. The festival also offered eight small works hop classes to anyone who wanted to learn tin-whistle bodbran or set dancing.

Also, in July, Lincoln Center of New York City hosted the 17th annual Midsummer Night Swing.

The Irish "supergroup" Bobola was the main act for the evening, entertaining guests with traditional Irish sets and ceilis. In between the sets there was an old-fashioned Irish balladeer competition. If anyone needed a break from all the dancing, the festival featured a beer tasting festival on the plaza.

Finally, to say goodbye to the summer

Golden Summer for Celtic Woman eltic Woman 's eponymously titled album went gold on this side of the Atlantic in early August. The quintet of lovely Irish girls with glorious voices, Chloe Agnew, Lisa Kelly, Maev Nf Mhaolchatha, Orla Fallon and Mairead Nesbitt, were presented with a gold plaque for DVD Sales in Seattle recently just before tl1e end of their sold-out U.S. summer tour.

With burgeoning sales proving that demand for Celtic music has far from abated, this offering explores several musical styles. From "Danny Boy" to "Ave Maria" Celtic Woman bas put its own stanlp on classic tunes. The album also includes Enya's "Orinoco Flow," an interpretation of Ennio Morricone' s "Nella Fantasia" from the 1986 movie The Mission, and a version of "Someday" from the Disney movie, Hunchback of Notre Dame.

For fall tour dates and venues check out the website: www.celticwoman .com .

-By Declan O'Kelly

C

Left to right: Celtic Woman's Orla Fallon and Lisa Kelly with musical director David Downes; Ian Ralfini , senior vice president Manhattan Records; Sharon Browne, managing director Celtic Collections, Dave Kavanagh , CEO Celtic Collections; Chloe Agnew, Mairead Nesbitt, and Deirdre Shannon of Celtic Woman.

28 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

HIBERNIA EVENTS

THE WALL STREET 50 Irish America 's annual Wall Street 50 event took place on July 14, at the New York Sky Club. Bob McCann gave the keynote address. Special guests included Survivor star Tom Westman and his wife, Bernadette.

Mary and Tony Crotty.

Honorees Michael Tumulty and Angus Miller.

Kip Condron of AXA Financial and Patricia Harty.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 29

HIBERNIA

Holden Back on Broadway

U.S. Roses Bloom in Tralee

rish singer Darren Holden, who has been touring the U.S. starring as the Piano Man in the national touring production of the hit Billy Joel!Twyla Tharp musical Ma vin' Out. returned to the Broadway production for five shows at the end of August. Holden was filling in for Piano Man Michael Cavanaugh who was on vacation.

Originally from County Kilkenny, Ireland, Darren is an accomplished singer/songwriter. He is a top-ten recording artist in his native Ireland, and many of his songs have won composing awards in Europe.

t the end of August, eight American contestants competed in the fa mous International Rose of Tralee pageant in Ireland. The eight American girls traveled to Ireland in order to represent their various cities and areas of the coun try and to compete for the coveted title of Rose of Tralee.

Over 200,000 head to Tralee each year to witness traditional irish song, dance, music, food and, of course, the selection of the Rose. The American girls, pictured left to right above, who competed were Kate Riley for Washington, D.C.; Ashley Stanbmy for Southern California; Molly Kealy for Texas; Katie Watts for San Francisco; Ellen

I

A

Pyzik for Boston and New England; Caitlin Burke for New York; Karen Boyce for Philadelphia; and Jenna Burke for New Orleans.

Here in New York, The Irish Voice (sister publication to Irish America) hosted the New York Rose competition, earlier in July, providing Caitlin Burke of New York with an all expense paid trip to Ireland.

Even though there was a strong showing of American girls competi ng for the title, an Irish native became the 2005 Rose: 22-year-old Aoibhfnn Nf Shliilleabhain became the first County Mayo Rose to be named Rose of Tralee.

-By Julie Grates

hekechea Pryor from South Central Los Angeles left the Uni ted States for the first tin1e last July and made her way to Belfast to study irish history and to shoot a documentary film. She met with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and visited the West Belfast Festival where she and Adams chatted about how great it was that she brought the Southern California weather with her. "I wish more Americans could come here and meet people who are moving from war to peace," she said. Chekechea was part of a group of 15 students from California State University, Chico who spent part of their summer in Northern Ireland.

C

Chekechea Pryor chats with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams.

30 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

HIBERNIA

Irish-Americans make their mark in hit HBO series. here has never been a shortage of Irish-Americans in the forever changing rotation of the actors, directors, writers and producers who make up Hollywood. Why, they have always been one of the most talented groups of people in the history of the film industry, whether on the big screen or television!

It is no surptise then that HBO ' s new break-out show Entourage features IrishAmericans in various capacities. Both Kevin Dillon, the younger brother of Matt Dillon, and Kevin Connolly co-star in the series. Also, writer/co-producer Brian Burns, the brother of actor and director Ed Burns, was hired for the show' s second season.

The show chronicles the hot new actor

T

Vincent - Chase (Adrien Grenjer), from Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, and Adrien Grenier in Queens, New York, as he attempts to navigate Hollywood. He is joined by rus entourage (hence the title), featuring rus manager Eric (Kevin Connolly) , his brother Johnny Drama (Kev in Dillon), and rus best friend Turtle (Jerry Ferrara). The cast is completed with Jeremy Piven, who plays Vince' s agent, Ari, who at many times during the series comes off as heartless and power hungry.

Entourage did not enter its sophomore season quietly, since it has quickly become one of the most popular series on HBO. In fact the June s•h season prenuere was the highest rated episode in the series' rustory . Everythjng on the second season of Entourage has been bigger, from the show' s budget to more impressive guest stars. The show was shot in flashjer places as well. Trus year, a scene from one of the episodes took place at a live U2 show .

For now the stars of the show are embracing their new celebrity and are getting used to being recognized more on a daily basis. "I was at a party in the Hamptons thjs weekend with some buddies I grew up with," Kevin Connolly sllid to The New York Times in a recent article.

"AU of a sudden, they part the way for us to get in and it' s like, 'What can we do for you ?' So, yeah, I guess the show i defiilltely registeting."

-By Julie Grates

Entourage.

•

OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 31

"There is a time to resist, to stand up and to confront the enemy by arms if necessary. In other words, there is a time for war. There is also a time to engage, to reach out, to put the war behind us all."

"I welcome today's IRA statement. Hopefully, this statement means we're finally nearing the end of this very long process to take guns and criminality out of politics in Northern Ireland once and for all.

I look forward to the final act of decommissioning, and the verification that paramilitary activity and criminality have ended, and the all-important restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Peace and violence cannot co-exist in Northern Ireland, and all who care about peace and stability look forward to these final actions."

-Senator E dward Kennedy on IRA disarmament (Delivered on Senate Floor, J uly, 28, 2005).

"A small 'army' of civilian workers, almost exclusively Gerry Adams , president of Sinn Portestant, rely upon the Fein, the political wing of th e IRA . British military for their - TH E NEW Y ORK TIMES, income . .. . In addition, the Friday, J uly 29 , 2005 . soldiers and their families , garrisoned for months at a "My second husband [Tom time, are a captive market for Hayden] was Irish-American. local traders and businesses, I learned through those 17 years eager to service their demands, that there's a tendency on the and in some cases reliant part of the Irish to be - I kind of upon them." love it - dark, fatalistic. There's The British government's demilitaa darkness, a brooding.

There's also a lot of laughter rization policy has frightened sections of Northern Ireland's and humour, especially when Protestant community who have there's been a few brews put grown economically dependant on down. And the Irish love the army's presence. Colm Heatley funerals ." writing in the SUNDAY -Jane Fonda, in an interview with BUSINESS POST. Ireland's BUNDA Y INDEPENDENT

32 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

"The daughter of a manager of an Irish bar named Meenehan's, with a side entrance marked Ladies' Only, she grew up in a Washington that was still a small Southern village with horses and carriages. As a child she saw the last of the Civil War veterans marching in Memorial Day parades, and as the wife of a D.C. police inspector she made friends with her neighbor, Pop Seymour, the last person alive who saw Lincoln shot at Ford's Theater. (He was five and saw the president slump in his box.)

Intensely patriotic, a politics and history buff, in her life she spanned the crash of the Titanic to the crash of the twin towers, Teddy Roosevelt to W. One of her big thrills came in 1990 when she went to the White House Christmas party with me and President Bush gave her a kiss. On the way home, she said to me in a steely voice, "I don't ever want you to be mean to that man again."

Maureen Dowd, writing in THE NEW YORK TIMES on her mother who died in July, 2005

Niall and Patricia Thank you for giving Americans of Irish heritage a home of their own to sing their songs, tell their stories and celebrate their extraordinary heritage.

DON KEOUGH

ileen Collins presses her face against the glass of the shuttle. She is desperately trying to see something.

Like anyone far from home when they see land, they look for what they know. Except for Eileen Collins, 48, far from home is outer space. And that little slice of familiarity is a country she visited once but thinks of often. "I was trying to see Ireland.

But our orbit was too low and it was too cloudy," she laments, sitting on her hands in an uncomfortable chair in the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Manhattan. She admits being pleased to talk to Irish America; after all, her father James, a retired postal worker, has been a subscriber to the magazine for all of its twenty years.

Collins, the calm commander of the shuttle Discovery- the first mission into space since the Columbia disaster two and

E

34 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

a half years ago - is enduring a grueling round of media interviews. A sort of public debriefing. "It was very important that we got back into space. We will fly into space until we finish what we have to do," she says. "I believe we need to keep on exploring. We're just taking baby steps wi th the space shuttle and the space station. We're going to go back to the moon.

It's part of this country's plan to get people back to the moon, and to Mars. We're going to get out there and find out. I do believe that. I think it's kind of unimaginable that we would really be alone in this universe. I think that probably not our generation, but future generations of people on Earth will find intelligent life."

Thanks to a completed mission, NASA has confidence that the space program is not dead. Di scovery returned safely to

Earth on August 19, fourteen days after launching on a beautiful Cape Canaveral day. Commander Collins staged a flawless nighttime touchdown of STS-114 at Edwards Air Force Base at 5:11 a.m., and in the silence of the predawn day, nations across the globe breathed a huge sigh of relief. A big bright dot pierced the sky and a loud double boom sound announced the arrival of a job well done.

"Discovery is home," Mission Control said as the wheels touched down on the 6,800-meter runway. "We are back," Collins breathed into the radio. "We are back."

After 36 days away from her pilot h~s­ band Pat Youngs and her children Bridget Marie, nine, and Luke, four, all Collins wanted to do was see her family, take a shower and grab some Mexican food. "I

don ' t take my family for granted," she smiled.

Collins, an attractive redhead with coffee-colored eyes, who marked this flight as her fifth into space (twice serving as commander), has spent the last four years training for Discovery. As the warmest woman anybody cou ld every meet, it's hard to imagine that the regimen is easy for her. Asked if because she spends so much time away from home, she loves her family twice as much as anyone else, she smiles. Her eyes water a little and she whispers, "I miss them all the time."

On August 19, Collins and her teammates- Irish-American pilots Jim Kelly and Steve Robinson, New Yorker mission specialist Charles Camaroa, Australian mission specialist Andrew Thomas, and Japanese mission specialist Soichi

Noguchi -felt the first flushes of gravity in the Mojave Desert. After successfully re-supplying the International Space Station and testing new in-orbit inspection and repair techniques, the "Irish crew," as they called themselves, were home. "We were joking around and we made Soichi an honorary Irishman ," Collins told Irish America. Her pilot Jim Kelly said they called the team the Irish crew because both he and Collins share Irish heritage with Robinson, so it seemed appropriate to do what alllrish people the world over do, give someone else the joy of being Irish .

Collins, known on the crew as Mom, traces her Irish heritage on both sides to the Collins clan from Cork and the Reidys from Clare. Somehow her father James' rail worker ancestors and those of her mother Rose Marie engineered a meeting in the railroad town of Elmira, New York, so that future national hero Collins could be born in l 956. "I love Ireland, I definitely want to go there again. My father's mother, Marie Reidy, told me as much as she could remember about Ireland, and I wrote it all down." Collins was in Ireland once with Youngs at a golf tournament.

She told Irish America in 2000 that while there, she and Youngs tried to look up her Collins relatives in the phone book, but found so many that they gave up. Youngs, who met Collins in 1983 when they were both stationed at Travis Air Force Base in California flying C-141 cargo transport planes, manied the woman be calls his hero in 1988.

Now a pilot with Delta Airlines and an avid golfer, Youngs gets to Ireland about as frequently as his wife gets to Space. "I have golfed all over Ireland, Portrush up in Northern Ireland is a favorite. I've never really been down in the Southeast, but next time if I get a long layover maybe I can visit that part of Ireland," Youngs told Irish America. On the promise of the lush golf courses of Mount Juliet in County Kilkenny, Mount Wolsley in County Carlow and Kilkea in County Kildare, Youngs could barely contain his excitement. "I love it there, I just got back from a trip there with seven guys; we played at the Bushmills Malt Causeway Coast Amateur Golf Tournament in County Antrim. We usually fly into Shannon or Dublin and get to see all the country in between," he said pulling at his Causeway 2005 poloshirt. Youngs, a handsome, tanned man, has dancing blue eyes when be talks about Ireland. His mother Mary Kelly 's family came from Waterford. "I never got to look them up, but I think they might have disowned us,"

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 35

he joked. "But I did discover while talking to Jim Kelly that his mother and my mother had the same name."

He says it has been hard for the whole family to get to Ireland but they are going to try to visit soon. Now that Collins is back on Earth, anything is possible. "It's good to be on the back side of this thing," joked Youngs.

During the mission his children offered prayers every night. "Even my fouryear-old, he is really good at his prayers. When he would offer his intentions he offered them for the mission and for the people who at that time were in threat of the hurricane. He is a conscientious little boy. My daughter is old enough to know the risks, but we prayed and they came home."

Youngs was in Florida when Discovery came home, having traveled from Houston, where he and Collins raise their children. Psychologically, everyone feared the worst once Discovery was in space. NASA's comeback kid, Discovery flew after the Challenger disaster in 1998 and now again after the Columbia tragedy.

Because Columbia went up okay but disintegrated coming home, Discovery 's re-entry was NASA's greatest concern.

On February 1, 2003, the Columbia shuttle burst into flames after heated gases broke through its heat shield.

The seven-member crew were 16 minutes from home. The tragedy was blamed on insulation foam that feU off and damaged the orbiter's left wing upon take-off.

When Discovery launched on July 26, the entire world held its breath when a piece of foam peeled off the fuel tank. The similarity to what had happened to Columbia before it burst into flames was not lost on anyone. It not only raised questions about the safety of future shuttle flights, but also called into question the competence and engineering judgment of NASA. NASA administrator Dr. Michael Griffin admitted, "Well, certainly we were lucky." Luck of the Irish, Jim Kelly would say; the result of bard work, Collins would offer. NASA said the debris caused no significant damage and gave the green light for landing after the mission was complete, despite a tear on the cockpit's thermal blanket.

Collins knew then that though the crew had enough supplies to take shelter on the International Space Station, there would be no need because she

~ CURRAGH CAPITAL PARTNERS Congratulates Irish America and its staff on its

We wish you continued success in bringing our shores even closer together.

SL3inte Robert Devlin Michael H. Devlin II Matthew B. Devlin

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR

th ANNIVERSARY! Donald R. Keough Chairman, Executive Council

Kevin M. Cahill, M.D. President-General

American Irish Historical Society

"I was never worried [about Discovery coming home]; the whole country was praying for us . And my crew had a great sense of humor," exp lained Collins, who keeps her grandmother's Connemara rosary beads closeby. Collins told CNN that while in space she knew she had a job to do, and that was all that mattered. "I have never had any pressure from my family to not fly this mission . My parents, my husband, my ch ildren, my friends, you know. Having said that, I asked myself many times, do I really want to fly this mission? And the ru1swer always came back yes," she said.

Once in space, Discovery had a tremendous amount of work to do. "We were very busy," she admits. Very busy wowing NASA observers. Coll ins engineered a fan tastic fust for NASA with a breathtaking in-orbit maneuver. On flight day three, Collins guided Discovery through the firstever "rendezvous pitch maneuver" as the orbiter approached the International Space Station for docking. In layman's tenns that' s an astonishing slow motion back flip that had never been done before. One longtime observer of NASA said, "Big boys, move over, Eileen Collins has just done it."

Station in its orbital position. The crew also delivered 12 tons of equ ipment to the Russian and the Ametican aboard the space station, and retrieved waste to cleru· out space in the cramped orbiting lab.

Discovery was one of the most photographed shuttles in space exploration history. Because of Collins and the bravery of her crew, some of those photographs were awe-inspiring.

NASA said the huge amount of data collected during the "return to flight" mission would help them fig ure out how to make the shuttle a safer craft.

"We had a lot to do, and sometimes we had to go to Plan C and sometimes we were really off the map," Jim Kelly told I.Jish America. "But Eileen was always willing to listen to ideas. I am a typical Irishman, I get hotheaded. Eileen is not like that. She was always calm , and that made us a great team ." The mission initially had been scheduled to last 12 days, but an extra day was added so the crew could transfer as much material and provisions as possible to the space station because of uncertainty over the date of the next shuttle flight. On top of that, low clouds impaired visibility at Kennedy

One long-time observer of NASA said, "Big boys, move over, Eileen Collins has just done it."

Collins said sh.e didn't do it for the thrill or the accolades. She did it because it had to be done. "We exposed the underside of the shuttle to the space station crew members. John Phillips and Sergei Krikalev took pictures of our tiles, and that helped us ensure that we had a good healthy underside to come home with."

This Discovery mission was designed to test changes made to the shuttle since the Columbia disaster, including improvements that were meant to prevent forun from breaking off upon launch. During the mission, Robinson conducted an unprecedented spacewalk under the shuttle to extract two protruding pieces of fiber that risked overheating during re-entry.

Robinson and Noguchi also tested repair techniques adopted after the Columbia tragedy, and replaced one of four gyroscopes that keep the International Space ..

Space Center, causing a further 24 hours of downtime fo r the crew. "We h.ad an extra day where we had nothing to do, so we were just hanging out, looking out of the windows, joking around. It was nice to be able to do that with such a great team," Collins said. "I like floating in space. I like looking back at Eruth, at places I'd like to travel to someday. We flew right through the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights over Australia. It was so beautiful, just winding around like that candy I can ' t think of the name of. At first it is . white and then yellow and green.

You can see pictures, we took pictures.

But pictures don ' t do it justice. It was very mysterious looking."

Collins said that during the mi sion there was a threat of a solar event. "That can threaten a mission, because radiation from the sun can break through metal. You

"'t::" ~ 38 . IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2005

'"f

'

~

would not continually expose yo urself to x-rays except for medical reasons, because too much can cause cancer and other problems. We would have been told to take she lt~r near big containers of water, but the radiation was not high enough to pose any danger." Collins said this kind of danger to humans in space is just one area NASA wants to explore. "Because you are floating around, your heru1 gets weak, your muscles get lazy. On the Earth we ru·e constantly working against gravity, so our muscles are working out, our heatts ru·e working out. In space that does not happen. You start losing calcium and those kinds of things. We need to explore countem1easures for them. We want to travel to Mars, which can mean six months to a year in space; we need to fmd ways to enable humans to stay there that long. We have the International Space Station where astronauts ru·e constantly trying to research the human body, for long periods of space travel."

America is about to announce the launch of the Crew Exploration Vehicle to fly people back to the moon. While Collins explains the future of American space exploration, she hasn ' t decided anything about her own future yet. But she admits to Irish America that it is somebody else's turn to fly. "I think astronauts who have not flown should go over me who has been there five times," she says.

Collins is always honest about her feelings. It is, as her crew say, what makes her a great leader, and a woman ru1yone would be proud to know. She sometimes gets into trouble for what she thinks, but she is never shy about speaking her thoughts in her matter-of-fact way. "I have been accused of being an 'environmentalist from space,' but I just call out to Houston what I see. I try not to force my opinions on the environment. If you study maps you can pick out countries.

The best thing for an astronaut is to study previous pictures of Earth from space.

The Eru·th changes, the cities are gray and they grow bigger; rivers, a dark blue color, change courses. Jungles, a dark green, and tropical forests are getting limited. Deforestation is taking place in South Ametica and you can see land use changing. I saw fires in Central Africa and they were flaming , so I called Houston." But Collins' descriptions are of an Earth humans are losing, or destroying. Perhaps space exploration will stop that if more astronauts get to fly and get to see the Earth changing. "As a country I think we would be better off having more astronauts who have experience in space," she says about th.e future of the

space program.

Now, with the future of the space program taken care of, Collins, who paid her own way through college and saved money to get flying lessons that brought her to the Air Force and eventually to NASA, has her children ' s future to concentrate on.

"I do not spoil them . I was brought up with discipline and it worked for me. That is how I parent, and I love them and I miss them when I am not aro und them," she admits as her husband and a NASA publicity manager approach. Collins grew up in a goverrunent housing project, the second of fo ur children. Her parents split when she was nine, and the family went on food stamps for a while until her mother got a clerical job at the correctional facility in Elmira.

"I wasn ' t there for my children much and I couldn ' t contribute much in the way of money, but I paid for them to go to Catholic School because it was the right thing to do," her fat her James, a Rochester resident, told Irish America in 2000.

Recentl y, he told th e Star Gazette in Elmira that he was always proud of his daughter. "~he is a wonderful, wonderful mother," he said. Her mother Rose, who raised her in Elmira, watched the lan din g from her home with her friends Jean Hurley, Marge Tierney and Debra Burke.

She admitted it was great to have her daughter home, fo r her, Pat Youngs and the children.

While Collins is moved on to another interviewer, her eyes say she does not want to finish chatting about Ireland and the things she loves. But she is still on a mission: to inspire the world to believe in space exploration. But her husband, still eager for conversation, sneaks over to me for a chat. "I remember the last time I met the folks at Irish Ametica. We had a lovely dinner at the Plaza, Eileen and I really enjoyed it. She has a tough job, but her toughest job is putting up with me," he laughs as he recalls the Irish-Americans of the Century Gala where Collins was an honoree. As she watches him from her chair, she smiles and he winks at her. "You know, it was our 18th anniversary while she was in space. She never sent me a card!

But I'm just glad to have her home."

While Collins is busy catching up on watching Luke make fly ing noises with his toy planes and Bridget practi cing the dancing she loves so much, Discov.ery, which will retire in 2010, will go into space again, but this time without her.

The shuttle, which has a number of mi ssions to complete i.n order to fulfill the objectives of the American side of the

The Return to Flight STS-114 crew heads to the Launch Pad. On the left, front to back, are Pilot James Kelly and Mission specialists Wendy Lawrence, Charles Camarda and Andrew Thomas. On the right, front to back, are Mission Commander Eileen Collins and Mission Specialists Soichi Noguchi and Stephen Robinson.

International Space Station's mi ss ion, is sched uled to launch again in March. That mission, STS-1 21 (to be piloted by IrishAmerican Mark Kell y), wi ll continue to test new equipment and procedures that increase the safety of space shuttles and deliver more supplies and cargo for future International Space Station expansion.

Discovery will bting a third crewmember to the station , European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter. Without Di scovery to ferry equipment to the Station after the Columbia accident, only two people could be supported onboard

until th e necessary provisions were in place. That would hinder space exploration and the chance for humans to get higher and deeper into space. Because of Collins' mission this can now happen.

"The shuttle has been a step along the road to allowing humans reaching access to space, but it did not reach that goal.

We need to keep at it. We are giving ourselves what we hope is plenty of time to evaluate where we are," said NASA administrator Michael Griffin . "We don't see the tasks remaining before us being as diffic ult as the path behind us ." m1

In celebration of our 20 years of publication, we've put together a medley of twenties - clips from past interviews and indispensable bits of wisdom and information to boost your knowledge of Irish America. With a Mortas Cine introduction by Irish America publisher N1all O'Dowd as he reflects on the past 20 years.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 41

+

P UBLISHER

IA LL

0 '0oWD

will be forever grateful to this magazine for the incredible opportunities it has given to me over the past twenty years to meet, interview and become friends with some of the most amazing people on this earth. "I am a part of all that I have met," Tennyson wrote, and in my case it has made me a much better person.

When Patricia Harty and I started Irish America magazine we did it on a dream and a prayer and really had no business expecting it to survive. I can still recall our nervous anticipation the first time we went to our post office box at Grand Central Station in New York. A month or so earlier we had done a major direct mail shot, promoting a magazine that no one had yet seen. Our future was in the balance on that hot day in August. What we found were thousands of replies, all so incredibly positive that I felt on top of the world . We had known in our hears that an Irish-American magazine was needed, and now Americans from all across the country were agreeing with us. Suddenly, that 90 per cent failure rate for new magazines did not seem so daunting.

Over the last 20 years there are so many incredible memories. Whether it was the Peace Process or finding a remedy to the issue of undocumented Irish in America, we were there playing a central role. Irish America was the first to write about candidate Clinton ' s interest in the Irish question and the need for Irish-Americans to reach out to him. His role in the Peace Process, subsequent to our first article, is well documented. In my twenty years with this magazine there was no more magic moment than when President

I

REFLEC TS BAC K O N THE PA ST

Clinton walked out on stage in front of Belfast's City Hall. A crowd of hundreds of thousands , both Protestant and Catholic had come to greet him. The fact that he was there at all had a lot to do with Irish America.

Earlier, in August of 1994, I was sitting in a hotel room in Dublin , reporting for this magazine, when the announcement came down that the IRA had called an historic ceasefire. It was the dream of successive generations of Irish-Americans that peace would somehow come to their troubled ancestral land, and now I was there to witness a huge part of that puzzle come together. Today, we can all take great pride in the fact that the Irish Peace Process is considered a model for conflict resolution around the world.

Another memorable moment happened outside the central post office in Menifield, Virginia in 1992. Again we were there with tens of thousands of people, who on this occasion were applying for the visa lottery which meant that up to 50,000 Irish-born could enter the U.S. legally.

Looking out over the crowd, I felt a sense of pride. This magazine had first brought the issue of undocumented Irish to the attention of Americans and had playe.d a part in ensuring that thousands of them would never have to live in fear and shadows again. Menifield was the culmination of a massive lobbying effort by Irish organizations and a welcome remedy for a problem that unfortunately has begun to dog Irish-born in America again.

Roll on the next Merrifield and Morrison and Donnelly visas!

42 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

20 YEA RS. +

No mention of civil rights is ever made without my recalling the great wanior of Irish America, Paul O'Dwyer, the great activist and lawyer. He will always be one of my all time favorite IrishAmericans.

In one of his final interviews, we met on his farm in upstate New York, where the rolling green hills reminded him of Ireland. He was the lion in winter then , looking back over his life. He talked of the struggle for civil rights in the South which he took part in, the search for peace in Northern Ireland , the great days he had seen at the pinnacle of New York politics, but mainly he talked about Bohola, the little town in County Mayo where he grew up, and the lessons he learned there.

As the evening shadows lengthened , Paul, at last tired of the subject, but he left me with a treasured memory of an interview that is at the very top of my list. He was a great man.

It seems that in twenty years there was rarely an issue published that didn ' t include some story of the great Irish spirit. It was, for me, a special honor to do the first ever interview with Chuck Feeney (see page 54). If you don' t know the name, don ' t be surpri sed. He is probably the greatest philanthropist of the 20th century, but he wished to remain anonymous.

A grandson of Irish emigrants, Chuck grew up in modest circumstances in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He made his fortune in Duty Free Shops all over the globe - and promptly began giving it all away. A reclusive figure, I had befriended him because of his great interest in his

Irish heritage.

When he granted us his first ever interview, after turning down the New York Times, among other papers, it was a great moment. A few years later he broke hi s lifelong silence to be our guest speaker at our Business 100 luncheon. It was quite an occasion, prominently reported in The New York Times and The Daily News.

The motto of our magazine from day one has been "Mortas Cine," Gaelic for "Pride in our Heritage." Editor Patricia Harty and I decided to celebrate those that best represent the success of our Irish heritage with the creation of three features each with its own special event: The Top 100 IrishAmericans, the Wall Street 50 and the Business 100. It was our privilege to discover many Americans from all walks of life -from the President on down -who are immensely proud of the heritage that their ancestors brought to Arne1ica.

Our Top lOO event was made even more special when, in 1996, our guest of honor was none other than the President of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Waiting in the wings to go on stage with the most powerful man in the world, and then witnessing the incredible ovation and reception he received, is a memory I will always treasure. It was an occasion when I realized just how lucky I was to be in thi wonderful land of opportunity .

It wasn't too many years earlier that I had arrived as an immigrant with no job and few contacts and here I was on this incredible evening introducing the President of the United States.

This year we presented to our readers the first ever listing of the scientific Diaspora, those Irish on the cutting edge of great breakthroughs in medicine and related fields .

Again, it was another tribute to the extraordinary success that the Iri sh have achieved in this country.

It is difficult to imagine, but when we started the magazine many people were negative, saying that Iri sh-Americans had long since disappeared into the melting pot.

That theory was quickly disproved when, in the beginning years, I sat down with Don Keough, then the president of the world's most famous corporation, Coca-Cola. I knew immediately that I had found a kindred spirit who loved his Irish roots dearly. Don continues to be a great friend of this An aging Paul O'Dwyer meets with Gerry Adams during publication and also a pathfind- Adams first visit to the U.S. in February, 1992. Also er in so many ways for Irish- pict ured is Congressman Bruce Morrison.

Americans seeking pride in New York called Bill Burke, Bank of their heritage.

So many of these wonderfu l memories Ireland had agreed to take our back page were made possible because of the sup- for a year. It wa a huge breakthrough port we received from great leaders and for our publication , one we will never great companies . I can still remember forget. In more recent years, Bill Flynn celebrating ou r first natio nal advertising and Tom Moran of Mutual of America account. Sheenagh O'Rourke, our then have been great supporters of our magaadvertising director brought us the news zine as they are of o many Irish causes, that thanks to a wonderful president in ranging from the Peace Process to the work of Concern Worldwide in the poorest countries of our world.

Other dear friends , such as former Grand Marshals of the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade, Denis Kelleher and Dr. Kevin Cahill. and so many more, have helped thi s publication not only survive but prosper. I particularly remember in our initial stages the strength of the support WVNJ radio host Adrian Flannelly gave to us. Somehow, through the work of our editor, Patricia Harty, and an incredible and dedicated staff, such as Kev in Mangan , Christine Rein and Trish Daly, we succeeded. And, of course, it has been an honor and a pleasure to share this fan tastic journey over twenty years with you, our loyal readers.

So I am indeed a part of all that I have met, and look forward with the same enthusiasm to the next twenty years. See you on our fortieth anniversary!

Mortas Cine! m1

Bill Cl inton meets with Niall O'Dowd (left) and former mayor of Boston Ray Flynn during his 1992 campaign for the White House.

OCTOBER/N OVEMBER 2005 IR ISH AMERICA 4 3

THE PAST 20 YEARS

n eleven years we will reach the centenary of the 1916 Rising, the revolutionary crucible of present-day Ireland. Independence did not arrive until 1922- along with partition and the seeds of Northern conflict- but at this stage we are at least four generations into modem statehood. Shouldn' t 83 years be long enough for us to know where we are and, even possibly, where we're going?

We' re no different from other countries insofar as Ireland is constantly evolving as a nation. Unlike most countries however, what's happening right now represents the most significant transformation since ltish independence. If you want to get a handle on where things stand, you could probably squeeze the last century into the past twenty years. It's been that dramatic. And if you don ' t believe me, was there to come back for? Ireland was second language could be overcome. At the next time you visit you ' ll see for one of the poorest countries in Europe home, unemployment remained high and yourself. optimism ebbed low. The outlook was and there was no sign of a turnaround.

At 42 years of age the past two decades Even when I came back to Dublin in bleak, a forecast for more of the same. bisect my own life, about five years of 1992 there wasn ' t a hint of the sea change At a cultural level we struggled to put a which passed memorably in New York. I that was about to take place. Where did stamp on our national identity. Our definleft Dublin in the rnid-1980s, a time when we stand back then? People were still ition of being Irish still revolved around there was nothing new about going away. leaving in their thousands. Many pinned stating that we were not British. We A lack of work prospects maintained a their hopes of emigrating to the U.S. on found it easier to say what we were not pattern that was well established since the the Donnelly and Morrison visa lottery than to settle for what we were. The vir1950s. People continued to leave in programs of the ' 80s and '90s. But for tual loss of our own language did not droves through the '60s, ' 70s and '80s, many ltish, Continental Europe began to help. We were entrenched in history and bearing one-way tickets bound for look more inviting if the obstacles of a firmly tied to the Troubles, even if the Britain, for America or for Australia.

Keeping abreast of latest developments in Northern Ireland from Some came back but many didn't. What outside Dublin's Custom House.

The country has changed more in the past two decadesthan in the 83 years since its independence from Britain.

By Frank Shouldice

44 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

daily realities of the North had become far more remote to the South than the 100 miles from Belfast to Dublin.

It's asking a lot of artists, entertainers and sports stars to assume the role of cultural ambassadors, but we needed all of them to break new ground and to provide a more contemporary version of Ireland than Joyce, Beckett, Wilde, Shaw (all of whom, conspicuously enough, had left home shores, never to return).

International successes like U2 and Guinness afforded us catch-phrase reference points. In 1990, for the ftrst time ever, a Republic of Ireland soccer team qualified for the World Cup in 1990 -the Northern Ireland team had already done so on three occasions. Factors like these might seem unimportant but they underline how ill-defined we were as a nation and how low our profile was abroad.

When Ukraine won the much-maligned Eurovision Song Contest last year we could understand their delight as a matter of international recognition. We've been there ourselves (seven times), but thankfully we're moving on. Other achievements, like the Academy Award-winning My Left Foot, and Tony Award-winning Dancing at Lughnasa, bespoke a newer domestic confidence.

But a modern identity would have floundered without an improved economic picture. That transformation has been hackneyed into shorthand as "The Celtic Tiger." Coinciding with the dot.com period, it took a major shift in Irish industryaway from agriculture and into telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.

Thanks to remarkable success in attracting investment from overseas - mostly from the U.S. - growth in the telecom and computer-related sector created opportunities for an educated workforce through the late 1980s and early '90s.

And through that time EU development funds were made available to begin a major overhaul of a national infrastructure that was archaic by European standards.

The immediate impact was to slash unemployment and reduce emigration.

Most of the jobs were created in the greater Dublin area -- and to a lesser extent Galway, Athlone, Limerick, Cork- so that an increasingly mobile workforce tilted the demographic spread decisively eastward to the capital.

Buoyed by an. economic revival , government borrowing dropped, cutting bank interest rates from crippling highs to record lows. This prompted corresponding booms in the property market and

construction . The peace di vide nd in Northern Ireland, however tenuous, lent stabi li ty to the island as a place to reside or Turkish workers from GAMA Construction protesting outside Leinster House. While invest. the workers were being paid below minimum wages in Ireland , bank accounts were In a matter of years the Republi c opened in their names in Holland that were alleged to have contained as much as became a place to stay rather than a place 30 million euros. GAMA is a Turkish company. Photo, Derek spm to leave. Budget airlines made travel easy For instance, media coverage of public second time he might not have recogand affordable, making the country less isolated than before. By the late ' 90s thou- reaction here to the passing of Pope John nized the place. sands of emigrant families were corning Paul II was massively exaggerated. It For the Church to collapse at a time of back to settle permanently. They brought suggested, wro ngly, that "young people increased wealth means we have become back a different outlook, life experience of Ireland" - as the Pontiff addressed as materialist as any secular country in the from abroad and a realization that Ireland them on his visit here in 1979- were as world. The term "Celtic Tiger" also covers committed to the Church as previous up a shocking polarization between rich is not the center of the globe.

They also brought their life sav ings with generations. The fact is that Pope John and poor. It is a mystery quite how ecothem. For a country perilously close to Paul II presided over a conservative nomic statistics are arrived at. but for bankruptcy in the 1970s, there has never Vatican so out of touch wi th Ireland's thousands of our poor and homeless, the been so much money in circ ul ation. changi ng society that had he returned a notion that Ireland now ranks alongside Living standards have risen , but the cost of living- especially hou ing- bears no relation to the 1980s. After years of receiving EU assistance, Ireland is now a net contributor to EU funds.

Economically, it seems we have turned the corner.

Yet the economic revival masks other concerns and confusions. The virtual implosion of the Catholic Church has removed a traditional pillar from Irish society. For a cou ntry supposedl y compnsmg 90 percent Catholic citizens - the figure is farcically inaccurate -- the question is not whether the Catholic Church still has influence but what has replaced it. This is plainly obvious, but not everybody is Panhandling in Dublin's trendy Temple Bar district shows the Celtic Tiger hasn 't ready to accept it. eradicated the problem of poverty in Ireland . Photo' Derek Speirs 46 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

CONGRATULATIONS

years

for

of OUTSTANDING service to

Irish America's businesses and

individuals.

DENIS P. KELLEHER, CEO

WALL STREET ACCESS

RJ&I1 T To Switzerland and Sweden as one of the world ' s wealthiest nations is worse than a bad dream. We may never have seen so many brand new deluxe cars on our clogged-up roads, but the rising tide does not lift all boats. Poverty bas not disappeared. It's just we don't notice it any more.

This has all happened so quickly that it feels like generation gaps are getting shorter. The spectre of unemploymentalmost a given in the 1980s - is an unknown quantity to present-day school leavers. Contrasting then and now is to sound like their grandfather. How strange it is to think we're still talking just twenty years ago.

Recent visits to Glasgow and Bucharest reminded me of Dublin during the recession - Glasgow for its dilapidation and Bucharest for its disillusionment. What struck me particularly about Romania was that most engineeting and medical graduates emigrate as soon as they qualify. In Ireland we used to call it "the brain drain." The phrase hardly did justice to those who remained behind, but such an educational diaspora is deeply destructive to any emerging nation.

Significantly, there is now a net inflow of people to Ireland for the first time in our history . Our industrial growth demands a fresh workforce, and because Irish family sizes have declined, we need the immigrants who come here. This is a multicultural society, yet we still consider ourselves a homogenous people. Our

STAY 1\l G- HT TO WOR~

Nigerian asylum seekers take to the streets campaigning for the right to work and live in Ireland. Photo, Derek Speors nationa.l confidence has not yet fo und a way to integrate expanding Chinese, Polish, Nigerian, Romanian, Lithuanian, Russian, Latvian and Indian communities. In the past, Irish people abroad have been confronted by racism; now that we are a "host nation" we need to put that bitter experience to better use.

How much is this country going to change? Who knows? Anglo-American influences are so pervasive that you might occasionally wonder if we are the 51st state or a regional audience for the BBC. We do fit more comfortably into the modern world, and if there is a price, it' s that we have become less unique.

Maybe that' s not such a bad thing. Either

way, it's a difficu.lt balancing act for an island people. We' ve seen it happen at a micro level on the Irish-speaking islands off the west coast, but at national level, the global village is our live-in neighbor.

More than any other time in the past hundred years, the last two decades provided the greatest spark and the greatest challenge. If we want to be a modern nation, how true can we stay to tradition?

Therein lies the tension and the dynamic.

The country is not quite a century old, but the current phase of development demands we find a way to negotiate our past and present and locate our island culture on the world stage. Either way, interesting times ahead. m1

Anti-divorce campaigners preparing placards for the first Divorce Referendum in June 1986.

il-e Life Covvrc;!evct

20 GREAT

INTERVIEWS.----------=~

I s a Supreme Court Justice for 33 years, William Brennan was considered ruefully, by hi s many conservative detractors - to be one of the most influential shapers of public policy in the country over the last three decades of the 20th century. He was appointed to the co urt by President Dwi g ht Eisenhower in 1956.

During thi s 1990 interview at hi s office Brennan began by di scussin g his youth in Newark, New Jersey and hi s parents, Willi am Joseph and Ag nes (nee McDermott) Brennan, both bo rn in County Roscommon.

How d id your parents meet?

My mother came to the States to live with an aunt, a Mrs .

Butler, who had a boardinghouse in ewark . M y father had been worki ng on building the canal at Trenton, and didn 't like it very much. He had a chance to get a ewark at Ball antine's j ob in brewery. He needed a place to li ve and somebody told him about a Roscommon lady who had a board ing hou se. That's how my mother met him. She was about 17 or 18 at the time.

How did your father ' s rise in the labor union come about?

He started shoveling coal at Ballantine' s. The conditions were bad so he started organi zing within Ball anti ne's and then other breweri es in the city. There were no trade laws to help you in those days. You just had to fi ght your way tiu¡ough. He did it so well that he mo ved up the organi zed labor hierarchy around ewark. At the same time he was also moving up in the International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers.

Where you influenced by his work ethics?

With my dad, you had to be working at something, preferabl y at something that you liked, all the

A

Interview by Sean O'Murchu, June, 1990. time. And I had every kind of job in the world. Across the street fro m us was a dairy fru111 and my brother Charlie, at fi ve in the mom ing, would milk the cows ru1d by the time they had cooled it and bottled the milk, I would walk acros the treet and deliver it all the way up to the school, which was two miles away, and then in the afternoon I wo ul d deli ver papers. Another job I had was with the trolley-car system. The transit company dreamed up the bright idea of having high school kids carry a change purse and go up and down the trolley aisles with chang~ so that there would be no delays. That paid $5 a week.

Tell me about your mother.

I w ish I could do justice to her.

Mother was just a bsolute ly extraordi nary, really, she was a sweet, caring woman, fending off m y dad when he got upset with so methi ng we were doin g.

50 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEM BE R 2005

She wo uld protect us.

Did you r parents ever return to Ireland?

T hey went over in 1928. That happened to be my first year in Harvard Law School. Yo u got yo ur g rades so metime in th e summer and I remember bow impossible it was to get te lepho ne service in those days. My fa ther se nt telegrams sayi ng, " Did you get your grades, did you get your grades?"

Was your being a Catholic a factor in your confirmation?

There were unfortunate suggestions that on issues conceming the C hurch, I would be favorable to the Church.

I was asked abo ut this when my appo intment was up for confirmati o n before the Senate Commi ttee o n th e Jud ic iary.

Senator [Joseph C.] O 'Mahoney of Wyoming said, "Mr. Justice, if a case presents a conflict between

the Church and the Constitution, who prevail s, the Constitution or the Pope?" I said, "Senator, I took my oath to support and defend the Constitution just as faithfull y and sincerely as you took the srune oath when you were sworn in as a senator and, of course, the Constitution is what I'm here to interpret and the Constitutio n, obviously, is what I will interpret, no matter what kind of effect it may have on anything."

You defend the freedom of people to question you.

I feel very stro ngly abo ut that.

I think that the most important provision of our Constituti on i the First Amendment. It defi nes for us the kind of society we are and that we want to be. No matter what the criti cism, I will never deny any citizen the right to say what he feels.

In the past lO years, you have tended to write far more dissents than in your first 15 years or so here. Do you feel that a lot of the work you ' ve done is now being undone?

No. Diversity of views is so essential in our scheme of things.

Colleagues may differ, but he or she has a responsibili ty to keep saying what he thinks, even after he's been turned down, as I have by colleagues on my view that the death penalty is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.

Plessey & Do n' t fo rget, Ferg uson, separate but eq ual, was the law of the land for some 70 years before it was overruled in Brow n vers us Board of Education. T hings can change.

I' m not too often in the majority on the maj or issues of the day, but it can all change again.

Shortly after this interview, Justice Brennan was forced to retire due to ill health. He passed away in July, 1997.

20 GREAT INTERVIEWS)-------------'

MAUREEN INTERVIEW

BY

t is hard to believe that such a petite, charming woman as Maureen Dowd could be viewed as a shrew by not only conservatives because of her coverage of President Bush and the Iraq war, but by liberals who have never quite forgiven her for her critique of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.

The author and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The New York Times, was born in 1952 in Washington, D.C., the youngest of five children. Her mother's parents were from Mayo. Her father, Michael, inunigrated to the U.S. from County Clare in 1914. He joined the Washington, D.C. police force and became inspector in charge of Senate security.

"My dad was the national president of the Hibernians. My mom was the historian of the Hibernians. In fact, that 's how I was conceived, at a Hibernian convention in Newark." She leans forward to share the intrigue. [Detmot McEvoy talked to Dowd at The Four Seasons Hotel in New York City in September and November, 2004]. "My dad was jealous. Some other Hibernian was paying attention to my mom and they had a big fight and he had to make up. So I was conceived at a Hibernian convention in jealousy and rage." A burst of laughter ends the story.

Dowd's journey to the Times and a Pulitzer started with 16 years of Catholic education. After graduation the nip to fame got a little bumpy. She worked at the Washington Racquet Club selling tennis balls until her parents intervened.

"They said, 'We didn ' t sac1ifice to get you this coLlege degree so you could wear a tennis dress to work every day. "' Dowd' s brother, Kevin, knew the Metro Editor of the Washington Star and Dowd soon found herself working the lobster shift as a "dictationist." Eventually she escaped the pool and became a general reporter and a tennis columnist. After the Star folded she worked for Time magazine for two years before being hired by Anna Quindlen'at The New York Tim es.

As strange as it may seem because of the critical columns she writes about the cun¡ent president, Bush Senior remains one of her

I

Down

DERMOT MCEVOY,

SEPTEMBER,

biggest fans . "We have always had a good relationship," she says bluntly. "I don ' t really have relationships with politicians in d1at way, not in d1e way James Reston [of The New York Times] used to [with JFK]. I try to think of it as not antagonistic, exactly . I just want to be the readers ' advocate. That being said, as a White House reporter, he [the elder Bush] was always lovely and gracious to me.

And occasionally now he'll write me notes."

When asked if she was surprised by the results of the election, she admits that she

wasn ' t "I thought President Bush and Karl Rove held the whip hand throughout the election," she says, " making John Ken¡y dance to their tune. His ti1nid , reactive campaign backed up their assertions that he was timid and reactive. Also, W. and Dick Cheney were better at scaring voters to death."

Although she is hard on the Republicans, Dowd also has some "tough love" advice for the Democrats. "I dunk they need to stop nominating easy-to-stereotype, wooden Northeast liberals and get some candidates who can capture the music of history and the

2004

pulse of the nation in their stump speeches," she says. "Democrats have a nru.Tative to teLl of helping the have-nots and the underprivileged and working class in society; ceJtainly, they can talk about values."

What kind of an agenda does Dowd foresee for the Bush administration in the next several years? "Dark. Secretive. Conservative.

BeLligerent. Unilateral. Drilling in Alaska, and in the Irish Sea, if they could figure out a way to claim it."

When informed she must be doing something right if both sides dislike her so much, she replies in a soft, elusive voice, "The only difference is that I've gone from Democratic readers going 'Dear Media Whore' to conservative readers going 'Dear Liberal Slut. " ' She considers her predicament before adding thoughtfuLly, "I always thought Democrats were more genteel when they were mad at you, but they weren ' t. They were just as vicious as Republicans."

When we met last September Dowd was just beginning to promote her book of collected columns, Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk. Her readers re]jsh her cast of characters, wearing sobriq uets as veneers - there's President Bush (aka King George II, W., 43), Dick Cheney (V ice) , and the ever popular Donald Rumsfeld (RUJruny). She readily admits to having an angle, or, as she puts it, a "shtick."

"Mine is to be right on the news," she says, "and to try to be very newsworthy." When asked why she called it Bushworld, she replies, "They [the Bush administration] created this other universe where everything is backwards, dle oppos ite of the way it is in real life. They ' ll be putting more pollution in the air and it will be d1e Clearer Skies Act. With Iraq, the connection is between Iraq and AI Qaeda and it turns out me connection is Iran and Al Qaeda. We' re fighting them there so we don ' t have to fight them here, but then they ' re coming here too! " She stops to laugh at me inanity of it all. "So it's a world, it' s like this whole universe, where dley never let in any information that doesn ' t fit with their preconceived notions." m1 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 51

20 G RE AT INTER V IE WS

" Jaysus. It's getting bleeding crazy," Fanell says of his overnight star statu s. "You couldn 't actuall y give it too much thought or your bead would be destroyed."

He still can' t bel ieve what has happened to his career. It's only fo ur years [this interview took place in 2001] since Fa.ITell made his debut in the Irish TV mini-series Falling For a Dancer, after he had opted out of Dublin ' s Gaiety School of Acting. "I didn't think I should have to pay £2,500 and take a year out of my Life to be told that I was crap," he says.

He gave up on school, too. After tlu·ee years at Castleknock, where he played rugby ("because they let you get away with murder if yo u did") , and two years at Gormanstown, he finished up at Bruce College. "That didn ' t work out either. I was just too busy messing around . So I took off to Australia when I was 17."

Fanell hun g around The Performance Place on Sydney's Cleveland Street, where he made hi s stage debut in a play about the outlaw Ned Kelly. "It wa pe1fect for somebody who' d never done more than 'bangbang you' re dead ' playing cowboys and Indians in the back garden," he says. "The play was terrible but it was the first time I'd rehear ed with a bunch of actors. And once back in Dublin I decided, feck it, I'll give acting a go."

He made his European stage debut playing a teenage autistic boy in Gary Mitchell's In a Little World of Our Own at 52 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

London 's Donmar Warehou se.

"It wasn' t exactl y Chekhov, but it was great storytelling," he says.

"It was like a movie on stage. Kevin Spacey came on a ni ght off fro m bis rehearsals for The Iceman Cometh, which was about to open on the West End. We began to hang out. He told me there might be a part for me in Ordinary Decent Criminals, which he was about to film with Thaddeus O'Sullivan. So Thaddeus cast me. I got an American agent, Josh Lieberman . I didn't realize until I got to L.A. that Lieberman also represented Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Shue, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ed Han-is."

When Farrell was 12 he saw his big sister Catherine- he's tl1e youn gest of a famil y of four- play Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream at tbe Gaiety School of Acting. "I knew acting was a possibility because she'd done it," he says. "Catherine and I, more than any of the others, were always into the movies, stayin g up late as kids watching the old Holl ywood black-and-whites."

Without Catherine, Tiger/and mi ght not have happened. Fanell had been late for an audition with veteran director Joel Schumacher, who was in London checking out talent. "I was on ly five minutes late," says Farrell, "but the old bastard had his coat on and was going out shopping. He' d seen about 30 or 40 guys and he'd had enough.

We talked for maybe four minutes. I thought, well, feck that, there's a plane ticket wasted ."

Schumacher remembers it so mewhat differently. "Colin just filled the room with humor and charm," he recalls. " I decided to have him read for the lead in Tiger/and."

Catherine filmed her brother in his fl at in Irishtown. "She's very good with a camcorder," he says. "It was the most crucial few minutes I'll probably ever do on film.'

Schumacher watched the clip back in L.A. and promptl y offered Farrell the lead ro le of Bozz, a rebellious Texan loner who sta nd s up to hi s drill sergean t. "Colin reminded me of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, or Jack icholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," says Schumacher.

Fan·ell wasn't bothered by havin g to talk American. "I grew up on The A-Team and all those TV shows," he says. "Any star I watched was American. I'd been talking American in my subconscious since I was a kid."

While he was still shooting Tiger/and, Schumacher cast Farrell in the claustrophobic suspense thrill er Phone Booth. "I'm in a phone booth in downtown L.A ., gripping a receiver to my ear," says FanelJ, explaining hi s role. "At the oth er end of the line there ' s a rooftop sniper who has me in his sights. If I hang up, he'll kill me. The cops have come because he' s ki lled someone outside the booth . They think I' m the killer, and if I don't come out, they'll kill me."

Immediately afterwards, Farrell moved to Austin, Texas for American Outlaws. "It was a complete change," he says.

"I had to get over all the serious ness of Tiger/and, where I was trying to find 'the truth.'

"American Outlaws is a romantic-actionadventure comedy. Jesse James is a character I've been playing since I was two. It was great craie. I'd done a bit of bare-back 1iding when I was playing Darmy in Ba/lykissange/, but nothing like this. All I had to do in Ballykissangel was trot two yards, get into the shot and get off. American Outlaws was the real stuff."

For Farrell. home is still his small flat near Sandymount trand in Dublin. "There are a few nice pubs around the comer, and a chipper [fish and chip shop] ," he says .

"That ' s all I need. I don't have a toothbrush or a pair of slippers in L.A." He pads across the wooden floor, barefoot. "I've been lucky," he says. "I've skipped about 100 rungs on the ladder. So 1 don ' t have to go and li ve in L.A. or do the scene there to get noticed. I can go there, do the work and get out. I'm in no hurry to get anywhere. I don ' t have any plans. I don ' t have a map. If you did in this business, you ' d destroy yourself."

1m

The Merrion is unique.

Behind the refin ed e>..-terior of four lovingly restored Georgian townhouses, Dublin's most luxurious 5 star hotel has revived a 200 year old tradition of gracious li ving amidst elega nl surroundings.

At the Merrion, the sp irit of hospitality is as unquenchable as it was when Lord Monel~ entertained in these great roorns two centuries ago. E>..tJect a welcome as warm as its roaring log fires. And attentive service as detailed as the exquisite Rococo plasterwork above you.

A stay here redefines relaxation with the shimmering infinity pool and state- of-the- art gym as well as the treatment rooms of The Tethra Spa. An d as 1-wme to the renowned Restaurant Patrie!~ Gui lbaud, overlooking authenhc 18th century formal gardens, and Ireland's largest, private conten>porary art collection, at every turn, Tl1e Merrion exudes the unmistakable air of timeless excell ence.

There is nowhere finer to stay.

~

MERRION DUBLI ' ~elsofthtfWorld "

Uppe' ~1enion Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel: 353 l 603 0600 Fax: 353 1 603 0700 e-ma il: info@menionbotel.com \\"ebsit.: www.m•nionbotel.com

20 GREAT INTERVIEWS

comes to phi lanthropy. "Money is more worthwhile to people in need when things are tough rather than when things are good," said Feeney. "lfl had ten dollars in my pocket and I do something with it today, it ' s a!J¡eady producing ten dollars ' worth of good, as opposed to writing a bill at five percent per year."

People with vast wealth should also start giving early in life, he declared.

"Everyone knows when they're born but nobody knows when they die. If you want to give it away, think about giving it away while you are alive because you' II get a lot more satisfaction than if you wait until you are dead ." Besides, he said, "It' s a lot more fun. Giving gave me a lot of pleasure."

One of the contributions Feeney made to the peace process, for which he admits he took "a lot of stick" in the media, was to fund the Sinn Fein office in Washington out of his own pocket to the tune of $720,000. "The goal was to establish a Washington office to put Sinn Fein on a respectable platform so they could say this is what Sinn Fein does. We're not the IRA, that' s another organization." He also privately funded loyalists looking for a way out of the violence.

Feeney, who has Irish and American

huck Feeney comes across as someone who really wants little more than to end his life as the ordinary guy who left Elizabeth, New Jersey to become a GI after the Second World War. He has accumulated more wealth than any other Irish-American of his generation but you won't see him at receptions or black-tie functions that mark the social life of corporate Irish America. "''m just not the kind of guy who gets any kick out of attending these mutual admiration society dinners," he told me.

In 1988, Forbes magazine included Feeney in the top 20 of its 400 tichest people list, estimating his worth at $1.3 billion.

However, Feeney did not belong on the list. In 1982, he had secretly transferred his entire 38.75 percent interest in Duty Free Shops (DFS) to a charitable foundation , keeping less than $5 mil lion for himself. "I did not want money to consume my life," he said. To maintain secrecy, the organization did not bear his name. Feeney declined even to take personal tax deductions on his giving.

"I just felt I didn't see the need for blowing a horn," he said when asked why he wanted to stay anonymous.

Feeney's anonymity came to an end when in the mid- 1990s he decided it was

C

time to get out of DFS. The company that makes Moet & Chandon champagne bought DFS , and the 1997 sale left Feeney ' s charity worth $3.5 billion.

Now Feeney has just put into practice something he had been considering for many years. He has decided that "Giving While Living" should be his legacy , and he hopes his example of giving now to make a meaningful impact will encourage other philanthropists to increase their charitable giving while alive.

The New Jersey native persuaded the board of Atlantic Philanthropies, which he created two decades ago, to convert $4 billion in assets into cash, disperse it over the next several years to good causes, and shut up shop. It is better, he reckons, to concentrate its vast resources on 54 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

the problems of today, and leave it to the next generation of philanthropists to address the issues of the future.

"Wealth brings responsibilities," said Feeney in his clipped New Jersey accent.

"People have to determine themselves whether they feel an obligation to use some of their wealth to improve life for their fellow human beings rather than create problems for future generations."

He said he has a reluctance to say to peopie, "Jeez, you've got a lot of money, you should do something about that! " One senses however that he feels very strongly about the fact that the richest one percent in America give only two percent of their wealth to charity, and many of the new rich in Ireland have become remarkably tight-fisted when it

citizenship, visited the North 11 times as a key member of the group that helped persuade the Clinton White House to reach out and encourage Irish Republicans to end violence and take their chances at the negotiating table.

"Clearly we weren't players in the action," said Feeney, who always managed to avoid being photographed with the group, except once when an Irish Times photographer climbed onto a railing outside Sinn Fein headquarters in Belfast, and got a snapshot of the elusive philanthropist before he could slip away into the background. "We were not dumb enough to think that we were the motivating force," he said, "but clearly there was a time, a mood, to do something. And we were up there." m1

1_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - l l

2 0

GREAT INTERVIEW sj~- - - - - - -

MICHAEL FLATLEY Interview by Debbie ~1cGoldrick, ~larch 2 002. ichael Flatley can recall the times spent on the "pay your dues" circuit, traveling the country as a warm-up for headliners like The Chieftains.

After all, he didn ' t make his everlasting mark on the world stage until well into his thinies.

"I've got no regrets," Flatley said. "It' s been a hard road but a good road ."

The kid from Chicago now presides over a multi-million-dollar business empire. He currently has three troupes pe1iorming around the world, and his London-based Unicorn Entertainment company owns all the merchandising and video rights. His shows, Lord of the Dance, and Feet of Flame have grossed millions of dollars.

Flatlt}y and his four siblings - a brother and three sisters - were born and raised in Chicago, where his father, Michael, from Co. Sligo, owned a successful construction company. Michael's mother, Eilish, a native of Co. Carlow, was a stepdancer of note in her day, and her son was determined to follow in her footsteps. He started formal lessons at the relatively late age of II , but made up for lost time, winning his first Irish World Dance Championship when he was 17. He wrapped up his competitive career with an astounding 168 championships in various events, a record yet to be met.

"You go to Ireland and people have so much pride and passion and personality, and they're oozing with character, and it's such a contradiction that they dance like this (he makes a stiff upper body move). I can understand it in competition, but when I got off stage I just wanted to cut loose. I remember the first time I did the Moon walk on tour with the Chieftains and everyone just started screaming, and I knew there was no turning back."

Flatley and another Irish-American dance star, Jean Butler, were asked to perform in 1994 as the intermission act for Eurovision, staged that year in Dublin.

The two performed a seven-mimne highoctane routine that was an intoxicating combination of revolutionary da nce skill and breathtaking stage presence. Irish dance hasn ' t been the same since.

Riverdance was expanded into a fulllength show and was an instant hit when it debuted in Dublin in 1995.

Just when Flatley thought that things co uldn ' t be better, the Riverdan.ce management team claimed their star developed an out-of-control ego. He said he just wanted to maintain so me sort of creative control over the show he he lped develop.

Riverdan.ce rep laced Flatley, and the show took London by storm.

It's not an episode he cares to talk much about now, but he has nothing but words of praise for the show. "I don ' t have any hard feelings now. I wo uldn't be where I am today if all of that didn 't happen."

Thus came Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance in the summer of 1996.

"I always wanted to do something that was completely Irish," says Flatley. "I wanted it to be a simple storyline, a good versus evil story, and that's how Lord of

the Dance ended up."

In 2002, Flatley decided to leave the stage. However, even in retirement, Flatley continuously worked on the next project.

Flatley's world is a place where there are always new horizons to conquer. His projects for that year included breaking ground on an Irish casino on land he purchased on the Las Vegas strip, a Broadway opening for Lord of the Dance, ti nkering with a film script, and making an album of flute music.

Not to mention a rigorous workout routine for a new show.

"I've been working on doing a cool new kind of Irish-American show with a big patriotic American finish ," he said. "I think I have to put it on hold until the war is over.

I have to be careful. The last thing you want in this day and age is anything that could be perceived as political.

"This i a show that's tied in deep with my heart," he said. "It's taken me these few years to get the body back, the dancing back."

Flatley is still interested in making a film, an idea he ' s had on the back burner for some time, and he' s always toying with a screenplay. ''I'm so tired of seeing these liish movies that are so depressing," he says, "with people cursing and shooting each other. I'm always a fan of doing something upscale and classier."

Flatley spends most of the year living in his palatial French Riviera retreat. Some years back he also spent millions on an historical Irish castle in Co. Cork called Castlehyde. "Ireland is the only place for me," he says.

When he first made the purchase, it was so he could be closer to his fiancee, Dubliner Lisa Murphy.

"Lisa puts up with a lot from me. She knows my life is mostly business and I don ' t get to see her very often, but that's just how life is ."

Flatley wouldn ' t have it any other way. IFJ

Flatley launched Celtic Tiger in Budapest on July 9, 2005. He and his fiancee, Lisa Murphy, split in 2004 but have since reunited.

OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMER ICA 55

r825- r832:

The Erie Canal

t

I

The Erie Canal was built by "Irish power" under the inspiration of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, the grandson of an Irish immigrant. It is said, "For Every Mile of the Canal, an Irishman Is Buried."

The canal diggers were mostly Irish immigrants. The work was grueling and dangerous. Hundreds died from various microbes festeting in the mud and stagnant watermala.Iia (or "Canal Fever") and acute diarrhea. Many were buried in unmarked graves along the canal, or in mass graves at nearby cemeteries. Similarly, in New Orleans, the New Basin Canal was built between 1831-38 using Irish immigrant labor and claimed many lives.

r84s-r8sr:

The Famine Irish

In 1845 a devastating potato blight swept across Ireland destroying the crop on wruch most of the liish poor depended. In the next six years more than a million died from hunger and disease. Hundreds of thousands were evicted from their homes and left to wander the roads. Over one and a half million fled Ireland for abroad, many braving the hmTendous boat jowney on "coffin ships" to America and Canada. Thousands died of srup's fever en route and were bwied at sea, and in 1847, the worst yea.I· of the famine, thousands more petished in quarantine on Canada' s Grosse lle, and were bwied in mass graves on the island.

The Famine liish were the fu·st la1·ge group of immigrants to experience the ridicule and discrimination that many others would later endure. They were poor, unskilled, often uneducated, and many doors were closed to them. They were willing to work, but many ' "IRISH NEED NOT APPLY" signs kept them from better jobs. Nevertheless, they were ready to take on most jobs, usually any manual work that was available. Gradually, they were able to improve their conditions and expand their influence and power.

r87g:

r86r-r86s:

The Civil War The Irish fought on both sides of the Civil War, but predominately with the Union Anny. One of the most famous units of the Northern arm y was the Irish Brigade. Thomas F. Meagher of the New York 69th Regiment created the brigade, wruch included the 6Jrd, 69th and 88th New York Infantry Regiments. In the fall of 1862, the 28lh Massachusetts and the !16th Pennsylvania were added. Also, the 29th Massachusetts was attached to the brigade during the campaigns of the Peninsula and Antietam. The Iri sh Brigade' s most famous fight was the Battle of Fredericksburg, where it suffered enormous casualties in repeated gallant charges at Marye's I-feights .

Ironically, the fa.Inous Celtic cross monument to the Irish Brigade at Gettysburg was sculpted in 1888 by an Irish immigrant from Louisiana who fought on the Confederate side at Gettysburg.

r8sg:

The Comstock Lode The richest known silver deposit in the U.S . was discovered in Nevada by two Irish laborers, Peter O' Reilly and PatJick McLaughlin. A fellow miner, Henry Comstock, stumbled on their find and persuaded O'Reilly and McLaughlin that it was his property . Ironically, Comstock sold prematurely for $11 ,000. The lode produced more than $500 million wmtb of silver, a large share of which went to the Irish-American Big Four: James Flood, Willia.In O' Brien, James Fair and John Mackay.

The Unions

In 1879, Terence Powderly, a son of Irish immigrants, was elected head of the Knights of Labor, a national association of labor unions. Under IUs stewardsrup, the association grew to include more than 700,000 members. With the increase in numbers, the unions were better able to facilitate strikes and dra.ITiatically improve working conditions for U.S. laborers. At the turn of the twentieth centmy, Sa.ITI Gompers and P.J. McGuire, a second-generation liish-American, co-founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

By 1910, nea.I·ly half the AFL' s 110 member unions were Jed by li·ish-born or IrishAmetican men. In 1920, union membership rose to new heights, reaching five million nationwide. In 1955, George Meany, who began as a plwnber's apprentice, beca.ITie the first head of the merged American Federation of Labor-Congress of IndustJial Workers (AFL-CIO), the nation ' s largest labor organization. Today the AFL-CIO, which represents more than 13 million working Ameticans, is directed by John Sweeney, a second-generation lrish-America11.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 57

I86s-186g:Working on the Railroads Mostly Irish-American ex-soldiers were employed on transcontinental railroad construction at wages averaging $3 a day. As the song put it, "Poor Paddy works on the railroad."

The joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad took place on May I0, 1869.

1935:

Braddock Wins Heavyweight Championship

r86g-1883: The Brooklyn Bridge Constructed chiefly by Irish contractors and laborers and hailed as "the eight wonder of the world," the building of the Brooklyn Bridge was initiated by a Kilkenny-born building contractor and newspaper publisher William C. Kingsley.

Kingsley and Abram Hewitt, a businessman and later a politician, persuaded the state legislature to build the fust "great bridge" over the East River to link the then separate cities of Brooklyn and New York.

Many workers, including John Roebling, the German immigrant who designed the 3,460-foot-long bridge, suffered from "caisson 's disease," now known as the bends, but often returned to work after they recovered. Some 27 workers died from work-related accidents and illness, which Roebling claimed reflected "the perfect equilibrium of nature." When Roebling died in an accident, his son Washington continued his work.

58 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

Irish-American Jan1es J. Braddock, recently portrayed by Russell Crowe in the movie Cinderella Man, was an inspiration to fellow Americans during the Depression. lmpove1ished, working on the docks and with a hand injury that had supposedly ended his boxing career, Braddock, in 1934, was called upon as a late replacement to fight heavyweight contender Art Lasky with only two days to prepare. Braddock shocked the world, beat Lasky, and went on a run of wins that would see him beat Max Baer for the heavyweight title in 1935. Braddock held the title for two more years before losing it to Joe Louis. "Irish Jim" personified the good-guy underdog who made it. He gave hope to millions in a time of unparalleled poverty and suffering in America.

delirious, and when George decided to go for a bath one night his movements in the water attracted a shark and he was never seen again.

Despite their tremendous loss the Sullivan parents toured extensively making speeches on behalf of the war effort. The USS The Sullivans was named in

1941-1945:

World War II Of the thousands of Irish-Americans who served in World War II, one of the most tragic stories involves a family from Waterloo, Iowa. Thomas and Alleta Sullivan had five sons (pictured above from left to right), Joseph, Francis, Albert, Madison and George. Though not recommended, there were no rules against siblings serving side by side, and all five brothers joined the Navy together. "As a bunch, there is nobody that can beat us," eldest George used to say. All were serving on the USS Juneau when fighting broke out in Guadalcanal on ovember 13, 1942. Ironically, by that time the brothers had intended to split up but had not gotten round to it when a Japanese torpedo destroyed their ship. Four brothers died instantly; George survived with others on a

their honor and christened 1961-1963: by their mother Alleta Sullivan in April 1943. The Sullivans loss was the greatest sac1ifice made by any one family in World War 11 and the Navy introduced the Sullivan Law, which prevented brothers John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th from serving on ships together.

Another great l!ish-American hero was president on January 20, 1961, forever banSecond Lieutenant Audie Murphy. Refused ishing the "No l!ish Need Apply" signs. for service by both the Marines and the Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May Navy, Murphy was finaUy accepted into the 29, 1917, Kennedy was the first and only Army in June 1942. Due to his slight stature U.S . president who was Catholic. At 43, he the Army tried to make him a cook but he was also the youngest. In June, 1963, stubbornly refused and went onto fight nine Kennedy visited Ireland, the f~rst sitting major campaigns and was wounded three U.S. president to do so (Ulysses S. Grant times. Murphy won a Medal of Honor for visited Northern Ireland after he was out of his actions on January 26, 1945, when he office.) Kennedy visited New Ross and stood atop a burning tank destroyer and, stood on the place where his great grandfathough wounded, single-handedly held off ther Patrick Kennedy last stood before he six German tanks. At the end of the war boarded a ship to America. John promised Mwphy accepted an invitation from Jimmy that he would return to Ireland in the springCagney to join him in Hollywood where he time. It was not to be. On November 21 , 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. became a movie star.

John F. Kennedy Presidency

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 59

1965: In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill that has dramaticalJy changed the method by which immigrants are admitted to America, and shifted the focus to non-European countries, especiall y

Immigration Act Passed

those of the third world. The bill , first put forth by President Ken nedy, significa ntly changed the course of Irish immigration.

For the first time, immigration from Western Hemi sphere countries was limited

to 120,000 annually. With poor economic conditions at home, many Irish chose to come to the U.S. anyway, and by the 1980s hundreds of thousands undocumented Irish

198os:

Donnelly and Morrison Visas 1992- 2ooo:

The Clinton Years

President William Jefferson Clinton did more to bring peace and prosperity to Northern Ireland than all the other U.S. presidents combined. Clinton came through on a campaign promise to give Gerry Adams a visa, which led to the IRA ceasefire. In November 1995, 15 months after the ceasefire, he visited Northern Ireland, further helping to heal the divide.

He followed through by organi zing an

Economic Conference on Northern Ireland and the Border Counties, in Washington, D.C., that included delegates and political leaders from both communities in the North. He appointed former Senator George Mitchell, first as economic advisor and then as chairman of the inter-party talks, a move that ultimately led to the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed on April 10, 1998.

60 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

When illegal immigration from Ireland had reached a crisis point in the U.S., Massachusetts Congressman Brian Donnelly (pictured above) was successful in pushi ng through a temporary "visa lottery" program with a large ¡portion of the quota available to the Irish. Congressman Bruce Morrison of Connecticut got the program extended and the number of visas increased. In all, it is estimated that some 50,000 Irish people took advantage of the Donnelly and Mon¡ison visas and went on to become American citizens.

University of Dublin

TRINITY COLLEGE A 16th Century University with 21st Century Knowledge

The Long Room ofthe Old Library, 1732.

Trinity College, situated in the heart of the city of Dublin , was founded in 1592 under Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I, as the first (and only) constituent College of The University of Dublin, rekindling a long tradition of Teaching and Learning in Ireland that had ceased with the closure of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. fhe importance of questioning, of continuously pushing the boundaries of knowledge has been key to Trinity's existence through the centuries. Trinity's mission is the pursuit of excellence in research , scholarship , and teaching. As the oldest university in Ireland , and among the oldest in Western Europe, the College is extremely conscious of its research heritage and how important research students are in fostering the intellectual drive that influences the development of our world in key 3reas of study.

Credit for the current economic prosperity in Ireland has been given to the high quality of education in Ireland and Trinity, with its longstanding pluralist tradition of educating people from the whole of the 1sland and from around the globe, has made a major contribution.

20

SEAMUS HEANE Y INTERVIEW BY PATRICIA HARTY; APRIL,

eamus Heaney was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." The fust person from Northern Ireland to be so honored, Heaney was born on April 13, 1939, the eldest of nine children, to Margaret and Patrick Heaney, at the family farm in Mossbawn, County Derry.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, be spoke of "poetry's power to do the thing which always is and always will be to poetry' s credit: the power to persuade that vulnerable part of our consciousness of its rightness in spite of the evidence of wrongness all around it, the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values, that our very solitudes and distresses are creditable, in so far as they, too, are an earnest of our veritable human being."

S

62 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 200 5

1096

Patricia Harty spoke to him in New York on the occasion of his birthday, April 13, 1996. His book Spirit Lev, l bad just been published.

What does it mean to caU yourself a poet?

I think if yon call yourself a poet it means that you live by it, so to speak, and for it, in a very serious way. There' s a phrase of Ted Hughes which I like very much. He said that the true poem emerges from the place of ultimate suffering and dec~ion in us, ahd I think if you cal) ourself a poet, you publicly consecrate tyourself to 1 ing somehow by the places of u ering ana decision.

How does it feel to have the world reflect back at you that yes, indeed, you are a poet?

I think the discipline w.hich writers m st perfect is the discip ine of doubting the world the discil;Jline of self- owl-

edge and self-castigation. Certainly the activity should induce a sense of vigilance - it's a kind of spiritual exaction to be a writer. But the answer is that I accept the recognition in good faith.

Can y..ou tell me a out your mother? y mother was very trong - very unrufflable, steady on the emotio a1 k,eel. Righteous and maje tiG and V1.llnerab le. Her McCann family were terrific, they had the volubility of protest, they were democrats.

My father b.ad a different kind of majesty, the country fanner's silence and hauteur. My mother had an unbending 路ng whic.h he shared w路th women of fuat generation, a child a year in eighf, nine, I 0 year . The giving-birth factor involved, I suppose, a willful adherence to the compensations of Catholicism - the cult of the suffering mother of Jesus, the cult of the suffering Jesus, and the cult of St. Anne, the mother of Mary. These were actual real psychic resources for sublimation in the lives of women. In !?articular, for ones who were going through, ithout much conso)ation or understanding, the solitude and exhaustion of childbirth and child-rearing and the biological enu路apment of being in a place with no birth control.

Nowadays I remember that affirmati ve bold outcry of prayers from women in church as a cry of rage and defiance. My mother wouldn ' t have put it that way she would have seen it as a form of transport and endurance.

Are you a disciplined writer?

I'm not very disciplined, no. I'm half disciplined. I'm not a person who gets up every morning at the same time and sits at a desk and plunges into it. Prose writers have to do that. On the other hand, the older I get the more I feel that you should peg out a pitch a d provide space fo 路 the game to be played, mark out a landing place for the muse ifi she wantS to come down. So time, time alone, when the pages are in front of you, or you ' re reading, time is what' s important. In the beginning, I used to say to myself anything that's wort while forces its way through. And to some extent that's true. 1m

20 GREAT INTERVIEWS ary Higgins Clark is one of America's premier "who done it" writers. Her books are worldwide best-sellers. Several of her novels have been made into television dramas and major movies. In April 2000, she signed a fivebook deal with Simon & Schuster worth an astonishing $64 million, but as one book after another passes the million mark in sales, the arrangement looks like a bargain.

All fo ur of Higgins Clark's grandparents were born ¡ in Ireland. She considers her Irish heritage an important influence on her writing. Her father owned a pub in the Bronx, and as a young girl Mary listened to the yarns told by the Irish patrons. "The Irish are by nature storytellers," she says.

Soon after her marriage Higgins started writing short stories. She sold her first short story to Extension magazine in 1956 for $ 100. But the untimely death of her husband, Warren, in 1964 left her with five young children to support. She went to work writing radio scripts and, in addition, decided to write books. Every morning she got up_at five and wrote until seven, when she had to get the kids ready for school. Her first suspense novel , Wh ere Are the Children? (1975), was a best-seller.

Higgins Clark still belongs to the same w1iting group she formed over 30 years ago.

M

MARY HIGGINS CLARK INTERVIEW BY MARY PAT KELLY, jULY In your books there's a sense of danger intruding on ordinary life.

Well, it can. That's what I write about, the frag ility of life . . . For example, I'm so sick of hearing about generation gaps . I got along with my first fami ly. I got along with my husband beautifully. I get along with my children. My grandchi ldren like me. There are millions of people like that.

For all the people who are having problems, there are so many who are thoroughly happy with their families. The trouble co mes from the outside.

Who were your early influences?

[My writing teacher] Bill Mallary - he was a short story writer who sold a lot to the Saturday Evening Post - said, " Write what you know."

He said, "Take the most dramatic incident that occurred to you as a stewardess and ask yourself, what if?"

I started out as a Pan American stewardess. I was 21. I flew to Europe, Africa

and Asia. This was 1949. The war had ended and I was seei ng the whole world.

They were still cleaning rubble out of London. I was in a revolution in Syria.

India had just gotten its freedom , but it was still a colonial empire.

I had been on the last flight going to Czechoslovakia before it was closed to Western planes. We went in with no one on board. The Soviets were having an air show . There were a couple of thousand people at the airport and they turned from watching all those military formations to wave and cheer for our American plane.

When we landed the termi nal was empty except for seven Americans huddled together, the men we had come to pick up.

There were soldiers all over with guns. The captain said to me, " Don 't wander around.

I'm going to fuel up and get out of here- I don ' t like it." When we left, the people watched us go in total silence. One of our passengers was weeping and said, "There's

1991.

no one in that crowd who wouldn ' t give half of the rest of his life to be on this ship."

I thought, su ppose a stewardess goes to the back of the plane and there' s an 18year-old kid trying to hide. He's a member of the underground. And they ' re searchi ng the airport, corning towards the plane, and he says, "Help me."

She has to decide whether or not to tum him over or try to help him. She knows that even if she succeeds, she' ll lose her job.

It' ll be an international incident. Then you throw in a little love interest. Of course, she tries to save the kid, and does . It' s [the book] is called Stowaway.

What would you say about your women characters?

They ' re strong. They are often selfmade. They are intelligent. They are the main viewpoint character, even thou gh I use multiple viewpoi nts. And they always solve their ow n problems, even if in the end they get a little help.

a

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRIS H AM ER ICA 63

20 GREAT INTERVIEWS

,I

' ' Was it good for you?" asked the legendary director John Huston, his distinctive voice bellowing across the sound stage.

"Fine, perfect," replied assistant director Tommy Shaw, a stout, white-bearded terrier of a man, who in turn motioned to Fred Murphy, the cinematographer, and asked, "How was it for you?"

"Good," said Murphy, ever so politely. "Couldn't have been better."

With that the 80-year-old director stood for the fust time in hours, his familiar white mane and weather-beaten face glistening in the stage lights.

"Let' s call that a print," he said, stretching tentatively so as not to entangle the plastic tubes running from his nose to a nearby oxygen generator.

Immediately the crew descended in a flurry of activity, moving lights and cameras for the next set-up in the on-going family affair that has become The Dead, Huston's eagerly awaited adaptation of the James Joyce short story and his 36th Hollywood film.

Hampered somewhat by the fact that Huston is confined to a wheelchair most of the time with the oxygen tanks and generator constantly by his side the cast and crew often had to strain to hear Huston 's pronouncements - but nobody was complaining. Indeed, the entire cast, led by Huston 's daughter, Anjelica, and including some of Ireland 's most venerable stage actors and actresses, were effusive in their praise of the director of The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen and numerous other heavyweight film achievements.

"Remember, what we want here is the moment, that precise moment when he sees Gretta.

Everything else is secondary," Huston directs. He then sits forward in his wheelchair, gasping momentarily for air. The light

.Tobn Buston Interview by T.J. English, May, 1987. from the video monitor illuminates his frail body - the everpresent oxygen tubes running from his nose to the nearby generator - as he waits in silence for his assistant to give the command to commence filming.

"Aski ng about Joyce is like asking about . Shakespeare," said Huston, a trace of exasperation in his crltggy baritone voice. "We're talking about a man whose work changed the course of history. It would be difficult - impossible really to pinpoint his influence. " "What we wanted to do," he

64 IR ISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

said, of the eight-week shoot in Southern California, "was not so much to adhere paragraph for paragraph to Joyce's prose, but to capture a certain mood, an exuberance for life that exists in the story."

Huston traces his own love affair with Joyce back to his youth, when his mother first smuggled a copy of Ulysses into the States in 1928. "It was banned at the time, you know," remarked the director. "But I remember it vividly, even the blue-paper cover it was wrapped in. And, of course, I' II never forge t reading it; it

is probably what motivated me to become a writer and a filmmaker."

But even with his deep love of Joyce, Huston had always steered clear of tackling the author's larger works on film because, as he put it, "Filming Joyce didn't seem practical."

It wasn't until Huston was approached by producer Weill and Schulz-Keil specifically about filming "The Dead" Joyce' s 50-page conclusion to Dubliners and one of his more accessible works - that he began to entertain seriously the notion of finally paying tribute to the man whose work had had such a profound impact on his own development.

Huston' s enthusiasm for the project was further enhanced by the fact that for nearly 20 years he had been a resident of St. Clarens, County Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. A familiar face at hunting functions in Galway throughout the '50s and ' 60s, Huston even went so far as to become an Irish citizen. His conversation is frequeqtly punctuated with loving references to his estate in St. Clarens, which he left, regretfully, in the early '70s because of poor health and spiraling taxes.

"Has working with an Irish cast made me nostalgic?" asked Huston. "God, yes. But nostalgia for Ireland sweeps over me often, not just when I'm working with an Irish cast. I love Ireland and I miss it very much."

Consequently , it was at Huston's insistence that the cast for The Dead be,' as be put it, "real Irish, not just people who claim to be.

"It was important that we preserve the integrity of the thing," said Huston of the casting, adding with a chuckle, "I wo uld tl1ink anyone who would go abo ut filming The Dead without an authentically Irish cast should be sent into exile." m1 Director John Huston died on August 28, 1987, three months after this interview.

20

GENE Interview by Michael Scanlon, December, 1990. ene Kelly got his first big break on Broadway in the Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey. He had graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and was operating his successful dance schools in Pittsburgh and in Johnstown, Pennsylvania when he decided to try hi s luck in New York. Within a short time he landed the part of Harry the Hoofer in William Saroyan's hit The Time of Your Life where composer Richard Rodgers spotted him and asked him to audition for Pal Joey .

From there he went west and began his legendary Hollywood career making a total of 33 motion pictures, taking as his dance partners such stars as Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth and many others.

Kelly, who was proud of his Irish roots, held dual citizenship. Since his grandfather was born in Ireland, he was able to obtain an Irish passport.

G

What was the difference between you and Fred Astaire?

Well, if you look at his pictures and mine, you will see that he was always sleek and rich with a top hat, white tie and tails, and I was more the common man in the street with a tee-shirt. And that difference was reflected in the dances. And certainly in my political ideology, I was always a liberal Democrat, and I felt for the masses and I didn't want the dancing I did to be any kind of highclass looking. And I say this, of course, with no sense at all of derogation. I just wanted my style to look athletic and reflect the common man. Whereas most dancers who had come before me, Like Astaire, reflected the dancing of the deb.

Could you tell us about Judy Garland?

Judy was a miraculous entertainer and she could learn scripts just by reading them through once. I deem myself lucky to have done my very first picture with her, For Me and My Girl.

We loved each other. I was married at the time and we had no so-called love affair; she was a deep friend of my wife and me and we were very close to her •• I dearly loved her as a friend.

What about directing?

I actually love to create the dance more than I love to dance it. So naturally, I got into directing. That was my greatest joy.

Gene Kelly with Cyd Charisse in Singin ' in the Rain, 1952.

Once I created a dance number, I didn ' t care My fat her was out of work, so for pure ly about performing it as much as I did when I econornical reasons, my whole family startwas creating it. So the directing was always ed to give little dance lessons . My mother more of a pleasant task to me than the actu- started a dancing school with us and it grew al perfornung. and grew. And finally as I learned more and There were so ma ny Irish in this field. more from teachers, main ly in Chicago Yes, you' re right about the Irish dancers. where I went to study every summer, I That's a phenomenon of the time. The Irish found that I was really interested in doing really dominated popular dance in twentieth dancing as my living. So I stayed with it. century America, no doubt about it. I think it And it wasn't until I left college that I made came from the fact that the dancing in Ireland the final decision, because up unti l then, for centu1ies has been clog dancing and reels dancing was j ust a way to put myself and these dances certain] y influenced the through un iversity .

American people in the late nineteenth and Dancing and choreography has been so twentieth centuries so that it actually became much a pa rt of your life and your paspart of American tap dancing. sion. Do you miss it?

How Irish are you?

I retired from dancing quite a few years My full name is Eugene Curran Ke ll y. ago. You can't dance well enough when Curran was my mother' s fami ly. Her father you' re old, and when I danced, I wanted to came from Country Clare. And so I'm Irish dance we ll enough. on both sides.

So I just said, "That's it. I quit." m1

At what point did you decide to become a professional dancer ?

Gene Kelly passed away in 1996.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 65

How would you assess the importance of what is happening in Northern Ireland to Irish-Americans?

Peace is taking that cloud of anxiety off the whole island. I think that you are going to see its benefits written large for future generations. It is just unthinkable to me that this peace process could end in failure.

I hope that we can get a sort of common voice among all of the various groups that are interested in Ireland. And let' s not be shy about it, we want to bring this place, North and South, into the next century with enormous dignity. We want Ireland to be a place where young Irish men and women who want to help build that nation, have a place to work.

In many ways people would now view you as the Irish chieftain over here.

When you got interested in Ireland, a lot of people got interested, and this has had a huge impact.

I am no chieftain but I have made Ireland a principal activity of my life, and that's involved many people I touch. I get enthusiastic about things I care about and I care deeply about Ireland, and maybe that has allowed other people to begin to feel that way too.

Many leading Irish-Americans now look to you as their teacher, their guide on Ireland. What would you like to teach them in the future?

Well, I always li ke to share \ÂĽhat I have in my head with people I care about and I care about a lot of people. And I learn something every day, and at the end of each year I say to myself, what did I learn

onald Keough's love of Ireland and all things Irish led to his this year, how have I grown? involvement in fostering Ireland's economy. He led several groups It's a privilege for me to be a small voice of American businessmen, including Warren Buffett, on economic missions in all of this. Suddenly an Irish door has to the country over the years. been opened in America, and across the In 1993 Keough retired as president and COO of The Coca-Cola country people with Irish in their blood Company, andJ ha sam ~ear. he and his wife, Marilyn, endowed a chair of have become not just more aware of it, but more interested in and prouder of it.

Irish Studies at Notre ame.-InJ.998, the Keough Notre..Dame Ce.nter of Irish il;iboU[D.--:--=-----~::---:--:-----ation My of generation were really thetofirst generStudies was officially opened in Dublin. th po t-famine Irish have the A graduate of Creighton niversity. and a navy veteran, Keough is curluxury to lift our heads up. take a breath and rently chairman of Allen & Company. He _serves on n ber of boards say, "I want to know more about that place including The Coca-Cola Company. And he has been awarded honorary docwhere we came from." torates from Trinity College, Dublin an is a recipient of th aetare Medal, I think the next generation- my children the highest award that can be bestowed by the home oft e "ghting :e are o-oing to be even more interested and has also been honored with the American Irish Historical Society's medal mor uriC>us and more.sensifi.ve to That !ifand was Irish America's Irish American of the Year in 1993. tie island that has produced over 70 million Keough, the son of a cattleman, grew up in Dubuque, Iowa during the people around the world. m1 Depression.

66 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

y~

yoo. prepe.r ' child f or another yea:r of schOol, spare a thought f or 'the 12t vnillion children world\lide denied their 0 basic ri.gl:f-t' to an For as little as $50 theY can attend school f or a yeW'... Give the gii't of education todaY!

As

edu~tion.

... ...

concernusa. o:i'g,,, 212-557-8000 .._ .._

----- c;~- ~ ,_-A)

~m 3.~1lJ;:::':';.1:':""' "''"-......""'!~~E~:.:.Mn~~ncAsement ":J'"""'· '"''"

,;;r::::J ::;"C::.,human,tana~

104 EastWorldwide' 40th Stre et, Suite 903 , New York N Concern '" _ Ireland In 1968 y 10016 212-557-8000 , , oom.J oo' ;"Can mternallanal rn orldw,de, d registered In lrelo:d'"6.:9n30d onated cauntnes by throughout MCS Adve 0 1

~aple :~ ;er~':l;da'Z.~by,de

S02, Ch"

of the poorest C • IO and Canbbea rtislng ltd and placement

~~

(11.£}"" 606hout 1 1 the312-642-8400 roug world F ded S Inc th1sU publication

20 GREAT

INTERVIEWS ~-------'!

McC¡o urt Interview by Brian Rohan, July 1997. rank McCourt we nt from retired New York City hi gh school teacher to international celebrity in a matter of months with the publication of Angela's Ashes, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

Frank managed to save the fare for a boat to America by the age of 19, the point at which Angela 's Ashes finishes.

He arrived in New York City by ship, on the eve of the Korean War. The young Iri sh kid was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent on a troop ship to Hamburg, West Germany, where he recalls a gruff-voiced drill sergeant handed out the assignments : "McCourt!"

"Yes sir."

"McCourt, what's the first thing yo u do with a dog ?"

"Er. ... Feed him, sir."

"No, McCourt. The first thing you do with a dog is let him know who's master."

With that, Frank found out that he would be spending the Korean War training German shepherds.

"They figured , hey- be's Irish, so it must be animals or agriculture," McCourt recalls. "But of course I was from the slums of Limerick, I knew absolutely nothin g about animal s.

They gave me six weeks of training and then they gave me my own dog. Then I beca me a trainer of dog trainers.

Surrounded by dogs. And to this day, I hate the things."

McCourt returned to New York where he joined a generation of young men sudden ly able to change its situation through the G.I. Bill.

"Every day of my life I say, 'Thank _Christ the Chinese in vaded Korea,"' he says. "It was a terrible thing to do on the koreans, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to Frank McCourt."

The Army vet went to New York University and read voraciously: novels, histories, plays, poetry- whatever he got his hands on. He suppmted himself by working at Merchants' Refrigeration in

F

lower Manhattan.

"On a hot, horrible day you' d be taking the e sides of beef off refrigerator trucks from Chicago out into New York and 95 degrees and into the deep freeze room, then back out into New York and 95 degrees and back into the refrigerator trucks, and so on. From an early point, I reali zed I was always going to be too scrawny [for the work] , so I kept readin g."

McCourt qualified as a teacher and began work at a tough, public vocational school on Staten Island .

"That was in the days of Blackboard Jungle," says McCourt, referring to the 1959 film about rebel]jous and gangcrazy school kids and the post-war phenomenon of 'teenagers.'

"They were poor kids who were told from an early age they were stupid, so they were sent to vocational school.

Naturally , I decided to teach them Shakespeare.

"The other teachers thought I was crazy. ' Sh akes peare?' they'd say, 'They'll kiU ya.' All they had in the school were these dreary old novels, books like Silas Marner. The dirty old man book, the kids called it. " McCourt bou ght a box of $1.65 Shakespeare collections - with his own money - and handed them out to a classroom of 35 skeptics. McCourt says the students were soon convened.

"They loved it," says McCourt.

"T here was no analysis or any of that, we ju t started reading out loud. We got to Hamlet and they ' d heard of it, they knew it was this famous or important play. They'd start reading these soliloq ui es in a big, theatrical voice, yo u know, 'To be or not to be ... .'

"I'd say No, no no- didja ever worry about life or didj a ever feel depressed?

That' s the way it is- just talk it. They began to understand what Shakespeare was up to." 1m Frank McCourt's Teacher Man: A Memoir is due out in November, 2005.

------~{20

GREAT INTERVIEWSI)--------

Alice McDermott n 1998, Alice McDermott' s ~ Interview by Sarah Buscher, March, 1999. ~ it's observed can change all fourth novel, Charming u ¡ ' <:J the time. If you think of it Billy, captured the National [writing] as a constant truth, if Book Award. Few were surthat's what you ' re writing for, prised. McDermott had previthen nothing else matters." ously been nominated for two The mother of three boys, Pulitzers and another N.B.A. McDermott balks at portrayals But McDermott was so sure which describe her as a houseshe wouldn't win she didn ' t wife who turns to writing to prepare an acceptance speech. escape the desolation of Standing in front of hunsuburbia. dreds of the most powerful Her lifestyle, she says, is not people in the world of writing, something she has "fallen she gracefully improvised, jokinto," but rather one she has ing, "I wouldn ' t be true to my deliberately chosen. heritage if I though this was "I was a writer way before I entirely a good thing . .. I will had children, way before I clutch onto my Irish humility moved back to suburbia, and with great vigor." will be no matter what the McDermott describes the future brings," she says firmly. influence of the Irish love of One of the most striking words on her writing as features of McDermott's "inevitable." writing is its wealth of detail Born in Brooklyn, New and physical imagery.

York and raised on Long Her finely drawn characters Island, McDermott is secondhaunt you like a childhood generation Irish. Her grandmemory. McDermott says that parents came from counties the visual nature of her prose Mayo and Kerry. is an aid to her when she's "I knew we were Irish and actually setting the words I knew that Irish was the best down. thing to be," she says.

"For me it's a way into the McDermott clearly draws on fiction," she explains. her childhood experiences in "To see clearly the worlds the Irish-American community for her nov- first book, A Bigamist's Daughter (1982), the characters exist in helps me to underels, exploring such themes as religion, fam- was followed by That Night (1987), a final - stand them. It sorts of goes back to a casting ily and alcoholism. Channing Billy arose ist for the National Book Award, and then of a spell - if I can find the right physical out of the desire to individualize the stereo- At Weddings and Wakes (1992), and details, then I can understand the characters type of the Irish-American alcoholic.

Channing Billy (1998). in their world.

Writing comes naturally to McDermott.

"It's not so much a conscious choice of McDermott remains refreshingly matterShe wrote her first novel when she was ten of-fact about the cut-and-thrust world of writing visually. It's a way of entering the years old, and she was always the designat- publishing, and prefers to concentrate on story that I hope, in tum, is a way for the ed skit-writer in the all-girls Catholic high the writing itself. reader to enter it. It gives me a door. I don't school she attended.

"So much of it is outside the work and I write stories that are plot-driven and so I She met her husband when she was think, realizing that and taking that to heart like being able to dwell in the place that the attending the graduate writing program at m~es it easier to put it all aside when it characters are. And I think the more sensuthe University of New HampShire. H~ was a comes to the actual writing," she says. ous it is, then the more access I have to graduate student at Cornell Medical School.

"For evqyone who says '.IJ love your these people's lives.

They married and moved to New York City, wor ,' there' s so eone who says, 'Wbat?

"When I begin a day, I ten,d to rewrite setting up home in student housing for mar- Are you kidding?' And if you live and die what rve written the day before and add to ried graduate st dents. it or take out as I need to 1fhat's a way of by that, yom've missed the point entirely.

It was here that McDermott began to at it comes down to IS what words are going down into e novel again, reentering work on her fi t novel and pre soon she put on the page Once you' ve dope that, it it throug the language - Q I rewrite and had a contract wi Houghton- ifflin. Her doesn't change but how it's read and how

I

-------

OC'TOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 69

. ------~( 2 0

What made you consider this unpaid position [economic advisor] when many jobs were open to you?

Somebody asked me recently why was I spending so much time at this since it was an unpaid position. I said it's a labor of love, and I meant it. I truly enjoy it. I admire the participants, and I think that it's an opportunity, for me as an Irish-American, to play a role in what I think is an historic event. I have enjoyed reading many books on English and Irish history in preparation for this assignment and I really believe this is a moment of historic opportunity that could be the framework for life in Ireland for not just a few years but decades, or perhaps even centuries. It's a historic time, and a tremendous opportunity to make some progress.

What was the atmosphere in Northern Ireland like on your visit?

There was, it seemed to me, a real genuine, tangible enthusiasm about the absence of violence, about the opportunity to lead normal lives and a desire to move forward with the peace process and also very positive feeling toward President Clinton and the effort being made by the United States.

It's unfortunate that very few Americans are aware of the role that the President has 70 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

GREAT INTERVIEWS

played in this effort. Yet when you go over to Ireland, everyone states it and acknowledges it, and people are very generally aware of and recognize the crucial role played by the Clinton administration.

Do you think the Adams visa was crucial to the peace process?

The President made the 1ight decision at each stage of the process and by his actions has encouraged progress towards peace. I think his timing has been right, and his actions, while obviously difficult and controversial, have been correct.

Tell me about your own Irish background.

My father's parents were born in Ireland and emigrated to the United States just before the tum of the century, some time in the 1890s, we think. The name was Kilroy.

My father was born in Boston in 1900 and never knew his parents. All the children were -raised in a Catholic orphanage in Boston ..

Apparently what happened is that the mother died and the father couldn ' t care for them and put them in an orphanage. My father was adopted when he was four by an elderly, childless couple who lived in Bangor, Maine. They changed his name to Mitchell - his name at birth was Joseph

J)----------'

Kilroy - and shortly thereafter moved to Waterville, Maine, where I grew up. My father's older brother Francis was also adopted by a family from P011land, Maine, but he later made contact with my father, and the families became quite friendly, and we have had regular contact over many years.

Tell me about the early Irish settlements in Maine.

There was a downturn in the Irish economy in 1829 and 1830, often called the small famine, and a lot of them came over and landed at Grosse De in Canada. They had no means of transport and so they walked to the United States and they walked through Maine. There was a lot of violence along the Maine border in 1830, and a number of them stayed in Maine, in fact, there was quite a substantial settlement, while many more went on to Boston. So I'm quite familiar with Grosse De. It led to the first large wave of Irish immigration into Maine.

Do you hope to get back to Ireland soon?

Yes. One of my objectives is to return at a time when I can simply enjoy it. That is to say, not on a business trip, on a pleasure trip, on a vacation. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with the people. lli!

om in Wilmette, Illinois on September in Chicago you're from Wilmette, they think 21, 1950, Bill Murray grew up, one of you're the Rockefellers. But we didn·t have nine children, in an Irish Catholic family (one the dough. Most of my friends had plenty of sister is a Carmelite nun). He left home in the money. The idea of college was nothing to early '70s to join Chicago's Second City com- them, but not for us. I have five brothers and edy group and found fame with Saturday three sisters. My father died when I was 17.

Night Live, before conquering Hollywood My mother got a job and everybody covered and becoming one of the most highly regard- for themselves, if they were big enough, ed actors of the day. although I wasn't big enough.

This interview took place in 1988 at Do you ever find yourself looking back Murray's then new home, a comfortable hide- on Second City as the foundation for away that aptly reflected his newfound finan- things you're doing now? cial success. TJ. English found Murray to be The thing I learned there was the differeven funnier in person than he is in his ence between a good laugh and a cheap movies. What follows are snippets of conver- laugh. But when I think of learning how to sation that took place between the laughs. be creative, how to dig into the zeitgeist, How about the issue of fame? Your life turn over new stones, that came later when must lose some of its spontaneity.

I was working for National Lampoon. We That's true. One of my favorite things used did a radio show and a live show . That was to be traffic in New York. There's a traffic a strong group of people; we really had a jam and there' s a Cadillac honking or some- competitive kind of fun. I had quit Second thing. I would jump in the middle of the street City and hitchhiked to New York to visit - I used to do this all the time before I was Brian [Murray, his brother]. He was workfamous - and say, "Excuse me, there's a ing on National Lampoon and they were Mercedes that bas to get through here." I'd going to begin this live show. I came in and push people out of the way. "Can we get this met the people. They needed someone to car out of the way here, there's a Cadillac that work on the Radio Hour, so I slept on my needs to get through," and just push people brother's floor for a while and got the job. out of the way, smacking their cars and stuff.

Was it tough following in Chevy Chase's Whack! Just jump into it. You can't do it now footsteps on Saturday Night Live? because if you do somebody shouts, "Hey, The first year was almost a complete wash. hey, Meatballs!" The whole thing is lost, the Dan [Akroyd] actually kept writing me into point you were trying to make or whatever scenes with him where I would be the second fun you wanted to have is undercut. cop. He' d write a scene where two FBI What was life like growing up in agents would walk in and I'd be one of them.

Wilmette?

•· Two cops, two FBI agents, two electricians, Wilmette is sort of an affluent place to that sort of thing. It wasn't that I had to live live, but we were definitely at the bottom of up to Chevy's shadow, because I didn ' t feel the social register. When you say to people that from the other actors. But I didn't know

B

any of the writers, really, and they have to know what you can do before they can write for you. So I didn't really get cooking until the last show of the season when I wrote something for myself.

Tell me about Tootsie.

I was sort of a concession. I don't think anybody really wanted me as much as I was a name nobody felt like arguing about. The director said, "I can make anybody look good. Use him!" They thought they bad a bomb on their hands. But Tootsie was three times as big as Meatballs, and Meatballs was a serious hit. Tootsie is in a very rarefied economic world.

Since we're on the subject of economics, what do you do with all this disposable income you've been acquiring?

I recommend to anyone who wants to be rich and famous to be rich first and see if that's not enough. Because I enjoy being rich a lot more than I enjoy being famous.

The only good thing about fame is that I've gotten out of a couple of speeding tickets, and I've gotten into a restaurant when I didn't have a suit and tie on . That's about it.

As for the money, the sort of Elvis Presley thing of buying your mother a car is great. My mother has learned how to spend money. I mean she used to call and say, "Bill, we really need a boiler." Just for the hell of it, I'd say, "Why don't you shop around and see which one. Don ' t blow a lot of money, just shop around and get a bargain. I don 't want you spending senselessly on this boiler. I don't want a boiler that's too big for the capacity of the house." I'd say stuff like that just purely for the devilment of it.

ml

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 71

20 GRE AT I N TER V IEWS

Edna

o~Brien

Inte1•view by Su s a n O'G1•ady F o x, Noventhei·, 1986. rom the publication of her very first book, The Country Girls (1960) to her most recent books, Edna O'Brien's works have gained wide acclaim, particularly among American readers. One of Ireland's most influential writers, she is famous for her rich and sensuous prose, and her books often deal with disappointments in love.

In 1986, she talked to Susan O'Grady Fox about growing up in Taumgraney, County Clare, and her early influences.

F

My life in Ireland as a you ng girl was quite lonely and was devoid of anything literary. There were no books at all in my house. My mother was most mistrustful of the written word.

But fo r some reason I always bad this total vocation to writing. I loved writing composi ti ons. I would actuall y ask the other girls to let me write theirs.

72 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

Our house was about a mile from the village, and it's kind of pathetic, but on the way home from school I was so excited about doing these essays that I used to sit down on the road, or on a wall , and start writing.

The Traveling Pl ayers were the other big excitement in those days. They came about twi ce a year and put on melodramas, always melodramas: "East Lane," "Murder in the Old Red Barn," and those sorts of plays. I thought they were d1e most truly vivid, wonderful people I had ever seen .

I dreamed of goi ng away with them, so I wrote. a little play call ed "Dracula 's Daught\'!r" in which the girl went to Dracula to see if she could go away with him. When I think of it in retrospect, obviously it was complete romantic masochism.

So these were the sort of excitements of my yo uth.

The biggest stimulation was nature. The landscape was utterly and random ly beauti-

fu l - the bog lilies, wild irises, oak trees, ash trees _:_ all the different trees. Then there's the light; me evening light in Ireland seems to me to be me most beautiful thing I have ever known, and as a child I sort of imbibed it. I spent so much time out of doors, as much as I could. That was the sort of love of, and if you like, companionship of nature, I had.

Away from nature, literature and the inner self, I felt that nearly everything one did back then was wrong. I had a sense of sin and a sense of guilt just drummed into me by people who had had it drummed into them. I'm not blaming them as much as saying, just tough luck.

Religion was vitally important. Holy pictures hanging in the kitchen and every night the rosary said. I remember the kneeling down, it was a tiled floor and it was very cold, there was just one flre and just one lamp - no electricity - and there were mice. They used to come out of the shoe closet. We' d be kneeling, praying and my mother would jump up screaming because of the mice.

Then we went to Mass, of course, Hol y Communion and Confession. The religious life wasn ' t as in other countries where people pray and wear medals and all that - it was, so to speak, part of one's fears , and feelings and fantasies and everything about sexual desires were all smomered over.

I remember once seeing a couple who bad been courting for five or ten years . They never met except on Sunday in me afternoon, they would go for a walk - she was quite fat, this woman, she had a kind of bustle- and I remember once hearing the man , he sort of touched her on the back and said, "You have a big backside." I thought it was the most sinful thing I had ever heard. I did not think it was crude though. I thought it was sinful. That's how regressive it was.

The women - I can remember them all very clearly in my mind. I can go up the street of the village I lived in and think of them all swathed in clothes and knitted stockings. I think that's where I must have conceived some love of glamour, because there was no glamour at all. Glamour was a ticket to "you know what," to sin. So that formed part of my character and part of my fear.

I think that a lot of people who leave Ireland, and indeed many who stay there, have that [love-hate] syndrome. Love-hate seems to apply more to Ireland than to any other country. It' amazing because it does haunt you. You do want to go back and at the same time, when you go back, you realize that you feel constrained and constricted.

a

Whether you are looking for fine parian china, knitwear, collectibles, or travel information, here are some of the finest traditional Irish treasures available for any season.

Celebrate Your Heritage(s) Irish-Italian American Apparel, Accessories, and Fun!

i

s h

a

n

Gifts for Children, Grandchildren, Siblings, Grandparents, Friends, Parents, Spouses and Yourself!

Check out our online Irish-Italian cookbook : American Add your own recipes!

Sisn up online for our free holiday sift siveaway- no purchase necessary

www.irishitalian.com

THE BODHRAN - IRISH DRUM ROUNDSTONE MUSIC Connemara, Co. Gaway, Ireland

Fax. o 1 1-353-95-35980 T e l. 1-800-864-2918 (USA) Ireland's M aster B o dhran Maker ® Est. 19 76 1. Celtic Initial 2. Crest 3. Celtic Design 4. Initial & Name 1.

Irish-Italian America Cottonwood Communications, Inc. 304 8th Avenue, SE Aberdeen, SO 57401 605-216-3033

Bodh ran 16" w ith Celtic Design US S 127.00 W ith Fam ily Crest S 159.00 Corpo ra te L ogos $70+ includes Beate r, Tutor book, S&H (USA-7days)

www.bod hran .com • email:bodhran@iol.ie

Baby Names of lreland.com

A BEAUTIFUL GIFT OR FAMILY HEIRLOOM 28-piece family crest dinner service, making those special occasions a truly memorable expeirence.

For further info or to place an order Please e-mail us at: info@familyroots.ie or unipromotions@hotmail.com

Reflective Images Contemporary Celtic elegance ... Siiders, rings, earrings, crosses in solid 18K gold overlayed on sterling. Origina l designs by Helen Chantler.

Visit us, Reflective Images, Inc. online today!

Features over 200 Irish boy and girl names read by Pulitzer prize-w inning author of "Ange la's Ashes" Frank McCourt.

Visit their gift store for beautiful Irish christening gowns and rompers, clothing, books, specialty gifts and more.

Call Toll Free: 888-733-5238 for a catalog

www.BabyNamesOflreland .com

WWW.CELTICJEWELRY.COM

Look Around Ireland

Look Around Ireland brings you the beauty and splendor of Ireland through a range of unique products. *CD-ROMs-Virtual Tours of Scenic, Celtic, Aran Islands, Castles & Counties of Ireland CELTIC ART- PHOTOGRAPHIC ART JEWELRY- G IFT SETS www.lookaroundireland.com 1-888-680-3190

" A Shepard's Farm on the Irish Coast"

Paintings of Ireland Since 1973 The Perfect Christmas Gift

www.EdmundSullivan.com TOLL FREE CATALOG :

800-445-8734

Murphy of Ireland Featuring handwoven Donega l tweed jackets, wool blazers, original nightshirts, tuxedos, baby & big Aran sweaters and more.

County Donegal, Eire (353) 74-91-31 029 Toll Free in U.S.A. (866) 868-7749 www.murphyofireland.com

----------~1 2 0

GREAT INTERVIEWS 1~----------Why do you think The Quiet Man is still so popular with Irish-Americans?

Not> just Irish-Americans, it has a particular effect for Japanese, Chinese. Italian. Spanish, American, Canadians. and South Americans.

Everybody in the world loves it becau e it is a story that could have happened in any country.

If you were to sum up John Wayne in a

sentence ...

Such a fine man is very hard to sum up in one sentence. He loved his family, adored his kids and was very loyal to his friend . He never let a friend down even if it meant putting himself in danger.

Director John Ford was quite abusive and, in fact, he even socked you one time.

He was very abusive to almost every actor who ever worked for him. Every stunt man, every mechanic and every lighting man. He was abusive if it suited him and what he was after. But he was a genius. He was the finest director any of us ever worked with, and we were proud to work with him and work for him.

But sometimes it was terrible. One day on Rio Grande he was being so awful to John Wayne, just belittling and terrible, and Wayne just stood there with his head down and took it. I thought "Give it to him . Sock him in the jaw." But Wayne didn ' t.

You have said that the publicity department created Maureen O ' Hara.

Not just Maureen O' Hara. any actor who was under contract to a studio. The publicity people were ordered by the tudio to see to it that your name was in the paper every day. So they had to think up a lot of phony stories.

One time I read that I'd been bitten by a spider, and it never happened at all.

So you didn ' t always have control over what you wanted to do.

We were the property of the studio and they felt that we had to do what they told us to do. If you refused they had the right to suspend you.

And su pending you meant they put you off salary for the duration of the time it took to replace you, shoot the movie and finish it. That made it kind of difficult to pay your groce1y bill.

Would you say the love of your life was your husband Charlie Blair?

Yes. He flew the first land plane with pa sengers and mail non-stop from the United States to Shannon. And the plane he went over the pole with is in the Smithsonian, and another of his planes is in a New England museum.

If you had to do it all over again, is there

anything you would do differently?

her first movie, Jamaica Inn, with legendary dir·ec1tor Soon after O'Hara's arrival in Hollywood she was RlU]~~w• :PiJrec·tor John Ford who gave her a chance to prove first movie together, How Green Was My ....tl"'""''" Awards. In all she made 60 movies, five for The Quiet Man. said, "I acted, punched, swashbuckled, masculine profession." Patricia on the publication of her biography

There are a couple of things I wouldn ' t do , but I wouldn't change my life. My career just came like a flood and swept over me and I didn' t get to finish things I really wanted to do. I would love to have sung just one opera. I would have loved to sing Carmen. I would still go for a dramatic career, because that was what I wanted, that was what I planned and that's what I got.

What's next?

Staying alive. And of course if some fantastic script came along it would be great.

m1

------------il 2

0

GREAT INTERVIEWS lr---------

Interview By Paldcia Ha1·ty, September, 1997. regory Peck appeared in some 55 movies, received five Academy Award nominations, and won an Oscar for the role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, which he also produced.

Sitting across from me in black turtleneck, cardigan, and corduroy pants, sporting a beard, Peck at 81 looks strikingly handsome on this June afternoon. The Southern Califomia sun shines in on the Peck family living room, a lu xurious mix of overstuffed sofas, fme antiques, paintings (including a small Renoir) and photographs: of Peck's mother Bunny on her 75th birthday, from whom he inherited his good looks; of his father (who bestowed on him his eyebrows); of two couples, the men in top hats - Peck, his pal David Niven and their wives at the Ascot races. And in the middle a large pho· tograph of a group with unmistakably Irish faces - 30 cousins gathered for one of Peck's visits to Kerry.

On the desk in his study sits a clay model of the Statue of Liberty, "to remind me that my grandmother and my dad came through Ellis Island." With that in mind·we begin our conversation with talk of a trip to Ireland.

Did you feel in touch with your ancestors in Ireland?

I did. I saw my father everywhere.

He was born in the U.S., in Rochester, but his American father died quickly from diph-

G

theria. So my grandmother took her infant son back to the family farm in Ireland. They came back when he was about ten, and stayed.

He always had a bit of a brogue, and he loved to tell stories. He used to talk about being a boy in Ireland and say that there was no entertainment other than telling stories or singing a song, or once in a while going by horsecart to Dingle.

My father was a jokester. When he was really getting on, 76, 77, with white hair, he loved to drive into gas stations, fill up, and hand them his credit card. I was already well known in the films by that time. The attendant would look at the old boy and say, "You're Gregory Peck! " My dad would say, "Oh yes, but I've not been at all well lately."

That was typical of my dad .

You're a cousin of Thomas Ashe, who took part in the Rising and died from force-feeding while on hunger strike.

He was a patriot. Multi-talented too. He wrote poetry, be was a bagpiper, he was a teacher. Once, years ago, we hired one of the carriages by the Plaza Hotel to ride around Central Park on my wife' s first visit to this country. The carriage driver said, "Mr. Peck, I've heard that you've got a bit of the Irish."

I said, "Yes, I have an Irish grandmother, and my father lived there as a boy." He said, ''That was County Kerry, wasn't it?" I said,

"Yes." He said, ''Well, the portrait of one of your cousins, Thomas Ashe, is hanging in a place of honor in a bar in Queens." I went out there and sure enough, in this obscure bar in Queens, there is, not a very good painting, but it has in bold letters, "Thomas Ashe the Patriot."

What are your memories of working on To Kill a Mockingbird?

It seems to me, looking back on it, that we were in a state of grace. We seemed to be riding along on a stream or current in a river of emotional involvement with the characters so that the acting almost took care of itself. We were emotionally immersed in telling that story through those characters. I think we filmed it in only ten weeks. I could hardly wait to get to work in the morning.

Your first visit to Ireland was to work with John Huston on Moby Dick.

We filmed in Youghal. We were there because it was John 's Irish period. It was definitely the wrong place to go out to sea looking for whales. There were no whales in the Irish Sea. But John wanted it to have some kind of Irish connection. It really was a struggle. We always said that John Huston tried to kill all his leading men.

We went out day after day from Fishguard, four, five, six miles at sea with our mechanical whale, which was about 65-70 feet long.

On a day with very rough seas, a fog bank coming toward us, very dark, ominous skies, we had no business being out there. The tow line broke on the back of the whale. I was slipping and sliding trying to hold on. I wasn't fastened to anything, as I just drifted off into this fog bank. I knew that I wouldn 't last long if I slipped off into the water, which was very cold, and I certainly didn' t know which direction to swim in, Ireland was one way, Wales another. I did actually think I could die. I imagi ned the Mirror in London: "Movie Actor Lost on Rubber Whale." It went on for about 20 minutes, but it seemed like an age, before I was rescued.

Did you ever work with John Ford?

No. He had Fonda, Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, he had his stock company. He didn ' t need me. I made a Western called The Gunfighter which was quite good. I won the Silver Spurs award in Reno, Nevada, as the Best Movie Cowboy of the Year.

I went up to get my silver spurs and one of the fust people I saw when I came back was John Wayne. He said, ''Well, who the hell decided that you were the best cowboy of the year?" and I said, "Well, Marion, you can't win it every year." m1 Gregory Peck d ied in June, 2003.

He w as 87.

OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AM ER ICA 77

GREAT INTERVIEWSJ----- - - - - - 4

H

e was born Ramon Estevez, the seventh of ten siblings, nine boys and a girl, on August 3, 1940 in Dayton to a Spanish-born father and Irish-born mother ("she taught me all the Irish songs").

Estevez took the stage name Martin Sheen upon moving to New York in the early 1960s to pursue acting. ("Martin" came from the last name of a casting director friend; "Sheen" from the ubiquitous TV bishop.) Unlike countless other Hollywood types, Sheen has been married to his wife, Janet, for over 40 years. And he is patriarch of an acting family - daughter Renee Estevez and sons Emilio and Ramon Estevez and Charlie Sheen have achieved varying degrees of fame, and infamy .

Martin Sheen has good reason to laugh these days. His TV series, The West Wing , is a critical and ratings success, and has given Sheen a career boost as he enters his fifth decade of acti ng. Sheen plays President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet, a blunt, common-sense pragmatist who wrestles with his presidential decisions and his faith.

"They've allowed me my Catholicism, which places the issues we raise on the show in a moral frame of reference," says Sheen. "To see the most powerful man in the world get down on the floor of the Oval

78 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

Office and ask forgiveness for his sins fmally I got to do something personal."

Why does Sheen think West Wing has resonated so strongly with the American public? "I think we are causing public debate on some very undebated issues," he contends.

"We' re talking about gun violence, about justice, about racism, about the environment, about these issues that touch us. I think that's what people are responding to."

Martin Sheen bas made cinematic forays into the White House into somewhat of a personal cottage industry. In addition to his Bartlet character, Sheen played chief-of-staff A.J. Mcinerney in the 1995 feature film The American President, John F. Kennedy in the 1983 miniseries Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy in the 1974 miniseries The Missiles of October.

Sheen has few regrets, but portraying Jack Kennedy is one of them. "It shouldn' t have been done, quite frankly. I was ill-prepared, the company was ill-prepared. He's too big an icon to portray. It was hopeless," he says.

Sheen turns downright evangelical in talking about the late president. "The image of that brilliant, handsome man, that young father- Kennedy sparked an energy, enthusiasm, idealism. He changed the world! He' d express an idea and it became

policy. He said, ' We're going to the moon, ' and we got there in less than ten year '! He willed it.

"The main ingredient of his admi nistration was confidence," continues Sheen.

"He was like a cocky, streetwise Irishman.

He knew he pissed some people off. He had a knowledge of the media, and he played it like a piper. He knew exactly how to get them to dance to his tune. He was charming and brilliant, and people were in Jove with him and he knew it."

Playing the Kennedy brothers had a great effect on Sheen, and he still mourns their Joss. "That farnily is indelibly etched in my heart," he says. "JFK's death was bad enough, then Reverend King, which was another massive wound, then Bobby.

This country is still crippled by their deaths. Crippled! We lost Bobby, and got Richard Nixon. Gimme a break. We never got over N ixon."

Martin Sheen is a man who acknowledges - and celebrates - his Irish roots .

He keeps a home in County Tipperary and holds an Irish passport (in addition to his American one). "I love Ireland," Sheen says. "I think I love it too much.

"Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe that has never invaded anyone, never beat anyone up- except when they fought the British- but Ireland _has never conquered anyone," Sheen says. "What Irish flag was ever planted on foreign soil and claimed for itself? None.

"They sent missionaries, they sent writers, they sent artists, they sent nuns, they sent teachers into the world. Which is far more powerful," be says. "I love to go to other parts of the world and meet Irish people.

You go to some of the worst situations in the third world and you ' II find Irish nuns, Irish doctors, you meet Irish priests, Irish lay people serving. You say to them, 'What the hell are you doing here?' and they' ll say, 'Sure, why not?' It makes perfect sense."

His late mother, the former Mary Ann Phelan, fostered a sense of lrishness in the Estevez home. "She was so feisty, so cocky. I learned all the Irish songs from her," says Sheen fondly .

Sheen is well acquainted with Northern Ireland politics, and is not afraid to opine on the topic. "If David Trimble had halfa third of the courage Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams have, we wouldn ' t be where we are today," he says. ''I'm terribly proud of Clinton ' s foreign policy . I could nitpick, I suppose. But we would not have a Good Friday Accord if not for th~resident. He took some real chances." Btl

-----~120

GREAT INTERVIEWSJ)--------

You 've been called the toughest boss in you succeed come from? in Seattle and elsewhere who are protestWell , she had a lot of brothers and a cou- ing globalization?

America. Would you agree with that?

I' d like to call it tough-minded. Then I can' t argue one way or the other. The facts are that I was the first one to do what we had to do as a country. There' s I 00,000 people being laid off in dot-corns - being laid off in industry after industry after industry. You don' t see big announcements fro m GE.

The practice of getting rid of the bottom ten percent. It sort of worries me a little bit.

ple of them drank too much and were always getting in trouble. She had to sneak some of my father' s money to get them out of troubl e. I don' t know where it [the drive] came fro m. My father was first-generati on but my mother had been here a while. Her greatgreat-grandmother came here in 18 10 or something. I wonder why my mother didn' t do better in school. I wonder why she and her family didn ' t progress further. They' d been here like three generati ons. And she was the smartest one in the area.

I don' t know what I' d say to th em because the onl y ones that make any sense to me are the labor unions in the developed countries. If I'm a labor union in America, I'm concerned I'm going to lose some jobs.

If I' m an environmentali st, though, I know th at if the good companies of the world go to the undeveloped areas, they' ll improve the environment. Now, you can use statistics any way you want, and say the rich have gotten richer, and the gap has widened. But the bottom bas come up.

She was third-generation, but she still Ireland is a perfect example.

Go ahead, let it worry yo u. It doesn' t bother me, because they ' ll go to work fo r some other pl ace where they ' ll be happier.

Companies don' t give job security, onl y seemed Irish to you. satisfied customers do. If you don' t have Totally Irish. And she always said there customers, then you don' t have income. were only two kinds of people, those who In your book you credit your mother are Irish and those who wish they were with instilling this drive in you.

Iri sh. I mean, it was bred in to my toes.

Wel l, she was a smart, into-everything Do you think that Ireland will manage woman who I was born late in Life to. I was to hang on to the Celtic Tiger? an only child. She was my best friend . So if Ir¡eland's going to have to have more of an things didn 't go right I'd talk to her about entrepreneurial outlook. Ireland is now a them, talk to her about my girlfriends, talk HAVE versus twenty-five years ago a HA VE to her about everything. She was my NOT. That means jobs will migrate from buddy, my manager, my criti c. She was Ireland while Ireland' s intellect will have to everything. She taught me to play to win , improve. Ireland will have to start a lot of its but kn ow how to lose. Althougll she was own businesses. When I was there I read that never short of whackin g me one if she Gateway was moving out of Ireland, too high thought I was too strict with my own ki ds or cost. Well, that' s what happens when you something. She was always ri ght th ere. She win, you get to be a HAVE, the jobs get to be was fan tastic. ex pensive. Unemployment comes.

Where did your mother's desire to see

Do you think that GE is getting a bad rap on PCBs? (A liquid chemical which GE used prior to 1977 became the focal point of a massive Hudson Ri ver dredging proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency).

Totall y. Go and look out the window at that ri ver and try dredging 8 billion pounds to find a few molecules down there. It's cleani ng itself by 90 percent in the last 15 years . I make the case in my book, I put it clearl y, nobody's argued the case yet.

GE owns NBC. What would you say to critics who say that big business doesn 't belong in the media industry?

If you look at the PCB stori es, our network has done about fi ve to one compared to the other ones. Just to prove that poin t to What would you say to these people out people li ke you. m1 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRI SH AMERICA 79

Best Movies about Irish-Americans Joseph McBride writes about his favorite路 movies on Irish -Am erican subject matter (listed in no particular or der of preference).

Riley the Cop

(1928)

This little-known silent gem (w ith musical accompaniment) from the master Iri sh-American director John Ford surfaced a few years ago on the American Movie Classics cable channel when it presented a Ford retrospective. Ford regular J. Farrell MacDonald, already old and bald by 1928, is delightful as an unorthodox Irish cop who has never made an arrest in hi s twenty years on the New York City police fo rce. The opening title gives Riley ' s phi losophy: " YOU CAN TELL A GOOD COP

BY THE ARRESTS HE DOESN'T MAKE." After seeing MacDonald in innumerable co lorful bit parts for Ford, it' s a treat to see him as the warmhearted fa th er fi gure at the center of this film, wh ich brims over wi th amusing human touches about life in a multiethnic neighborhood.

Riley's rom anti c interlude in Germany with a spirited Fraulein (co medi e nn e Louise Fazenda) is Fordian comedy at its most endearin g. This tribute to the familiar Irish-American arc hetype of the gruff but lo vab le cop shows the director' s ability to turn what could be a cl iched figure into a threedimensional character. one w ho expresses Ford ' s anarchicall y Irish view of law enforcement.

Angels with Dirty Faces

(1 938)

James Cagney' s Irish hoodlum Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces is such an engaging and memorable character that he has a famou s !Jish bar named after him in New York City (and an earlier ohe in San Francisco), and there's also a singer who adopted the name when he recorded " Angels Dirty Faces." What makes Cagney's Rocky such a role model? It 's partly his pants-hitching, neck-twitching shtick and "Whaddya hear? Whaddya say?" patter, which Cagney bon路owed from a pimp he watched as a boy on a street corner in New York's Hell 's Kitchen. That routine is the source of every Cagney impression. But in this movie, the tough !J路ish-American punk accedes to the plea of his boyhood friend Jerry Connelly, who escaped the Jaw to become a priest (Pat O' Brien) and asks him to act "yellow" when he goes to the chair. The idea is to tum the Dead End Kids agai nst hi s memory. In a movie directed by Michael Curtiz that b1istles with street energy and cred, there' s a powe1ful sense of soc ial detenninism showing how Rocky has little control over his fate until hi final moment. Father Connelly has one of the most haunting endi ng lines in movies, telling the disillusioned kids, "All right, fellas- Jet's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn ' t run as fast as I could."

Regeneration

( 1915)

The New York City slums in which so many Irish immigrants had to li ve is the setti ng for thi s remarkable early silent film. Director Raoul Walsh - who would go on to make such gangster classics as The Roaring Twenties , High Sierra , and White Heat - makes evocative use in Regeneration of actual locations and neighborhood people on the Lower East Side to convey the harsh conditions that led some impoverished !J路ish immigrants to turn to a life of Cli me.

Considered the first fu ll-length gangster feature, Regeneration is based on an autobiographical novel by Owen Kildare, My Mamie Rose.

Walsh 's emphasis is on character and atmosphere in this rugged ly believable drama of the moral choices faced by a gangster (Rackl iffe Fellowes), who draws inspiration from a society woman (Anna Q. Nilsson) running a settlement house.

80 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

Shane

( 1953)

My candidate for the greatest Western ever made (yes, even greater than John Ford's The Searchers) is Shane, the George Stevens classic about an enigmatic gunfighter who tries to settle down with a Wyoming family but has to resort to violence to preserve their precruious way of life. The !Jish name of the title character played by Alan Ladd means "gracious gift of God ,'' and Shane is just that, a guardian angel for the pioneer community who literally vanishes into the clouds at the end of the film. Shane is a sublimely hru1dsome yet profoundly lonely man who longs for a fan1ily life he cannot have. Based on the novel by Jack Schaefer, this elegantly crafted Stevens masterpiece, with its spectacular visual style and intimately detailed human drama, is at once mythic and realistic. The lrishness of Shane is not overtl y stressed, but his outsider status and tragic dimensions, along with his otheiworldly, celibate nature, mark him as a character who can stand muster with the most representative figures from heroic Celtic folklore.

True Confessions (1981) Echoing Angels with Dirty Faces but taking its moral conflicts into a deeper dimension , True Confessions follows two Irish-American brothers with see mingl y disparate occ upa tion s a co p (Robert Du va ll ) and a priest (Robert De Niro)- and then shows both of them tainted by intertwined moral compromises. Based on the novel by John Gregory Dunne and adapted for the screen by Dunne with hi s wife, Joan Didion , and Gary S . Hall, Tru e Confessions i a brutally cand id expose of church and municipal corruption in 1948 Los Angeles. in vo lvin g a case similar to the infamous "Black Dahlia" murder. Directed with quiet intensity by Ulu Grosbard, Tru e Confessions is a tragic portrayal of how the temptation to worldly power destroys idealism. But professional di sgrace ironicall y leads to the gradual reco very of spiritual grace by De Niro 's Mon signor Des Spellacy. His exchanges with hi s brother Tom , a homicide detective in vestigating a prostitute' s murder, are ma sterfully shaded. Charles Durning plays a contractor who is both "Catholi c Layman of the Year" and the chief suspect in the case.

JFK ( 1991) Fi1ms about the Kennedy family, including biopics and docudramas and documentaries as well as numerous fictionalized takeoffs on the clan, have become a virtual subgenre in American films and television. Ironically, thi s preeminent Iri sh-American family ha s become our equivalent of England's Royal Family, and with ome similarly dysfunctiona l elements. The better films about the Kennedys are concerned more with political than romantic affairs. The most important is Oliver Stone 's JFK, which caused a firestorm of controversy in the American mainstream media for reopening the debate about whether John F. Kennedy 's assass inatio n resu lted from a conspiracy. It' s worth noting that people in Europe, including the Irish, have a much easier time understanding the reality that conspiracies exist in politics, as seen, for instance, in Neil Jordan ' s 1996 Irish fi lm Michael Collins, which portrays Eamon de Valera as among those invol ved in Collins' s assassination. JFK also had the salutary effect of prompt ing the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board, which declass ified about four mi ll ion pages of previous ly secret government documents .

Among the many notable documentaries on John F. Kennedy are Robert Drew's Primary ( 1960), a cinema-verite classic about the Wi sconsin presidential primary campaign, and Darragh Byrne's John F. Ken nedy and 1he Island of Dreams (aka JFK in Ireland), a moving and shrewdly analytical 1993 look for Radio Telefis Eireann at Kennedy 's triumphant trip to hi s ancestral land in June 1963.

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront (1 954) In his 1988 autobiography A Life, director friend. And as my brother Dennis McBride Elia Kazan admitted d1at On the Wale/front notes in hi s upcoming book A Spirit Moved Our was made to justify his and screenwriter Budd Feel: What You Need 10 Know About Being Schulberg's decisions to inform on their col- Irish-American, the Malloys belong to "the leag ues to the House Committee on Un- Irish-dominated International Longshoremen ' s American Activities. That agenda shadows the Union in ew Jersey. The Irish-American otherwise considerable achievement of tlus angles are muted. By the time On 1he movie, whose expose of labor corruption now Wale/front came out, it probably wasn't necesseems less invol ving than the behavioral sary to spell out the Irish angle for American ins ights offered by Marlon Brando, Rod audiences. American audiences had been conSteiger, and Eva Marie Saint. Brando 's incan- d itioned to understand that the Irish had a.lmost descent performa nce as Terry Malloy changed completed their assimilation into the (white) American movie acti ng forever. On the American power structure. What was not subWaterfrom centers around the fraterna l conflict dued on screen was the influence of Father Pete between Irish-American brothers, the gangster Barry (Karl Ma lden), the corruption-fighting Charlie Malloy (Rod Steiger) and his moral ly character who was based on a real -life Irishconflicted yo unge r sibling, as well as on American priest nam ed John M. 'Pete' Terry's troubled courtship of hi s WASP girl- Corridan ( 1911-84).'"

The Molly Maguires (1970)

Sean Connery as Jack Kehoe

The story of the Mo ll y Maguires exemplifies what Tim Pat Coogan (in hi s biography of Mic hael Co lli ns) calls "the bedeviling effect of hi story and nomenc lature whereby one man 's terrori st is another man' freedom fighter. " This e loquent and neglected film about the nineteenth-century militant organization formed by Pennsylvania Irish immigrant coa lmine rs does justice to their complex role in American labor history. A formerly bl ac k listed screenwriter (Wal ter Bernstein , adapting Arthur H. Lewis 's 1964 book Lamenl for lh e Molly Maguires) and blacklisted director (Martin R itt) bring high ly sophisticated po litical understanding to the tragic conflict between a fierce leader of the Mollies (Sean Connery) and a two-faced Irish informer working for the Pinkertons and the mine owners (Richard Harris). The master c inematographer James Wong Howe, best known for his black-and-white films , did perhaps hi s finest work in co lor with hi s bleakly beautiful imagery of dusty mining town s and ri c h but coa l-scarred landscapes.

OCTO BER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 81

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) Director Elia Kazan ' s first feature , adapted

by Frank Davis and Tess Slesinger from the novel by Betty Smith, is an affecting slice of life in a Brooklyn lrish fami ly, ci rca 1900.

Johnny Nolan , memorably played by James Dunn, is an improvident alcoholic strugg ling vainly to support the fami ly, and the mother, Katie, an uncharacteristically acerbic Dorothy McGuire, does not bother disguising her bitterness over their lot in life. But the focus is on the sensitive young Francie, portrayed with searing

honesty by the ado lescent Peggy Ann Garner.

Francie's emotiona l reactions to her family's dilemma are among the screen ' s most authentic renderings of adolescent angst. The film suffers from being studiobou nd rather than shot on location, but Kazan ' s brilliance with actors and his own immigrant' s understanding of the struggle to succeed in America help give A Tree Grows in Brooklyn its enduring sense of truth . A 1974 television remake has not supplanted the original in the public's affection.

Miller's Crossing With its mournful Irish music and green-tinged art direction, Miller's Crossing announces its cu itural context and separates itself from The Godfather, after spoofmg that classic in its opening scene. The Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, are masters at creating darkly parodistic versions of familiar genres, and their take on the gangster genre pushes its conventions to the grotesque limit. Albert Finney is a Prohibition-era New York political boss, this ftlm ' s more honeytongued Irish-American equivalent of Don Corleone, but the central character is l.risb actor Gabriel Byme's brooding Tom Reagan, the con-

( 199o)

flicted second-in-command who ' s sleeping with his boss ' s "sick twist" of a girlfri end (Marcia Gay Harden). Tom ' masochistic submission to rituali zed beatings may stem from unacknowledged Catho li c guilt , but the redemption (or regeneration) characteristic of the genre never really comes in this flamboyant black comedy. The battles between rival gangs are shown as absurd, civ ic corrupti on in New York is total, and the old moral choices available in Cagney films are virtually nonexi stent .

Tom is left emotionall y bereft as the coldness at the heart of the gen re engu lfs him.

The Field (199o) Richard Harris' s career-crowning, towering performance as the Lear-like old Irish farmer "Bull" McCabe is the centerpiece of tllis lrish fllm written and directed by Jim Sheridan from the play by John B. Keane. Set in the 1930s, The Field offers a darker take on some of the same themes as The Quiet Man . American Tom Berenger plays "The Yank,'" a developer who arrives in hi s fancy car and clothes determined to buy a piece of land owned by the Bull and cover it with concrete. Although the Yank is gracious in his manner, not obviously an "Ugly American,'' the Bull resents the colonialist assumption that money is worth more than land, particularly if it is land a man and his fami ly have worked for generations. The intractable moral conflict ends in tragedy, and the Bull, as obstinate as his nickname, is ponrayed as si multaneously admirable and deranged . The splendid cast also includes Brenda Fricker, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Sean McGinley, and Malachy McCoun.

(Sheridan also made an excellent film about Irish immigrants trying to survive in contemporary New York, the 2002 In America.)

Gangs of New York c2oo2) Though excessively violent and grueling in its length, this Martin Scorsese film about turf battles among Irish immigrants in nineteenth-century ew York City has a hypnotic intensity and creates a dreamlike picture of a strange, vanished world.

The film is most di tinguished for its great performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting, based on the gang leader Bill "The Butcher" Poole; they share the same Ia t words, "I die a true American." Day-Lewis's performance is Shakespearean in its grandeur and scope, an American equivalent of Richard III or Macbeth.

Along tl1e way in tllis mordant look at the struggles immigrants undergo to become Americans, Scorsese provides unforgettable images from tragic moments in Irish-American history, including a reconstruction of the Draft Riots of 1863 and a long crane shot linking coffins arriving on a boat from Ireland with Irish imnligrants marching off to fight in the American Civil War.

Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill "The Butcher" in Gangs of New York

82 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

The Quiet Man (1952) The quintessential Irish-American romantic fantasy of returning to the native soil and being welcomed back with open arms is both embodied and mocked in John Ford 's classic The Quiet Man, adapted by FrankS. Nugent from a story by Irish author Maurice Walsh. Arguments stiJJ rage on both sides of the Atlantic over whether The Quiet Man is or isn ' t just a big steamin' pile of blarney, but those who love the movie recognize that its romanticism and humor are deliberately larger than life, an expressionistic rendering of the intense psychological needs of Sean Thornton (John Wayne). An Irish immigrant who turns his back on America after greed causes him to kill a man in the ring, Sean is seeking what he thinks is a peaceful paradise (including a romance with a spirited woman played by Maureen O' Hara) but is forced to confront comical versions of some of the harsher rea lities of rural Irish Life. The movie's darker overtones are so artfully balanced with the comedy that they often escape notice, but they help account for its persistent emotional appeal. Seldom has Ireland been so gorgeously photographed than in thi s Technicolor reverie, which won Oscars for Ford and cinematographers Winton C. Hoch and Archie Stout.

Y~nkee

Doodle Dandy (1942)

Fittingly enough in this nation of immigrants, th e ultimate American flagwaving extravaganza, Yankee Doodle Dandy , was directed by a Hungarian emigre, Michael Curtiz (w hose credits also include The Adventures of Robin Hood , Angels with Dirty Faces , and Casablanca) . Curtiz's gracefu l, kinetic visual style find s its perfect human instrument in James Cagney, whose dancer ' s training and ethnic heritage help make him ideal to play the legendary Iris hAmerican so ng-and-dance man George M. Cohan ("born on the Fourth of July").

Cagney in 1940 had been grilled by the House Committee on Un-America n Activities for hi s progressive, pro-union activities during the Depression era, and with the country about to enter World War II, the actor was anxious to demonstrate his patriotic bona fides with thi s fullthroated musical celebration of the American way of life. Is there a more joyous, infectious scene in movies th an the one near the end of Cohan tap-danc ing down the stairs of the White House after meeting President Franklin D. Roosevelt?

If only life in America was rea ll y like thi s gloriously idealized mov ie, we'd all want to run straight out of the theater to wave that "Grand Old Flag." But tire severe ly wounded Vietnam War veteran and protester Ron Ko vic bitterly echoed Cohan in the titl e of his 1976 memoir Born on the Fourth of July, filmed in 1989 by Oliver Stone with Tom Cruise as Kovic.

Gone With the Wind (1939) Scarlett O ' Hara (Vivien Leigh), the indomitable Irish-American heroine devoted to th e land above all costs, is the vibrant centerpiece of perhaps the most popular of all American films. The Irish-American Georgi a novelist Margaret Mitchell created Scarlett and her father , Gera ld O ' Hara (Thomas Mitchell), out of the Irish-American ethnic heritage of the Old South, where displaced immigrants could rise q uickly to become owners of what Gera ld calls "the only thing that matters" -land. The O' Hara plantation, Tara, is named after the trad itional seat of the High Kings of Ireland. That Irish heritage is also reflected in the tragic legacy of slavery these characters help foster and in the surname of the actress who so memorably plays the house slave Mammy, the great Hattie McDaniel.

McDan iel , whose wise and witty perso nality enabled her to tran scend the stereotypical limitations of her roles, became the first AfricanAmerican to win an Academy Award . She received the Oscar for best supporti ng actress but was not allowed to attend the fi lm's gala premiere in Jim Crow Atlanta.

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O' Hara

Long Day's Journey into Night

( 1962)

The hands-down consensus choice for the greatest American play is Eugene O' Neill's overwhelmingly powerful saga of a di sintegrating Irish-American family, Long Day's Journey into Night .

First produced in 1956, three years after O'Neill ' s death, the play was authoritative ly and sensitively transferred to the screen by director Sidney Lumet in 1962. The premier O' Neill interpreter on stage, Jason Robards, recreates his role from the first New York production as Jamie Tyrone, the tormented alcoho lic son; also in the fi lm' s magnificent cast are Katharine Hepburn as the drug-addicted mother, Mary ; Ralph Richardson as the miserly actor father, James Sr. ; and Dean Stockwell as the tubercu lar younger son, Edmund. Lumet's decision to keep the long play virtually intact, resisting the usual temptation to "open it up," helps account for the 174-minute fi lm's extraordinary intimacy and intensity, as well as its fidelity to O ' Neill ' s dark but compassionate vision of the Irish family as the ul timate ource of human ru ination. There have since been three TV productions of the play.

OCTOBER/NOVEMB ER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 83

Gentleman Jim c1942) One of the most popular Irish-American types in movies is the prizefighter. Such films as Champion.

Cinderella Man, and The Greatest (the life of partIrish champ Muhammad Ali, tarring Ali himself) depict the boxer as a symbol of the struggle of minorities to rise from the underclass to socioeconomic parity in American life. Perhaps the most winning and charismatic of al.l movie boxers is Errol Flynn's Irish-American pugi list "Gentleman Jin1" Corbett, whose bumptious exploits are celebrated in thi s raucous and lovingly crafted movie by the masterful he-man director Raoul Walsh. Flynn's legendary charm and masculine beauty were never so ideally portrayed than in Gentleman Jim, and Ward Bond's magisterial portrait of the older champi on John L. Sullivan is Hollywood character acting at its most unforgettable. French director Fran9ois Truffaut offers an homage to Gentleman Jim in the boxing scene of his classic Jules et Jim.

Million Dollar Baby (2004) lt 's astonishing that so somber and morally serious a film as Million Dollar Baby could be made in Hollywood in a time when most studio movies are cartoon fantasies for adolescents.

Only Clint Eastwood's stature and clout enabled him to direct this unorthodox boxing film adapted by Paul Haggis from F. X. Toole' s Rope Burns: STOries from the Corner. The boxer is a young woman, Maggie Fitzgera.ld (Hilary Swank), and the central issue is euthanasia. Iri sh cultural and religious motifs abound. Maggie wears lrish colors and a shamrock in the ring and is dubbed "Mo Chuisle" ("My Darling"; literally "My Pulse," from "A chuisle mo chroi" or " pulse of my heart") by her grizzled trainer and father figure, Frankie Dunn (Eastwood). Frankie gets his inspiration from William Buder Yeats's poems and spars with a priest (Brian O' Byrne) over doctrine, including the church 's teachings about death.

Hilary Swank as Maggie Fitzgerald

The feature Eastwood made before thi s, Mystic River (2003), also deals with Irish-American themes in its relationship between Boston boyhood friends who become a cop (Kevin Bacon) and a gangster (Sean Penn). An acknowledged filmmaking master, Eastwood is grappling now with some of the most intractable moral issues and most powerful human dilemmas.

The Last Hurrah

(1958)

Edward Brophy, Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Ricardo Cortez, and Pat O' Brien in The Last Hurrah

Perhaps the finest novel about Iri sh-Americans is Edwin O'Connor's The Last Hurrah, a rich and multifaceted look at the way Irish immigrants clawed their way to power in the American political system. O' Connor' s wry and wise 1956 account of a roguish Boston mayor modeled on James M. Curley is sentimentali zed in this film version by director John Ford and screenwriter Frank S. Nugent, but there are so many fine and colorful performances that its limitations can almost be overlooked. Iri sh-American Spencer Tracy heads the cast as Mayor Frank Skeffington, in a magisterial perforn1ance that reminds us of Tracy's preeminence among Hollywood actors. Though the film is biased toward the old school of machine politics and glibly mocks the modern brand of young politicians (and thi s onl y two years before the Irish-American John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States), the Kennedy-like Jeffrey Hunter is a sympatheti c counterbalance as Skeffington's reporter nephew, and the film also boasts a dazzling array of great character actors, including Jan1es Gleason, Basil Rathbone, Pat O' Brien, Ricardo Cortez, Donald Crisp, Edward Brophy, and John Carradine. Carroll O'Connor plays Skeffington in the 1977 TV movie remake.

84 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

Going My Way

( 1944)

There are few more surefire tear-jerking moments in movies than the scene in Going My Way of Barry Fitzgerald's elderly Father- Fitzgibbon being reunited with his ancient mother from Ireland (Adeline De Walt Reynolds), to the soft accompaniment of " An Irish Lullaby." Touches like that are so winning in thi s seriocomic yarn directed by Leo McCarey that its ragged, episodic structure almo t seems incidental. Going My Way won seven Oscars, including awards for best picture and director and for Bing Crosby as best actor and Fitzgerald as best supporting actor in his quintessential portrayal of the crotchety but adorable old priest.

Crosby' s more worldly, even jaunty young Father Chuck O 'Malley proved such a popular figure that he returned in McCarey's sequel The Bells of St. Mary 's (1945), a more rigorously constructed, less sentimental movie that does not contain such a riot of unrestrai ned Irish shtick as Going My Way, a longtime favorite on television during the Christmas season. An ironic footnote: In real life, Barry Fitzgerald was Protestant.

Joseph McBride is the former film columnist for Irish America and the author of biographies of John Ford, Frank Capra, and Steven Spielberg, as well as of The Book of Movie Lists. His latest book is the forthcoming What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career.

Great Books Irish America's list of essential books for the informed Irish-American.

By Tom Deignan roducing a list of 20 books which every Irish-American should read was both joyous and painful. The joy, obviously, came as we pored over the many volumes, revisiting the beautiful sentences, the haunted memories. The pain, however, was knowing that, inevitably, some brilliant books would have to be excluded. Authors who should have, but could not make this list did so for a variety of reasons. For example, we decided to focus solely on books in which the author and book itself had a fairly explicit Irish-American connection . This left the brilliant fiction of John Kennedy Toole, J.F. Powers and Flannery O'Connor (not to mention John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O'Hara and William Faulkner) just outside the fence.

P

Authors such as Jimmy Breslin, Dennis Smith and Tom Fleming, meanwhile, have produced such an impressive body of work that it was tough to single out just one of their books.

Other books of great merit are sadly out of print or very difficult to find.

Then there is the great Finley Peter Dunne arguably the first great chronicler of Irish America.

Unfortunately, the bulk of his late 19th and early 20th century writings come in the form of newspaper columns, which don ' t quite adapt well to book form.

In the end, each reader will be pained to see that their particular favorite lrish-Ametican book or author did not quite make it to this list. Feel free to let us know. Until then, let the debate begin. Here (in no particular order) are our picks for the Top 20 books every Irish-Ametican should read.

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF fe THE

The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America

IRISH IN AMERICA

Editor Michael Glazier

Edited by Michael Glazier

This indispensable resource was published in 1999 and is the most authoritative book about all things Irish-American. ln this 1,000-page volume, there are entries on all 50 states, music, the military and Irish relations with other ethnic groups. If it' s not in here, it's probably not Irish-American.

The Studs Lonigan Trilogy

By James T. Farrell The greatest extended work of Irish-American fiction. Studs Lanigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lanigan and Judgment Day have been hailed by the likes of Pete Hamill and Norman Mailer for their unflinching depiction of the 1930s Chicago Irish.

They were no longer slum dwellers, but still not quite respectable. You could say Farrell has little affection for his subjects, often depicting them with disdain one might expect from an anti-Irish nativist.

Nevertheless, following the recent 100th anniversary of Farrell ' s birth, it was gratifying to see a renewed interest and respect for Farrell's masterpiece.

Angela's Ashes

By Frank McCourt After the years on the best-seller lists, the movie and the sequel , readers might almost fear rereading Angela's Ashes. They may look back and fear it wasn't quite as good as it seemed.

Fear not. McCourt' s journey from impoverished Limerick to New York City retains all of its powers, as if the book's narrator will forever be young, hungry, angry and awed by the power of his mother' s love.

OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 85

--

J

s m

h

t

ATree Grows in Brooklyn

How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

By Betty Smith This perennial childhood favorite of Irish tenement life, published in 1943 and made into a famous Elia Kazan movie two years later, tells the story of young Francie Nolan and her dad, a singing waiter whose trademark tune is "Molly Malone." This is fitting because both the singer and song are haunted by death. Yet generations return to Francie because despite all the adversity she can still find hope, literally out the window, in the tree which provides this sentimental yet magical book its title.

e

By Thomas Cahill A phenomenon when it was published in 1995, Cahill's book focuses on a time when there was barely an Irish nation, much less an American one. But the vast success of this book, about bow Irish monks preserved classic written works of the Westem world, illustrated just how interested Irish America had become in the history of their ancestral Ireland.

The Ginger Man

By J .P. Donleavy

Donleavy is an unu sual case, an American-born writer who moved to Ireland, where his parents were born. The Ginge r Man- fittingly, a book abou t an American in Irel and- is a gem of a book which often seems on the verge of being fo rgotten. But in Sebastian Dangerfield, Donleavy turned the Irish-American experience on its head , and created a character who is eq ual part the Beats and Tri stam Shandy . Best known for its bawdy exuality which shocked many 1950s readers, The Ginger Man is also poignant, hilarious and utterly unforgettable.

The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga.

By Doris Kearns Goodwin

WILLIAM

KENNEDY

IRON\\t'EED 0

Kennedy burnout is a natural reaction given America ' s unending obsession with this Irish-American royal family. But Goodwin 's massive bio is a proper remedy, separating fact from fiction , myth from reality, to tell perhaps the quintessential Irish-American story. An honorable mention for this topic shou ld also go to Thomas Maier' s excellent The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings.

Ironweed SmP FEvER Ship Fever

By William Kennedy

It is no longer adequate to compare William Kennedy to Faulkner or 1oyce. Yes, all of them focused their vas t arti stic energies on remote slices of the map, in Kennedy ' s case, Albany, New York. But Kennedy 's sustained brilliance puts him in a league all his own. In his Albany cycle, which also includes the rollicking Legs as well as Billy Phelan's Greatest Game, -Ironweed (from 1983) is the most astonishing achievement, focusing on a determined yet doomed tum-of-the-century drifter. Poetic and dreamlike, Kennedy vies with O' Neill as Irish America' s great explorer of dashed hope, aU the while maintaining a hell of a sense of humor. That Kennedy could publish the cycle's second-best entry, the brilliant, uproarious Roscoe, just after the turn of the 21st century, is a testament to his powers.

86 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

By Andrea Barrett AND O'l'HEI~ S'fORIEl::!

This unju stly underread work, whi ch won the Nation al Book A ward in 1996, tell s a seri es of stories about life in the 19th century. The harrowing title story examines the spread of di sease on a coffin ship headed from Ireland to Quebec , a destination during the tragedy of the Irish famine which is also often underapprec iated .

This is historical fiction of the highest order: learned , detailed and illuminating.

American Requiem: God, My Father and the War that Came Between Us.

By James Carroll Clearly, 1996 was a good year for Irish-American books because joining Andrea Barrett as a winner at the National Book Awards was James Carroll. One hundred and twenty years after the famine, families were agai n rent asunder, this time in the U.S., this time by the Vietnam War. That, as well as changes within the Catholic Church, struck Irish-Americans in a particular way, and Can·oll chronicles how these profound forces ultimately drove him and his father apart. A onetime priest who left the Church, Carroll - along with the anti-war Berrigan brothers, who CarToll defended - reminds us in this unflinching and honest book of the radical aspect of Irish Catholicism in the U .S.

Emie:rants and Exiles: Ireland and the _ _ _ _______, Irisli Exodus to North America

By Kerby Miller Published in 1985, this groundbreaking history shed new light on the immigrant experience by focusing on the written letters of the immigrants themselves. ln addition, Miller explored the in1pact of immigration not just on one city or region but all of North America. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Miller's book literally changed the way people thought abo ut Irish immigration and remains enlighteni ng and in formative.

A Drinking Life

PADDY 'S

By Pete Hamill

LAMENT

Contemporary Iri sh America' s greatest w1iter, Hamill seemed to ou tdo even himself wi th this memoir, which is equally touching and unnerving. With wondeiful digressions into New York' s newspaper world, romances with Jackie 0 . and Shirley MacLaine and Hamill's Brooklyn youth as the child of Belfast immigrants, this book' s heart is the evolution of an addiction which nearly sapped this ambitious wri ter of his talents. Most recently, those talents produced Forever, Hamill ' s glorious time-traveling novel from 2002, in which an Ir·ish-American is granted tl1e gift of eternal life, witnessing everything from the American Revolution to 911 1.

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

By Mary McCarthy When McCarthy's memoir was published in 1957, anti-Catholicism remained a significant problem in the U.S. A superficial reader might suggest that this book provides fodder for bigots. But McCarthy's book- which chronicles a peaceful life until 1918, when McCruthy' s parents died and she was sent to live with authoritarian relatives - poses tough questions about faith in broad, and serious, terms. McCarthy's extended fanlliy was a volatile mix of Jews, Protestants, Irish Catholics and atheists. Her guru·diai1S were devout as well as cmel, as illustrated in the famous scenes in which McCarthy's mouth was taped shut at night so iliat she wouldn't make noise.

But McCruthy later cites time spent in a seminary, when she begru1 reading Latin, as central to developing her fruno usly sharp mind. ln tl1e end, McCarthy ' s is a vivid, powerful memoir of religious ru1d intellectual growth which confronts harsh truths about aspects of the Irish Catholic experience in the U.S .

n,..-,J...-L,.,5-I'"'w .. ol.,f·· _ .. _,, . fol. .. .sn.•O (......... ...I,J... f ,.,I,J ... ~o .. A-· .. •""'""'"I...J.I.. I..,,.,,,.,I..,,,If,.,..,,..u. ol-coo""""'".S " ""'I. Iro

~\IIGR~~TS \ \ ll

EXILES ~ L_~-

!ry•lalld .md II•• Irish I·:\< MILlS 111\t>rlll \1wrim-

Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846 1847: Prelude to Hatred

By Thomas Gallagher

Gallagher' s look at the two worst years of the Famine retains its shock, as he persuasively arg ues that political decisions , rather than natural forces , created mass starvation in lr'eland, whic h led to millions of deaths and a diaspora that changed world history. The child of Irish immigrants, Gallagher changed the way future authors approached the Famine as a subject.

The Irish Voice in America

By Charles Fanning Publi shed in 1999 by the University of Kentucky , this is easily the most thoro ug h and important work about Irish writing in the U.S. Fanning spans the centuries and adds insightful 250Y..,. o( Irish -.American dashes of history and critiF>Ction cism . It is not likely any o ther scholar will match the hig h standard set by Fanning, who directs the Ir·ish Studies program at Southern Illinois University and has also published important works about James Farrell and Finley Peter Dunne.

OCTOBER/NOVEMB ER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 87

The Last Hurrah

By Edwin O'Connor As new immigrants to the U.S. assimilate and enter politics, O 'Connor's story remain s as relevant as it was when first publi shed in 1956, when machine politician Frank Skeffington runs one last time for office, against can it be ? - an Irish-American reform politician. OK, so The Last Hurrah is not as subtle a work as O ' Connor's priest novel Edge of Sadness. But his fictional portrait of Irish politics in the big city as times were begi nning to change is peerless.

Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish America Gangster

By T.J. English The author of the previous, brilhant book The Westies, English in Paddy Whacked explores Irish crime on a vast scale, re vealing a history too long ignored, perhaps out of shame. English shows that Iri sh-American gangsterism is closely tied to politics, history and economics. This may be the dark side of Irish America, but it is a side which desperatel y needed to be explored.

Banished Children of Eve B y P eter Quinn It is a crime of history that a great written work of the Irish famine was never written during or shortly after this hanowing era. It took 150 years, but Peter Quinn finally did it with his sprawling, beautiful portrait of not just Iri sh immigrants, but Iri sh-Americans, blacks and southerners in New York City during the post-famine/Civil War era. Honorable mention goes to Kevin Baker' s riveting Paradise Alley from 2001.

Alice

Charming Billy

By Alice McDermott When wonderful books which tell small , wrenching stories are granted big commercial and critica l success , that is a moment to cherish.

McDermott ' s genera ti on- spanning sto ry of star-cro ssed lovers on both sides of the Atlan ti c is one of those spec ial cases. A lyrical tone permeates every scene in thi s novel which gives it the quality of a page-turn er, even though McDermott is determined to show us some hard truths abo ut life, love and, not incidentally, the Irish Catholic American experience.

88 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

Thomas Flanagan's Historical Trilogy In The Year of the French ( 1979), The Tenants of Time (1988) and The End of the Hunt (1994), Thomas Flanagan brought Irish history to life with three massive tomes , each focusing on a key era in Ireland 's struggle for independence: 1798, the 1860s and the 1920s.

Flanagan, a Connecticut native and longtime visitor to Ireland who died in 2002, wrote novel s which are rich and riveting in ways non-fiction simply cannot be.

Top Traditional Music CDs

By Don Meade rish Ametica has long exercised an outsized influence on Irish traditional music. Massive Irish immigration to these shores and the concentration of those immigrants in America's large cities made New York and Chicago as important, if not more important, than Dublin and Cork as incubators of Irish music talent for many years. A 19th century fiddler or piper who stayed home in Ireland might never hear a musician from farther away than the next parish, but his cousin in New York would ~nd himself rubbing shoulders with players from all 32 counties.

The greatest collections of Irish traditional music ever compiled, Francis O'Neill's 1903 Music of Ireland and his 1907 Dance Music of Ireland, were published in Chicago. When record companies started issuing ethnic music in the early 20'h century, the greatest number of cylinders and 78 rpm discs by far were recorded in New York. The recordings of New York-based musicians who included uilleann piper Patsy Touhey, fiddler Michael Coleman and flute player John McKenna had a tremendous impact back horne in Ireland, inspiring generations of imitators and making the "New York style" a de facto Irish national standard.

Nowadays, of course, the musical center of gravity has shifted back to the shamrock shore, but Irish immigrant and Arnerican-bom Irish tradi tonal musicians are still among the best anywhere, as can easily be proved by listening to these twenty choice recordings.

bohola bohola Shanachie Named for a small town in Mayo, bohola is a Chicago-based group with a sound so big that it' s hard to believe there are only three members. Led by piano accordion great and many-time All-Ireland champion Jimmy Keane, bohola also includes Chicago fiddler Sean Cleland and Dublin-born singer/ bouzouki player Pat Broaders. Most Irish traditional groups play simple sets of reels or jigs intenupted by the occasional song.

For their 2002 debut recording, however, bohola broke out of this dance-based format to craft intricate arrangements that seamJessly blend instrumental and vocal segments into lengthy, emotionall y charged medleys.

Kevin Burke If the Cap Fits Green Linnet Kevin Burke is a London native whose fiddle playing with the famous Bothy Band made him the most influential and popu lar Irish musician of the 1970's traditional music revival. When the Bothies broke up, B urke relocated to Portland, Oregon , where he sti ll makes his home. His silkysmooth bowing and snappy ornamentation can be heard on many recordings, including those by the group Patrick Street and the Celtic Fiddle Festival, but this 1970s solo record, with its uninten¡upted, 16-rninute B-side medley, is the favorite of many long-time fans. Button accordion ace Jackie Daly and ex-Bothy Band guitruist Michelli 6 Domhnaill are among the many guest stars.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 89

Liz Carroll, Billy McComiskey and Daithi Sproule Trian Flying Fish

Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll and Brooklyn-born button accordionist Billy McComiskey are renowned both for their instrumental virtuosity and their original compositions, many of which have become standards of the traditional repertoire in Ireland and America. For this 1992 recording, the two Yanks teamed up with Derry-born guitarist and singer Daithf Sproule to form a true all-star trio, one that unfortunately only rarely reunites for special occasions such as this year' s Catskills Irish Arts Week in East Durham, New York.

Their second effort, the 1992 Green Linnet disc Trian 2, was pretty awesome as well , but first impressions count for a lot, so the original outing gets the nod for our Irish America top twenty.

Cherish The Ladies Irish Women Musicians in America Shanachie

The all-female, Irish-American music and dance ensemble led by New York flute and tin whistle great Joanie Madden has made many outstanding recordings over the past twenty years. This recording documents the group' s roots in a series of concerts organized in the mid-1980s by New York' s Ethnic Folk Arts Center (now the Center for Traditional Music and Dance). Center organizer Ethel Raim was intrigued by Mick Moloney ' s observation that many of the best young Irish-American traditional musicians of the day were, in a reversal of the usual pattern, the daughters rather than the sons of Irish musician fathers. Fiddlers Eileen Ivers and Rose Conway Flanagan, button accordionist Patty Furlong, flute players Maureen Doherty and Mary Rafferty, and singers Bridget Fitzgerald and Treasa O'Carroll were an1ong the talented ladies who joined Madden on this disc.

More recent "Cherish" recordings are available from www.cherishtheladies.com.

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Maken In Person at Carnegie Hall Sony

When Pat and Tom Clancy left Tipperary for New York, they were hoping to make it big in the theater. They got famous instead as the Irish stars of the Greenwich Village folk scene. The group they formed with younger brother Liam and northern pal Tommy Makem went on to launch the tremendous international revival of interest in Irish traditional music that continues to this day. This live 1960s concert disc is one of the best of the group's many recordings. A medley of Iri sh children' s songs, a plaintive rendition of "The Parting Glass," a dramatic recitation from Liam Clancy and an Irish-language audience sing-along of "Or6, Se Do Bheatha 'Bhaile!" are highlights from the show.

90 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill Live in Seattle Green Linnet Some years ago Kevin Burke was asked if there were other musicians who might achieve the Irish traditional music stardom of 1970s Bothy Band veterans like himself. The first name that came to his mind was Clare fiddler Martin Hayes . Burke proved as good a prophet as a fiddler because Martin, a Chicago resident and a son of Tulia Ceili Band leader P.J. Hayes , very soon became the next big deal in Irish music. With his guitarist partner Dennis Cahill picking out deftly spare accompaniment, Hayes has crafted a very personal style that appeals to an audience that stretches from hard-core ceili enthusiasts to jazz and "new age" music fans. The repertoire is strictly old-school , but the the duo ' s innovative expansion of the rhythmic and dynamic palette of Irish fiddle music is impressively modern. This 1999 live concert recording at Seattle' s Tractor Tavern finds them at their very best.

James Keane Sweeter as the Years Roll By Shanachie In their youth in Dublin, button accordionist James Keane and his fiddling brother Sean were the two hottest young players in traditional music. Unfortunately for them, the early 1960s were not a time when many people in Dublin cared much about "diddly-eye" music. Sean was recruited by Paddy Moloney for the Chieftains, but that group had no room for an accordion player, however gifted, and James emigrated to New York. His exciting, fast-paced and highly ornamented playing has been recorded on several LPs and CDs, but this one, which includes contributions from a new generation of young players (including Sean and his sons), is among the best and still available.

Joe Derrane

Joe Heaney

The Tie That Binds Shanachie Boston button accordionist Joe Denane's recording career began in the 78 rpm era and is still going strong in the age of the iPod. His amazing instrumental prowess was a word-of-mouth legend through decades when his old discs were out of print and he was no longer active on the traditional music scene. In 1994, however, Derrane made a triumphal return to traditional music and the button accordion at a Washington, D.C. Irish Festival. He has been a regular on the festival circuit and a busy recording artist ever since, and in 2004 was honored with a National Heritage Fellowship as a living national treasure. On this 1998 disc Joe was joined by musical friends who included Galway fiddle star Frankie Gavin, flute and tenor banjo phenom Seamus Egan and uilleann piper Jerry O' Sullivan in collaborations that seemed to bring out the best from all concemed.

Brian Conway First Through the Gate Smithsonian Folkways Bronx native Brian Conway is the current standard bearer of the long tradition of County Sligo-style fiddling in New York City. He got his start from his father Jim, a fiddler from Tyrone, but it was the late Sligo fiddle legend Martin Wynne who tutored him in the intricacies of the Sligo style. Brian went on to win All-Ireland championships in every age group and to record a fme duet LP with fellow New York fiddler Tony DeMarco. This solo recording, many years in the making, is his masterpiece - a stunning collection of jigs, hornpipes, reels, slow airs and other tunes with varied piano, guitar and cittern accompaniment. In addition to solos, Brian plays several duets and trios with the late New York fiddle great Andy McGann and with his own pupil Patrick Mangan, a teenage All-Ireland champ in his own right.

The Road from Connemara Topic I Cl6 Iar-Chonnachta The late Joe Heaney is widely regarded as Ireland's greatest traditional singer, a master of the unaccompanied and highly ornamented sean -nos style he learned in his youth in Irish-speaking Connemara. For much of his life, however, Joe was a Brooklyn resident who worked on the staff of a ritzy Manhattan apartment building. He was fond of relating how TV producer Merv Griffin was startled to find a picture of "his doorman" on the wall of the famo usly musical O'Donghues ' s pub in Dublin ' s Merrion Row. Late in life, Heaney received some of the overdue recognition he deserved in the form of an NEA National Heritage fellowship and a teaching post at the University of Washington. This CD , which includes much of his best repertoire in English and Irish, was recorded in Joe's prime when his voice was at its most powerful.

OCTOB ER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 91

Martin Mulhaire, Seamus Connolly and Jack Coen with Felix Dolan Warming Up Green Linnet

If you're into musical time travel, this recording will swiftly transport you to the heyday of the Irish ceili bands, circa 1960, when Martin Mulhaire was the button accordion star of the Tulia Ceili Band, his fellow Galwayman Jack Coen was playing flute with the New York Ceili Band with pianist Felix Dolan, and Clare fiddle great Seamus Connolly was winning every musical competition in Ireland. Mulhaire came to the Big Apple with the Tulla that year and never went home. Connolly followed some years later, settling in Boston where he now has a chair in music at Boston College. In 1993 they all got together to record this delightful homage to the unpretentious but solidly traditional music of the '50s and '60s, including a good number of Mulhaire's original compositions.

Various The Wheels if the World: Early Irish American Music Yazoo In the mid-1970's Shanachie Records helped lau nch a revival of interest in old-time Irish music with an LP of 78rpm recordings called The Wheels of the World , after the title of an old Irish reel. This updated, two-CD collection on Shanachie subsidiary Yazoo expanded on the original with dozens of classic sides from the "golden age" of Irish traditional music in America. Recorded for the most part in New York and Chicago, these discs were cut by musicians who include uilleann piper and vaudeville star Patsy Touhey , Chicago-born piper Tom Ennis, the County Sligo fiddlers Michael Coleman, James Morrison and Paddy Killoran , button accordion great PJ Conlon, flute player John McKenna and Frank Quinn, a New York traffic cop whose singing, fiddling and button accordion playing made him one of the biggest names in Irish mu sic in the 1920s.

James Kelly, Paddy O'Brien and Daithi Sproule Traditional Music of Ireland Shanachie Dublin fiddler James Kelly is one of the fiddling sons of the late Clare fiddler and concertina player John Kelly. His own style is a unique blend of his dad's Clare influence with that of the Sligo fiddle greats. When he moved to the U.S. in the 1970s, Kelly teamed up with County Offaly button accord ionist Paddy O'Brien and Derry guitarist/singer Daithf Sproule to form one of the great trios in .the history of Irish traditional music. Together, the group made two fantastic LPs, Is It Yourself? and Spring in the Air, for Shanachie, which has since reissued 20 tracks from those discs on a single CD. There's never been a better blend of fiddle and box, and Sproule's style of backing helped convince a whole generation of Irish guitarists to tune their instruments in his DADGAD style.

92 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

Susan McKeown Lowlands Green Linnet

Dublin-born New Yorker Susan McKeown possesses one of the most powerful and distinctive voices in Irish music, one that has drawn comparisions to folk legend Sandy Denny and rocker Natalie Merchant (with whom McKeown has recorded). She combines an adventurous modern approach with a deep respect for the old tradition, but thi s 2000 recording is from the more traditional end of her catalog (for the modern stuff, check out her work with the Chanting House band). The songs include a truly haunting rendition of Dublin singer Liam Weldon 's "Dark Horse on the Wind," a melancholy take on "The Snows They Melt the Soonest" and the classic ballad "Lord Baker." The late Scottish fiddler Johnny Cunningham, McKeown 's long-time collaborator, also contJibutes to the album.

Mick Moloney Far From the Shamrock Shore Shanachie

Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds Shanachie

Bronx native Andy McGann and Longford man Paddy Reynolds, both of whom passed away in the past two years, were the most celebrated Irish fidd le duet of modern times.

They met in the Bronx in the late 1940s as proteges of the great Sligo fiddler James "Lad" O' Beirne. Playing together at hundreds of dances, parties and concerts, Andy and Paddy perfected a polished and urbane New York interpretation of Sligo fiddle music. Though their heyday was in decades when few traditional recordings were made, they finally got their chance to record together in the late 1970s. The accompaniment for this classic album was provided by guitarist Paul Brady, who had not yet become well known for his work with Planxty or for his later career as a singer and songwriter.

Eileen Ivers So Far Green Linnet If Brian Conway represents fidelity to the old New York fiddle tradition, his fellow Bronx native and fellow AllIreland winner Eileen Ivers champions fearless exploration and innovation. Eileen became a celebrity as the original fiddle soloist with Riverdance, dazzling international audiences as she skipped across the stage sawing on her electric blue fiddle . Her current band, Immigrant Soul, blends Irish with "world music" and blues sounds , but she can still tread the straight and narrow when whe feels like it. This compilation covers the some of the best of her solo fiddling, as well as top-notch coll aborations with flute player Seamus Egan, guitarist John Doyle and other traditional music luminaries.

Solas Solas Shanachie

Flute and tenor banjo great Seamus Egan divided his youth between Philadelphia and Foxford, County Mayo. Already an internationally renowned musician as a teenager, he founded the group Solas in 1995 with New York fiddler Winnie Horan, Chicago button accordionist-John Williams, Dublin guitar god John Doyle and Waterford singer Karan Casey. The band is still going strong ten years later with a different lineup that still includes Egan and Horan, but the impact of the group's debut recording, which featured Casey's achingly gorgeous vocals, has never been surpassed.

Limerick native Mick Moloney is the true Renaissance Man of Irish mosic in America, not only because he' s a multi-talented musician; singer and scholar but because he personally helped launch a great rebirth of Irish traditional music in America as a record producer, performer, festival orgnizer, writer and teacher.

The CD, issued to accompany Moloney's book of the same name, is a highly enjoyable musical history of the Irish in America told through songs that include "Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade," "Muldoon, the Solid Man." "Maloney, the Rolling Mill Man" and "No Irish Need Apply." Fiddlers Eileen Ivers and Marie Reilly as well as American "old-timey" musician Bruce Molsky join Moloney on the recording.

Jerry O'Sullivan O'Sullivan Meets O'Farrell Independent

You can count the number of top-notch, American-born uilleann pipers on the fingers of one hand, and Jerry 0' Sullivan' s name usually comes up on the first finger. The Irish pipes are a fiendishly difficult instrument to master, but Jerry, who spent long periods in Dublin as a young man, was equal to the task, and this recording displays his exceptionally nimble melody playing on the chanter and tasteful use of accompanying drones and "regulator" chords. For this archival project, Jerry polished up some musical gems he dug out of the pages of a pioneering collection of uilleann piping tunes published over 200 years ago by a London stage piper named O'Farrell, of whom we know very little, not even his first name. But if O'Farrell were to meet 0 ' Sullivan after hearing this disc, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to introduce himself.

Mike and Mary Rafferty The Dangerous Reel Independent

78-year-old flute player and uilleann piper Mike Rafferty still plays in the same style he learned from his father Tom "Barrel" Rafferty in his youth in east County Galway, one of the most musical districts of Ireland. The long-time New Jersey resident passed this style and repertoire on in turn to his daughter Mary, who played his daughter Mary, who played flute and button accordion for many years with the group Cherish the Ladies. After he retired from his day job, Mike launched a marvelous series of recordings with Mary, of which this was the flrst. This is simpl y beautiful music played at the relaxed pace and with the gentle rhythmic pulse for which east Galway music is famous. It is available, as are Mike and Mary ' s other recordings, from www.raffertymusic.com OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 93

CHA GES IN IRISH ERICA In the last two decades Irish America has continued to evolve in fascinating, utterly unpredictable ways, writes Tom Deignan.

A

t the end of this past Jul y, bands, dan cers and nificantly. And those Irish who still do come are facing a others gathered at Terrace Park in Sioux Falls, tougher time. In the wake of9/ll, U.S . immigration poliSouth Dakota for the town ' s annual Irish cies have been much more strictly enforced, making Festival. Despite temperatures running close to 100 work and travel between the U.S. and Ireland much more degrees, organizers told the local newspaper that a good difficult for immigrants without a green card or otfler time was had by all who attended. documentation.

Twenty years ago, the Sioux Falls Irish-American Then there are the changes that have swept over community would not have had such an opportunity to Northern Ireland, which have had ripple effects from the celebrate its heritage. That is because the Sioux Falls Bronx and Boston to Dublin and London.

Irish Festival is only in its sixth year.

In the end, what can ' t be denied is that in the last two Sioux Falls (population 135,000) is just one of many decades Irish America has continued to evolve in fascitowns and small cities all over the United States where nating, utterly unpredictable ways. annual Irish festivals have sprung up in the last 20 years.

Sociologists and other cultural observers have long It is not that there were no Irish-Americans in such predicted that the Irish, for all of their success and pride places until recently. Instead, what has happened in in their heritage, were destined to melt into the vast pot Sioux Falls, as well as so many other places, is an illus- that is America. Nearly four decades ago, the eminent tration of one of the key changes which have unfolded in Irish-American Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued in his Irish America over the last 20 years. famous book Beyond the Melting Pot that the unique Contrary to what many sociologists expected, the traits and ways of the Irish would blend into the larger grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Iri sh immi- American fabric, leavi ng newer immigrant groups to grants who settled in and around big cities such as dominate the ethnic market in America.

What would Moynihan say if he were to visit the Sixth Boston, New York, San Francisco and Chicago are determined not to let their ethnic identity melt away.

Annual Sioux Falls Irish Festival in 2005?

This surge in ethnic pride is just one important change In fact, it could very well be argued that many sociolthat Irish America has witnessed in the last 20 years. ogists got things backwards.

It appears that recent generations of Irish-Americans The relationship between lrish-Ainericans and the Irish on the other side of the Atlantic has altered dramat- are embracing their heritage just as vigorously as previically as well. ous generations have.

Meanwhile, profound changes in technology, particuIrish-American culture has survived not just the flight larly the explosion of the Internet, have also fundamen- from the big cities to the suburbs, it has endured- even tally changed how the Irish on both side of the Atlantic thrived - as the Irish (sometimes fifth or sixth generation) have settled in more remote areas of the U.S. communicate, as well as research the past.

The number of Irish corning to the U.S. has dipped sigTowns which have seen no particular increase in their

94 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

July, 2005: The Irish Festival in Sioux Falls, South Dakota draws bigger crowds each year.

And these programs are not focus ing solely on broadIrish population have nevertheless seen a large increase in Irish pride and celebration, from festivals and dancing ly popular subjects such as immigration history or the classes to music lessons and readings. New chapters of writings of Joyce and O'Neill. Challenging, even esothe Ancient Order of Hibernians or Friendly Sons of St. teric programs related to the Irish language and the intriPatrick are still being formed . cacies of agriculture or village life in Ireland are flourWhy has this happened ? We!J , that leads us to a num- ishing right here in the U.S. ber of other big changes which Irish America has witPast generations of Iri sh-Americans learned about Ireland from parents or grandparents, and from Irish nessed in the last 20 years.

By the 1960s and 1970s, many Irish-Americans, espe- cousins who were likely to turn up looking for a place to cially those living outside of urban enclaves, were stay when they first immigrated to the States. But the rise detached from their own fami ly histories. But with mid- in affl uence in Ireland has meant that the Irish are less dle-class status and greater educational opportuniti es, a dependent on their American cousins, and therefore ha ve new interest in Ireland and the Irish bas been sparked. less contact. The young Irish of today can stay at home Nothing i!Justrates thi s more than the large number of or, as members of the EU, work in Europe.

At tbe same time, it is easier than ever for Irishstudents in Irish studies programs now avai lable at many colleges and universities.

Americans to uncover lost family connections via the With more and more Irish-American fami lies able to Internet. This invaluable tool for research and communipay for a college education, demand for knowledge cation was more or less undreamed of 20 years ago. about their roots has grown substantially.

The Irish government is also deepl y committed to It is not surprising that a place like Notre Dame establishing state-of-the-ru1 genealogical research cenUniversity, of the fabled Fighting Irish footba ll program, ters for all members of the diaspora. would house one of the most respectable Irish studies Intricate search engines and other computer tools programs in the U.S. But Notre Dame's Keough can help track down distant parish records, enabling Institute for Irish Studie is just one of dozens of such Irish-Americans to construct a family tree many generaprograms or study concentrations at colleges and uni ver- tions back. E-mai l makes it easier to track down addisities all over tbe U.S. tio nal information, or to even get in touch with distant Boston College's Burns Library now houses what is Irish cousins.

This, in turn, has fed another trend, wh ich affec ted an believed to be the most impressive collection of Irish research material outside of Ireland. older form of media: the explosion of interest in Irish From Georgia Southem University to The New College books. Of course, Irish-Americans have always been of California to Southern Illinois University at serious readers. However, the 1990s phenomenon of Carbondale, Irish-American college students all over the Frank McCourt' s Angela 's Ashes seemed on ly to be the country have access to impressive Irish studies programs. most extreme example of a broader success when it

OCTOBER/NOVEMB ER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 95

President Bill Clinton played an instrumental role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Mutual of America's chairman Bill Flynn, pictured here as the Grand Marshal of the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade, worked tirelessy to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

96 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

comes to books about Irish material. Entire publishing houses no w serve Irish-American readers , and St. Patrick's Day brings with it dozens of books by high-profile Irish authors .

All of this has turned the sociological thesis of the American melting pot upside down. Numerically speaking, the Irish-American population has not necessarily increased in recent years.

But Irish-Americans aU over the U.S. now seem more interested than ever in exploring the first part of their hyphenated identity.

This has allied to a new kind of relationship between Irish America and the island of Ireland. Look no further than the success of The American Ireland Fund, which raised over three million dollars at its New York City dinner this year.

That, without doubt, is the good news. But the last 20 years bas also seen the rise of undeniable tensions widlin Irish Ameri ca. Nothing illustrates this more than the fundamental differences between the U.S. and Ireland over the war in Iraq. The Irish felt a stronger political kinship with continental Europe than they did wi th America, and were quick to criticize President George W. Bush . There were even strong protests in Ireland when Bush paid a visit.

Meanwhile, Irish-Americans such as Captain Richard O' HanJon , a Bronx native, are among the thousands serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. O'HanJon, whose parents came to the U.S. from Cork, is commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which houses some 5,000 personnel.

Today 's Irish-American members of the military serve in the proud tradition of Civil War hero Thomas Meagher, Medal of Honor winner "Wild Bill" Donovan and, of course, d1e Fighting 69th Irish Brigade.

Irish-Americans, of cou rse, had supported an armed stru ggle in Ireland for well over a century. Going back to the 1860s, the doomed Fenian invasion of Canada(then a Briti sh territory) was launched with significant American support. Following the Easter Rising in 1916, Eamon de Valera was shrewd enough to visit the U.S . often, since be knew there was lots of money and other forms of assistance here. (He was, after all, on the run from British au th orities .)

Ri ght through the 1970s and 1980s, Irish-Americans were often unabashed about sending funds to the IRA , or groups such as NORAID, which dubbed itself a humanitar¡ian group yet was generall y seen as a supporter of armed resistance against Briti sh rule in Ulster.

The Anglo-Irish treaty was signed in 1985 (the year Irish America was first published) but the violence in Nordlern Ireland wou ld go on for years. But things began to change in the 1990s with the help of Irish-Ameiicans. President Clinton fo llowed through on hi s campaign pronlise to give Gerry Adams a visa to visit the United States. He went against his own State Department to make this happen. The Adams visit helped lead to the IRA ceasefire, in August 1994. Clinton later tapped former Senator George Mitchell to lead peace negotiations, which ultimately led to dle historic Good Friday Peace Accords.

Irish-Americans such as Mutual of America chairman Bill Flynn worked tirelessly on both sides of the Atlantic to bring an end to violence.

To this day, a tenuous peace holds in Northern Ireland, and the emergence of Sinn Fein as a legitimate political party has left U.S. supporters of an armed struggle in

Many scholars crtedit the Irish for being a key component of FOR's famed New Deal coalition which supported many anti-poverty programs during the Great Depression. But even back then, significant numbers of Irish-Americans were far from thrilled with Roosevelt. Many, particularly devout Catholics, felt he was too greatly influenced by religion-hating Communists.

Northern Ireland out in the cold . pruty - was disdainful of Roosevelt and his policies.

The population of groups such as NORAJD ha dwinBy the 1950s, Communi st hunter Senator Joe dled in the last 20 years as Adams and Sinn Fein contin- McCruthy (aided by a loyal pal named Bobby Kennedy) ue to produce results in Northern Ireland. The recent brought these tens ions to the mainstream. Man y Irishdestruction of IRA weapons in Ireland seems to make it Americans hated McCarthy ' s tactics, but many also supclear that there is no going back to violence for most of ported him. For that reason, despite the myth, it should Irish America. be noted that not all of Irish America - pa.Jticularly There is another Irish-American political evol ution, those who had reached the middle and upper classes which bas been occurring since at least the 1930s. embraced John F. Kennedy.

Since the time of the Famine, the U.S. Democratic By 1980, when Ronald Reagan- a strong supporter Party in big cities welcomed Irish immigrants, so long as of Mru·garet Thatcher - was elected, many noted that they were loyal to the party with their votes, and looked the Irish, now living in the sub urbs, were as supportive the other way when COITuption scandals hit the newspa- of Republicans as Democrats. pers. The Republican Pruty, on the other hand, consisted So, what about the last two decades? The Democrats of many nativists and elites, such as cartoonist Thomas won back some Irish-Americans in the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton played an instrumental role in the Nast, who often depicted poor Irish immigrants as apes.

By the time the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, Irish- Northern Ji·eland peace process. However, just as many AmeJicans were still loyal members of the Democratic proved ready to stand by George W . Bush in the last Pruty. Many scholars credit the Iiish for being a key com- election. The Catholic vote in gerneral and the Irish vote ponent of FOR' s famed New Deal coalition which sup- in particular was said to be the ultimate swing vote in ported mru1y anti-poverty progrruns during the Great Ohio.

Depression. But even back then, significant numbers of So, what is the future of Iri sh America?

Irish-Americans were fru· from thrilled with Roosevelt.

Fewer Iri h immigrants ru·e corning to the U.S. Does Many, pa.Iticulru·Jy devout Catholics, fe lt he was too that mean Ji·ish Ameiica is destined to wither away? It might seem that way . greatly infl uenced by religion-hating Communists .

Then again , vi it Sioux Falls, South Dakota next sumIt is often forgotten that even the beloved AI Smith the first Irish Catholic nominated for president by a major mer and you may think twice. ·

For the first time in the history of America, both the Police Department in Boston and the Fire Department in San Francisco have women in charge. San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes White and Boston Pol ice Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole.

OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 97

An lrishma Named En

By T.J. Eng Iish ave you ever met an Irishman named English?

Well, you have now.

I open with this seemingly insignificant detail for one simple reason: All my life I've been taking a ribbing for being a proud IrishAmerican named English. Some people have a hard time believing that the name has Hibernian roots. The implication is that with a name like that a person would have to be ... well, English. So I tell them, "Look.

Have you ever come across an African American named White? Or a Southern cracker named Black? You probably have.

It' s the same way with English."

For the record: The name is most often found in County Tipperary- where my ancestors come from - and in dirty old Lin1erick Town. Like many Irish nan1es, it has Norman origins but has been fully hibernicized in the eight centuries since the Norman Conquest of Ireland in the 12th century. I will spare you the listing of all the prominent poets, political figures, sports stars and outlaws who carried . the name. Let it suffice to say that the name English is, in the words of the famously sodden poet and playwright Brendan Behan, "as Irish as Paddy's pig."

So get used to it.

I was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, far from the Irish enclaves of New York, Chicago and Boston, but all my

H

life I've been surrounded by Irish-Americans.

Starting with my immediate fanlliy (two parents and nine brothers and sisters), and through my formal education in Catholic grade school, high school , and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Irish faces were everywhere- especially at school.

Some people think that the Irish in America passed along their cultural traditions through circumscribed neighborhoods, but that is only partly true (and less true now than ever before). Mostly, it was the Catholic school system that made it possible for IrishAmericans to disseminate their cultural identity and groom assorted and selected ruffians to go forth and - theoretically speakingchange the world for the better. When I meet an Irish-American who is a product of the Catholic school system, whether they are from Washington, California, Florida or South Boston, I can usually tell.

I was thinking of this recently while listening to an old 1972 George Carlin album entitled Class Clown. I was probably fifteen or sixteen years old when I first heard this record. Up until Carlin came along, we didn't know you could make fun of nuns and priests without being struck down by Lightning. But here was Georgie Boy, himself the product of a progressive Catholic grade school in "White Harlem," telling humorous stories about mortal versus venial sins, con-

fession, purgatory, heaven, hell, and a whole host of matters relating to the sometimes arbitrary rulings and regulations- of the Holy Catholic Church (the no-meat-on-Friday rule had been done away with, for example, but, mused Carlin, "''ll bet there are still people in hell doing time on a meat rap").

Carlin ' s humor was an eye-opener for me.

For the first time I was introduced to a way by which you could be of the culture and still make fun of or be irreverent about the culture. Carlin was an Irish working-class kid like myself and many of my friends and classmates, which put him in a unique position: He could chastise Irish Catholicism because he had experienced it from the inside. I identified with Carlin 's point of view . For me, it represented an Irish Catholic identity that I could embrace, as opposed to what seemed like an overly pious and severe world view promulgated by my parents and their generation.

There was another comic routine on the Class Clown album that had a major impact on me; it was called "I Used to Be Irish Catholic." The opening salvo of this monologue goes as follows: "I used to be Irish Catholic. Now I'm an American. You grow.''

Again, I knew intuitively where Carlin was corning from. At the time, many of the most prominent l1ish Catholic social figures in the U.S . were from an earlier generation, and

they seemed to represent an ultraconservative, intolerant point of view. There was Bull Connor, the bigoted Southern sheriff who unleashed the dogs on civil rights marchers in Alabama; Mayor Richard J. Daly, who unleashed the Chicago police on anti-war protestors; Louise Day Hicks in South Boston, who fanned the flames of racial bigotry during "the busing crisis." Seemingly everywhere you tumed there was an Irish face from the 1950s generation on the front lines fighting against change and social justice.

For Carlin, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Along with many other second, third and fourth-generation Irish-Americans, he left his ethnic identity behind.

He became an "American."

For me, it had the opposite effect. In the wake of the turbulent 1970s, I began a journey into the heart of my ethnic he1itage that changed my life and continues to shape its direction today.

That jow11ey began in earnest when I first moved to New York City. In transplanting myself from the more ethnically homogenized West Coast to the Northeast, I was traveling back to the tribal village. Though I didn't know it at the time, my great-grandfather, Daniel O ' Connell English , the child of recently arrived potato famine immigrants, had been born in New York City in 1847.

Maybe that had something to do with the strong pull I felt all throughout my chi ldhood to come to New York. And when I arrived in 1981 at the age of twenty-three, I felt an eerie sensation, as though I had been here before and was meant to be here at the historical epicenter of the Irish-American experience.

For the first time in my life I felt as though I were a true member of the tribe. On the streets of New York and in various jobs (bartender, pmter, taxi driver) I was identified as being Iiish or, more precisely, a "mick"- not in the ephemeral sense of someth ing you might choose to adopt, but as something stamped on your face, something you are going to be identified by whether you want to be or not. Personally, I welcomed the sense of identity. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that, as I would later find out, I was now walking the same streets as my great-grandfather. Or maybe it hacho do with being seen as something other tl1an just another non-ethnic, generic "white person" in America. Whatever the reason, whenever somebody called me a "mick," invariably I smiled. It remi nded me of something my

father John Patrick English told me as a kid: "If anyone ever calls you a mick, even though they might mean it as a putdown, you should be proud; you should wear it as a badge of distinction."

As providence would have it, my reconnection with a vibrant historical idef;ltity was more than just personal. In my chosen profession as a journalist and writer, I was privileged to have the opportunity to explore and write about myriad aspects of IrishAmericana as a reporter for this magazine.

Throughout the late 1980s, I covered the Irish-American beat. I traveled to Chicago, Boston and other key precincts where the Irish in America made their mark. I researched and wrote about the local history, interviewed notable Irish-American figures in the fields of entertainment, sports and politics (including Mayor Daly's son, Richard M., the current bo s of Chicago), and became enthralled by the diversity of the Irish-American experience, with its right-wing reactionaries, left-wing agitators and everything in between.

It was willie writing for Irish America that I first carne across the story of the Westies, the ultra-violent 1970s-80s gang out of Hell' s Kitchen in New York City that became the basis of my first non-fiction book. Most people surmise that my interest in tl1e Westies comes from a fascination with the world of crime, a subject with which I have now become identified (I've published two subsequent non-fiction crime books). Mostly, though, for me that book was a chance to explore my working-class roots.

Back in Tacoma, one of my uncles owned and operated a small steel mill where my

brothers and I worked during the summers to pay for our college educations. The modest sized factory building for J.D. English Steel was a longtime fixture on the Tacoma waterfront. It was there that I first experienced the unique can1araderie and male working-class mentality that would become a key to understanding the world of the Westies and other tough, insular u¡ish-American environments I have written about.

Some might say that it is a long way from the Tacoma waterfront to the saloons of Hell's Kitchen, but for me it has been a personal and professional journey that all fits togetl1er: the Irish roots, Catholic school education, irreverent comedy of George Carlin, streets of New York, Irish-American journalism, gangsters, priests and politicians.

Most of my adult life has been devoted to these and other aspects of Irish-Americana, figuring out how they interrelate and how they affect me personally.

Why have I spent so much time and energy exploring my own ethnic heritage? I think it has to do with my great-grandfather and the legacy of the Potato Fanline, but others in my family have suggested otherwise. They think I am merely overcompensating for being an Irishman named English.

Which brings me to a final thought: In your travels, in the Old Country or here in the U.S., if you should come across an Iri h lad or lass with the surname of English, please give them a hug. m1

T.J. English is the author of Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster (ReganBooks), due out in paperback in March 2006.

im Shetidan came over to my table at the Lion ' s Head Bar and asked if I'd be interested in acting in a new play by a young man from Belfast, Terry Geo rge. Jim was artistic director at the Irish Arts Center and I knew him from my time performing A Couple of Blaguards there with my brother Malachy.

The play, The Tunnel, was about a group of IRA prisoners trying to escape from a Long Kesh type of jail in the North.

I never thought of myself as an actor but my teaching career was winding down and this might be the start of another life. Of the eight men on stage I'd surely be spotted by the critics and lured to Broadway . Next stop: Hollywood and a ro le opposite Sharon Stone. My seven fellow-actors wou ld dribble with envy but that's the way of the world. Talent will out.

I played the part of Scowler, IRA veteran and oldest man in the group. I had good moments on stage with Nye Heron, director the Center. When I worked with him I never forget that he was a descendant of James Connolly, the one I admired most of the men executed in 1916.

So here I was, teacher by day, actor by night, and ·ng more and more of the sim-

There they are and there is no escape. Every day you are appraised, sized up. checked out. They'll find your weaknesses. They ' re like heat-seeking .missiles. It is your one unit of energy up against thirty-five of theirs. They have tricks and strategies to divert you from the lesson, to challenge you while you ' re teaching. You teach your lesson . The bell rings, no applause, and they can ' t wait to get out of the room.

When they've left you wonder what you ' ve done to them or for them. You only know what they've done to you or for you.

In The Tunnel you ' re on stage with seven men. Off stage is a narrow space behind the set where you dress and wait for your next scene. If you miss a cue or drop a line you are punched enthusiastically where the bruises will not show.

You don't have to worry about the audience. The play is so popular the house is packed, so popular that Paul O ' Dwyer, one of New York's most revered politicians, could not get a seat one day, so popular that John Houseman came to see us and I'm sure he couldn' t take his eyes off me.

The theater audience will meet you more than half-way. They've paid their admission and they want to be moved and entettained.

.A.Dd how one thing led to another-. y Prank McCourt ilarities and differences between the two.

I learned long before that acting doesn ' t work in the classroom. You can try it for a while but then the kids catch on to you and, if acting is a mask, you ' d better take it off.

Now I was learning that acting doesn ' t work on the stage either. I would watch Nye Heron or Ciaran O ' Reilly at work and realize that less is more. Strong emotions can be expressed quietly and you don ' t have to flap your arms.

Sometimes in teaching you have to raise your voice, go over the top. You ' re dtiven to it, especially when you ' re inexperienced.

You have to get and keep the attention of thirty-odd New :York teenagers and you'll resort to anything. I sang and chanted and told them if they didn ' t pay attention I'd do a nude soft show. "No, no," they begged.

"Anything but that." Let us graduate with our image of you intact: handsome, chruming, and intelligent.

You ' re on your own in the classroom.

100 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

You don't have to stand there like a high school teacher and warn them about low grades or failure itself. Just get up there, act your part, remember this is a team effort, take your bow, relish the applause and notice how aU eyes are on you, not on Nye or Jim or Ciru·an or the rest.

You tell your high school students about your acting cru·eer and some come to see you out of curiosity. They love it. Man. there ' s our teacher up there, all tough in his black knitted cap, our teacher the IRA gunman in jail for a thousand years, our teacher digging a tunnel with all those other tough Irishmen. "Gawd, Mr. McCourt, isn ' t it great to be Irish ."

It was just starting, the world's new type of love affair with the Irish. We were still a charming, hospitable people drinking our pint over there on that sweet little green island where leprechauns and Barry Fitzgeralds abounded. We were poor and priest-ridden, romantic, always reciting poetry and loved by tourists. Irish plays at1d films drew worn adjectives: charming and lyrical.

In Terry George' s play there was no charm and little lyricism. It was tough and hard and if we sang a song or two, well, you had to pass the time somehow. Sti ll my students loved seeing the teacher up there being so Iri sh. Oh man, all those brogues.

They wanted to know more about the IRA and Ireland and my father who was an IRA man.

But a new Ireland was emerging and it had different faces : Pierce Brosnan, U2, Liam Neeson, Seamus Heaney.

To Ame1icans the new Ireland was "sexy," and how much higher can you go on tl1e scale of praise?

It's a long way from Stuyvesant High School on East 15th Street to the Irish Ans Center on West 51st Street, but in my five months on the stage the route became a tunnel.

Jim Sheridan and Terry George went on to become acclaimed writers and directors, and I left teaching and wrote a book. m1

TOP: A couple of Blaguards: Malachy and Frank McCourt. ABOVE: Jim Sheridan and Terry George at Irish America 's Top 100 event in 1995.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 10 1

OUR LEGACY ~ oF

LOSS c0

BY TERRY GEORGE

r<? The acclaimed writer/director reflects on three thousand six hundred and thirty-eight stolen lives. n 1964, I had my first real experience of our eight-hundred-year-old war in Ireland. 1 was an eleven-year-old schoolboy in Belfast when the Reverend Ian Paisley decided that an Irish tricolor displayed at the election office of a Sinn Fein candidate called Billy McMillan should be removed. He led a Protestant march up the Falls Road to take it down.

Two days of rioting followed. I remember skipping school to walk up the Falls Road and see the broken glass and rubble. There was rebellion in the air, the smell of smoke and anger. It was thrilling.

Forty-one years on, the thrill is long,

long gone. Instead, as the IRA declare that the war is over, I am left only with pain, regret, relief but most of all sorrow. After I heard the news of the IRA 's decision I went back to reread a truly extraordinary book. It is called Stolen Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women, and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Ttoubles. There are 3,638 stories in the book. Stolen Lives has become a sort of prayer book for me. Every time I notice it among my books, I stop what I'm doing and read from it again. There are many people I knew listed in this book. People I loved, hated, respected and feared . I want

~

to tell you about a few.

No. 275 is Gerard Bell, 19. His nicknan1e was "Dinger Bell." I went to dances with him in Ardglass, County Down. He was blown up along with three other IRA men who were transporting a bomb in a car. I'd no idea at the time that he was in the IRA. As the funeral was leaving the Short Strand area, loyalists on the other side of the road sang the Dave Clarke Five hit "Bits and Pieces."

No. 2425 , Raymond Devlin, 19, used to sit on the wall close to my aprutment in Belfast and drink cheap wine. His (probably self-invented) nickname was "Gangster,"

but that was a joke; in reality he was a smalltime hood. He used to come into a pool room where I worked. He was funny . I liked him. The IRA didn' t- they killed him for 'gangsterism. ' His brother Damien, 24, was shot by the UVF six years later.

No. 1370. Billy McMillan, 48. The man whose election campaign in 1964led to my first introduction to riots. His nickname was "the wee man" and unlike "Gangster," he was indeed small , but he too was funny in a much more articulate, witty way. He was the head of the Official IRA in Belfast.

During hi s leadership a feud broke out between the Official IRA and their breakaway INLA. Billy McMillan was shot outside a hardware store after buying some nail s. He was sitting in his car with his wife when the gunman struck.

No. 2810. Gerard Steenson, 29. The nickname I knew him by was "Steensy."

The newspapers and the Brits called him "Dr. Death." Steensy was, according to most reports, the man who stepped out of a taxi and killed Billy McMillan . The Steensy I knew, and I knew him very well , was extremely clever and even wittier than Billy McMillan. He had an angelic face and women adored him. He was also ruthless, cunning and fearless . He was shot dead by another faction of the INLA along with Anthony "Boot" McCarthy, who I also knew. Boot got his name from the platform shoes he used to wear. At the bottom of each person's story in Stolen Lives, the authors cross-reference the dead person with other dead people in the book- either people they died alongside or people they were su spected of kil ling. Gerard Steenson's name is cross-referenced with fourteen other entries in the book.

No. 2245. Mi1iam Daly, 45. Miriam was a lecturer in economic hi story at Queens University. In fact she and her husband Jim encouraged me to enroll in Queens. My wife Rita worked part-time as her secretary. She was executed by the UDA because she was an outspoken activist at the time of the hunger strikes.

Her body was discovered by her 10-yearold daughter at 3 p.m. I arrived at her home at 3:10 p.m. and helped clean her blood and brains off the hallway floor. I also met her husband Jim as he arrived from Dublin and discovered that he had been told she had died of a heart attack. I had to tell him she had been murdered. o. 3089. Eddie Hale, 25. .Eddie Hale m:f younger brother's best friend. "" t. ~ \:).!M:.k Q{ my house until somebody introduced into the pigeon coop. After the were all eaten. Eddie and my

LEFT: Six IRA volunteers carry the coffin of hunger striker Volunteer Martin Hurson into the graveyard at Galbally, County Tyrone, where he is interred.

ABOVE: Terry George at work in the director's chair. brother went their separate ways. Eddie became another small-time hood. He hung out with a group of petty thieves nicknamed "The Hole in the Wall Gang." One night they broke into a car parked at a country restaurant. Unbeknownst to them it belonged to a highly secret Btitish Almy undercover squad. It is widely rumored that Eddie and his gang found some top secret, highly sensitive papers in the Brit car. The gang' s next job was the robbery of a betting shop. A British anny undercover squad was waiting fo r them. Eddie and two of his gang were gunned down in the street.

I know many other victims in the book: my cousin John, killed by the INLA for being 'a crook.' Liam Ryan and Seamus Woods, two young men I met in New York. The hunger saikers Bobby Sands and Patsy O'Hara. The Grew brothers, Dessie and Seamus, both gunned down by SAS/RUC undercover units. Giuseppe Conlon , whose life ru1d death inspired me to write a movie.

Then there are the hundreds of victims I don ' t know. British soldiers, RUC men,

In the last yeru· I have visited and come to know the people of Rwanda, where close to one million people were killed, and the people of Sarajevo, where eleven thousand were ki lled. One thing I have come to understru1d is that whether you are killed by a machete in Kigali , by a sniper in Sru·ajevo, or by a landmine in Crossmaglen, there is always someone left to suffer the pain.

Am I glad it' s all over? Only a fool , and there are some still ru·oLmd, would say no to that question. One of those fools is the Reverend Ian Paisley, who behaves today just as he did forty-one years ago outside Billy McMillan ' s office.

Was it worth it? I suppose historians will debate the political impact of the violence and make such a decision. It' s a question I can no longer answer. How can I say "Yes, it's worth it," to sacrifice Eddie Hale and Miriam Daly for the cause of freedom? How can I say "No, it wasn ' t worth it," and remove all meaning from the deaths of so many? Would 1 rather have them all back? Three thousand six hundred and thirty-eight times yes.

loyali ts, tourists, London shoppers. I bet man of them were witty, charming Ten y George recently retumed from and complex j ust like the victims I knew. Sarajevo Film Festival where he screened All 3,638 of them had someone who his mo vie Hotel R wanda fo r three thousand lo ved them.

Sa raj e vo citizens tit a squa re tit rite ro wn .

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 103

onday's work done, I throw my instruments into the car, head out of Woodstock and north on Route 32 towards Greene County, heart of the Catskills.

Past the peeling stockade that was Carson City East (20 years of gunfights, high noon), past motel shells, on past the ro lling hills and mountains and finally north past Cairo onto Route 145, a road so straight the Romans would be proud. A few miles along, then the first stab of recognition: "Stack's Motel & Driving Range."

I carry on a couple of miles past McGrath's (full Iri sh breakfast), McKen na's on its own small hill, the Blackthorn, Erin's Melody, the Ferncliff, Darbys, Furlongs, the Shamrock House. I swing around, stop by the General Store for Hobnobs, Cream Crackers and Golden Syrup, then head up to the festival grounds for the evening concert.

Inside a huge barn some 200 people are sitting, strolling, chatting, and catching up.

M

check out the songs. In the main bar a large group of young fiddlers are getting into stride. The singers in the next room are a much quieter bunch, but it seems like they've been having a great time - Robbie O'Connell and Tim Dennehy are in fi ne form. Around 2 a.m. I head outside for some fres h air. A group of pipers on the deck have just launched into "Banish Misfortune." So it goes, until I call it a night around 3 a.m., head down the deserted highways and home. One night down, fo ur to go.

Welcome to the East Durham Irish Arts Week, now in its 11th and biggest year.

Sixty, count ' em, sixty world-class musicians come to teach, play and share the craie. They've flown or driven in from Ireland, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and New York, settled into their motels and guesthouses, and first d1ing this Monday morning commenced their workshops for eager students who have traveled similar distances.

13anishi~~

eight years ago whi lst camping nearby. As a devout folkie, I enjoyed Irish music, but had never d1ought about playing it. After hearing one of the bam concerts I signed up for a g uitar路 workshop. Every day eight or nine of us huddled in the darker recesses of Erin's Melody bar, our instructor Ged Foley of the Battlefield Band & Pallick Street leading us through open tunings and picking a simple jig.

By the end of the first day I was hooked.

We all had pottable tape recorders (recommended), and at the end of d1e week headed home clutching armfuls of tapes - so much to lear路n!

Paddy O' Brien is reputed to know over 4,000 tunes; whi le this may well be apocryphal (imagine trying to prove it) it is ind icative of the art. There is no magic Sorting Hat for students - at sign-up one is expected to grade o neself, Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced.

Too much modesty and you may have a boring week. Too much hubris and you may be eaten by shar路ks.

The literature suggests that an advanced player should know a couple of hundred tu nes. To the layman who thinks thi s absurd, remember there is no sheet music involved, at least not once a session commences, and a the refrain goes, they all sound the same anyway. But to dis_cover the nuance and subtleties of ancient and modern tunes is to learn a new language, one that can be shared at sessions ar路ound the world, and we tuck those tunes under our belts as fast as we can.

Two mond1s after d1at first heady week, my wife was diagnosed with lung cancer.

In the seven months remaining to her, the only escape from the black hole I had fallen into was to play one of d1e tapes from Ged's class and lose myself in d1e learning; it was, as Kevin Bmke says, a release from the tyranny of conscious thought.

East Durham was big in the sixties.

Known as the "Emerald Isle of the Catskills," it was the weekend destination for hard-working Irish, and resotts and motel bars thrived. The local judge and two police officers would hold cowt, literally. outside the General Store on a Saturday evening, adjudicating all manner of infractions and meting out fines on the spot, so the party could go on. But as airfares to the real Emerald Isle becan1e cheaper, East Durham fell into something of a slump.

Today the bars and restaurants cater mostly to the retirement community that may well include many of the youngsters

Misrorfnne lun Worpole' :s report on lri:sh (!rts Week in the Cutskill:s

greet old fiiends and soon the music begins. For two hours, seemingly random collectives of musicians take their turn to pour forth j igs, reels, airs and songs. The amazing thing is the quality, and the evening culminates in a tour de force known as Bohola, the only grou p of the evening with an actual name.

After thunderous applause and an encore, we break into small groups, scanning our schedules of the evening's events yet to come. It's only 9:30 and the night is young.

The dancers amongst us choose the Ceili, others pick the session that most suits their taste: songs, songs and tunes, tunes only, advanced tunes only, listening to maestros only.

It's a long list, and I opt for a session at the Ferncliff. About 30 others pick the same and we sit in a huge circle swapping tunes. It's a great sound, from players of supreme quality to the merely competent. I find myself somewhere in the middle, and even get to lead a set at one point.

Around 1 a.m. I head over to Darbys to

The choices of classes are staggering there are ten fiddle workshops alone. Six flute, fou r song, four accordion, three pipes, three dance, guitar, whistle, concertina, bodhran, bouzouki, crafts and children 's works hops. There are lectures. forums & slide shows.

Morning and afternoon, the classes assemble in all those bars and restaurants.

The instructors over the years are a Who's Who of Irish music: Kevin Burke, Tommy Peoples, Joarmie Madden, Robbie O'Connell, Tony Cuffe, Daithi Sproule, Jerry 0 ' Sullivan, Liz Carroll , Billy McCominsky, Paddy O'Brien, Karen Casey, Mike McHale, Jackie Daly, Tony DeMarco, the Coen brod1ers, Jack and Fr. Charlie, Btian Conway, Mary Bergin ... the li'st is end less.

Modeled on d1e Willie Clancy Summer School in Milton Malbay, County Clare, from humble beginnings the Arts Week has grown into the biggest annual traditional Irish music school in the United States.

I first stumbled onto d1e scene about

ER ICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

from the '60s. They range from bare basics to genteel chintz and lace; a drive around the back lanes reveals neat cottages and lawns nestled in the rolling hills -one could easily imagine being back in County Clare.

At the Michael J. Quill Cultural Centre plans are under way to re-create an authentic l.tish village; the fu¡st cottage is finished and stands gleaming white under a thatched roof, high on a hill. There is a 9/11 Memorial with commemorative flags and a summer dance school run by Tony and Sheila Davoren.

This is a community with deep roots. The one oddity I have found over the years I've been visiting is there are few, if any, local traditional musicians, and no regular sessions during the rest of the year. I guess the Atts Week brings in a festival so concentrated it's enough to echo the year round.

And so my week continues. I stopped taking workshops after the first three years - as the evening sessions went later and later, it was becoming a 16-hour day, which was okay with me, but the household got restless. So I settled on the evenings, and I drink responsibly - on my way out of town late one night I was stopped and breathalized. I passed fine, but it was a scare, so be warned - pub crawling by designated driver only. (By the way, most people come from far further afield than myself, and book into rooms for the week. I've found a 40minute drive each way to be in my own bed well worthwhile).

The music this year is, as always, superlative, one night Liz Carroll teaming

(,eltic mn15ic i15 alive and ftotrri15hi::g, and nowhere more

150

lhan in

&l.St

Dnrham,

J&¡

NewJork for one week eveg up with Maeve Donnelly and bringing the house down, another night Joannie Madden, as always, stealing the show.

One evening I walked into McGrath's just as a circle of young men and women launched into a 20-minute set of sublime pieces an¡anged for fiddles, cellos, flutes and bodhran. The Noel Rice Academy from Chicago was just warming up, to an audience of the barman, myself, and a couple of others.

Another night, another session, Jackie Daly planked down next to me, and for two glorious hours I got an earful of left-hand chords only a genius could dream up.

On any given ni ght after the concert there are half a dozen simultaneous sessions and dances aro und town, and I haven 't even mentioned the afternoon gatherings, so you could talk to any one person and find they had a completely different experience of the week.

On the final Saturday there is a concert from 12 noon to 8 p.m . in the Festival Barn, and people come from far and wide.

Strangely though, many that had been there all week, myself included,

Above: Kevin Burke and Ged Foley.

Top right: lan Worpole and fiddler John Carty.

Bottom right: The Coen brothers: Jack and Fr. Charlie.

pass on this one- I feel I've been privy to something much more personal. But I sme was sorry to miss Joannie Madden and fourteen "Cherished Ladies" lined across the stage for the grand finale. I hear it was a classic. Each year brings tributes to musicians lost along the way, and you could be forgiven for thinking that the music might be dying out, but every year brings ever more, ever younger, virtuosi players to swell the ranks.

An old-timer mentioned that 30 years ago you would be lucky to get a new recording, any recording, once every six months. Today, dozens of CDs, and good ones at that, come out every week.

Irish, or to use the more current, allembracing heading, Celtic music is alive and flourishing , and nowhere more so than in East Durham, New York, for one week every July. m1

SLAINTE ¡ BY EDYTH E PREET

Beer

What Came First:

Bread or Brew â&#x20AC;˘

read is called The Staff of Life.

Many scholars believe our di stant ancestors gave up hunting and gathering for an agricultural lifestyle once they learned how to bake it. There is evidence that barley was first methodically planted and harvested 10,000 years ago, but a key question remains unanswered. What prompted the sowing of the first seed?

In the 1950s, University of Chicago archaeologist Robert Braidwood suggested it was the discovery of bread-making methods that led to the domestication of cereal grains. Responding to the theory,

University of W isconsin botani st Jonathan Sauer claimed it was a thirst for beer that turned early humans from foragers into farmers.

Sauer contended the work involved in collecting wild barley seeds was too m.uch trouble if the only reward was a bit of bread. He proposed that somewhere along the line someone carelessly left a bowl of precious barley out in the rain.

The combined action of ai r-borne yeast and moisture would ha ve caused the seeds to ferment, producing beer.

We' ll never know who first sipped the barley brew, but odds are that whoever it

106 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

was called for another round. Texts preserved on clay tablets dating back to 4000 B.C. indicate beer was the preferred drink of Sumerian men and women regardless of class or station. Two thousand years later, Babylonjan bars offered customers a selection of more than a dozen beers. Beer was so much a part of antiqu ity's daily life that the world 's earliest code of laws, compiled by King Hammurabi in 1800 B.C., stipulated stiff penalties for offenses at beer taverns.

Brewers who diluted their products or overcharged patrons were drowned in their own vats.

By no means did the ancient Middle East have an exclusive on beer. Barl ey is a friendly crop that will grow just about anywhere. Vikings imbibed great quantities of the heady stuff. As fortification against the cold, they ate a many as six meal s a day , and beer-bread soup was a favor ite menu item . Spirits of slai n warriors were whisked to Valhalla to spend eternity feasting and carousing where buxom Valkyries made sure the fe llo ws' drinking horns never ran dry.

While Viking raiders were known more for their sins than their beer, two Iri sh saints were as famed for their brew as their good deeds. St. Bridget is said to have brewed the best ale in her time, and St. Pat1ick carried hi s own brewer on his Irish missionary route.

Doing so was hardly necessary, as the Celts had been rlli xing up a beer called coirm for millennia. In the early Irish epic Tajn Bo Cualinge, King Conchubar often spent "a third of hi s day feasting. a third watching the yo ung warriors wrestle, and a thjrd drinking coirm until he falls asleep. " The size of Celtic storage casks was on an epic scale too. Legend holds they were bigger than most houses.

Patrick and Bridget were not the only clerics who were fond of beer. In the cloistered shelter of medjeval monasteries, monks raised the art of brewing to heavenly heights. With a gallon daily

SLAINTE

allowance, much of their earthly reward was reaped lon g befo re they reached the pearly gates . Even the penitential Cu ldee monks who subsisted o n an extremely austere and spartan diet were allowed a daily ratio n. For the sin of gluttony , however, over-ind ul gers were made to do penance. If a monk drank so heavil y he could not recite the psalms, he was deprived of supper.

There were rules fo r lay folk as well.

The Brehon Laws allowed anyo ne who so chose to concoct his own brew, but stip ulated stiff regulations regarding the manner of running pubs. For quarreling in an aleho use a person was fo rbidden to graze his cattle for three days, and if a mentally disabled person brought to an alehouse by a rational man fo r amusement should injure anyone, the jokester was li able for compensati o n of all ensuing damages and/or injuri es.

Early brews were made from just about any grain - oats, wheat, or barley - plu s pring water and fre~ently honey . It was not until the late 18t century that breweries began producing beer made from a mixture of malt, grain , water, sugar, yeast and hops o n a commercial scale. Today, a

r----------cA.x~

VISit to a ny pub wi ll evidence that although ale, beer, lager and porter are on tap, a "properly pulled pint" of stout is the quaff of choice. And it was a descendant of the co irm-l ov ing <;::elts who devised the recipe for the quintessenti ally Irish thick, rich, dark brew that when poured correctly is capped with an inch of creamy white foam.

On New Year's Eve 1759, Arthur Guinness took possession of the 80-yearold brewery at St. James Gate, a defense point remaining from the medieval walled city of Dublin . In exchange for the annual s um of 45 pounds sterling, Guinness received a 9,000-year lease on the property and all the water he ' d ever need FREE fro m the River Liffey.

Arthur's new black beer took off like a rocket, and the city fathers quickly realized what a dreadful mistake they'd made. When a sheriff attempted to destroy the pipe line, Arthur appeared brandi shing a pickaxe and hurling a volley of colorful Iri sh curses. After a twe nty-year court battle, a compromise was finall y reached. Today, Guinness production tops 750 mi llion p ints a year!

Though known around the world,

Guinness is on ly one of many fine Irish brews. My own personal prefere nce is Smithwick's Ale, produced by Ireland 's oldest operating brewery. Predating Arthur Guinness' contract coup by nearly f ive decades, in 1710 John Smithwick opened a brewery on a site once occupied

by Kilkenny's 14th-century St. Francis Abbey wh ich also produced a light ale.

For more than o ne hundred years, the brewery remained a small operation , until Edmund Smithwick took over in 1827. B y mid-century he had built the family business into a flouri shing export operation , and today Smithwick's is the larges t-selling ale in Ireland.

Many a cook knows th at beer enlivens the palate and adds an extra measure of pleas ure to food. Soups are heartier.

Slow-cooked beans become vel ve ty.

Delicate beer batter adds zip to fried fish.

Spicy fruitcakes age with a mellow tang.

Few will den y that the most refreshing drink, bar none, is a fros ty mug of icecold beer. Add a loaf of wholegrain bread and a wedge of fine Irish cheese to the bill of fare, and yo u' ll be e njoying a rep as t that's as old as Erin herself.

Slainte!

'"~.A~----------.

R E C I PE S

~~&-------------------------~

CHEESE-BEER SOUP W/ VEGGIES

CHEDDAR-GUINNESS SOUP

NOTE: This soup is great for an autumn Tailgate Party' To keep hot, use a well-insulated thermos. Preheat thermos by filling it with boiling water for 5 minutes.

1 tab lespoon butter 1 cup minced carrots 1 cup minced celery 1 cup minced onions 1 large clove minced garl ic 6 cups chicken broth 2 cups grated cheddar cheese 1 tablespoon flour 112 teaspoon dry mustard 12 oz beer (1 bottle- room temperature) 1 teaspoon Worcestershi re sauce dash Tabasco Melt butter in a large stockpot. Add carrots, celery. onions and garlic. Saute until vegetables are wilted. Add chicken broth, bring to a boil. then reduce heat and immer 45 minutes.

Toss cbee e with flou r and dry mustard, then add to broth. Continue to simmer, stining constantly, until soup thickens slightly. Add the beer and continue to stir until soup thickens a bit more. Add Worcestershire and Tabasco to taste. Makes 6 servings. (Personal recipe)

BEER BREAD 3 cups self-rising flour 12oz beer (1 bottle - room temperature) 1/4 cup sugar Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bow l, combine ingredients and stir until well mixed. Turn dough into a buttered I -pound loaf pan. Set on middle shelf of oven and bake 30-40 minutes, unti l loaf sounds holl ow when tapped. Remo ve from oven, butter top lightly and return to oven to brown for an additional 5 minute (or until golden). Makes one 1-pound loaf. (Personal recipe)

4 tablespoons butter 4 tablespoons flour 3 cups milk 3/4 cup Guinness 1 tablespoon minced garlic salt and pepper to taste 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 2 cups extra-sharp cheddar cheese Heat butter in a sma.ll saucepan, add flour and cook on low heat until mixture (roux) begins to bubble - do not let brown. Remove from heat and set aside.In a large saucepan or stockpot, combine milk, garlic, salt, pepper, and pepper flakes. Heat to almost boiling, but do not let boil. Add half of the butter/flour mixture; simmer, stining constantly with a wire whisk, until the soup thickens. Add more roux if a thicker soup is desired. Add Guinness and cheddar; continue stirring over low heat (do not boil) until the cheese has completely melted and the soup is velvety. Makes 6 servings.

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 107

CROSFOCALCROSSWORD â&#x20AC;˘ BY DAR INA MOLLOY

ACROSS 1.

3.

4.

Recently retired golfer, Jack _ _ (8) Galway island (4) (& 30 down) Clones boxer who defeated Mike Tyson this year (5) 6. See 3 8 across (7) 7. See 22 down (4) 9. See 36 across (9) 10. (& 17 down) The late Maeve Brennan wrote for this publication (3,3) 12. American singer turned children 's author (7) 13. Famous Galway bookshop (6) 14. JR & Bobby's family name (5) 16. Famous cut-glass lamps (7) 18. Flinch with pain (5) 20. (& 21 down) This O 'Connor recently retired from Supreme Court (6) 23. See 3 down (6) 24. The ultimate New York breakfast food (5) 25. Classic Greek architectural style (5) 26. London transport system (4) 27. Inrimidating NZ pre-rugby chant (4) 28. This British & Irish rugby team didn 't fare too well in New Zealand (5) 29. (& 11 down) Second husband of 43 across (3) 32. Cork is on this river (3) 35. _ _ Riche (7) 36. (& 9 across ) Sisters of this IRA victim campaigned for justice in the U .S. (6) 38. (& 6 across) Actress who has wrirten of post-natal depression (6) 40. Florida city (5) 41. Dark brown sauce used in Chinese cooking (3) 42. Irish county with corrupt police, says Morris Repo rt (7) 43. Jane Fonda's My_ So Far (4) 44. Ireland in Irish (4)

AUGUST I SEPTEMBER SOLUTION

DOWN 2. Famous ship torpedoed off Cork coast in 1915 (9) 3. (& 23 across) One of the tube stations hit by terrorists in July (7) 4. See 14 down (5) 5. Co. Down town (5) 8. __ Nagle: voted greatest Irish woman ever in radio poU (4) 9. A modern art museum by any other name (4) 11. See 29 across (6) 14. (& 4 down) Author of new Hillary Clinton tome (6) 15. Ireland's national football (6) 17. See I 0 across (6) 19. Trim is in this Leinster county (5) 21. See 20 across (3) 22 . (& 7 across) Woodward & Bernstein's 'Deep Throat' unmasked (4) 23. Ireland's Yeats counrry (5) 27. Hallowed (4) 28. Host to the 2012 Olympics (6) 30. See 4 across (7) 31. Slang for non-Dublin person (7) 33. Julia Roberts film: Sleeping with the __ (5) 34. A cell phone, not static, in Ireland (6)

37. The Secret of_ lnish (4) 39. Famous lake in County Fermanagh (4) 41. Spanish for yes (2)

" WIN A SUBSCRIPTION TO IRISH AMERICA MAGAZINE!" Please send your completed crossword puzzle to Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue. Suire 2100, New York. Y 10001. ro arrive no later rhanAugusr IO, 2005. A winner will be drawn from among all corn:ct emric.s received. In the evenr rhar there are no complerely corrcn solmions, prizes wi ll be awarded to the completed puzzle whi ch comes closest in rhe opinion of our staff. Winner's name wi ll be pu bli shed along w irh solur io n in our Ocrober/November 2005 issu~. Readers may send in Xerox copies of Cros Focal.

Winner of rhe Augusr/Seprember Crossword: Elizaberh Long, Easr Nonhporr, New York.

108 IRISH AME RICA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005

PHOTO ALBUM

FIRST CoMMUNION

DAY, 1933

F

or the Byrne family all the important occasions brought them to a spot under the Hell gate Bridge in Astoria, Queens for a snapshot. First Communion Day for Joan Byrne in 1933 was no exception. From the erious looks on the faces of this gathering of family and neighbors. it is easy to see that times were tough. It was the middle of the Depression and Eugene Byrne, an electrician, was getting only four days of work a month from the WPA. Born in Tyrone in 1899, and raised in Dundalk, Eugene Joseph Byrne had been hastily sent to live with relatives in New York City following the death of his mother, Cathetine Dunne, in childbuth. Aniving in 1914, he enlisted in the Navy in 1918, and was shipped off to France to fight the Great War. When he returned to the State , he met and manied fifteen-year-old Evelyn Miller and settled down in the mixing bowl of Astmia, Queens.

Four girls quickly followed . Although the Navy taught him a trade, steady work was hard to flnd until he landed a job at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the 1940s. However, fate was not kind for the couple, and Evelyn Byrne died in 1945 at the age of 43.

Eugene never remarTied. In his later year·s, he dreamed of one day returning to Ireland to see the fa ther and five siblings he had left behind. However, he never traveled back to his beloved motherland . Perhaps he was unable to face everything that he had been forced to leave behind as a child.

The young gu·l in the Communion dress grew up to be my mother. The family had a har·d time during the Depression and my mother talked about it often when I was growing up. In fact, she used to remar·k that she' d seen a man jump in desperation from the bridge in the picture, but I have never been able to find anyone who could corroborate that information. (She could tell a story).

- Submitted by Nan Byrne, Virginia Beach, Virginia Please send photographs along with your name. address. phone number, and a brief description to Declan O'Kelly at Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue. Suite 2100.

New York NY 10001. u· photos are irreplaceable, then please send a good quality reproduction or email the picture at 300 dpi resolution to Irishamag@aol.com.

No photocopies. please. We wi ll pay $65 for each photo that we select

OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005 IRISH AMERICA 109

n 1870 New York City was home to 200,000 people of Irish birth, more than any other city in the world, including Dublin. Under the tutelage of Tammany Hall the sw-vivors and descendants of the Irish Famine and the American Civil War had wrested control of City Hall and its political patronage. Yet the tide of immigration from Ireland, Italy and other European countries continued to swell the numbers of poverty stricken, dislocated populace in the city.

To the Irish in pa.Iticular there were fewer words more foul to describe a political opponent than to label him a "Reformer." This was a term used by the elite privileged class who had lost control in the ballot box and were seeking to regain the primacy of their beliefs and social order by campaigning for enactment of such objectives by law.

Under the guise of "good citizenship" and "Christian Aid" organizations the Refonners canvassed the State of New York Legislature to enact laws that would enable them legally to re-assert their power base.

By 1853 legal mechanisms were already in place enabling Protestant reformers to remove children from the fa.Inilies of the poor, the vast majority of which would have been of immigrant Irish stock. At its most heinous, the truancy law enabled citizens to seize any child on the street during school hours. If taken into custody a second time the child would be committed to a "Christian Aid Society" for the remainder of his or her childhood.

By the mid 1870' s an estimated 10,000 children a year were being snatched from their parents or seized on the streets of New York City and "placed-out" to good Christian homes in the Midwest. This practice led to the infamous "Orphan Train"

I

(pictured above) which regularly transported the legally kidnapped and largely Irish Catholic children away from family, relatives, parish and city, all in the nan1e of "Ch.Jistian Aid." Such "good works" did not come cheap, however, and the powdered, primed, and starched elites had to dig into their pockets to maintain the children until they were "placed-out." Once again, by lobbying the state legislature they succeeded in having the Children ' s Law enacted. This was intended to enab le the Reformers to both expand the system and to gua.I·antee the cost of maintaining the children until they were "placed-out."

However, the Catholic Union lobbying group wasn't idle either, and it gained sufficient support in securing an amendment stipulating that the children be cared for in institutions of their own religious background.

The nuns in New York City, mostly Irish born or Irish-American, immediately grasped the opportunity that the new law offered. The Sisters of Mercy, who flrst came to New York from Dublin in 1848, quickly informed the Superintendent of the Poor that the Institution of Mercy would take cha.I·ge of any number of young girls at whatever rate the government proposed. Soon, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd and other Catholic institutions followe~ Mercy ' s example.

By' 1885, Catholic nuns were rearing 80 percent of New York City' s state-dependent children, and the dreaded "Orphan Train" was brought to an end. It was this network of church, school and politics that kept the urban Irish community together in the face of religious intolerance, massive dislocation and grinding poverty.

110 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER/ NOVEMBER 2005

The G.I. Bill of Rights On 22 June 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the "Servicemen's Readjustment Act" better known as the "G.l.

Bill of Rights." Considered by many to be the last piece of New Deal legislation, it has since been recognized as one of the most important Acts of Congress in the 20th century.

The G.l. Bill provided for an ex-serviceman ' s college tuition , plus books, fees and a subsistence allowance. In the peak yea.I· of 1947 veterans accounted for 49 percent of college enrollments. Typically, the elites opposed the bill. The President of Ha.I·vard was against the idea of allowing servicemen to go to college. Others feared veterans would lower educational standards.

Many universities , however, used the opportunity to expand their facilities. The University of Michigan , for example, had under I 0,000 students prior to the wa.I·. In 1948 its enrollment exceeded 30,000.

Few groups took to the G.I. Bill like the Irish . Their desire for education was always strong with the backing of the teaching brothers and nuns, not to mention Irish mothers. And with tuition and expenses paid, plus a living allowance, they poured into colleges and universities and put in place a giant stepping-stone to their advancement in industry and finance in the decades that followed.

We Irish didn ' t just make it on our own, much as we may like to think so. We had big helping hands along the way. Let's not forget whose they were. mt Emmett O'Connell, born and raised in the South Bronx, is now retired in Wexford, Ireland after a lifetime of mineral explo· ration across the globe.

Always the freshest flowers (no blarney!)

â&#x20AC;¢

1-800-flowers com,M Your florist of choice,~

liS

vs. who cares