AOH Home of the Brooklyn Irish
Baile na nGael
Monday, July 27, 2026
Posted by Jim on December 19, 2019
WTC
Retired Firefighter Thomas J. Alioto
Ladder Company 147
WAKE
Saturday, December 21, 2019
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Sunday, December 22, 2019
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
John Vincent Scalia Home for Funerals
28 Eltingville Boulevard
Staten Island, NY 10312
FUNERAL
Monday, December 23, 201911:00
110 Nelson Avenue
Staten Island, NY 10308
All Off-Duty Members should attend in Class A Uniform.
Posted by Jim on
East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson has welcomed the Government’s plans to introduce protections for members of the Armed Forces against vexatious prosecutions.
Spokesman on Justice, Home Affairs and Human Rights.
Mr Robinson served on the Defence Select Committee and he said,
“The Government has previously talked about protections for members of our Armed Forces and this commitment in the Queen’s Speech is to be welcomed. There is an obvious need to see the details of exactly what will be brought forward. The Government will be able to draw on the work of the Defence Committee in the last Parliament which has examined many of the issues related to this.
Whatever is brought forward must apply across the United Kingdom as a whole. There is no difference made between soldiers who are serving depending on where they come from and, like the Armed Forces Covenant, there should be no difference in the implementation of such legislation across the UK.
There have been some who have attempted to suggest these proposals will impact upon the talks to restore devolution in Northern Ireland. Such hyperbole is unnecessary and unhelpful. Both in the talks and in the investigation of the proposals to be brought forward by the Government what is needed is calm, rational and constructive engagement rather than knee-jerk reactions to grab a headline.”
Posted by Jim on December 17, 2019
The Voice of the Irish in America
December 2019
A chairde:
FFAI ISSUES UPDATE
A – Johnson has his Brexit majority – Boris Johnson picked up 47 seats and an overall majority more than 70 seats, which will empower him “to get Brexit done quickly.” Meanwhile wins by nationalists and republicans in the north and the Scottish National Party in Scotland, kept Irish unity and Scottish independence on the agenda.
Johnson called the British General Election after a series of parliamentary defeats blocked him from moving forward with Brexit and his renegotiated withdrawal agreement out of the European Union. He banked on winning an outright Tory majority in the election, picking up enough MPs approve his deal. With the largest Tory majority in 30 years, he has his parliamentary backing to get out of the EU by 31 January. Johnson wants to complete a new trade deal with the bloc by December 2020 or go without any trade deal and terminate any interim agreements by the end of 2020.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbin will resign after the worst showing by Labour in 30 years.
In the north the Democratic Unionist Party, went into the election with 10 seats and expected to pick up the seat vacated by the retiring Sylvia Hermon. Instead the DUP suffered a “Friday the 13th nightmare” defeat. Both deputy leader Nigel Dodds and Emma Little-Pengelly were ousted, while the vacated seat was taken by Alliance.
The SDLP won seats in Derry and South Belfast, leaving the DUP and unionists with only 8 of the north’s 18 Westminster seats. It is the first time nationalist parties held more seats than unionists in the six counties. Nationalists swept all border communities and 3 of Belfast’s 4 seats.
The DUP also lost all leverage at Westminster. The party’s 10 votes had been needed first by Theresa May and then Boris Johnson to become Prime Minister. However the DUP broke with Johnson over his Brexit plan, calling it a “betrayal agreement” because it allowed for checks and regulations on goods which crossed the Irish sea. Getting his Brexit deal done proved more important to Johnson than keeping his word to unionists about avoiding a line down the Irish Sea.DUP objections to Johnson’s deal will now be dismissed.
The loss of Nigel Dodds, party leader at Westminster, and the seat he had held for 18 years to John Finucane, was a bitter blow for the party.
Meanwhile the SNP swept 48 of Scotland 59 seats. Party leader Nicola Sturgeon called the result a “renewed, refreshed and strengthened” mandate for Scottish independence. Johnson said he will not allow Scotland a new referendum on independence but the calls for a new referendum continue and will be noted in Ireland.
B – Britain reneges on OTR letters for Republicans while moving amnesty for British troopers-Sixty-seven year old John Downey, is being held without bail in Maghaberry Prison, on IRA related charges from 1972,despite an OTR pledge by the British crown that he would not be prosecuted. Meanwhile Boris Johnson has pledged what amounts to a legal amnesty for British troopers, by changing the Human Rights Act, to cease applying to any acts by British forces that took place before 2000, including murders during the Troubles.
This move would cut-off access to British courts for relatives of victims killed by British crown forces, and violate specific sections of the Good Friday Agreement where Britain pledged to put the European Convention of Human Rights into law for the north, with direct access to the courts.
John Downey had been arrested in 2013 and accused of involvement in an IRA attack in England.However those charges were dismissed because he had been granted immunity in an OTR “on the run” letter,which pledged he was not wanted for arrest, questioning or charge by the crown. Terms for the release of Republican prisoners and closure for those Republicans, who the crown wanted to make prisoners for pre-1998 actions, were high on the agenda in negotiations. Tony Blair, the British leader in these negotiations, said the OTR issue was “absolutely critical”, “fundamental” and talks could have “collapsed” without a satisfactory settlement. Negotiations on OTRs continued after the Good Friday Agreement and were amplified in the Weston Park Accord of 2001.The British, in Paragraph 20, pledged to take such steps necessary to insure that prosecutions for pre-April 1998 actions against members of organizations on ceasefire were “no longer pursued”. Administrative mechanisms were constructed to carry oral and later written immunity pledges. Senior staff were assigned to carry out this agreed process. Republicans who had lived years outside the north returned home and lived openly. Following the 2013 arrest and the 2014 dismissal of all charges, the British apparently decided to renege on these immunity grants and make an example of John Downey.
Meanwhile the one-sided secretive scheme of undeclared immunity or impunity for members of the British Army or constabulary who committed or colluded in sanctioned murders is now about to be made British law.
C – Stormont agreement expected from new talks-After a nearly three year absence, talks are beginning this week which are expected to revive the Stormont Assembly. Past talks broke down, most notably in February 2018 when the DUP reneged on an agreement because supporters would not accept an Irish Language Act. However the election results put new pressure on both the DUP and Sinn Fein to make an agreement. The British General Election took away the DUP’s leverage at Westminster and cost it two seats while the Sinn Fein vote share was also reduced. British colonial secretary Julian Smith threatened to call new six county Assembly elections, if there is no deal by mid-January. Stormont collapsed in January 2017 when Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy first minister over the DUP’s handling of the botched Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme. Other issues, such as an Irish Language Act, reform of the Petition of Concern and the legacy of the Troubles, have also come to the fore in successive rounds of failed talks aimed at restoring power-sharing.The talks will begin with individual meetings between Smith and the five largest Assembly parties, the DUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP, Ulster Unionists and Alliance before moving to round table talks. The Irish government is also scheduled to join in the talks.
D – Veteran Republican Ivor Bell vindicated after 5 year ordeal-The five year prosecution of 82 year old prominent Irish Republican Ivor Bell, ended with his being cleared of all charges and a ruling that there was not any admissible evidence against him. Bell had been in his late 70s in 2014, when taken from his home and charged with soliciting the death and disappearance of an informer more than 40 years earlier. Ivor Bell had been one of a 5 member delegation flown to England to represent the IRA in negotiations with the British in 1972,as well as a former IRA Chief of staff and Belfast Commander. The controversial charges were based on statements allegedly made by him in an interview recorded on the Boston College tapes. Bell said he was not the man on the tapes, known as ‘Interviewee Z’ and that he had been living in County Louth at the time of the Belfast killing. The interviewee said only that he was opposed to disappearing or secretly burying any informers killed by the IRA. After 5 years of stringent bail restrictions and petty harassment, the tapes were ruled unreliable and could not be used as evidence against Mr Bell. The judge told jurors: “There is now no evidence which the prosecution can put before you in order to support the case.”My role now is to direct you to return a verdict of not guilty, because you simply cannot find him to have done the acts alleged.”Mr Bell’s solicitor, Peter Corrigan, said his client had been vindicated. The Boston tapes were an oral history project, commissioned by Boston College. Recordings were made of interviews with former combatants about their activities during the Troubles on the understanding these would not be made public until after their deaths. Ed Moloney, the journalist behind the Boston College project, said he welcomed Mr Bell’s acquittal.
CHRISTMAS APPEAL
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is no fiend of Ireland or Irish justice. His top issue is Brexit no matter what Brexit means for Ireland. He wants to deny truth and justice to the families of victims murdered by the crown or loyalist agents by laws that remove Human Rights Acts protections formally agreed in the Good Friday Agreement. He will continue austerity cuts in funding that will bring greater hardship in the six counties.
At times like these, Irish people in the north look to America to stand behind them. We have already received more appeals for help than ever before. America can make a difference for them, at this crucial time but only if the AOH and LAOH, as the voice of the Irish in America, lead the way. Our donations to carefully chosen charities through monies raised by the FFAI Annual Christmas Appeal, alongside our political and educational campaigns, are the cornerstone of our FFAI initiative.
Don’t let them down!!!
AOH-LAOH FFAI CHRISTMAS APPEAL
PO Box 904
Jefferson Valley,
New York 10535
TIME TO MAKE McALLISTER’S VICTORY FINAL
It was a “Happy Thanksgiving” for Malachy McAllister, his supporters and for justice. After yet another six months of deep anxiety for himself and his family, the combined efforts by political leaders, Cardinal Dolan and the AOH succeeded in halting Malachy’s deportation for another six months. It is too important a victory to be hollowed out, or even lost, six months from now.
One can only imagine what it is must be like for Malachy to face the real threat of deportation again and again.
Few individuals could have earned the sympathy and backing of the range of supporters necessary to keep him here, given the current political climate. Senators Menendez, Schumer, Congressmen King, Engel, Smith and Pascrell were among those who personally intervened with the administration. Cardinal Dolan called the President. Many law enforcement and military officials publicly endorsed him. The Irish Embassy backed him. The AOH and other Irish organizations campaigned for him.
Malachy has multiple grounds which should have entitled him to full legal permanent residence under American law. He has lived in America for decades, is a father , successful businessman and, respected member of the Irish-American community. He should be allowed to live here without semi-annual battles against deportation hanging over his head, where the British and DHS as the expression goes “only have to get lucky once.”
In 1997 the Irish political deportee cases were settled by the Clinton administration, upon formal request by Secretary of State Albright to Attorney General Reno.It was supposed to open the door for others. Malachy McAllister found the door had been shut. Malachy McAllister, was involved in a conflict which is long over. Clearly Cardinal Dolan, leading politicians, law enforcement and so many Irish Americans would not have backed a criminal. America must not continue to victimize him and his family at Britain’s behest! We cannot enjoy Malachy’s victory only to see him go through it again in 6 months.
FFAI MONTHLY BULLETIN
Please read and distribute the monthly FFAI Bulletin. The is now available on AOH national email blasts, or on the New York State and National AOH web sites. We want to give you monthly updates on key events in the north with short analysis and explanation.
Slan,
MARTIN GALVIN
NOLLAIG SHONA DAOIBH!-MERRY CHRISTMAS
Posted by Jim on
Retired FF Michael Miller
Retired Firefighter and
Please take a moment to share the word on social media channels that a brother who has served his country and city is in need of a blood type O kidney donation. If anyone has any information regarding a possible donor, please contact the Stony Brook Transplant Department to speak with Stephen Knapik at 631-444-6944 or Lisa Etter at 631-444-8009. Thank you in advance. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Posted by Jim on
Brendan Patrick Keane
The famous Jacob Riis photo of residents of Five Points, in the Lower Eastside of New York City.Jacob Riis / NYC Library
Just before he died, Daniel Cassidy released a pioneering book that begins to prove how American slang has a root in the Irish American urban experience.
As usual, snoots would rather fall on the side of error than to end the kibosh on ascribing Irish origins to any aspect of Anglo-American society.
Ireland has a native civilization older than England or France, and it has out-proportioned contributions to modernist culture, but it is more usually described as derivative rather than an originator of trends. Despite stubborn refusal, “jazz” and “poker”, “moolah” and “spunk” all derive from Irish Gaelic, which was used in New York by the Irish like Yiddish and Spanglish was used later-on in the city.
Some dismiss these theories without any real understanding of the Irish Gaelic language. They existentially must disallow the language had mixed with English – jerks without the knack to dig it. Others dismiss the theories in loyalty to academia’s wine and cheese status quo, and don’t wish to seem too maverick, or too “street,” like Cassidy who had an unabashed Brooklyn accent. There’s an element of snobbery involved in the outright refusal many swells have for this working stiff’s tome.
Cassidy was among those who have begun to case the hidden history, anyway, and show how gambling slang, underworld lingo, street gang terms, street-wise cant, merchant code and political jargon in New York City is teeming with Irish Gaelic that melted into American English.
Fellow politically-minded academics present English history and culture as being spic and span of Irish influence, and so ignore impulsively, both Irish American slang-smiths in the modern period and Irish Gaelic teachers who taught the early Medieval English how to read and write. They prefer to label Irish words in English as unknown, or originated in more swank cultures like Latin or French. It’s basic prejudice on the side of the common hegemony, rooted in ignorance.
This is a small taste compiled from Daniel Cassidy’s boss book, “How the Irish Invented Slang”, and from Niall Ó Donaill’s “Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla”.
We don’t normally exclaim “Gee whiz” or “Gee whilikers” anymore. We associate such talk with a classic time in New York, when Irish Gaelic was the secret language of the slums, an Irish Gaelic word which means ‘s slom é, or “it’s bleak.” In the slums it was common to hear Irish people say Dia Thoilleachas, Gee Hillukus, which became Gee Whilikers, and means the “will of God.” “Gee” is the approximate pronunciation of Dia, or the Irish word for God. “Holy cow” means Holy Cathú or Holy Cahoo or Holy Grief. “Darn” is another Gaelic exclamation. In Irish you say daithairne ort, which means, “darn on you” or “misfortune on you.” Gee whiz comes from Dia Uas or Geeuh Woous which means “noble god.”
Irish love words were once all over pop songs pumped out from Tin Pan Alley. “Mother Macree”, or mother of my heart, was a huge hit from those early days of pop. A big name in early popular theater, was Irishman Dion Boucicault who wrote ‘The Streets of New York”, and included lots of Gaelic in the titles and dialogue of his blockbusters.
Irish pet names like peata, or pet, are still current, as is báb or bawb, which is babe today.
Love songs were published as sheet music for people to sing to at the piano, and it was commonplace to hear Irish pet names like Avourneen, Mavourneen, Acushla, Agrah and other lovely words like that
The Irish were pioneers in pop culture, and they littered American popular entertainment from Mother Macree to Huckleberry Finn with snippets of their language.
If you want to cully support, you’re calling on your cuallaí, or friends to help you. In modern Irish, collaí has the sense of being carnal or sexual.
If you want to gather people together you make a ballyhoo about the gathering, which in Irish is bailliú, and pronounced like ballyhoo. You might use a slogan in your ballyhoo to promote the gathering, as slogan comes from slua ghairm, the yell of a crowd or a battle-cry. Ballyhoo entered the language at the circus, where Irish people would use slogans to make ballyhoo about a new show everyone should come out and see. Buddy is another Irish Gaelic word, which comes from the Irish expression, a vuddy, or a bhodaigh, which means something like “pal.” The root of the word bhodaigh is strangely, bod, which is the Irish word for penis, and pronounced like bud.
Speaking of body parts, the Irish put their Gaelic mark all over the stiff, or corpse, which comes from the word staf or “big guy.” If someone has their snout in the air, they’re acting like snoots, which comes from the Irish expression snua aird or when someone appears to be on high and is acting like a swank swell with his nose in the air.
Swank is the Irish word somhaoineach or “valuable” in disguise. Swell is the word sóúil or “luxurious” dolled up to suit the English speaker. If you kick a rich guy in the can, you’re kicking him in his ceann which is the “extremity” of a thing, and also “head,” which is at the other end from the tail end.
Dogs comes from do chos your feet. The vulgar word for the vagina, pussy, isn’t so bad, it just means pus or pouty lips in Irish Gaelic. It’s a descriptive term, and not insulting. Mug, however, is insulting, and the common phrase “ugly mug” comes from the word muic, which means pig.
Irish Gaelic was a secret language in Éire, which was once an Ireland riddled with foreign spies, and so it was a language to keep the copper (the catcher, the thinker) from catching on. Cop comes from ceapaim, and means “I catch, think etc.” You try to keep the cop from figuring out your racket, or your reacaireacht, your “dealing, selling or gossiping.”
Just like the word bailiff came from the Gaelic word baille for bally or homevillage, the word in New York for the cop on the beat, was the ceap on the béad, the protector on ill-deeds.
Another kind of Big Shot is the racketeer, who can be a cop or a goon – glommers collecting grift – official or underworld. There’s little difference when you boil it down between official thieves and illegal ones, and the Irish knew this, observing the most organized acts of criminality enacted by a dolled up British state, exploiting and criminalizing their own civilization. Big Shot is the Irish word for chief in disguise: seoid, meaning “jewel” or figuratively, “chief.”
Racketeer is also related to the Irish word
A word that should be brought back is “joint” for place or establishment or room. It’s a word that instantly conjures an entire world of old New York. It comes from the Irish word for protection or shelter, a place with a roof, such as in the root of the Irish word for penthouse, díonteach or jeent-ock.
If you want to ditch a joint, and skedaddle in a jiffy, because some dick has copped on to your whereabouts, you want to de áit a díonteach or de-place a joint, and sciord ar dólámh or make an all out slip in a deifir in a “hurry,” because some dearc or “eye” or PI, has ceaptha or thought or caught on to your whereabouts.
Eugene O’Neill was another huge name in early American pop culture. His plays were also high art, but riddled with Irish themes and language. His favorite word for money was jack, which is a straight-up glom from the Irish tiach, or money or purse. A guy with a jack-roll, was a guy with a wad of cash, spoondoolies or dollars, rolled up. Spoondoolie is one of those old slang words that got resurrected recently in video games, along with Simolions, the currency of Sim City, an urban planning computer fantasy. They’re weird English takes on Irish Gaelic expression for a big pile of money or suim oll amháin.
Not everyone is hip to the process where words in one language get misheard and pronounced differently in the new language. In Irish if you want
Most scholars go by their goofy hunch, that tells them that Irish Gaelic is some dead language no one ever spoke. In fact, it was the first language of most Irish Americans that came here in the big flood of Irish after the famine, when that famine adversely targeted Irish-speaking areas first and foremost, sending Irish speakers to America before anyone.
In the anti-Gaelic mind, Irish language is a queer idea, and way too vast a thing to even engage – easier to kill it than to incorporate it into an academic’s repertoire of reference. The academic makes this decision usually because he or she is already burdened with three centuries of censorious English state propaganda about the meaning and origin of Anglo-American civilization, which did not come about like their poets’ tell us it did.
Another reason Irish Gaelic is neglected as an original source for American slang, is because a lot of the street slang that the Irish made up, relates to a world of vice and crime, some Irish would prefer did not exist.
There is shame associated with the destruction of native Irish Gaelic civilization, because the Irish lost their literature and institutions with the victory of the British Empire over their native government. They were impoverished, and took up crime in some instances. The Irish share with Black people and Jews, an urban legacy in America that is not squeaky clean, but rather dirty, like life is dirty when you have no money.
Having street smarts is one way to look at the world realistically, and not be duped by those who would double-cross you to take your jag on the personal level or your natural resources on the imperial one. Those who first come to the city as hicks or boobs, come with the law of hospitality firmly entrenched in their hearts, only to awaken from such kindness by the cruelty of urban America. It’s dangerous to be a dork or ninny in the dog eat dog world. That’s why there are so many words for the person-preconditioning, the person before he develops the cop-on that accompanies an ambitious life post-nincompoop to make it in New York.
One way to wake up is to get slugged in the face and have your jag jacked. The Fighting Irish is a common aptronym that describes the occupation of many a brawler that had to whale on an opponent to survive or climb the ladder leading out of the rat race.
As an organized people, they were sparring with a much better-organized establishment. The Irish bickered with the WASP elite until the established order in New York broke down, reformed the sweatshop system of labor in Victorian Anglo-American society, and conceded to the unions and political machines the rights and benefits that created the middle class from the working class that the establishment would have been happy to see slaving away in sweatshops to this day. Instead, the Irish organized and fought for a conception of America that yielded working people an American Dream, a chance to climb out of the slum and into a middle-class job and lifestyle.
Lace curtain Irish is a term that describes the middle class Irish who climbed out of the slum into the spic and span homes of the American dream. They left behind a time in American cities when the Irish were smack dab in the middle of street life, theater, pop entertainment, and politics. The swells from the WASP tradition who owned the banks and institutions of American society tried everything to defame and prevent the Irish from joining their swank ranks, but that ended, or so the story goes, when JFK broke the barrier that separated the WASP from the Irish, and went from Harvard to the White House, key bastions of the establishment’s institutional power.
One of the ways the Irish got there was by giving up their jazzy speech for the snazzy touch that remade them into crackers and honkies. Although it’s commonplace to describe the Irish today as white establishment members, par excellence, they come from Irish Gaelic roots that put them in the middle of New York street life. We’re comfortable enough now where we can re-engage that original condition, and reclaim for ourselves a key position in the history of American pop entertainment, language and culture.