Will New Jersey Hall of Fame induct Thomas Nast, a racist and anti-Irish Catholic?

One of Nast's portrayal's of the Irish

The continued controversy over Thomas Nast and his potential membership in the New Jersey Hall of Fame does not reflect well on that state.

The Asbury Park Press newspaper recently attacked Irish Americans in the state who have protested the nomination of Nast, a notorious anti Irish and anti Catholic cartoonist of the later 19th Century.

If portraying the Irish as drunken baboons and Catholic church leaders as man eating crocodiles is your cup of tea then certainly vote for Nast.

His caricature of the Irish became the prevailing one during those dreadful times.

He was enormously influential. His portrayal of Santa Claus became the universal image as did his portrayal of Republicans as elephants and Democrats as donkeys.

So when he stereotyped the Irish he did them enormous damage. Violence against them was widespread and Nast stirred the flames. See 'Gangs of New York' if you don't believe that.

Not that the Asbury Park Press seems to think so

"There’s no denying that some of his drawings wouldn’t fly today. But as historians point out, the troubling cartoons in question represent a tiny piece of a much broader and admirable body of work."

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Read More:
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"The bigger problem, says the editor, "is the danger of viewing history through the prism of today’s morality."

That's an interesting concept. We could view the KKK through the same prism. Either hating blacks was wrong in the 19th and 20th century or it wasn't.

Likewise with Jews and fascism.

Would the Asbury Park Press then defend the KKK or Nazis as symbolic of their time and worthy of revisionism?

It might be interesting to ask them.

Racists of whatever era have no place in Halls of Fame.

Ss Assemblyman Scott Rudder noted "Nast’s representation of the people of Ireland and Catholics was incendiary and damaging,” Rudder said. “His hateful rhetoric should have disqualified him from any Hall of Fame discussion. I have asked the executive director of the Hall of Fame (Don Jay Smith) to have him removed from consideration immediately.”

Smith should take this advice.

Sinead O'Connor is not well and the media needs to lay off now--Irish singer is deeply troubled and in need of help

Sinead O'Connor (Credit: John Sciulli/Getty Images)

Why do I think that someday soon we will be reading about the further mental problems of Sinead O'Connor?

She's a woman who admitted to trying to commit suicide on her 33rd birthday and to being bi-polar.

Her latest escape, getting married for the fourth time and divorced 16 days later, is surely a sign of a mental instability that is only getting worse.

While she is fair game for the media and actively encourages the coverage, particularly through her blog, you have to wonder, at one point the train wreck becomes evident even to the worst tabloid reporter?

Like Lindsay Lohan, Sinead O'Connor is a disturbed woman who needs psychiatric care, not more headlines. She is beginning to resemble Charlie Sheen with his very public breakdown.

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Read More:
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She has often talked about the horrific abuse she sustained as a child from her own mother, and there is no question she had a very sad upbringing.

There is no questioning her talent and her beautiful voice, which may yet win an Oscar next year for her song from the movie Albert Nobbs.

But it has been clear from some time that Sinead, far from getting more settled and together in her later years, may well be getting worse.

While the headlines keep coming, she no doubt will continue to make them, and like all performers she's best before a live audience.

But her latest problems can be viewed as another cloud in a darkening landscape.

Sinead O'Connor is not well. That much is clearly evident. She needs medical, not media attention.

Hopefully those closest to her can convince her to go seek it. Otherwise, this could all turn out badly for her.

Massive emigration points again to Ireland failing to support its people

Dublin: The news that 70,000 departed these shores this year is truly depressing.

Two years ago it was truly ironic to read that Irish students protested near the replica Famine ship the Jeanne Johnston to make a point about the role of enforced emigration in Irish life for the last 175 years.

As another generation gets ready to leave we really have to face facts about the country of Ireland.

As we witness another huge exodus of people, driven by economic malfeasance we have to embrace the notion that after 90 years of independence it is not a very well run country.

During that ninety years we have had maybe 15 of outright prosperity, seven or eight with the Celtic Tiger and a similar phase in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

In between were decades of hard times, emigrant boats and ships and perhaps, saddest of all, a grim realization that Ireland was unable to keep many of its best and brightest.

All in all, as another generation takes to the boats and planes the extent of the failure in Ireland has become evident .

What we have to realize is that, in almost every sector of Irish life, a privileged elite, a crony class has grown up and that has stunted Irish growth in a permanent fashion.

Politics and business are just two examples. In politics, Ireland has the highest ratio of politicians being elected because they are family members of a departing office holder in all of Europe.

That inevitably lessens the gene pool of talented people who wish to enter politics.

Brian Cowen, former current leader,and Enda Kenny,current leader are just two examples of leaders who made it initially through family connections and they would be two of the more talented examples.

That same tendency is rampant in areas of Irish life such as law, medicine and much of business.

It is not a meritocracy in the way that American is at its best.

And it hurts Ireland deeply.

When the business and political cronyism worlds intersect we have the worst of both worlds colliding.

That was what happened during the Celtic Tiger when business tycoons won sweetheart deals from a government that was in power for eighteen of the last twenty years.

Other countries, such as Australia and Canada had systems in place to prevent such looting of the public purse. Ireland has never safeguarded its future generations in the same way.

Aside from the Celtic Tiger collapse, the church has also effectively collapsed as well, leaving Ireland with no moral leadership at a time it desperately needs it.

The institutions of the state have failed the Irish people. It truly is a most distressful nation at this moment with worse to come.

New Irish famine data shows the horrific scale of the devastation of the Great Hunger

Recent statistics from the Irish Census about post-Famine Ireland are an extraordinary treasure trove.

Most important, however, the statistics also quote extensively from previous Census material, dating back to 1831.

Since practically every Census from the 19th century was destroyed by the authorities or in the great blaze that happened at the Four Courts in Dubin on the outbreak of the civil war in 1921, these are the only documents that can show an Ireland that was profoundly different to what we have today.

They reveal in cold numbers the impact of the Irish Famine, the greatest human disaster to afflict any country in Europe in the 19th Century.

Town by town, village by village, we can track the declining population, the death of communities and the rapid extinguishing of the Irish language as the first tongue of the nation's people.

Imagine America going from 300 million people to 100 million, and English dying out overnight as the first language -- and you get a sense of the scale of the catastrophe.

From 1821 to 1831, the new figures show the population leaped by over 14 percent in what is now the Irish Republic. Ireland was approaching its all-time high total of 8 million people on the cusp of the Famine.

Ironically, it was the growth of the potato as the staple crop that created this incredible growth. The potato provides enough nutrients on its own to sustain large populations, and Ireland thrived on the alien import from the Andes first brought in as a luxury food for the rich, but soon adopted by the masses.

From 1831 to 1841 the population continued to grow, increasing by over 5 percent as the island reached the historic eight million mark. Then came 1845.

The Famine blight almost certainly came from an American ship. There had been similar crop failures in parts of America in the two years before, but nothing like what was going to befall Ireland. That winter was wet and extraordinarily long. In the spring the potato crop failed. The potatoes in the fields were black and rotten.

"A fearful malady has broken out among the potato crop... the fields are said to be completely desolated. There is hardly a sound sample in. As for cure for this distemper, there is none.." reported one newspaper. That year, one-third of the crop failed. In 1846 one half, and then in Black '47, the entire crop failed.

The Census from 1851 reveals the sad facts. The population had dropped by over 21 percent. Entire villages were depopulated, the countryside laid waste. The great trek to America is well underway.

It is the hinge of history.

Without the Famine, we would never have come to this land, no antecedents of John F. Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan, or Eugene O'Neill. We would have become a European people, with no far-flung outposts from Australia to Canada to the U.S . Our history as a people revolved around those four years from 1845 to 1848, the worst years of the Famine.

The decline begins in the Census figures. From 1861 to 1871 the population slumps a further 8 percent, followed by 5 percent in the following ten years to 1881 and then over ten percent to 1891 and over 7 per cent by 1901. All in all from 1851 to 1901 the population drops an astounding 63 percent.

In that same time the language dies, side by side with the harvest. The number of Gaelic speakers dropped by over 80 percent. A traveler who visited in 1844 and came back in 1900 would have seen an utterly different land.

What the British could not accomplish -- the death of the old Gaelic order -- the Famine did. The new Census figures are an extraordinary account of that historic and awful event.

Finding a long lost relative in the 1901 Irish census

The 1901 census has recently been put up online, providing an incredible insight into the Ireland so many of our ancestors left.

Find the census here.

The 1911 census, which went up about a year ago, attracted 7 million views and I’m sure this 1901 census will attract as many.

Of the many deeds the Irish government has done to attract interest in Ireland, I firmly believe putting the 1911 and 1901 censuses on line will prove to be the most important.

For millions of Irish Americans it allows a sacred moment, a second to touch the past and to see the ancestors or relatives they have only dimly glimpsed through the mists of time.

Alas, there are no censuses available form the previous century, all were either burned or lost. So 1901 will remain the touchstone.

On the 1901 census, my wife Debbie found her great grandfather Martin McGoldrick living on the family farm in Sligo. For some reason, the 1911 census seemed to miss his little village.

I could tell by her reaction just how deep and significant a moment it was

It is an amazing document that allows us to reach out and touch the past on a given night on a given year in Ireland.

For my own part it was like revisiting a familiar fireside. I had seen the 1911 census count, marveled at the information I had been able to glean, including my first glimpse of my great grandfather and turned to the 1901 census feeling like I was seeing a movie rewound.

It is the 31st of March 1901, and in the Dowd house in Kilcooley, County Kerry, (there was no O’ used back then) seven miles or so west of Dingle there are 13 people living in the three–roomed residence. (The photograph above is of the view from Kilcooley to the Atlantic.)

It is five years before my father is born there.

There is my great grandfather, Ned, 60, hale and hearty, and his three sons and one daughter, including Daniel Dowd who my father would be called after.

There too is my grandfather, Michael, married to Kate Kennedy, and they have three very young children, John, Maggie, and Mary.

Maggie intrigues me. I had never heard of her and she does not appear in the 1911 census. Clearly she passed away sometimes in the next decade. From what I will never know, but my father never spoke of her.

Suddenly realizing I had an Aunt Maggie who did not live fills me full of curiosity about her. What happened, why was it never spoken about?

It was certainly not unusual for people to pass away back then in the age before antibiotics but it is a sad moment to realize I lost a relative so young.

John Dowd, the oldest son in my father’s family is there. He is called Jack and will later leave for America. He will settle in Detroit and work for the Ford motor Company his whole life.

He will have triplets, so rare an event that they are featured in several national magazines and I will get to know them.

In 1981, I will visit him in Detroit, in the little suburban bungalow he has made his home in. He will press $20 into my hand in an envelope, as all emigrants did for new arrivals back then.

He will ask me what fields are they planting back home but I am no longer from Kerry and am unable to answer. He is the spitting image of my father.

John’s older sister, Mary, also made her way to America and Detroit but I never had the opportunity to meet her. She would die in a traffic accident.

The census has re-wakened all these echoes and made me aware once again of how lucky my generation was with our access to education and life choices, these relatives would only have dreamt of.

And then there’s my dead little aunt Maggie who I will never know. She is a poignant postscript to reading about my father’s family in the 1901 census.

May she rest in peace.

Irish American heroes all - Father Joe O’Hare, Sister Jeanne O’Loughlin, William Ford, and Jim Quinn

Brian stack CIE tours & William Ford  at the 26th Annual  Irish America Business 100

I had the rare pleasure of spending time with four great Irish Americans this past week. Two were honored by our publication, the Irish Voice, and the other by Irish America magazine.

Father Joe O’Hare, former head of Fordham University, was the Lifetime Achievement awardee at our Irish Education 100 event held at the Irish consul’s residence in New York.

Over 100 people attended our event, hosted by Consul General Noel Kilkenny and his wife Hanora, including bishops, college presidents and senior academics who do so much to drive awareness of Ireland and Irish America.

Sister Jeanne O’Loughlin also merited special attention with a Lifetime Achievement Award. She ran Barry University in Miami for many years and became a fearless and committed supporter of her college, raising over $200 million for it and transforming the campus from one with less than 2,000 students when she took over to close to 10,000 when she left.

Irish Americans are great educators because our skill is communication, or gift of the gab if you like. The Catholic school system in this country was created by Irish nuns and priests who showed the same fire and drive to educate the children of America as they had shown in Ireland.

In my remarks I talked about the penal laws, imposed by the British in the 18th century. They singled out priests and teachers and put prices on their heads.

They knew full well that the rebellious Irish would never change their religion and bow to the crown as long as educators taught them the old Gaelic ways and their proud history.

Father O’Hare has been a friend for years and now, in retirement, retains the same grace, dignity and Irish humor that has always marked him out for me as one of the great Irish American leaders.

His accomplishments with Fordham are many, creating one of the finest Catholic universities in America. His time in office there was marked by the number of times senior political figures approached him to chair key commissions such as the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

As New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “He has the moral force of a person who is utterly honest and represents only good ideas.”

The following day at the Metropolitan Club in New York before 200 invited guests Irish America magazine, our sister publication, honored William Ford, great grandson of Henry, where he gave an extraordinary speech about his Irish heritage, the Ford family and the future of the automobile.

You could see why Ford alone of all the car manufacturers emerged triumphant out of the latest recession with a man like William Ford at the helm.

He spoke of the future in visionary terms, of cars already in development that are so smart that accidents will be cut down by 80%.

Then he spoke of his recent visit to Ireland with his family and the tremendous reception they receive there. He talked about Henry Ford overruling his board back in 1917 and setting up an automobile company in Ireland, in his father’s native Cork, which employed an incredible 8,000 people at its height.

The magazine also honored Jim Quinn, president of Tiffany, one of the great worldwide brands, who has globally expanded the brand to countries such as China where they have been hugely successful.

Like the others Quinn also gives back, being very active on many charities and Irish educational organizations.

All in all an uplifting week and a high note to end the year on!

Happy Holidays, and see you all in 2012!

Why is President Obama trying to damage the Irish peace process? Feds working with British agents win access to Boston College IRA tapes

Joe Biden, Gerry Adams and Barack Obama

President Obama's administration is damaging the still fragile Irish peace process.

Federal prosecutors acting for the British won a major victory on Friday when Judge William Young ordered Boston College to turn over the transcripts.

Strange as it may seem the tapes have the potential to damage the peace process.

The British security forces MI5 etc., are looking for any dirt they can find on Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams among others on those tapes.

Amazingly, when he was here recently, Northern Secretary Owen Paterson was clearly deeply embarrassed by what his security forces, likely without reference to him, had succeeded in doing.
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They have a long vendetta against Adams and will use whatever means necessary, including endangering the peace process to get him.

The Obama administration is cooperating openly with this travesty which is damaging for them among Irish Americans to say the least.

IRA veterans, believing the tapes were being kept private until a lengthy time had elapsed spoke freely about past incidents. Now their words may be use against them and others.

The British securocrats are only seeking the IRA tapes, none from the Loyalists who spoke to the oral history project – that in itself is all you need to know.

The Boston College administrators were journalist Ed Moloney and academic Anthony McIntyre. Both men are long time critics of Adams and the IRA personnel chosen to be interviewed reflect that.

BC has stated that turning over the materials will endanger the safety of people involved in the project.

Judge Young, who also presided over the Richard Reid shoe bomber case, set aside BC’s objections saying that the recordings could be relevant to murder and kidnapping investigations and that the US had an obligation under a treaty with Britain to hand over the materials

“These are serious allegations, and they weigh strongly in favor of disclosing the confidential information,’’ Young wrote.

Assistant US Attorney John McNeil, praised the judge. He said the ruling indicates that “the US government’s obligation [under the treaty with Britain and] the public interest in this criminal inquiry are compelling.’’

Which is load of nonsense. People have buried the past and got on with the future in Northern Ireland and created a model of conflict resolution that is the envy of the world.

The Obama administration and the British security hawks are doing their damndest to bring that down.

That’s what is at stake at Boston College.

Why was an Irish businessman and father-to-be arrested in his NYC home?

An ICE official detains an unknown man

Recently an Irish businessman arrived home from his busy workday in Manhattan to find immigration agents outside his house.

Clearly because he was undocumented he had been turned in by someone who saw him as an enemy.  He was immediately arrested and has since been detained in an immigration holding prison in New
Jersey.

His wife is several months pregnant and his family no doubt is deeply distressed by what has happened to him.

I am not going to identify him for obvious reasons, but suffice to say his arrest has been the big story in the community this week.

There are many questions around this case, but the most important one is very simple.

Why was this man picked up?
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Read more: 
More on US politics from IrishCentral


Why was an Irish businessman and father-to-be arrested in his NYC home?


Was quarterback Tom Brady ‘talking Gaelic’ during heated argument?- VIDEO
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He had dozens of people employed, was well-known as a very hard worker and a man who gave back to his community.

He was active in several Irish societies. There was even a photograph of him with Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny at one event.

I don’t personally know this man who was picked up, but several of his friends have attested to his hard work, basic decency and ability to create new businesses and jobs in New York City.

He is not unlike millions of Irish before him who came to America, worked hard and made a better life for themselves and everyone around them.

His only flaw was that he came at a time when No Irish Need Apply signs are back when it comes to getting working visas in America.

The Obama administration has made a big deal lately of its new policy of only tracking down criminal aliens and ignoring those who are just here to try to make a living.

The arrest of this Irishman would seem to give the lie to that particular policy.
I don’t know how much it will cost to incarcerate him, process his case and eventually, I guess, deport him, but it will surely run into the six figures.

I understand that immigration authorities in the U.S. have a job to do, and in the main they try and do it well I’m sure.

The Obama administration, like in many other areas, has talked a good game on immigration but delivered very little.

Either there is a coherent policy here that the target is those illegals who have broken the law and should be deported, or the opposite, that non-criminal aliens can also be sought out.

We can’t blame the agents for the arrest as they were clearly following orders, but the fact is that under Obama’s outline I understood that such people as this Irish businessman would no longer be deported, and that priority was to be given to those with criminal records.

So will he now be set free at some point, or is the administrative system going to swallow him up?

And what is the point of arresting him if there is no long-term plan to deport him?

I can only imagine the nightmare he and his family and his pregnant wife have gone through on this occasion.

The sad part is that it is so unnecessary, such a waste of valuable time and resources and a young businessman’s ability to create jobs, help the New York economy and play his role in the greatest country on Earth. All that has been so cruelly thwarted for all the wrong reasons.

The need to reform immigration law has never been greater.
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Read more: 
More on US politics from IrishCentral


Why was an Irish businessman and father-to-be arrested in his NYC home?


Was quarterback Tom Brady ‘talking Gaelic’ during heated argument?- VIDEO
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Real hope at last for immigration reform for Irish - Senator Schumer bill to highlight case for work visas

Sen. Charles Schumer

There is hope at last that Irish people may be able to emigrate legally to the United States in the coming years.

Tomorrow, Senator Charles Schumer of New York will introduce a bill which will allow up to 10,000 Irish a year to come and work legally in the United States, though not receive green cards.

The visa plan is based on an Australian visa program that allows natives to come to America and indefinitely renew a work visa for them and their spouses.

Schumer made the promise to introduce the E-3 program, as it is known, to a group of Irish American leaders who met with him on Friday.

I was one of the people present, and we all realized that this bill would be a major step in the right direction.

It came about because other countries – China, Mexico, India and the Philippines – have received special consideration for a new visa program, while the Irish were left off the list.

That angered Irish community leaders, and Schumer has now stepped up to the plate to try and deliver.

There is no guarantee, though, that the bill will be successful, but it is a very important first step, the first time since the Morrison and Donnelly visa programs that a bill to help the Irish legally live in America has been put forward.

According to Bart Murphy, head of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, the bill is a huge step in the right direction.

“It finally brings a focus to all of our efforts, and I believe it may well prove successful, thanks to Senator Schumer,” Murphy said.

If the bill for the other countries passes, Schumer is hoping that the Irish E-3 visas can be attached to it.

If the bill does not pass, or if it is not possible to attach the E-3 visas, then he has promised early in 2012 to create another vehicle to help the Irish.

On the face of it, the new visa, if passed, would not immediately help the Irish undocumented now resident in the U.S.

But if a waiver rule can be applied as has happened in Mexico, where the local U.S. consulate allows those who have lived illegally in America to apply for visas, then it could make a huge difference.

So the news on the immigration front is encouraging at last . . . but we have been here before on many other occasions.

A few years back, it seemed certain that a bill sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator John McCain would pass, but it fell apart at the last minute.

There have been many other false dawns, but the Irish community has never given up on the idea of immigration reform, and they are not likely to now.

Senator Schumer is one of the most powerful men in U.S. politics, with an Irish chief of staff, Martin Brennan, whose folks hail from Co. Mayo. Having him on the side of the Irish is a huge step forward in the right direction.

Newt Gingrich is the real thing as Romney looks more like Elmer Fudd each passing day

Watching the Republican debate last night it really struck me forcefully.

Newt Gingrich is for real.

I fully expect him to win the Republican nomination.

Watching him in close combat with Romney I was reminded of the tortoise and the hare.

Romney had bolted to the front of the pack early but has never put his rivals away.

One by one they had their day in the sun coming close to him but eventually falling away.

Until Newt, the ultimate tortoise who was once so far behind that Romney could hardly glimpse him in the rear view mirror.

But there he was last night, big and bold, aiming deadly zingers at an increasingly flustered Romney who looks more and more like an Elmer Fudd.

Gingrich's line that Romney would have been a professional pol too if he had defeated Ted Kennedy in 1994 was the best line of the night

Romney's problem is that very few Republicans love him -- they tolerate him.

Newt on the other hand has a love/hate relationship going with most everyone.

He is fire to Romney's and indeed Obama's ice-- and he is all the better for that.

Sure there are times he puts his foot in it-- calling the Palestinians an invented people was too much even for the Israeli government.

But Republicans are beginning to sense that, for the knock down drag out fight they need to wage against Obama, Newt is much better placed to take the battle to him.

Like the hedgehog and the fox fable Gingrich is the hedgehog ---he knows one big thing, how to take the fight to Democrats as he did when he became House Speaker ending decades of Democratic rule.

Romney like the fox knows lots of other things but does not give off the impression that he is a true street fighter.

And that is undoubtedly true.

Top ten stories for 2011 - what a year it was

Barack Obama

Here are my top ten stories for 2011. It was quite a year, both good and bad, with many indelible memories.

1. Queen’s visit to Ireland:

It was an incredible occasion which ended centuries of mutual loathing and dislike. The Queen’s words of Gaelic at the Dublin Castle State Dinner were my personal highlight. It was an amazing occasion for the Irish and British people and a tribute to the effect of the peace process.

Read more: President McAleese says Queen Elizabeth’s visit was 'happy and healing'

2. President Obama’s visit to Ireland:

It had to be a stellar event to overtake the visit of an American president to Ireland but the Queen’s visit did that.

Obama was also deeply impressive, loose and relaxed in Moneygall with his ancestral relatives and flowing and on his game during his remarks outside Trinity College.

Read more: Obama visit to Ireland a good political move

3. Irish presidential election:

It was the election that had everything from a last second October surprise that utterly upended the expected result, to allegations of attempted murder, incest, boy pedophilia, IRA involvement. The final TV debate where Martin McGuinness finished Sean Gallagher’s campaign was an extraordinary live moment.

Read more: Dana Rosemary Scallon’s brother accused of molesting sister’s child

4. Fianna Fail collapse in Irish general election vote:

Blamed for the Irish recession. they went from the longest party in government in Europe to being practically wiped out. Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael party cruised to victory and Irish politics will never be the same again.

Read more: All changed utterly in Ireland after this utterly dramatic election

5. Enda Kenny speech on child abuse:

Seeing an Irish leader stand up and take on the dreadful wrongdoing in the Catholic Church on child sex abuse was a remarkable moment for the country and the world.

Read more: NY Times Maureen Dowd calls Irish leader's speech ‘breathtaking’

6. Bill Clinton speech at Irish America Magazine Hall of Fame awards:

A remarkable speech on the origins of his interests in Ireland and where he felt Irish America and Ireland needed to go next from the most important Irish American political figure ever.

Read more: Former President Clinton worries about Irish suicide numbers - VIDEO

7. Second Irish Diaspora conference in Ireland:

A gathering of the far flung tribe featuring 300 business leaders from all over the world discussing the way forward for Ireland. At last the Irish government seems to get the power and potential of the Diaspora

Read more: Bill Clinton's warning about Irish economic prospects

8. The winter from hell:

US East Coast and Ireland suffered bitter winters, the worst in Ireland for over sixty years while the Christmas to New Year storm in New York was the worst on record

Read more: Further heavy snowfall expected as big freeze continues in Ireland- SEE PHOTOS & VIDEO

9. Green Card moves by China, India, Mexico and Filipinos:

Once upon a time there was an agreement that it was comprehensive immigration reform or nothing. The Irish were especially criticized for even suggesting anything else. Then a group of countries broke away and are currently trying to get their own deal. Lesson learned I hope.

Read more: Irish frozen out of a new green card bill in Congress

10. Lennox the condemned dog:

I know it’s a weird one but on out website out readers could not get enough of the pit-bull called Lennox condemned to death in Belfast for being a pit bull.

Read more: Frantic efforts continue to ‘Save Lennox’ the Death Row dog in Belfast