SAINT PATRICK’S DAY IN AMERICA 2015; A POST-MORTEM
Posted by Jim on March 26, 2015
by Michael J. Cummings
According to a 2015 FORBES magazine survey 41 million Americans claim Irish heritage . Far fewer, of course, know anything about that Irish heritage either here or on yonder shamrock shore. I was one of them. In 1972 I listened to Bernadette Devlin speak in NYC and, as the expression goes, that has made all the difference. Over many St Patrick’s Day celebrations since, I have observed that around the feast day many important things are going on in America and in Ireland that usually go unnoticed by most celebrants. Take, for example, this year.
THE THREE AMIGOS
Remarks about the Anglo-Irish conflict of His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Vice President Joe Biden and a Goldman Sachs analyst Kevin Daly were widely quoted in the media. This is unusual in itself as none of them have been known to say anything of significance about Ireland’s conflict before. The Cardinal claimed the IRA and ISIS were alike. Apart from its disregard of the facts, virtually no one, even ex-British Army types, agreed with the analogy. In Washington, Vice-President Biden greeted N. I. Assembly leaders with “..if you are not wearing green you’re not welcome here” or words to that effect. Not the affable Joe’s finest hour! Goldman Sachs rolled out their ‘house’ Irish face, Kevin Daly, to explain why he thought the policies of Sinn Fein in Ireland would be troublesome for Ireland’s economy. This from the firm at the center of the mortgage meltdown which stopped America’s economy in its tracks!! Decades ago British leaders were behind a patently false article in the ECONOMIST magazine in order to scuttle talks about a re-united Ireland. You can be sure Mr. Daly is but a prop in that larger struggle.
WASHINGTON WATCH
It is customary for the British to have some royalty prancing around America and this year it was ‘Chazz’ and ‘Cammy’ who had a private audience with President Obama. At the same time, the State Department was canceling a scheduled meeting with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. Ironic No? Royal relics are ushered into the Oval Office while the door is shut in the face of a Member of the Irish Dail and the elected leader of a political party….for a meeting the Department scheduled! Added to this farce we have Dana Millbank of the Washington Post reporting on a press conference of U. S. Representative Price by citing St Patrick’s Day as “..the festival of inebriation.” A pathetic performance by the Department of State and a predictable performance by the Post. Britain’s dark forces at Whitehall… behind so much of the mayhem and slaughter in the North of Ireland… must have been doing cartwheels in Trafalgar Square.
MEDIA MASSAGE
Her Majesty’s Government has always been concerned that their dirty war in Ireland is covered up and that their treacherous role in Irish history be ‘cleansed’ in publications. Their influence in this respect is masterful and this St. Patrick’s Day was a shining example of their prowess. The NEW YORKER magazine published a long article by a Patrick Keefe who rehashed an old news story about a 1972 IRA killing not long after the British Army murdered 14 civil rights protesters in Derry and shortly after Britain’s Widgery Report not only absolved the murderers but blamed the victims. All the British buzz words were there. For example, “the Troubles’, as if Britain’s murderous reign was the equivalent of constipation. Or labeling as “one of the worst atrocities” the IRA execution of a British Army informer. The ‘atrocity’ label clearly belongs without question to the British Army 1974 no-warning bombing of Dublin and Monaghan killing 33 (mostly women and children shopping) and injuring 300. Or my favorite, citing “British repression” in quotes as if there was any question of the three decade record of their injustice and violence. The author noted that there was no response to his requests from Sinn Fein as though there was any need to respond to his tired tripe and smear.
Not to be outdone, the WALL STREET JOURNAL ( writer is a subscriber ) offered for their celebration of St Patrick’s Day a book review of R. F. Foster’s book VIVID FACES which generally panned Ireland’s revolutionary leaders. Like so many previous British smear artists the reviewer chose to highlight the homosexual tendencies of some of the leaders. The Anglophile newspaper that quotes Winston Churchill or Margaret Thatcher with utter abandon can be most scholarly and observant on many matters but not when it must follow a British diktat on Ireland!
Members of Congress hastily held a public hearing of the Helsinki Commission in Washington to explore England’s many delay tactics in addressing issues of the past in N. I. and their many failures in protecting human rights and promoting justice. Key witness Patrick Finucane’s widow Geraldine has become an international symbol of how America remains incapable or unwilling to demand the British bring her husband’s killers to justice. Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ) did not explain the absence of the Department of State’s human rights officials at the hearing . Nor did he explain how the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (S. 284) which he sponsors could sanction British officials for that murder and others. Perhaps for another day.
So you see there are other things about the Irish heritage of Americans going on around St Patrick’s Day besides parades. Hopefully in the not too distant future more Americans will become aware of such activities and demand change. When Gerry Adams addressed an audience in NYC with his first visa, he told them that the game-changer was radically opposed by the British not because they were afraid of him but because they were afraid of Americans. Now if only half of those 41 million Irish Americans could make that truth a reality.
Michael J. Cummings