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
Posted by Jim on March 25, 2015
Neil F. Cosgrove
It is difficult to find the word to express my deep disappointment and outrage over an Associated Press photo from the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade displayed in the March 18 Journal News.
It was not that one of the world’s largest parades, a seminal event for Irish Americans everywhere, and one which hundreds of Lower Hudson residents take part in, merited no more coverage than a single photo buried literally with the obituaries, but the image chosen appears to summarize the meaning of the parade and the day. The editors chose to eschew the countless sacrifices that Irish Americans have made as typified by the NY 69th whose roots trace back to the Irish Brigade of the Civil War and the legions of first responders who marched on the avenue. They did not choose to focus on the commemoration of the life of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, who is the reason for the day, or the countless families along the parade route maintaining a centuries old tradition.
What did the editors think was the image that best encapsulated St. Patrick’s Day? A photo of a young man wearing a shirt with “I (Recycle Symbol) Drunk Girls.” It would appear we have not moved on from the negative stereotypes and tropes targeting Irish Americans and St. Patrick’s Day first promulgated by bigoted 19th century journalist Thomas Nast.
At any parade or celebration, one can find a few individuals who don’t comprehend the true meaning of the day and denigrate it. However, it often seems that when it comes to St. Patrick’s Day, The Journal News makes an effort to seek out those confused individuals who think the day is “Mardi Gras II” rather than focusing on the majority who embody the true spirit of St. Patrick’s Day – something I do not note when they cover other ethnic celebrations. Such undeserved notoriety only further encourages this disrespectful and inappropriate behavior.
Before covering another St. Patrick’s Day event, I suggest the editors read President Obama’s proclamation of March as “Irish American Heritage Month” and heed his call to honor the numerous contributions of Irish Americans to our country, rather than promote individuals with questionable taste who seem to have little respect for the Irish or women. In the interim, I ask for an apology to the Irish American Community for the denigrating depiction of St. Patrick’s Day it promoted.
The writer, a New City resident, is national anti-defamation chair, Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Posted by Jim on March 22, 2015
by The Broken Elbow 3/22/15
The leaked story in today’s Sunday Telegraph reporting the British police’s intention to pursue six IRA activists who had been given so-called ‘comfort letters’ by the Blair government is another indication that the British are determined to continue waging war against the IRA despite the peace process and the reality that the Provisional movement has effectively accepted British rule in Northern Ireland.
This, along with the Cameron government’s expressed intention not to stand over the Blair letters to the so-called ‘On The Run’s’ or OTR’s – IRA suspects given promises of non-prosecution – and the pursuit of Ivor Bell, who will learn in a fortnight whether he will face charges in connection with the disappearance of Jean McConville, amount to a British default both from the spirit of the peace process and the commitments given during good faith negotiations with Sinn Fein and the IRA.
That the British intention to continue to pursue IRA suspects, try them in the courts and then imprison them amounts to an act of war against the IRA is undeniable in the context of the conflict since 1969.
Whereas the IRA’s campaign was characterised in the main by the shooting and bombing of British targets, the British response in the main took the form of trying to put as many IRA members as they could behind bars, using the police and the courts to do so (while the British also shot and killed many IRA members the greater part of their energies was spent trying to imprison them).
The fact that the IRA has completely abandoned violence against the British, has stopped shooting or bombing them and furthermore co-operated in the destruction of its arsenals while the British now trumpet their resolve to keep putting former IRA activists behind bars whenever they can, highlights an unspoken and unacknowledged reality: the IRA has ended its war against the British but the British have not ended their war against the IRA.
This would be completely uncontroversial had the Troubles in Northern Ireland ended in any way other than by a series of negotiated accords with each side making and giving concessions and no side claiming victory over the other.
This latter commitment was the defining principle of the peace process, the oil that greased the wheels: no-one came out and said ‘We Won!’ and by not doing so this enabled the already difficult process of making and demanding concessions to happen.
Implicitly and in an unspoken way, at least in public, the Troubles ended in a draw with every participant agreeing on ways of enabling each other to withdraw from the field of battle. It wasn’t easy and it took a long time to happen but without that agreement it probably never would have.
The fact that the British, or to be precise the Cameron government, are now flouting this principle amounts to a declaration of victory over the IRA and a hollowing out of the core of the peace process.
Had the Provos done something similar, for instance by announcing that the IRA was back in the business of acquiring weapons, how loud would be the cries of anger from London? And from Dublin? How grave would the resulting crisis be for the peace process? How quickly would Unionists have withdrawn from the GFA institutions?
But the Provos haven’t, and they won’t. And nor have they raised as much as a squeak in protest, at least in public, even though one very real consequence could be the abandoning of former comrades to jail time (except when their leader was briefly threatened with the same fate and that protest was quickly put down).
And ultimately it is this silence from Sinn Fein that is making it possible for the British to behave in this way. And by staying silent Sinn Fein is also admitting that the British are right; they won and to the victors go the spoils, including the right to put former adversaries behind bars, peace process or no peace process.
Posted by Jim on March 21, 2015
There has been “dishonourable silence” from the British government on
evidence of deep collusion between the British forces in Ireland and
unionist paramilitaries during the conflict, an Irish human rights
researcher author has told a US congressional panel.
Anne Cadwallader, a former journalist who currently works with human
rights group, the Pat Finucane Centre, testified before the Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe on Capitol Hill, discussing the
findings in her 2013 book, ‘Lethal Allies: British Collusion in
Ireland’.
The book covers the murders of more than 120 people from 1972 to 1978 in
counties Tyrone, Armagh and Monaghan, providing evidence that Loyalists
killers were helped by members of the then RUC police and the British
Army’s Ulster Defence Regiment.
The murders were linked to the Glennane Gang in Tyrone and Mid-Ulster, a
region that became known as the “Murder Triangle” during the 1970s
because of the number of murders carried out on Catholics.
Ms Cadwallader testified before the committee, also known as the
Helsinki Commission, about a bomb attack on the Step Inn bar in Keady,
County Armagh in August 1976 that killed two Catholics, mother of three
Elizabeth McDonald and 22-year-old Gerard McGleenan.
She told the committee that a paper trail has been found showing that
the bomb was made, transported and detonated with the active involvement
of members of the RUC and the British Army.
“To this day, no one in authority has ever gone to any of the bereaved
families or the injured to acknowledge the state’s involvement in these
horrific crimes,” she told the committee. “The papers establishing the
state’s guilt lay for over 30 years in locked police archives. Those who
knew at the highest levels, and I mean the highest levels, must have
hoped they would never be discovered.”
There has been “deafening silence” from the London government since her
book was published, she said.
“It is, in my view, a most shabby, unworthy and dishonourable silence.
The guilty silence of a disgraced establishment that hasn’t the courage
to face the truth,” she said.
Ms Cadwallader appeared with Geraldine Finucane, widow of lawyer Pat
Finucane who was murdered by loyalists in 1989, and Kieran McEvoy, a law
professor at Queen’s University Belfast.
The Pat Finucane Centre wants the British government to release all
records showing collusion between the British Crown forces and
loyalists, and a public inquiry to be held into Mr Finucane’s killing.
The committee’s chairman, Congressman Chris Smith, remarked that the
British government’s reputation had been tarnished by the refusal to
hold a public inquiry into Mr Finucane’s murder and his committee was
“not gonna let up” until all the information about the killing is “laid
bare” and the people responsible are held to account.
“It is bewildering how a mature democracy like the United Kingdom could
be so obstinate in not letting this information out,” said Mr Smith, who
was chairing his 15th hearing since 1997 on human rights in the north of
Ireland, nine of which involved members of the Finucane family providing
testimony.
Congressman Brendan Boyle, a member of the commission, described Ms
Cadwallader’s evidence of collusion as “overwhelming”.
“It’s time for Britain to finally deal openly and honestly with this
issue and release all of the evidence,” he said.
Posted by Jim on March 11, 2015
by James O’Shea
Reps Joe Crowley and Richard Neal: Conflict in Northern Ireland was about identity not religion, say US congressmen.
Two leading Irish American congressmen have slammed Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s recent comments on CNN comparing the IRA to ISIS and saying both misused religion for their own ends.
The strongly worded statement by the two congressmen, who are leaders of the Congressional Friends of Ireland group, was released Tuesday.
The comments by Reps. Richie Neal from Massachusetts and Joe Crowley from Queens came after a flood of protest from Irish groups including the AOH, America’s largest Irish organization.
“The IRA claimed to be Catholic,” Cardinal Dolan told anchor Chris Cuomo. “They were baptized. They had a Catholic identity.” But, he continued, “what they were doing was a perversion of everything the church stood for.”
Dolan said that, like the IRA, the Islamic State extremists “do not represent genuine Islamic thought” but are “a particularly perverted form of Islam.”
“The analogy (to the IRA) is somewhat accurate,” said Dolan, who will lead the St. Patrick’s Parade as Grand Marshal in New York.
The statement from the congressmen points out many Irish patriots were Protestant and that the IRA had laid down their arms over ten years ago. They stated the conflict was about identity not religion.
The statement in full reads:
“As longtime leaders in the United States Congress on issues relating to Ireland, we strongly disagree with recent comments comparing the IRA to ISIS.
“While the claim is not factual on a number of counts, it’s important to note that historians credit Irish republicans like Theobald Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell as founders of the Society of United Irishmen, an organization that believed that Ireland should be a free and independent republic.
“They were Irish rebels who were resisting British rule, were inspired by the American Revolution, and died for their beliefs. Simply put, they were key architects of modern Irish republicanism. And they were Protestants.
“Further, the IRA never claimed to be Catholic, even though many Catholics of course filled their ranks and leadership. Historians also know that, despite common misconceptions, the conflict in Ireland was never about religion, nor did it originate out of a desire to overthrow the British government.
“It was about identity and the willingness and desire of the Irish people to live in an independent and sovereign state where human rights were respected. That is why people like Charles Stewart Parnell and Robert Erskine Childers, both Protestants, are regarded as heroes for their efforts to secure a free Ireland.
It was why the IRA was initially formed under Michael Collins and others in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising. They were not fighting for religion, but rather for their love and dedication to their country. And, they were fighting to help bring an end to human suffering that took place, not least through the then-British role in refusing to fully address the Great Hunger that killed one million Irish, including Catholic and Protestant, and forced millions more to flee the country.
“Can anyone make the same claim about ISIS whose campaign of terror is beginning to spread across the globe?
“Just last week, Nigeria’s Boko Haram pledged its allegiance to ISIS. Jihadists from the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa have also developed close ties with the militant group. These brutal extremists have beheaded innocent people, conducted mass killings including women and children, kidnapped religious minorities, and forbid western education.
They are fighting wars in Syria and Iraq and have the potential to destabilize the Middle East. The recent terror spree in France and Denmark was carried out by their supporters. In the name of religion, ISIS has become a dangerous and menacing threat. History proves that you could never make the same claims of the IRA.
“In 2011, Queen Elizabeth paid a historic visit to Dublin’s national garden of remembrance where she laid a wreath to those who died fighting the British for Irish independence. Acknowledging Britain’s role in Ireland’s troubled past she said, ‘there were things we wish had been done differently or not at all.’ It was a speech that demonstrated how far the relationship between Ireland and Great Britain has come since the days of Wolfe Tone.
“There is still a long, long way to go and much important work to be done. But, the Queen’s state visit was another milestone on the path toward peace and reconciliation. And it would never have happened if armed organizations from both traditions had not agreed to put their weapons beyond use and decided to pursue their political goals through exclusively peaceful means.