Hillary Clinton’s illness will raise questions about 2016 run -- Age and health her two most vulnerable areas to attack

Hillary Clinton's age and health for the Presidential Race 2016 comes into question
(Photo:GlobalGrind)

Hillary Clinton’s illness will raise questions about the most vulnerable aspect of any 2016 presidential run for her – her age and health.

She will be 69 when, and if, she runs, and the health and age issue was bound to surface at some level as she went closer to deciding to run.

Considering that only Ronald Reagan has run at a similar age and he was suspected of suffering from early Alzheimer’s during his second term, it could become a major issue.

This latest illness, especially involving a potential blood clot, will raise such questions to a higher level. The White House is no place to be for a less than healthy occupant.

Clinton has looked exhausted in recent months, and it has been attributed to an incredibly taxing travel schedule but a campaign is also an exhausting marathon as Clinton herself can attest to after her 2008 experience.

Read more: Hillary Clinton taken to hospital with suspected blood clot

During her most recent trip Clinton spent two days in Ireland and it was obvious that not only she, but also her staff were at the limits of their endurance.

The Benghazi affair also added to the pressure and it was clear during her Dublin and Belfast leg that a new term for Obama and her replacement as Secretary of State was something she was greatly looking forward to.

She talked about reading books, relaxing, helping with the Clinton Foundation, but mostly just taking a long rest from the backbreaking schedule.

At a dinner at the Residence Restaurant in Dublin surrounded by close Irish friends, Clinton finally looked relaxed and sipped a beer as she went around the table, asking how everyone had been faring.

It was a brief glimpse of the old Hillary, the very warm private person who holds friendships dear.

But clearly something was amiss on that trip and soon after she came back she fainted and received a concussion and now comes news of the blood clot.

It is far too early to say if there will be any long-term impact on her health but with 2016 speculation already bubbling it will bound to be a matter of intense conversation over the coming days.

Donald Trump is now the meanest billionaire in creation - that’s official -- Contrast with the most generous, Irish American Chuck Feeney, never greater

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is the meanest billionaire in creation and it is now official says New York Times columnist Nick Kristoff in his recent column.

Kristoff names CNN founder Ted Turner as the most generous because of his $1 billion gift to the United Nations 15 years ago but he’s wrong there.

All available evidence is that it is Irish American Chuck Feeney who began the ‘Giving While Living’ trend now embraced by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet among others.

Kristoff says Turner was the inspiration for giving while living but it was Feeney, a man I have known well for over 25 years now because of his involvement in Ireland, who led the way.

As Forbes magazine recently noted “Chuck Feeney is the James Bond of philanthropy. Over the last 30 years he’s crisscrossed the globe conducting a clandestine operation to give away a $7.5 billion fortune ....His foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies, has funneled $6.2 billion into education, science, health care, aging and civil rights in the U.S., Australia, Vietnam, Bermuda, South Africa and Ireland.

"Few living people have given away more, and no one at his wealth level has ever given their fortune away so completely during their lifetime. The remaining $1.3 billion will be spent by 2016, and the foundation will be shuttered in 2020. While the business world’s titans obsess over piling up as many riches as possible, Feeney is working double time to die broke.”

Meanwhile an investigation by The Smoking Gun website revealed Donald Trump as the meanest of all the billionaires.

He says he is worth $7 billion and he has given away all of $3.7 million in that time the Smoking Gun folks found.

“From 1990 through 2009, Trump has personally donated a total of just $3.7 million to his foundation, which was incorporated in 1987. In fact, the billionaire is not even the largest contributor to his own charitable organization.”

He has given away less about $200,000 a year during that time.

Putting it in context Michael Bloomberg gave away $235 million last year alone. Chuck Feeney is giving that much away before breakfast -- every day, every year.

I remember asking Feeney about Trump and receiving a highly uncomplimentary answer. Seems he had reached out to him once on a non-profit housing venture in one off New York’s toughest neighborhoods but the Donald was not interested,

Of course not.

Jim Dwyer of The New York Times wrote memorably that "Chuck Feeney was what Donald Trump would be if he led his life backward."

As we face a new year the two men represent different visions of the American dream.

One is a chest thumping, look at me Scrooge, the other, embodies the incredibly generous philanthropic soul of this country that is the envy of every other democracy.

I have no doubt whose side we should all come down on.

A Christmas interrupted by bad flu and canceled Irish trip -- But it’s not all bad news as Notre Dame tickets magically arrive

Tickets to Notre Dame/Alabama game a special Christmas gift

I had planned to go to Ireland this Christmas as we always do after spending Christmas Day with my wife's folks and New Year's with mine but we got poleaxed by a nasty flu.

How nasty? Here we are spending it at home in New York surrounded by medication, antibiotics, heating blankets and every other healing remedy from hot whiskies to Advil, not to mention assorted curses and holy water deliveries by worried relatives.

We're fine, but Christmas Day was a blur. I felt as weak as a kitten and as useful as one too. The thought of flying to Ireland in that condition filled me with dread.

My sick daughter went to the pediatrician with my wife who was feeling fine at the time. The pediatrician gave my wife antibiotics too, predicting accurately she would get it next.

"It's highly contagious" she informed her.

Boy was she right. Within 24 hours we were all slammed,

So no Irish Christmas this year, no race days at Leopardstown, long family dinners and far too much Irish trifle and chocolates, not to mention a lovely stay at the Merrion Hotel for my money best in Ireland indeed the world.

The week between Christmas and New Year's day is great there. No one goes to work, the roads are clear and goodwill exists everywhere. It’s the Irish at their best.

But it’s not too bad here in New York now that I am feeling a little better. The bright mornings are wonderful, the long day allows a chance to read and catch up on books.

I'm currently finishing ‘The Patriarch,' a powerful biography of Joe Kennedy Senior whose family has been such a presence in American life. It is a monster, over 700 pages, but made for a lazy Christmas read. Next up is Salmon Rushdie's memoir ‘Joseph Anton’ about his life on the run after Satanic Verses.

What’s keeping me going is the two tickets for the Notre Dame/Alabama game that arrived as a very special Christmas gift from a wonderful friend after I had pretty much given up hope.

My in-law Pat Egan and I will be jetting down to Florida a week from today. Sunshine, BCS Bowl!

As long as I can breathe I’ll be in Dolphins Stadium on Monday the 7th to cheer the Fighting Irish on.

I was there in Dublin for the first game this season along with the Don Keough/Martin Naughton Irish Institute gang and if you told me I’d be going to the BCS game against Alabama a few months later I’d have had you certified.

But the Fighting Irish college football champions? Now that’s a thought to  banish the blues!

Focus should be on depression not media in Irish Minister’s suicide -- Deep seated issue of depression and suicide needs full exploration

Shane McEntee RIP (Photo - AP)

We in the media business take our fair share of the blame for demonizing individuals and sometimes jumping to wrong conclusions.

But I think it is stretching it to say that media is responsible for the  suicide of a prominent politician as is being alleged in Ireland.

I knew Shane McEntee the Minister  of State for Agriculture who took his own life in tragic circumstances last week. I had met him on many occasions and he struck me as the prototype of a rural Irish politician deeply involved in his community and well liked and respected.

He was a man who had achieved an amazing amount in his too-short life and was clearly beloved as the massive 3,000 people at his funeral showed.

The reports in the media there say he was likely driven to suicide by the negative media coverage he received in recent months, as part of an increasingly unpopular government imposing more and more hardship on people.

I find it hard to believe that would have been the whole reason for his suicide however,
Anyone entering politics in Ireland knows it is a full contact blood sport where the real enemies, due to the electoral system, are far more likely to be in your own party than across the floor in the other parties.

Sure, there has been a coarsening in Irish life and the new media outlets including social media are relentless in their pursuit of individuals in attempts to bring them down.

But every politician I know either here or in Ireland factors in that issue and knows well that this week’s controversy is next week’s fish and chip wrapper and the carnival moves on.

They are able to separate the political from the personal and to understand that ,  irrespective of how intense political discussion and criticism becomes, it rarely has the power to impact to the horrific extent of suicide.

What I am saying is by definition, politicians have thick skins and are highly unlikely to be driven to suicide by headlines.

Long term depression is another matter altogether and it is clear all was not well with Shane McEntee for him to  have taken such a drastic course.

Whatever happened it is an unmitigated tragedy for him and his family. What hopefully it does do is  shine a light on depression and the causes of suicide in a country still remarkably reluctant to deal with an issue that has become  an urgent problem.

Perhaps that would be the best legacy of this tragic death that suicide and its causes become a major focus of the government he served so well and so proudly. That would be a fitting legacy for Shane McEntee if his death helped stop other suicides.

A witch hunt against Internet trolls on the other hand has no lasting value.

In my father’s time -- he walked barefoot to Midnight Mass in Dingle -- My daughter looks for the same spirit of Christmas a century later

Back in the early 1900s my father walked barefoot to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve from his village to Dingle in Co. Kerry, a distance of seven miles.

My 13-year-old daughter this Christmas expects to finally get that fancy iPhone accessory she has wanted for a while. She adores Christmas.

Two different generations, connected through me, but the magic of Christmas holds in both cases.

I think my father got the better of it, though, and that is a reflection on modern times, where Christmas has become about cash machines ringing, not sleigh bells.

I mean how much more do we all need or want?

The simplicity of life back in rural West Kerry around 1915 was total. I don’t want to draw a sentimental veil over the hardships, but there is no doubt there was a neighborliness and companionship that has all but vanished in most places now.

Christmas brought the best of that spirit together.

As I write this I am listening to my father, dead since 1978. Like me he was a writer, except he wrote in the Irish language, something I have tried and failed to do.

He recalled, most vividly, on numerous radio programs the Kerry he grew up in long ago.

One of the greatest gifts I ever got was when I was presented with his radio talks from long ago from the Irish radio archives.

It happened when my brother, Fergus, a politician in Ireland, and I were on the same station this Easter talking about families and brotherhood.

So I turn on and tune in. At first when I listened, the sound of my father’s voice upset me as I had not heard it since 1978.

Did he really have such a distinctive Kerry accent? Yes he did, and when he spoke Irish it connected me in a profound way to all the generations who came before him who used it as their first tongue like he did.

Kilcooley, his village, seemed like an especially magical place at Christmas. Christmas Eve was when they would walk with shoes tied around their neck to the little church in Dingle.

They would never let the townies in Dingle see them without their shoes on, so they begged and borrowed a pair from neighbors or whoever to make sure they looked the part.

Often times he remembered it rained on that journey into town and they would arrive, bedraggled and drenched, but happy in their childhood and shared experience.

He described the visiting to the various neighbor’s houses around Christmas time when there were no distractions, neither radio or television, but just the old folks and the fairy and ghost stories and the talk of who was in America and when, if ever, they would return.

These days we talk about Facebook integration and the global community. What Facebook hopes to catch is what my father’s neighbors had all those decades ago, a tight knit, utterly integrated group of human beings whose lives were linked and interdependent.

“I Scath a cheile a maireann na daoine,” says the old Irish expression, which loosely translates, “In each other’s shadow the people live.” That was how it was in West Kerry long ago, never more evident than at Christmas time.

I suppose I straddle both worlds, remembering a time when there was no television and a neighborliness that has long since vanished in most parts.

As for my daughter, what will she tell her grandchildren? Santa Claus will still be around to charm them and to thrill, as will the feeling of warmth and appreciation that Christmas inevitably brings.

They never met, my daughter and father, but they have much in common, including a love of the spirit of Christmas, that surpasses all else.

 I like to think that somewhere out there he will watch her unwrapping her presents, seeing the magic of Christmas once again rekindled in her eyes.

Like Big Tobacco, the Big Guns of the NRA are about to fade - Only a matter of time before sensible gun laws are enacted

People once believed that Big Tobacco would never be defeated, that it had legislators in its pocket, and that it carried such power and influence those laws curtailing tobacco products would never work.

That proved not to be so once the clear link between smoking and cancer was established, and there is no doubt that the tobacco lobby has been greatly diminished as a result.

The gun lobby right now looks a lot like the tobacco lobby, all-powerful, all influencing but the link that has been established between the safety of our children and the product they peddle has finally been irredeemably established. (Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland has just written an excellent comparison of the two.)

The children of Newtown, Connecticut have made that connection real and vital for this generation of Americans in an utterly indelible way. After Newtown there can be no going back on gun control.

The NRA mantra that guns had nothing to do with the violence in America is clearly false based on all known evidence.

In countries where guns are not available the number of deaths from homicides is dramatically lower.

Here are the 2010 figures, adjusted for population differential.

Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2010: 8,775
Number of Murders by firearms, Britain, 2010*: 58
(equivalent to 290 US murders)

You can go around any country in the world with strict gun control laws and the same reality hits home. The more guns are available the more people die.

Such reality has finally permeated the American consciousness after Newtown, which is why the NRA, still shuttered in their own little archipelago, is unable to see what the real world is experiencing.

Like Big Tobacco though their power will surely ebb now that the link between cause and effect has clearly been established.

This country has a magnificent constitution, one of the great documents in world history, starting with the immortal phrase “We the People,"

But we cannot be bound only by the thoughts and opinions of men from the 18th century who know nothing of what the deadly meaning of the term the “right to bear arms” nowadays means.

We need to have a living constitution as it is experienced by each generation with changing needs and priorities. After Newtown that has never been more obvious—and the people now see it.

A blue Christmas made worse by Newtown massacre of the innocent -- Memories of my late nephew Rory Staunton amid sad scenes from Connecticut

Rory Staunton taking his first flying lesson in 2011. 

Last Saturday I should have been at my sister and brother-in-law’s in Sunnyside, Queens, trimming their tree with my daughter Alana and wife Debbie.

Their kids Rory and Kathleen should have been there. Rory, as always, the more serious older one, watching the two other scamps as they dressed up and performed silly sketches. Instead, he would definitely have been engaging me in some discussion about a world trouble spot.

The shooting in Connecticut would have been on his mind. He hated to see injustice or people hurt.

Rory was like that; a very savvy kid, described by his teacher as the most profound 12-year-old he had ever met.

After the trimming we would then have settled down to our dinner, all the food you could eat, usually topped with an Irish Christmas trifle.

Except all of that didn’t happen and will never happen again.

Rory passed in April after doctors at NYU Langone Hospital missed vital signs that he was contracting sepsis from a simple cut. Rory now lies in a lonely graveyard in Co. Louth with my parents.

The awareness of untimely death is everywhere this week. It is writ large on the beautiful and innocent faces of those destroyed by the madman in Connecticut, on the faces of the grieving parents and the shocked public grappling with an evil reality.

I don’t know how the parents will cope. I read they stood around for hours hoping against hope in the local firehouse until Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy told them their kids had not survived.

I know something of what they felt. We too waited desperately for good news, or any news about Rory as he lay in the ICU.

Read More: Rory Staunton, a beautiful boy, leaves this earth. The hardest column I will ever have to write

Like the Connecticut parents, no one in authority came and told us. The onset of Rory’s passing was never first communicated by the doctors.

Rather it was the sudden presence of the social workers and counselors flitting into the hospital waiting room as we waited desperately for word.

I saw them, heard their comforting murmurs and knew we were in the shadow of death. Despair opened that has remained when I think of those dreadful hours.

In James Joyce’s classic short story “The Dead”, the title character Gabriel sees that same shadow flicker on the faces of his two elderly aunts as he carves the Christmas dinner and he realizes how silly and trite so much of his life has been.

He thinks of the dead who have gone before him, he sees the snow falling softly, and he realizes even though they are gone, the dead are still with us in so many ways in our every waking thought, in our actions and our deeds.

There is not a day goes by I don’t think of or talk to my nephew Rory. I know that is true of all who knew him and loved him.

I think of those grieving parents in Connecticut and know it will be the same for them too.

The dead are indeed with us, and when we commence that final journey westward as Joyce called it, they will be waiting for us too, of that I am certain.

As Joyce wrote: “A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward.

"Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.

Read More:A New York Times investigative article into my 12-year-old nephew’s death -- Columnist Jim Dwyer discovers the truth of what happened to Rory Staunton

"It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns.

His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

Gun toll; America 9,369 dead, Great Britain 14 -- get the picture? Obama should attend all the funerals in Newtown after massacre

A vigil was held in front of the White House on Friday night for the victims of the Connecticut shooting.

Here are the statistics; Murders with a firearm in one year: Great Britain, 14; Australia 59; Canada, 144: USA, 9,369.

Are we crazy or has the rest  of the world got lucky?

The fault lies in ourselves it seems. Gun violence is out of control.

I think President Obama should attend the funeral of every one of the 27 killed in Newtown, Connecticut.

That way he might show he is serious about efforts at gun control.

His spokesman Jay Carney made one of the dumbest comments in presidential press secretary history when he said on Friday, the day of the tragedy, that this was not the day to talk about the guns issue.

If not Friday, when? Before the next massacre happens?

At a time when the very heavens are screaming for action, Obama and his risk averse staff don’t get it.

The country wants action on this issue and they want it now.

It is appalling to see foreign leaders including the Queen line up and offer sympathy to the U.S. government.

I understand a gesture like that after 9/11 but the foreign leaders should be saying, “Hey America, get your gun house in order.”

The killer had legally held guns, he broke no law. We gave a complete psycho free access to guns -- where did we go so badly wrong?

That is the lesson here, the image of the U.S. worldwide once again is of a cowboy nation where they shoot school children, don’t they, in defense of their Second Amendment rights, a Second Amendment by the way, that is heavily qualified by its caveat sentence at the beginning.

I don’t think Thomas Jefferson and company intended for the right to kill little innocent children to be part of the plan. Amazingly, we have been suckered in these past few years into that position.

But it is time to cry halt now, before another lunatic somewhere decides he wants to top what happened in Newtown and kill even more of our children.

Obama must know there are issues that he must tackle before they fester and bleed and damage America’s soul even more.

The gun issue is now the key one of those.

He should listen to Mayor Bloomberg, the voice in the wilderness these past few years, and follow his plan.

At least then we might have some common sense applied.

The murder of more children seems to be the trade-off for keeping the gun lobby happy.

Can we really live with that? We know this country can do a lot better.

Why I think Hillary Clinton will run in 2016 -- Best qualified person in US to be President

Hillary Clinton meets Irish Foreign Minister Eamonn Gilmore in Dublin

DUBLIN -- Yes, Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016. That is the only conclusion I can come to after spending two days in Northern Ireland with the former first lady, U.S. senator, and soon to be former Secretary of State.

She is the best-qualified person in America to be president given that resume. You would have to go back to the time of Jefferson to find anyone with such qualifications.

And there is still fire in her belly and steel in the heart.

Though she will be 69 when the next election comes around, Hillary looks as fit and as ready for the fight as I have ever seen her.

Sure she is tired -- after one million miles and 115 countries who would not be? -- and yes, that hairstyle in recent months, or lack of one, has drawn lots of comments.

But all that is temporary, the closing act on one part of her career.

Don’t doubt the ambition or the desire. There has never been such a fiercely competitive couple as Bill and Hillary Clinton and they still have unfinished business.

An illustration in The Sunday Business Post in Dublin said it best, with Hillary as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz closing in on the White House seen at the end of the Yellow Brick Road, and Bill beside her as the Tin Man helping lead the way.

Last night in a small private dinner setting in a restaurant in Stephen’s Green in Dublin, surrounded by a dozen or so Irish Americans who have been with her on many campaigns, she made clear that the fire still burns.

She went around the table asking each of us for our memories from our Clinton campaign involvements.

I told her I remembered best that day in 1995 when she and her husband, as the president and first lady, came to Belfast for the Christmas tree lighting and to support the peace process, and the world in Northern Ireland was never the same afterwards.

When she spoke she remembered the Gerry Adams U.S. visa as the first major battle on Irish policy and how that was won. She remembered the many wonderful women who had inspired her in Northern Ireland, and how she has used the message of Northern Ireland to different groups learning to live together many times since in her job as secretary of state.

At the American Ireland Fund event in Belfast last Friday she made an astonishing offer to the group, essentially saying, put me to work on your behalf and on behalf of Ireland. It was a massive gesture and one that showed the depth of her commitment to Ireland.

One can only imagine how many offers she will get in the coming months to become involved in various causes. For her to choose and highlight the Irish one unbidden was a remarkable moment.

This Irish trip was not some one-day trip to Moneygall and a pleasant interlude as President Obama had in 2011, but another sign of the deep conviction and desire to help on Hillary’s part going all the way back to that first presidential trip to Ireland.

And yes, there were politics included. At one point she referred to her “current job.” We can surely guess what she wants her next job to be.

Four years is a lifetime in politics and much can happen in between.

But leaving Dublin I was in no doubt what Hillary wants to do come 2014 or so – and that is to announce she is running for president of the United States.

The truth is Margaret Thatcher likely ordered the Pat Finucane murder -- British can never reveal the truth about the killing of civil rights lawyer

Geraldine Finucane, widow of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane

The latest British inquiry into the death of Pat Finucane is again leaving massive questions unanswered.

The Guardian newspaper editorial headline said it best; “Pat Finucane murder: collusion, contrition, but not the whole truth.”

My strong belief is that the whole truth is that Margaret Thatcher ordered the Pat Finucane murder on February 12, 1989.

That is the key reason that no British Prime Minister will ever allow a public inquiry into the killing of the Belfast civil rights lawyer gunned down in front of his wife and children at his home.

He was shot 14 times while his widow, Geraldine, who was injured, tried to save him.

His only offense was to defend suspected IRA men and women too well in their court hearings.

I am not at all surprised that David Cameron uttered words of regret and then refused a public inquiry after the Da Silva report was issued yesterday.

Geraldine Finucane, a woman of immense courage,called it for what it was.

“This report is a sham. This report is a whitewash. This report is a confidence trick dressed up as independent scrutiny and given invisible clothes of reliability. Most of all, most hurtful and insulting of all, this report is not the truth,” she told reporters afterwards.

Read more: Inquiry into death of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane shows ‘shocking levels of collusion’

She knows what the truth is. The order to kill her husband came all the way from the top and David Cameron or any other British Prime Minister can never allow that truth to be revealed.

He can’t admit the British kill civil rights lawyers, can he?

Patrick Finucane was bringing the case of the Gibraltar 3, three IRA members shot dead in cold blood in March 1988, to Europe, which was going to be a massive embarrassment for Thatcher, who very likely gave the order for them to be shot dead also.

That court later found the three had been shot unlawfully. They had their hands up in surrender when they were shot down.

Finucane was doomed by a top government official. A member of Thatcher’s government Douglas Hogg, a Home Office minister, stood up in the House of Commons three weeks before Finucane was murdered and stated that some lawyers in Northern Ireland were "unduly sympathetic" to Irish Republicans.

He was directly referring to Finucane and signaling the killers to go ahead.

The new inquiry shows that MI5 was perfectly aware of the Finucane murder plot as were the RUC Special branch.

The Stevens inquiry into the Finucane killings stated, “My Enquiry team also investigated an allegation that senior RUC officers briefed the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Rt Hon Douglas Hogg QC, MP, that ‘some solicitors were unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA.”

Mr Hogg repeated this view...and the Enquiry concludes that “the Minister was compromised.”

In this latest enquiry, Sir Desmond Da Silva wrote, "My review of the evidence relating to Patrick Finucane's case has left me in no doubt that agents of the State were involved in carrying out serious violations of human rights up to and including murder."

Those agents did not act alone, they did so on orders from on high -- all the way to 10 Downing Street.

Thatcher’s reaction to the finding that her minister was responsible for the death of a lawyer?

She promoted him to Minister for Agriculture, all the better to keep him quiet.

Hogg was not alone in fingering Finucane of course. It went much higher in the government, all the way  to the top.

It was a time when Thatcher apparently believed she could win the war if only those pesky lawyers would stop getting guilty terrorists off. She also faced massive embarrassment in Europe over the Gibraltar killings.

The killing was sanctioned and carried out by the British state. Of all the crimes committed in Northern Ireland, the Finucane murder is the one which successive British government, of whatever hue, have most resisted investigating.

Pat’s problem was that he was too good at his job of defending Irish men and women arrested for alleged crimes against the state.

He had to be got rid of. The leader of the gang that killed him was a British special branch agent named Tommy Lyttle. The man who confessed to being the Ulster Defense Association hit man was Ken Barrett, also a special branch agent.

The UDA man who supplied the gun was William Stobie, also a special branch agent. He was killed by the UDA, by a British agent  in 2001, when he threatened to tell the truth about what happened to Pat Finucane.

Hogg and Thatcher might as well have been in the room when the gun went off fourteen times - they were just as culpable. The naming was the equivalent of painting a target on Finucane’s back - everyone knew who Hogg meant.

The British government had made their preference known.

And all the whitewash in the world will never remove the truth about what happened to Pat Finucane

Rural Ireland changes rapidly as old ways fade away -- Facing a Facebook future as times change rapidly

The local mart - no longer the common gathering spot for rural Ireland

Rural Ireland is changing rapidly with many of the mainstays of that culture fading fast.

A friend from rural Tipperary put it best to me last week during my visit to Ireland.

We were driving to Belfast from Dublin and I was remarking on how the new highways, while wonderful, where changing the way people saw Ireland nowadays, no roads through rural towns and villages anymore, where much of the charm of Ireland lay.

He said rural Ireland had changed forever.

“Time was when people would gather at the fair day which is now mostly a memory, or the mart which no longer really happens.

“Before they’d gather outside mass but fewer and fewer are going nowadays because of all the scandals and the emigration.”

Even the most hallowed place, the pub, has its shortcomings today.

Read More Irish roots blogs here

“Even that ritual has become far less common nowadays because so many pubs have closed or locals are afraid of drunk driving because of the massive crackdowns. People mostly drink at home now.”

The only mainstay left he declares is the local GAA team, the sports of hurling and football played in every parish in Ireland.

“Were it not for the GAA there would be no community spirit in Ireland at all,” he says emphatically. “It has come down to them.”

It is definitely true. The GAA team plays for the pride of the village or townland and has seriously deep roots in the community.

But  in every other way the rural Ireland that we all knew is dying fast and neighbors are far less neighborly than they were even a few years ago.

It is not all downhill. Things have actually gotten a bit better since the demise of the Celtic Tiger when the emphasis was on big brash homes where keeping people out rather than fostering community bonds was the norm. There are not too many MacMansions any more.

Read More Irish roots blogs here

There has also been the advent of Facebook which has heavily impacted rural Ireland. I see it on my Facebook friend’s feeds who live in rural Ireland where it is a whole new way of communicating news.

Reports of break ins, local events, places to go with kids are all on Facebook daily now, replacing the community bulletins of old.

My niece’s Facebook last week in rural Meath was full of news of where Santa was showing up, how a car had been broken into, where the old folk’s Christmas luncheon was being held.

Rural Ireland is changing and adapting to the modern world. Whether Facebook will ever take the place of the gathering outside Mass or the pint on a Saturday night remains to be seen.

Someone once defined life’s three great needs as food, love and gossip. I’m inclined to agree and think rural Ireland will be fine, just different, in the future as there will always be lots of those three components to be found!

Hillary's Choice -- a run for glory or a quiet retirement after Secretary of State? Irish trip provided vital clues as to her intentions for 2016

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton was feted and bid farewell to at a small private dinner at the Residence club in Stephen’s Green on Thursday night as twenty friends from both sides of the Atlantic gathered to mark her last trip to Ireland as Secretary of State.

During the meal of sea bass and boiled potatoes there was only one topic that dominated all else at the four small tables.

Will she or won’t she?

The White House will have a "for rent" sign in 2016 when Barack Obama leaves. Could she follow the first African American with the first woman and upend American politics for ever?

The answer insiders believe is a likely yes but there remains a significant element of doubt.

While the prospect is tempting the pitfalls are many and Hillary Clinton is keenly aware of them after her crash and burn in 2008

The Clintons have been part of every American national election since 1992, whether as direct participants or as key figures. It is a remarkable record and the question now is will it extend to 2016.

The Dublin dinner was a poignant occasion and one that was dominated by talk of what was next for a remarkable woman who has been Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, First Lady and a law lecturer in her career.

She has a resume unmatched by any modern day politician, indeed you would have to go back to the time of Jefferson to meet one politician who has held so many titles.

But a long resume is not necessarily a qualification for higher office in America. Barack Obama was just a one term senator .

It is not disputed that she is eminently qualified to be president of the United States. The question is will she be a contender and can she win?

There is also the bitter experience of 2008 to consider when she started as the red-hot favorite only to burn out as Barack Obama rode a massive media tide and an internet wave to victory in the primaries.

That defeat singed her in a way no other political setback had hurt. Yet the temptation for one last campaign at the age of 69 in 2016 is very real.

The speculation is already rife. The latest opinion polls show her at record popularity. her husband, fresh from helping secure Obama's victory is also at new levels of approval. Obama will be gone in four years.

Hillary wasn’t saying on Thursday night what her plans were but her tireless aide Huma Abedin did pipe up and say “vacation” when the question was raised on about what she would do next.

Hillary did not address the issue but instead went around the table and asked for memories of her Irish trips and Irish American events.

It was a poignant moment. If this really is her last job in public life as many believe, then she is bidding farewell to Ireland and will return only as a private citizen.

Ireland is very special for the Clintons, where they both proved their mettle on the peace process and established  friendships and links that endure to the present day. Unlike Obama's Moneygall trip which
was little more than a pleasant interlude, the Clintons take their Irish involvement very seriously.

Her aides say that as Secretary of State she has repeatedly used the Irish example in talks with Middle East leaders and others as an example of how those of different ethnicities can get along.

In many ways it was her proving ground. As she had mentioned earlier in her speech at Dublin City University, her first efforts at diplomacy in Northern Ireland had been putting the kettle on and meeting with women from different  backgrounds.

During her husband’s first visit to Northern Ireland in 1995 Hillary had met with community activist Joyce McCarten and dropped into her community center for tea with women of different backgrounds.

Hillary remembered she took the battered aluminum teapot back to the White House and used it as a symbol of her peacekeeping efforts.”

At the time she stated " Joyce gave me an old battered aluminium teapot - which kept the tea very warm, which is what I first noticed about it - that I took with me to the White House where I used it
every single day in the second floor private kitchen."

That unlikely start as a negotiator who eventually ended up facing off with world leaders and despots in the world’s trouble spots was an invaluable insight into bringing people together by stressing their
common humanity she said.

Thus, the women of Northern Ireland and her experience with the Vital Voices campaign stood to her she said.

Other lessons from Northern Ireland have clearly impacted.

The memories came cascading as friends and aides on Thursday night remembered. That December 1995 trip to Belfast and Derry when President Clinton addressed hundreds of thousands and Van Morrison sang “There Will Be Days Like This” was mentioned as a defining moment.

So too was the raucous White House Party on St.Patrick’s Day in the mid 1990s when the couple finally told the carousing Irish from both sides of the divide, who would not go home, to turn the lights off they were going to bed.

Then there was the memory of the first Vital Voices conference in Belfast bringing the women from both sides together.

Earlier at Dublin City University Hillary had revealed her emotional side when mentioning a champion of those days, Inez McCormack, now battling a serious cancer.

Hillary has called the Northern Ireland peace activist several times during her illness, a sign as always that the Clintons do not forget close friends.

This is the new Hillary, the emotional one who reaches out far more than she did. As First Lady she was stand offish, as U.S. Senator she was far more engaging and direct, as Secretary of State she has her husband’s ability to connect with people.

When it came to Hillary’s turn to speak on Thursday night she recalled the Adams visa and the overwhelming advice not to give it and the decision her husband made to grant it.

That taught her too she said, that tough decisions often upset your own side as much as the opposition.

The 2016 race is such a tough decision. There is the capacity to upset key figures in the Democratic Party if she overly delays her decision to run or not in 2016.

There are two candidates chomping at the bit, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.

Both are bright, young and ambitious yet know that they are frozen in place until Hillary makes up her mind.

If she is clever they will have a long wait. The later she decides the harder it is to mount a campaign against her, the harder it is for an outsider like an Obama-type to mount a guerilla campaign against her.

Yet she knows how fickle the press is, how they will seek to anoint some other new candidate if only to sell newspapers when the time comes around.

Her abrupt fall from grace in 2008 when she thought she was the anointed one is still on her mind.

By 2016 some other candidate now in the long grass will have emerged perhaps. In 2008 they saw the now disgraced John Edwards as the looming threat.

Obama was in their rear view mirror his chance unlikely to come for at least another eight years. He soon destroyed that illusion.

So as she departs Ireland after her successful Dublin and Belfast visits Hillary Clinton will have much to ponder. As soon as she gets the rest she so desperately needs she will face the greatest choice of her life, to run or not in 2016.

Already some Republcian candidates have made shapes and visited early battleground states.

With campaigns startng earlier and earlier Clinton will be hounded to declare by the end of 2013 on whether  she intends or not to run.

In a life full of drama, glory and bitter defeat, the guess is Hillary will indeed seek that magic ring one more time and run for the White House.

The Clintons do not like unfinished business and the most remarkable couple in the history of the Republic are unlikely to pass up one final shot at history.

Hillary Clinton says ‘put me to work’ on Northern Ireland after she steps down - Amazing offer to American Ireland Fund by Secretary of State on Belfast visit

Hillary Clinton

Belfast; Well we now know at least one job Hillary Clinton would like to have after she leaves office.

Here is what she said to a room full of attendees at the American Ireland Fund luncheon in her honor held at the spectacular Titanic Quarter museum here.

“So my offer to you is, as I leave this current position and become a private citizen again, I want to continue working with you.

"I want to support you in what you are doing.  And I hope that we’ll have a chance to really come to grips with some of the serious remaining problems that are still plaguing the fulfillment of our aspirations for the people of Northern Ireland.

“Of course I look forward to coming back and having some time just to relax and spend a few hours talking with friends and thinking about things besides public life.

“But I’m very serious about this offer and very serious to the Ireland Funds that I want to remain involved as a friend, an advocate, and a cheerleader for what you have already achieved.”

That last sentence is especially compelling. As far as I know, it is the first time that Hillary has specifically committed to doing work for any group, voluntary or otherwise after she quits office.

What an opportunity for the Ireland Funds to have the best known name in America pulling for their cause!

Hillary has made an offer the organization can hardly refuse however it plays out and what role she might have.

Chairman Loretta Brennan Glucksman and CEO Kieran McLoughlin have done a remarkable job positioning the Fund for the 21st Century but they hardly expected the ‘put me to work for you’ offer by one of America’s most prodigious fundraisers and famous people.

It was a remarkable end to a spectacular trip by Clinton to Ireland, one which I was delighted to tag along on.

Earlier I had witnessed a sad but touching moment when two of the great architects of the historic Good Friday agreement, David Trimble and John Hume met with Secretary Clinton in a private room.

John Hume is not well these days and wife Pat continues to play an heroic role in being by her husband’s side. David Trimble looks hale and hearty but his role in the Good Friday Agreement shortened his political career.

It was great to see their work acknowledged one last time by the Secretary of State.

Other heroes of the peace process were also present, the extraordinary Ian Paisley, still hale and hearty, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and of course the two Northern Ireland overlords, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness.

The great and the good turned out to  say farewell to Mrs Clinton, but as both Robinson and McGuinness noted, there is every chance they will greet her soon again perhaps in a very different capacity.

Witnessing Hillary in Belfast one last time and listening to her impassioned words about the Irish peace process I have no doubt that her involvement was one of the touchstones of her political life.

It was a fortunate wind that blew the Clintons into Northern ireland on that November/December week in 1995 which seems so long ago now.

But all these years later the fire continues to burn and Hillary wants to continue to kindle the flames. It is an opportunity not to be missed I’d say.

Hillary Clinton singing in the rain in Ireland as she makes her final visit -- Mentions Gerry Adams visa as a defining moment in her work for Northern Ireland

Hillary Clinton at the US Embassy in Dublin (Credit: Rueters)

It rained cats and dogs in Dublin on Thursday but that hardly bothered the gawkers or the thousand or so gathered in line to hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speak.

She was in Dublin to address students and the general pubic at the Helix Auditorium on the campus of Dublin City University (DCU) on Dublin’s north side, on the topic of human rights.

Unlike Bill Clinton, who approached every public appearance like a jazz riff, arriving late and meandering down a receiving line like a drunken sailor, Hillary is far more efficient and time conscious.

Once at a fundraiser I helped organize for the Clintons, Bill was on time much to the relief of his officials. Suddenly he ducked into the hotel’s kitchen and re-appeared a half-hour later surrounded by waiters and busboys.

When Hillary arrived at DCU,  there was no such meanderings as she quickly made her way down the VIP receiving line remembering every name and face.

As First Lady she was stand offish and ill at ease, these days she positively bonds with everyone in sight.

While Bill is the original emoticon smiley face, Hillary has become far more comfortable around people and it shows.

Aides say she studies names and faces intently, especially on foreign trips, and has never been known to get a leader’s name wrong.

Before her talk she laughed and smiled and preened for pictures, as always comfortable among Irish friends who have become a mainstay of her political career.

Read more: Reactions to ‘mob rule and violence’ as protests over Union Jack in Northern Ireland continue – VIDEO

Preliminaries completed the major topic when the Secretary of State disappeared backstage to complete her hairdo.

It really wasn't a hairdo, it was a pony tail as far as I could see, hair severely pulled back from her head and tied at the back.

“Don’t like it,” said one usher, decidedly opposed.

”Makes her look older, she should have it done glamorous like.”

“I loved it,” said a woman on the receiving line, fearful perhaps that someone in Hillary’s camp would overhear.

Everyone agrees she looks tired, puffy around the eyes, in need of a break. She admits so herself.
She has traveled over a million miles and to 112 countries. She has lived on a plane. Her aide Huma Abedin says it is all like a blur these days.

By all accounts the 757 State Department plane is not that comfortable as a residence.

Many present in Dublin were hoping she would be swapping it for Air Force One sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Her appearance before the audience in Dublin City University was one highlight of a day that included dinner with old friends at a Stephen’s Green club called The Residence.

There she sat among 20 or so compatriots and Irish born who have been with her through all the trials and tribulations and high points of her successful career.

I was lucky to be there and to break bread with the most extraordinary woman in the history of American politics, one who many consider just one campaign away from the White House.

Each of her friends stood up and spoke about what her friendship had meant. I talked about that magical day in Belfast in December 1995 when she and Bill as president and First Lady visited Northern Ireland for the first time and changed the North for ever. It was one of the greatest moments of my life.

Interesting that what was on her mind was the Gerry Adams visa when she spoke, the defining moment as she saw it in her and her husband’s involvement in Irish affairs.

As she prepares to embark on the next phase of her life, Hillary Clinton will have the world playing the usual guessing game that has become such a part of her stock in trade.

She teases, maddens, but rarely disappoints. Like what her latest hair do will be, she can be an international woman of mystery, waiting to unveil her latest move.

Me? I believe she will run in 2016. Her time in Ireland has only reinforced that for me. There is too much history being made to stop now.

Irish America stands up for Denis O’Brien and applauds loudly -- Ireland’s top businessman and philanthropist wows New York crowd

Irish media mogul and philanthropist Denis O'Brien (Photo: Forbes)

Denis O’Brien is Ireland’s equivalent of Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish emigrant who made billions and gave it all away in the final decades of his life.

Though he roamed and prospered far and wide, Carnegie never forgot the millions in need in his own country or anywhere else he operated.

O’Brien has made his billions through his telephone company Digicel which has provided cell phone service to millions of the world's poor.

He has also given back in the countless millions to those countries where he has prospered.

His next assignment will be Burma, he says, or Myanmar if you prefer. It is a country with a population of 63 million, where only two million have cell phones, which has recently opened up to outsiders.

Writing in Time Magazine recently, Bill Clinton rated O’Brien’s work in making financial transactions possible by cell phone as the single most important development in 2012 in helping the poor worldwide.

Impressive.

He has personally given $16.5 million to Haiti in an attempt to help get that country back on its feet.

Of course O’Brien earns a handsome buck, but he gives back. His work on behalf of the destitute in Haiti and elsewhere has won him international acclaim. He is a huge backer of Concern, the Third World agency that has inspired a new generation of Irish to volunteer in the Third World.

Read More: Business 100 Honorees and Keynote Denis O’Brien Celebrated in New York

That is why I was immensely proud to honor him yesterday in New York before a packed audience at the Irish America Magazine Annual Business 100 in New York.

We had never honored a non-American before with our premier business award but both editor Patricia Harty and I felt O’Brien deserved to be the first

Good men like O’Brien are rare as hen’s teeth and like all good men he has drawn ferocious critics as well -- mostly in Ireland.

That is not unusual. "Great hatred, little room" as Yeats wrote and O’Brien’s success began in the Wild West era of capitalism in Ireland when there were few established rules.

O’Brien was perfect for that era, a buccaneer capitalist with no special family ties to the notorious insider world of Irish business.

He emerged with the country’s first cell phone license and turned it into pure gold and some have never forgiven him for upsetting the cozy coterie.

How he got it still exercises some of the chatterati in Ireland.

I think it is time Irish America took a stance on this good and decent man and gave him the respect and acknowledgement he deserves as the pre-eminent Irish businessman and philanthropist of his era.

He is a man who has done enormous good on behalf of so many and will continue to do so. He has raised the Irish banner high and proud wherever he lands in the world. He has reached out to Irish America and is a major supporter of immigration reform.

That is the extraordinary legacy, even if he is sometimes a prophet unheard in his own land.

Over here we hear him – loud and clear. Our message is clear too -- Irish patriots working for the betterment of Ireland, Irish America, and the world, are always welcome.

Because that has always been the way. He is this generation’s Chuck Feeney doing good by doing his best and the packed venue yesterday rising to give him a standing ovation after his remarks recognizes that above all.

Ain’t that America folks.

Proving the Irish Famine was genocide by the British -- Tim Pat Coogan moves Famine history on to a new plane

The Famine memorial on the quays in Dublin City

The most significant section of Tim Pat Coogan’s new book on the Irish Famine is not his own writing, but his printing of the United Nations definition of genocide.

“The Famine Plot”, published by Palgrave MacMillan, was released in America last week and Coogan should have been here to launch it but in a separate but equally confounding plot he was denied a visa to come here by the American Embassy in Dublin.

The conclusion from his book is unmistakable. Ireland’s most prominent historian, who has previously created definitive portraits of both Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera, has now pointed the finger squarely at the British during the Famine and stated it was genocide.

It is a big charge, but Coogan is a big man, physically, intellectually, and in every sense and makes a very effective accusation. Coogan has painted a portrait of devastating neglect, abuse, and mismanagement that certainly fits the genocide concept.

I mean if we go back to that time, Ireland was the equivalent of Puerto Rico or Samoa, massive dependencies on the United States today.

If there were a massive food shortage in either of those two countries, we know the US would step up to the plate, literally.

Back in Famine time, the same potato crop disease occurred most heavily in Scotland, outside Ireland, yet there were relatively few casualties as the landowners and government ensured, for their own sakes as much as anything, that there was no mass death.

That was not the case in Ireland, where a very different mentality prevailed. The damned Irish were going to get what they deserved because of their attachment to Catholicism and Irish ways when they were refusing to toe the British line.

Read more: Tim Pat Coogan slams American Embassy as ‘Kafkaesque’ after visa refusal

As Coogan painstakingly recounts, every possible effort by local organizations to feed the starving were thwarted and frustrated by a British government intent on teaching the Irish a lesson and forcing market forces on them.

Charles Trevelyan, the key figure in the British government, had foreshadowed the deadly policy in a letter to the “Morning Post”, after a trip to Ireland, where he heartily agreed with the sentiment that there were at least a million or two people too many in the benighted land and that the eight million could not possibly survive there.

“Protestant and Catholic will freely fall and the land will be for the survivors.”

Shortly after, he was in charge of a policy that brought that situation about.

One Trevelyan story and one quote suffice.

“British Coastguard Inspector-General, Sir James Dombrain, when he saw starving paupers, ordered his subordinates to give free food handouts. For his attempts to feed the starving, Dombrain was publicly rebuked by Trevelyan…”

The Trevelyan quote is “The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”

Tim Pat Coogan has done an enormous service with this book.

Read it and weep.

Tim Pat Coogan slams American Embassy as ‘Kafkaesque’ after visa refusal - Responds to Ambassador Rooney statement that rules were followed

Tim Pat Coogan

Writer and historian Tim Pat Coogan has slammed the U.S. Embassy in Dublin as “Kafkaesque” in their dealing with Irish citizens when they apply for visas.

Coogan’s comments come after U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney defended the consular staff and how they treat individuals.

The exchange comes after Coogan was denied a U.S. visa twice for a book tour and was only granted one after the intervention of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer who was responding to Irish American concerns.

In his statement given to IrishCentral, Tim Pat Coogan said: “As I suspect I am the only prominent Irish writer to have been barred from the U.S. in the recent past I feel I must reply to the Ambassador Rooney statement.

“I have only the friendliest feelings towards Ambassador Rooney personally but have found dealing with the U.S. Embassy Kafkaesque.

“I have been reliably informed many others less prominent than I have had very bad experiences also.

“There is no reason for such difficult behavior towards a friendly country.”

Read More: Diplomats gone wild at U.S. Embassy in Dublin say concerned Irish

“My case is simple. I was unexpectedly turned down on two visas and was only phoned out of the blue by an anonymous Embassy spokesman a day after my book tour was due to begin to say my third application had been successful.

“This success followed a major campaign of protest from Irish Americans, which prompted Senator Charles Schumer to intervene on my behalf. By then it was too late for my book tour.

“The refusal came as a great blow to me personally given my record of friendship towards the U.S.  And at no time was I given an explanation by Embassy officials as to the reasons.”

Ambassador Rooney in his statement said: “I want to respond to a series of media reports about a delay in a visa for a prominent Irish writer.  These reports were particularly harsh and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the visa process.

"Although we cannot comment on individual cases, I do want to say that during my time as Ambassador to Ireland I have seen how our consular officers at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin are dedicated to facilitating travel between Ireland and the U.S.

"Our consular officers, like their counterparts all over the world, have the difficult job of enforcing U.S. Immigration laws. They do vital work, but their service often goes unsung and can even be derided by those who don’t understand the law and the process or don’t like the outcome.  Let me say that each applicant’s eligibility for a visa is evaluated individually and objectively under U.S. law.  No Embassy officer, including the Ambassador, has the legal discretion to disregard a finding of ineligibility or to waive any requirement for administrative processing.  

"The service to their country that U.S. consular officers provide is essential to keeping our borders safe,” the statement ends.

I have to say the Rooney statement is problematic to me. Everyone agrees in keeping U.S.  borders safe  but making it incredibly difficult for Ireland’s leading historian and most pro-American writer  to come here hardly qualifies for positive  border security measures.

Ambassador Rooney’s point that the letter of the law is always applied is debatable. How is it that when Senator  Schumer intervened the rules changed and a visa magically materialized?

Read More: United States visa ban on Tim Pat Coogan removed after Senator Schumer steps in

Rooney seems to be in the paw of the Embassy securocrats, most notably US Consular  official Bradley Wilde who has drawn huge criticism for his attitude from those  Irish who deal  with him and some of his  staff.

As I understand it, there have been high level expressions of concern from the Irish government about the refusal of visas to several Irish people, none as famous as Coogan before this but nothing has changed.

Perhaps Ambassador Rooney could refer back to what a predecessor, Jean Kennedy Smith said about Coogan and his new book ‘The Famine Plot’

“He has the wisdom of a craftsman, the urgency of a journalist the depth of a historian..... he is one of the greatest social commentators of our time’

Surely a dangerous man to allow into the United States!

Diplomats gone wild at U.S. Embassy in Dublin say concerned Irish -- Horror stories about how Irish are treated after famed author Tim Pat Coogan refused

Hillary Clinton

Since the Tim Pat Coogan story broke here, I have heard numerous horror stories about the American Embassy in Dublin and how it is treating Irish applicants for visas to the United States.

As we know, famed author and historian Tim Pat Coogan was treated incredibly poorly and denied a visa for his U.S. book tour until Irish American pressure and New York Senator Chuck Schumer reversed the decision.

It is vital how an embassy treats the citizens of the country they are operating in. It sets a tone. The U.S. Embassy currently is presenting a very hostile face to the Irish.

There is no good reason for that. Ireland is not the Soviet Union circa 1955.

That’s not just my opinion -- it is that of a broad spectrum of Irish government personnel, lawyers who deal with the visa section of the embassy, and people who went through the process who I have spoken with.

It now appears that Tim Pat was the tip of the iceberg. Several who have dealings with the embassy have recounted episodes of rudeness, arrogance and most of all incomprehensible decisions by visa officers there.

Read More: United States visa ban on Tim Pat Coogan removed after Senator Schumer steps in

It is spoken openly about in Irish government circles. Many prominent figures in Ireland and here are scratching their heads at the treatment.

Representations have been made but nothing has changed. Visa officers in U.S. embassies have broad latitude, but the division in Dublin seems deliberately set on keeping applicants out of the U.S. based on the slightest whim.

Ambassador Dan Rooney, while a beloved figure to many, hardly seems to have reacted despite being told on numerous occasions about the treatment of Irish visa seekers.

Since the arrival of visa head Bradley Wilde in 2010, things have quickly gone downhill in Ballsbridge where the embassy is located.

Wilde has instituted a very aggressive regime which treats visa seekers in the main like potential burdens on America.

Rules appear to have been arbitrarily applied and changed, leaving deep confusion. Rudeness, failure to explain and downright bloody mindedness when depriving people of visas on the smallest technicalities seems rampant.

Read more: Niall O'Dowd -- Barring of writer Tim Pat Coogan from U.S. is an absolute disgrace

Maybe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who visits Dublin next week, could take this up with Ambassador Rooney.

It is long past due as the Tim Pat Coogan case finally proved.

A new spirit in the Irish community after Rockaways Day of Action -- A real insight into how much a united community can accomplish

The Irish lend a helping hand in the Rockaways
(Photo: Sean McPhail)

The success of the Irish Day of Action in Rockaway when 1,000 Irish descended on the devastated Rockaway Peninsula has led to a new spirit in the Irish community.

Rocked back on its heels by the lack of emigration and the tough times for many of the older Irish organizations, the Rockaway day was an amazing insight into how much the community can still accomplish.

From earliest dawn on Saturday all over New York and in many places upstate the Irish came together in the best spirit of the Meitheal, the Gaelic word meaning a gathering to help neighbors in need.

What was truly heartening was the mixture from the youngest of Irish organizations to the oldest, to the geographic spread across all communities.

The role of the Irish consulate in coordinating the original response was immense.

Many years ago such a leadership role would have been far more difficult. The Northern Irish issue divided the community leading to boycotts stand offs and bad blood.

Read more: 1,000 Irish show up for Rockaway ‘Day of Action’ to rebuild community

That is no longer the case, allowing organizations to exist in a cooperative fashion as was proven on Saturday.

What was also obvious was how perfectly tailored to the problem the Irish response was.

We are a community that deals heavily in construction and skills related.

The Rockaways’ crying need was for such skills, especially electricians who are highly valued there because of the number of houses in need.

What was also stunning was the number of women who turned out, well over the 50 per cent mark.

It was an interesting insight into that Irish quality of empathy and caring so strongly represented in medical fields and child care by women in the main.

For many of the Irish-born who were unfamiliar with the Rockaways and Breezy Point the sight of so many tricolors and Irish name plates outside homes was itself an education into how important the Irish heritage and association for so many.

It was a learning curve all around and a day that ended with good cheer and good feeling. “Ni Neart go Chur Le Cheile” is the old Irish adage. “No strength until we pull together.”

How true.

1,000 Irish show up for Rockaway ‘Day of Action’ to rebuild community - Live aid for stricken Rockaway residents after Hurricane Sandy

On Beach 96th Street in the Rockaways, right by the ocean, the local health clinic was a needed lifeline.

Since Hurricane Sandy however, the clinic has been shuttered, the water made it up to the second floor and everything inside was destroyed.

The mold is visible on the walls, the carpets ruined and destroyed. The clinic is in sad disrepair.

Until Saturday when a hardy bunch of Irish volunteers arrived for the Day of Action.

As team leader Dubliner Eric Moore recounted it was like another hurricane had hit the place, but this time a benign one, driven by the good intentions of an Irish community which showed up in force to help the stricken Rockaways.

By the time I got there neighbors were poking their heads out the window or walking across the street to thank the Irish volunteers.

Just a block from the beach many of their houses had been destroyed when Sandy hit but the arrival of the Irish gave them hope that things were actually going to get better.

The 96th Street location was just one of five in the Rockaways peninsula that the 1,000 Irish who descended went to work on.

In Breezy Point, an AOH division cleaned out a Protestant church, perhaps the first time that has happened in history. The grateful pastor gave his blessings to the mainly Rockland Irish crew who worked all day.

At St. Francis De Salles church the monsignor finally had his basement cleaned out and the sand removed. His church has been the center of much of the activity but he has had not time to clean up his own house – until the Irish arrived.

One of my lasting memories from this day will be a crowd of Irish volunteers outside the parish residence as evening fell, sweeping, brushing, collecting, and clearly happy as they worked.

The day had started in the pre-dawn for most of the Irish.

From early morning 12 buses rolled from The Bronx, Yonkers, Queens, Manhattan and upstate Rockland. Hundreds of others drove by cars and trucks. Important logistical equipment  was  conveyed by Liffey Van Lines.

When the volunteers arrived they fanned out to the pre-scouted locations. While there was some confusion at the beginning at some of the sites, soon work details were available for all.

Right after the green on white Irish Day of Action T shirts (sponsored by Aer Lingus) were seen everywhere as the Irish got to work.

“We knew we needed a response to the events in the Rockaways, we knew from the community that there was a pent up demand to do something,” said Irish consul General Noel Kilkenny.

“We knew there had been lots of fundraisers and we wanted to do something different, “ said Ciaran Staunton of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform one of the main organizers. “So we decided on a Day of Action.”

The different Irish Centers run by Siobhan Dennehy, Orla Kelleher and Paul Finnegan got behind the idea 100 per cent. Deputy Consul General Peter Ryan convened almost daily meetings, even over Thanksgiving and worked with Speaker Christine Quinn on transportation and issues on the ground in Rockaway. Turlough McConnell handled communications with the community.

Location scouts such as Brian McCabe, Owen Rogers and Dan Dennehy went down to Rockaway to find the places of greatest need.

I am happy to say I was one of those original members who sat with Kilkenny and Ryan and decided on the Day of Action.

It was no sure success. It was set for the Saturday after Thanksgiving when many were away. It meant a very early start for the bus in the pre-dawn hour, it meant a lengthy day trip to the Rockaways and was very much dependent on weather.

We should not have worried, Soon the rampant goodwill among the community for those injured and damaged by Sandy turned into a powerful force.

We met so many exceptional people in the Rockaways. At Beach 38th street in St, Gertrude’s church, Reggie Warren and his staff operating in one of the hardest hit African Americans neighborhoods were running a clockwork organization with wall charts showing houses that needed to be cleared and people in need.

In Hamilton Beach, perhaps the hardest hit area after Breezy Point, our volunteers were immediately swept up by the professional crews gathered there and sent to work.

Likewise in Breezy Point the Habitat for Humanity folks had all their ducks in a row and our volunteers shovel ready for work assignments.

Of all the places damaged Breezy Point shocks the most. The area where the 111 houses burned to the ground resembles an atom bomb crater with twisted metal, trees and buildings in every direction.

Breezy is the most Irish town in America according to the U.S Census and it was great to see Old Glory and the Tricolor still flying high despite the massive setbacks.

By day’s end the Irish community had contributed a massive 7,000 man-hours to helping the Rockaways in their huge recovery project.

Many  sat in the heated tent opposite St Frances De Salles church, donated by Irish firm Navillus tired but content and telling the stories of their day and the incredible gratitude shown them by locals.

There were so many warm moments for them, and I know from conversations that many will be making their way down there in the weeks and months ahead.

The Irish community has shown the way on the Rockaways and hopefully many other groups will follow. It was a day for Irish pride no question about it.

Barring of writer Tim Pat Coogan from U.S. is an absolute disgrace - America’s greatest friend in Ireland insulted by the U.S. Embassy

Tim Pat Coogan

The barring of Tim Pat Coogan from coming to America for a book tour is disgraceful. He was refused a visa when he applied for one for his new book tour.

It is one in a clear pattern of a number of recent clueless decisions at the American Embassy in Dublin at the consular level that defy logic.

Read More: Famed historian Tim Pat Coogan confirms he was turned down twice for U.S. visa

Ambassador Dan Rooney is clearly unable or unwilling to use his own discretion in some of these cases.

Ever since Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith played a stellar role in the Irish peace process by running her embassy with an iron fist, the functionaries have done their very best to keep incoming ambassadors powerless.

Never mind that Kennedy’s role stand suit like a beacon in the annals of American diplomacy in Ireland. An ambassador the bureaucrats cannot control is a dangerous person indeed it seems.

They did not succeed in the Bush era where excellent appointments ensured that many political issues were retained at the ambassadorial level.

That does not seem to be the case today. The Tim Pat Coogan case is a travesty but senior Irish government officials have told me it is by no means the only strange decision emanating from the embassy in recent times.

There seems to be a hardening attitude there to make it as difficult as possible for people to come to the U.S. from changes in how the J1 one year visa program is being administered to several high profile turndowns.

Blink and you might think you were back in the McCarthy era.

Put simply, there was no greater defender of America in Ireland for the past few decades than Tim Pat Coogan, especially at times when the anti-American sentiment there was at its highest.

His pro-American stances, both in his Irish Press newspaper and his writing about the power of the Irish Diaspora were major factors in keeping the American flag flying in Ireland.

He played a key behind the scenes role in the Irish peace process, especially in the early days when his contacts with Father Alex Reid, the unsung hero of the entire process, were vital.

He was deeply trusted by the Kennedy family and it was a famous meal in Dublin he had with Senator Edward Kennedy convincing him of the need for a visa for Gerry Adams that swayed the Massachusetts senator as well as helping bring President Clinton into the loop.

Visiting Irish Americans are always assured of a hearty welcome from Tim Pat and his backing for America and stance against the anti-American rhetoric so often spouted in Ireland made him this country’s prime defender.

Yet this is the 77-year-old man who the American Embassy just refused a visa to come to America too and humiliated him in the process?

Is there no institutional memory whatever at the embassy that can separate and remember a friend? No one who was able to realize the deep insult they had just inflicted on America’s greatest journalistic ally there?

Where was Ambassador Rooney in all this, as we know he was personally aware of the case?

There are so many questions but one undeniable fact. It will be a blot forever on the Dublin embassy that it humiliated one of its greatest supporters and Ireland’s leading historian by refusing a visa to launch his new book on the Irish famine.

Disgraceful is the word for it.