Death of Billy Vincent a truly extraordinary Anglo-Irishman at 93 -- Deeply committed to Ireland, he helped start the American Ireland Fund

RIP Billy Vincent

Billy Vincent, who just died at the age of 93, was one of the most extraordinary characters I have ever known.

Back in the day when my world was young, about 1979 to be exact, I had the bright idea to start my first newspaper in San Francisco.

Myself and a partner, Tom McDonagh, had about $1,000 dollars and by the second edition we were broke.
I realized I had to raise money and fast. One of my unlikely friends at the time was A.W. Vincent.

Billy, as he was universally known, was an Anglo Irish gentleman who has somehow been transported to San Francisco where he lived in a palatial mansion in Pacific Heights. His mother, Maud Bourn was a San Francisco native.

Despite the clipped Oxford accent and the former British Army background – he was a highly decorated soldier in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who saw major action in World War II — he was Irish in the best sense.

His family, the Bourn Vincents, owned Muckross House in Killarney and had given the 11,000 acre estate to the Irish state where it remains one of the jewels of the Irish state-owned park system.

He became a very successful businessman in California after the war and by the time I knew him he had begun major philanthropic work for Ireland through the American Irish Foundation, which later merged with the American Ireland Fund.

So, to Billy Vincent I went seeking money for my new newspaper venture.

He referred to everyone by their surnames, as in, “O’Dowd, what on earth do you want me to do, invest in some dubious Irish newspaper?”

‘Yes,’  I told him. He harrumphed, which is the only way I can describe his reaction.

But he did invest, and not only him, but he rounded up some rich colleagues and gave me enough to survive and eventually prosper.

He refused to take the money back. “O’Dowd old chap, don’t bother me --just make sure your newspaper works.”

We became fast friends. I often attended his private parties, always for worthy causes or visiting Irish dignitaries at his mansion. He’d usually call beforehand and tell me, “Now O’Dowd, don’t appear in some scruffy old jacket,” (I was going through my long hair and hippie phase) and, “scrub up, old chap.”

I spent time with him in Muckross, his beloved Killarney home where he was clearly at his most comfortable. His pride in his Kerry roots was evident to all. He took me on a ramble through the grounds, pointing out the family landmarks, which were generations old.

We discussed Northern Ireland at length and he displayed a keen instinct and sense of the need for American help to solve the problem. He played a huge role in the success of the American Ireland Fund, especially on the West Coast, and in later years when he moved to Monaco he helped establish its successful branch there. Kieran McLoughlin CEO of the Funds told me he met Billy during his final days and his thoughts as always were of Ireland. “An incredible gentleman,” was his heartfelt verdict.

We drifted apart when he moved to Monaco and I to New York. But I will never forget him, as patriotic and decent an Irishman as you would ever meet.

The Irish Times obituary said it well; Vincent, they said, was, “Known for a cranky directness with which he pricked pomposity and exposed humbug, he also was possessed of warmth and compassion.”

I can personally attest to that when he decided to help a neophyte Irish publisher with no dollars but only a dream.

May he rest in peace and condolences to his lovely wife Elisabeth and children and grandchildren.

Living through Hurricane Sandy as she came ashore -- Scariest moments of my life as monster storm hit

Hurricane Sandy - Waves hitting shore at Long Island Sound

PHOTOS - Hurricane Sandy hits New York - Super storm causes destruction and flooding - slideshow

In my 33 years in America I have never experienced anything like the last 24 hours. When the news of Hurricane Sandy first broke I thought I’d seen all of this before, having lived through a series of tropical storms and near hurricanes.

But Sandy was different.

I have never seen such decimation in my neighborhood  in Long Island. In my own back garden a huge tree came crashing down. The only warning was a loud crashing sound before it fell. The roads around my house are completely impassable. My brother-in-law took three hours to negotiate three miles in a desperate effort to get to his home.

We have been in pitch blackness since six o’clock at the dreaded moment when the lights went out and the television signal faded to a small white dot. Up and down the neighborhood it seems like a satanic monster has flicked a switch and darkness descended.

Then came the wind. A familiar sound at first, then more like a freight car on a train rattling through the empty streets, bending the trees, breaking many of them, and sending my neighbor's lawn furniture spinning through the air.

There are few times when I have been as frightened, especially when the tallest tree in my block, which was right in my neighbor’s yard, seemed to bend half way and look certain to break with one particularly fierce gust of wind.

If this was only a hurricane one category I can only imagine what a four or five like Hurricane Katrina must have sounded like. It is the stuff of sheer nightmares and terror and yet I know we have been very lucky.

People tell me the scenes from Battery Park City are horrendous and at least five people are already confirmed dead. Who knows how many more will perish.

In Rockaway Beach, one of the most Irish neighborhoods in America, the devastation has been compared to New Orleans, after Katrina. I will probably know some of those people whose homes have been flooded and lives have been changed by this storm.

I have lived through earthquakes and twisters but never through a hurricane and it is surely the scariest experience of my life. The sheer power and scope makes you realize how little we can shape the forces of nature when they decide to descend upon us.

For all those left homeless, for all those left scared and frightened, there is an enormous lesson from this hurricane – mother nature will do what she wants, when she wants, and our  modern world can only bow before it.

Now, as I look out my window, the worst of the storm has passed and I see our forlorn neighbors begin to pick up their lives again I realize the miracle of life more than ever, like after  9/11.

In Samuel Beckett’s words, “I can’t go on, I must go on”. And indeed we must.


PHOTOS - Hurricane Sandy hits New York - Super storm causes destruction and flooding - slideshow

Hurricane Sandy is set to blow Obama and Romney campaigns right off course - Election will take a back seat to “perfect storm” as it blows in

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy is barreling up the East Coast as I write and it is surely an unexpected nightmare for both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

They had probably prepared for every eventuality this last full week of campaigning and thought long and hard of every possible new wrinkle in a close fought race.

Except for a hurricane barreling up the East Coast sending everyone fleeing coastal areas like rats.

Just imagine if it had hit a week later and interfered with voting in the presidential election?

(And whose idea was it anyway to have elections in November right on the shoulder of bad weather season?)

How will President Obama and Mitt Romney play it? It seems to offer both men a poisoned chalice.

Sure Obama can look presidential and comforter in chief when the storm hits and he will almost certainly visit a disaster areas in its aftermath.

But he has to be extremely careful not to play politics overtly with a possible tragedy.

Remember George Bush and his disastrous reaction to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, which dogged his presidency forever?

In addition, if early voting is hit in states that are toss ups that are in the path of the storm, it will disproportionately affect his voters who have been winning the early voting turnout.

For Mitt Romney, who had been experiencing a boost in recent national polls but still trails in key battlegrounds, the storm could have the effect freezing the race for the length of the storm.

He also knows it also gives his opponent the opportunity to look presidential and Obama has impressed on such occasions like in the aftermath of the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords.

So neither man will be happy with the weather Gods for throwing one yet more unpredictable X factor into the final week of campaigning. But that’s what they face.

Jimmy Savile, a monstrous pedophile hiding in plain sight -- Massive cover up ensured BBC star escaped arrest when alive

Jimmy Savile receives his knighthood from the Queen for entertainment and services

When I was living in Ireland, during the 1970s, Jimmy Savile was a big deal. The platinum haired DJ was host of “Top of the Pops” the most popular program by a mile on BBC television, featuring the top twenty songs in the charts that week. For a teenage generation, just feeling the first stirrings of the pop revolution, Jimmy Savile defined cool.

Savile was a welcome dash of color on a grey landscape and was universally loved.

By the time I emigrated Savile had moved on to his show “Jim’ll Fix It’ where he essentially made dreams come true for sick children.

Over the years he raised tens of millions for children’s charities and he perfected the role of aging eccentric rock star beloved by the masses.

Read more: Irish interview with Jimmy Savile, suspected mass pedophile, surfaces

He was revered from coast to coast and in Ireland, where he was a frequent visitor, he was mobbed. He was knighted by the Queen and he went to his grave last year as one of the most respected and beloved leaders of his generation.

Yet hiding in plain sight all the time was the fact that he was a vicious pedophile.

British police now say he may have abused by up to 300 young victims including, sickeningly, some of the ill children he helped.

How could he have gotten away with it for so long?

The answer now seems clear. He was so powerful that even those who knew his dirty secret stayed quiet about it.

That apparently included senior figures in the BBC who cast a blind eye on his activities because he was such a valuable commodity to them. A major investigation on him was shelved  after pressure from unknown quarters.

When he was alive several tabloids sniffed around the story and Savile went public on many occasions brushing the allegations aside.

It was incredibly brazen. To highlight the allegations against himself and dismiss them and it showed the depth of his arrogance and belief he could get away with it.

And of course he did.

He died a hero leaving hundreds of victims behind.

It is a powerful lesson in how plausible he was and how gullible people are to a smooth-talking utterly assured pervert who dropped names of powerful people when any questions arose.

Jimmy Savile’s game is finally up but those who protected him through the years must carry their own guilt now for not facing down the serial pedophile.

And his victims must surely question an establishment that refused to listen to them and listened to a pervert instead.

Democratic near panic in Washington as Mitt Romney bandwagon rolls -- Contrast in mood with happy Republicans is very evident as race closes

Mitt Romney Republican candidate looking happy

Washington D.C: The contrast in confidence between Democratic and Republican supporters here in Washington is striking.

Our newspaper Irish Voice hosted our annual Legal 100 event here last night at the residence of the Irish Ambassador Michael Collins, and the talk among the well connected from both sides who showed up was all about the election.

There were many movers and shakers among the large crowd and the mood shift was evident.

Democrats frankly were grim. “It comes down to Ohio?” said a former prominent politician. “It did for Kerry in 2004 and he lost it right there and we could lose it too.”

“We have to hold Ohio,” said another stalwart and major fundraiser. “We have no hope other than doing that -- It looks like the ground game is the only way we can hold it.”

The main hope of the Democratic side seemed to be in that massive turn out the vote effort. “It’s not the economy stupid,” said one political leader, “it’s the turnout stupid.”

A Democratic foot soldier from Pennsylvania talked about the massive effort underway there. “We will add two points to the polls,” he predicted.

Read more news from the US Election 2012 here

Several referred to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s race in Nevada a few years back when polls showed him five behind, yet, because of his massive organization, he won the day.

Democrats frankly are reeling at how hard and how fast Obama appears to have fallen. The ABC /Washington Post poll on Thursday shows him three behind, a similar margin to several other polls.

At the end of September he seemed to be cruising to victory with polls showing him well ahead, now he enters the final week and a half gasping for his political life.

Republicans in Washington have a pep in their step. “We’re ahead in the national polls, no doubt about it and the state polls will adjust,” said one big campaign donor many years on the scene.

Obama wrote off Romney far too soon said another. This is a fifty-fifty election he said, it was always going to come down to that.

Obama’s attitude in the first debate clearly cost him dear they say. He was just not prepped enough thinking he would easily deal with Romney.

One person discussed a recent lunch with Bill Clinton saying there was no great wisdom there either, only a sense of deep frustration that Romney’s reposition had seemingly won over a large slice of the undecided.

Right now in Washington the GOP are confident, even cocky. The next ten days will tell whether that is justified or a celebration too soon.

Read more news from the US Election 2012 here

Boston College Irish tapes - the truth about Ed Moloney’s book and letting the cat out of the bag

Ed Moloney

Journalist Ed Moloney has been busy convincing everyone he is the victim in the Boston College tapes fiasco. The reality is different.

Put frankly, if he hadn’t decided to make some money for himself from his book on the tapes, Voices from the Grave, none of the issues that have now arisen around the tapes would have happened. The tapes by now would have quietly become the preserve of academics and historians.

Moloney’s intent was clear from the beginning. He hired anti-Gerry Adams researcher and dissident spokesman Anthony McIntyre and only interviewed IRA figures who hated Adams for various reasons -- hardly the mark of a dispassionate researcher/historian.

I have long maintained that Moloney was out to get Adams when he decided to do the tapes, and persuaded Boston College to underwrite the project and give it academic recognition – something the college now deeply regrets.

Moloney has denied all of this, but in a recent reply to a Unionist writer, Water Ellis, on his own blog site, he seems to admit it.

Here is the exchange in which Ellis congratulates Moloney for getting an extension from the Supreme Court on the tapes issue.

(Moloney erroneously presents this as a great victory. It is not, and merely a procedural issue. I do not believe there is a hope in hell the Supreme Court will hear the case.)

MOLONEY: “Ah Walter! I had thought you dead and gone. Never a losing cause, just keeping my promise to people. If I do have an obsession it is with outing liars, which is why I write about Lance Armstrong! There is another outrageous liar with whom we are both familiar, me perhaps more than you. Wears a beard and used to puff on a pipe a lot. Write about him too.”

ELLIS: “I hope you’re not suggesting that a certain one-time barkeep, for whom power was the ultimate performance-enhancing drug, will one day soon be stripped of his many titles.”

MOLONEY:  “A former barkeep with a power complex? Whom could you possibly be talking about?”

It is an interesting exchange, revealing as Belfast Republican writer Danny Morrison says, Moloney’s true mindset on this issue. It has been a “Get Adams” undertaking all the time.

Morrison writes, “Moloney, unthinkingly, in an email to Walter Ellis... reveals the whole purpose of his sham historic project!”

I have to agree with Morrison. Irish America has been taken for a ride by an individual whose main objective is to destroy Adams.

"Outing liars" by his very own words, meaning Adams, was Moloney’s main intent all along. He hid it well under a cloak of academic respectability unwittingly given to him by Boston College.

Now Irish America needs to make clear that it is against the handing over of the tapes to the British government, but also that they are not blinkered by what was actually being attempted here – nothing less than setting up Adams and endangering the peace process. Irish America should not be fooled to believe anything else.

Moloney is a strange character. He recently recounted two utterly fictional conversations he had with me from the 1990s on his blog in which I was allegedly taken to task for using his columns without attribution.

It never happened, I can say with every ounce of conviction I have. But like the Boston tapes saga, Moloney appears to ignore inconvenient truths when it suits him.

Hi, I’m Niall and I’m a pollaholic with election fever -- Ups and down lead to bipolar mood swing states

Hi I’m Niall and I’m a pollaholic.

Yes, I’m that person who spends most of their day fretting and fussing about the latest national polls. I call it bipolar mood swing states.

I realize my position is incurable and that there are no known antidotes until after November 6th.

Clearly it is hereditary. I grew up in a household where the Irish Civil War happened yesterday and fiery debates were still going on decades later.

My father was an unabashed partisan who took a side and stuck to it, hell or high water.

It rubbed off on me—which is why I’m now addicted to American politics.

Like most Europeans living in America, I’m reflexively a Democrat, and Bill Clinton’s role in the Irish peace process sealed the deal for me.

So now I’m cheering Obama on.

From early morning I’m on it. RealClearPolitics.com for breakfast.

If Obama is ticking upwards, breakfast is a cool mellow meal.

If he’s behind I’m blaming those biased Republican pollsters.

Then there’s Politico.com with the latest scuttlebutt from the campaigns.Then there’s Huffington Post of course, to see my own views reflected back.

Or TalkingPointsMemo.com for the latest slanted news from the Democratic camp.

I can get real hardcore and dip into DailyKos.com the hard-nosed liberal site where Republicans are Halloween monsters.

If I need a fix on the GOP side I’m off to RedState.com, followed by Drudge report.

I’ll sometimes torture myself with a quick click into NYPost.com or Fox News.

If I’m feeling like some campaign coverage, it’s the Washington Post or New York Times.

All this before breakfast.

My wife recognizes the symptoms well; she saw them four years ago and four years before that.

She says she’ll take my iMac away if it shows signs of getting worse.

(Memo to self, make sure you know where spare iMac is for daily fix – because it is getting worse.)

Why does this bloody election have to be so close?

It only feeds the habit.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ghost of George Bush haunted Mitt Romney in final debate -- A victory for Barack Obama by default as Romney lies low

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama during their final presidential campaign debate

There was a third candidate in the arena with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama last night as the ghost of George Bush hovered over the proceedings.

It was a night that was a clear victory for Obama. CBS had it 53 to 23 percent in their poll of undecided voters while CNN had it 48 to 40 percent in their poll of registered voters.

A battleground poll in the key swing states had voters there giving Obama 52 to 42 percent.

Overall Obama did himself some good and Romney certainly did not advance but it is debatable how much ground he lost.

Bush, like Banquo’s ghost in Macbeth, unsettled Romney enough that he never seemed to have Obama’s measure. He was strangely passive and defensive.

Obama had tried unsuccessfully to link Romney to Bush policies in the domestic debates but had failed—however. the shadows of Iraq and Afghanistan loomed too large for Romney to escape.

Read more news on the US Election 2012

As a result Mitt Romney came to play defense in the final debate but lost to a much more energized and feisty Barack Obama.

It was a strange performance by Romney who may have decided that he needed to look presidential and not a hothead when it came to international affairs.

What was clear was that Republicans still live in the shadow of George Bush and his failed presidency, especially on foreign affairs.

Romney knew he had to guard against reawakening echoes of the Bush era, now viewed as cowboy diplomacy at its worst.

In the process however, he was silent on Obama’s foreign policy.

The Benghazi incident that most debate watchers had predicted would be the biggest issue was hardly raised.

Obama mentioned Israel 43 times, a clear indication that he was safeguarding his nearly 4-1 lead among Jewish voters.

Romney mentioned how many times he agreed with Obama and seemed to punt every time he had the chance to go for it.

A puzzling debate that will have tongues wagging as to its ultimate impact for some days yet.

Here's the highlights from the debate:

Meeting Romney and Obama on their New York ceasefire night -- A shining moment in a campaign desperately short of them

President Obama, Cardinal Dolan and GOP Candidate
Mitt Romney at Thursday night's charity event in NYC (Credit: AP)

An amazing sight awaited down a long corridor on the second floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, past a dark screen and several alert secret service agents and then into a large meeting room.

There, standing less than five feet apart, separated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, were the two men fighting tooth and nail for the most important job in the world, the President of the United States.

As I approached I could not but feel an extraordinary sense of pride. What an amazing statement about this country, that the two men in the midst of a titanic battle could set the battle aside and come together in the cause of raising $5 million for New York’s neediest.

President Obama and Mitt Romney seemed utterly at ease. I complimented Obama on his Irish trip and he reminisced for a moment about it. “I need that Irish Moneygall vote,” he joked, referencing the village in Offaly where his ancestors hailed from.

Mitt Romney is ramrod straight, far younger looking than his 65 years, and his wife Ann is even prettier than she appears on TV. They are a striking couple, side by side.

I asked Romney would he visit Ireland if elected. “Of course,” he said, “I’m a Massachusetts politician, what would you expect,” he joked.

Later, on stage, the two men gave command performances, firing punch lines not punches back and forth so rapidly that sometimes it was hard to catch them.

They were in New York for the annual Al Smith dinner, the great lollapalooza of New York politics, where everyone gathers for the annual rite of reminiscence to the first Irish Catholic to run seriously for president.

Read more on the US Election 2012

Henry Kissinger (he’s still alive!) was there, so was Ed Koch, Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senator Chuck Schumer to name a few, and every bishop and major businessman and woman in the five boroughs and Long Island.

MC was Al Smith IV, great grandson of the late and great Al and a born comedian with a wonderful sense of timing as he made the introductions. His best line was that Mitt Romney created more sons (five) than Obama did jobs.

Romney has a sense of comic timing that was unexpected to me. He seems ill at ease often in such settings but not last night, where his zingers found their target and the crowd guffawed and laughed along.

Obama proved equal to the task, if not quite as funny. His best line was how Mitt was Romney’s second name and he was lucky to have it as he couldn’t use his own much (it’s Hussein).

He also gave a spoiler alert for Monday night’s debate on foreign policy (look away -- we killed Bin Laden if you hadn’t heard).

The real surprise for me was Cardinal Dolan who made an impassioned speech about what he called the “un’s” in America, the unemployed, the undocumented, the unborn, the unmarried mothers, the unfit and forlorn. It was a passionate plea for both candidates to note that the government’s major role was to help those who could not help themselves.

Dolan had come under pressure not to invite Obama because of the abortion issue. He proved last night he had done exactly the right thing and showed the power of the Catholic Church in so doing.

The 1,500 or so of those who attended went home happy and sated. As an immigrant, it was one of those occasions I thanked my lucky stars I had come to America.

With so much at stake the two men fighting it out for the White House found time to come together to help and raise money for those in need.

It was an extraordinary moment in a campaign known for its nastiness but one also capable of being kinder, gentler.

We need more of that to lift people up.

Talented Joe Kennedy the next great Kennedy political leader? -- The next generation of Kennedys comes to bat in Boston race

Joseph P Kennedy III on the campaign trail

When it comes to politics, regardless of possessing a famous name, you can’t fake it when it comes to the red meat: mixing with, chatting to and addressing people, solving their problems.

That was the way with many of the offspring of the Kennedy family, who were ill fitted for political offices despite the incredible family history.

That was no knock on them. As Brendan Behan remarked, “Genius does not come in litters” and following in the footsteps of Jack, Robert, and Teddy Kennedy was surely the most difficult political undertaking in the world.

Inevitably, there was disappointment and regret that the Kennedy dynasty seemed at an end, especially when Patrick, Teddy’s son, stepped down from Congress in 2010 and ended an unbroken run back to 1947 when John F. Kennedy became a congressman.

But now comes a young Kennedy who is ready to restore the legacy. Joe Kennedy III is running for Barney Frank’s seat in the 4th district in Massachusetts and looks like a sure thing as the polls have him far ahead.

The grandson of Robert Kennedy, son of former Congressman Joe, will reignite the Kennedy name in national politics and I have strong suspicions this guy will go a lot further than the congressman.

I had the occasion to meet Joe, now 32, last week at our “Irish New England Leaders” awards held at the Irish Consulate in Boston – and I came away very impressed.

He was the winner of our Young Leader award and according to Consul General Michael Lonergan who hosted the evening, he was the first Kennedy clan member to come to the consulate.

While it is always difficult to size someone up in a brief meeting, Joe Kennedy strikes me as a natural politician, which was certainly not the case with many of his relatives.

When he got up to speak at our event, I was even more impressed.

He threw away his notes, spoke eloquently about his Irish heritage and drew the crowd in with his recitation of what his family history of commitment to the poor and the needy had meant to him.

“I believe this country was founded on a simple idea: that every person deserves to be treated fairly, by each other and by their government,” might sound clichéd when coming from someone else, but given the family history and the fact that two of his family predecessors gave their lives for those very sentiments, it came across as genuine.

He has walked the walk too, spending two years in the Peace Corps (he is a fluent Spanish speaker), working for free legal aid in Harvard, and developing a reputation as a crusading assistant district attorney.

Don’t look for any scandal allegations circling around this redheaded Kennedy either. His strongest drink is coffee, he’s engaged to his college sweetheart and his social life is said to be as tame as some of his relatives were wild.

There will be great expectations and outsized publicity when he arrives in Congress, as he surely will. But this Kennedy is hardly likely to have the bright lights or the family reputation turn his head.

There is a lot to like about young Joe Kennedy and the feeling of a new era in America’s most famous political dynasty is real. It will be fascinating to watch.

Joe Biden wins debate by not losing and ‘malarkey’ accusations fly -- Biden, Ryan donnybrook was a debate to really remember - VIDEO

Joe Biden & Paul Ryan in last nights debate
(Credit: AP/Charlie Neibergall)

A CBS poll of undecided voters gave last night’s debate 50 to 31 percent to Joe Biden while a CNN poll of all voters gave it to Ryan by 48 percent to 44 percent.

I think Joe Biden shaded the debate last night by just being himself and clearly not losing. That’s not a load of "malarkey", ie hot air. The Irish expression somehow made it into the middle of the presidential debate, though some spell it "mullarkey".

Biden is one of the most liked men in politics, and that is what came across in the debate.

I have met Biden many times, interviewed him once when he was a senator, and always came away impressed with his easy manner and basic decency.

He has an easy Irish charm, hail-fellow well met and the Vice Presidency suits him well.

That was what came across with the Ryan stand-off. He was keeping Paul Ryan under pressure but managed it in an amiable way and he “righted the ship” as political editor Gloria Borger on CNN noted.

Biden accused his fellow Irish American of "malarkey" at every opportunity and kept Ryan off balance enough so that he never got to do a Romney and slam home unchallenged  assertions.

Biden accomplished what Obama never did, aggressively challenging fundamental Republican policies.

The fear of Democrats on the way in was that Biden would collapse like a burst balloon as Obama did in the first debate.

Near panic had spread through Democratic ranks after Obama’s faux pas. The slippage in the polls was a nightmare scenario come true.

There has been a tendency on the right to paint Biden as a buffoon liable to go rogue at any moment but he proved far from that.

Read all the Election 2012 news here.

Biden proved a hardy road warrior, well versed in the key debate issues.

Ryan is an extremely smart politician who comes across as robotic at times, but is very much in command of his facts.

It was a fascinating debate, full of substance, superbly moderated. It was everything the first debate was not.

The key moment for me in the Vice Presidential debate was when they both dealt with their religion and the issue of abortion.

It was an intensely personal moment, devoid of the accusations and reams of figures that each can spout.

Ryan made clear that he was personally opposed based on his experience of listening to his first child’s heartbeat at seven weeks.

Biden referred to Catholic social teaching but also stated that he was personally opposed to abortion but would not impose his views.

It was hard not to accept both men at face value and understand they were sincere in their sentiments.

Biden has bought Obama time, a precious commodity, but Tuesday night’s debate in Long Island now takes on even more importance.

Bring it on!

Complete Vice Presidential Debate 2012: Joe Biden vs. Paul Ryan - Oct:

Catholicism fast becoming the dominant US religion new poll shows -- As Protestant numbers decline, Catholics now come center stage

Catholicism is now the biggest faith group in the United States

Catholics are now the single biggest faith group in America at 22 per cent, according to the latest Pew research poll.

The news will come as a positive boost to the American bishops who have endured massive negative publicity on child abuse cases these past few years.

The influx of Hispanics has certainly helped the Catholic numbers but the church seems in remarkable shape given its problems.

The emerging Catholic power is shown most clearly in the make-up of the Supreme Court where six of the nine justices share that faith.

Compared to Ireland where the drop-off in Catholic identification has been catastrophic, the American church has been far more solid.

But it surely points to the importance of issues such as immigration reform for the Catholic church to help increase its members.

It also shows that the old Irish dominance of the church in the U.S. will soon be a thing of the past. Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York will likely be the last Irish prelate and end an unbroken line going back well over a century as Hispanics come to dominate.

The same poll showed that the various Protestant religions have dropped from 66 per cent of all religions forty years ago to under 40 percent.

Surprisingly, the fall-off is across the board from liberal churches to born-again southern churches.
It is an amazing drop-off especially given the media sense that the evangelicals are going from strength to strength especially in the political sphere.

America in fact is becoming more Godless, with twenty per cent saying they have no organized religion. One in five are either atheist, agnostic or of no organized religion.

I have to believe that much of that number is composed of people sick of the political interventions that religious groups continue to make.

I have always had the sense that most Americans I know consider their religion a private matter, not one to pump up in the public square.

Then again, perhaps the drift away is just an inevitable reaction to modern day life where community and church bonds have been weakened.

Either way, the Pew poll makes for extraordinary reading.

All changed it seems.

Irish donnybrook as Joe Biden versus Paul Ryan key for presidential debate -- Gift of the gab Biden versus ‘just the facts’ new politician Ryan

Irish American politicians Paul Ryan and Joe Biden gear up for their first major battle

Incredible, but the presidential race could come down to the debating skills of two Irish American politicians who were viewed as bit players just a few weeks ago.

Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan were supposed to be the afters, while the main course was Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

However, after Romney’s sensational knockout of Obama in the first presidential debate the Ryan/Biden stand-off in Kentucky suddenly looms large.

The polls are essentially tied which means that any major mistake or a similar poor showing by Biden could doom the Obama campaign suddenly on the back foot.

For Paul Ryan, a complete unknown to most Americans, it will be the first and only chance to introduce himself. Is he the cost cutter and right-wing ideologue that the Democrats paint him as or a visionary young politician who will loom as a giant some day as Republicans believe?

Biden, whose secret service code name is “Celtic” will be trying to stop the rot that suddenly pervades the Obama campaign after the president’s faux pas in the first debate.

Paul Ryan, descendant of Tipperary Famine era immigrants, will seek to continue the upward momentum and the suddenly kinder, gentler image of the Romney/Ryan campaign.

The two men could not be more different. Biden is the Irish politician of legend; warm, gregarious, and downright sentimental at times. Ryan is a more withdrawn number cruncher, bright as all hell, and someone who sees politics as a battle about ideas not sentiment.

But those stereotypes will only carry both men so far. This presidential election is a battle about core ideas and both men personify the difference even more than the presidential candidates.

It is the small government, cut and slash spending view as against the traditional model that we can solve issues through government and private partnership.

This is what will make this debate so fascinating. The American people are finally engaged after the first debate and it is game on with polls showing the race the closest since Kennedy/Nixon and Bush/Gore.

Ryan has the tougher task, introducing himself to the American people under the harsh spotlight of a desperately close presidential campaign.

He is not in Wisconsin anymore and there has to be a sense of nervousness and anxiety heading into his big night.

Biden on the other hand has been known for his verbal gaffes and has to watch that Irish gift of the gab which isn’t such a gift on occasions.

Biden was chosen in 2008 by Obama to reach that Catholic working class voter who is so crucial in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Ryan was also picked in part because of that profile and both men will be aiming directly at the undecided vote, which contains so many Catholic working class voters.

They say Vice Presidential debates do not decide elections, but in one as close as this it could have a massive impact.

After Obama’s poor performance the pressure on Joe Biden is greater than he has ever experienced in a long political career.

But I have a funny feeling it will be the old dog for the hard road when the smoke clears.

Read more: New information on Vice President Joe Biden’s Irish roots uncovered

Read more: The Paul Ryan American dream -- fleeing famine in Ireland to Vice Presidential ticket

‘Celtic Comeback’ or same old failures for Ireland and Enda Kenny? -- Time cover story and Irish Times lead columnist strongly disagree

Enda Kenny on the cover of Time

Landing the cover of the European edition of Time magazine this week is a landmark achievement by Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

But more importantly, Time magazine’s imprimatur for the “Celtic Comeback” as it headlined the piece, is a powerful weapon for Kenny to swipe his critics with.

Like most Time cover stories it is a fluff piece on the Irish leader who comes across as pleasant and incisive about what he has to do.

“I see returns in the signs of confidence,” Kenny said.

“People tell me their own stories, about how they have come through great difficulty. But now they have a new sense of values and they see new horizons opening up.”
Kenny described the Celtic Tiger boom as false years that were “built on the veneer of endless wealth without hard work.”

The Time piece will help Kenny battle those critics who have been growing in numbers in recent months as emigration spiked and bad times continued.

He is heading into a ball-buster of a budget in December which will hit the middle class very hard indeed.

They are already beleaguered and increasingly hostile.

Now comes a new cloud on the horizon in the context of alleged political corruption

Last week there were strident calls for the resignation of Health Minister James Reilly, after news of alleged sweetheart deals for a property tycoon in his constituency surfaced. There was also outrage after another Minister Phil Hogan was alleged to have blocked a Traveller family from getting a house in a development in his constituency

That is poisonous stuff given Ireland’s recent history and led to an extraordinary attack by FIntan O’Toole, Ireland’s leading columnist, who writes for the Irish Times on the ethics of Kenny’s government.

O’Toole claimed Fine Gael had taken on the same wide boy and coercive politics that their hated predecessors Fianna Fail had.
He wrote:

“For Fine Gael, the formula makes complete sense. It has replaced Fianna Fáil as the chief operator of The Machine, the system of clientelist politics that has held power since the 19th century. It can stay in office for a very long time by becoming as adept and unashamed in its manipulation of the levers of power as the party it looked on for so long with all the envy of a shy, spotty youth watching the slick rogue getting all the girls. The jilted lad would console himself by raging that the rogue was a bad character. But secretly he dreamed of being the rogue himself.

“And now he is. Fine Gael has been given control of The Machine and is testing out what it can do. Oooh, look, says James Reilly, pull this handle and it can deliver primary care centers for me and my buddies! That’s nothing, says Phil Hogan, if you pull this switch, you can stop Traveller families moving in to a housing estate in your constituency. Feck your civic democracy, I’ve a Merc outside.”

Kenny can at least point to international opinion that he doing the right thing. Suffice to say that like many leaders, (see Tony Blair) Enda Kenny is probably appreciated more outside his country as the Time cover shows than  he is inside it.

Which version is correct, the Time magazine praise or Fintan O’Toole’s hard-hitting critique?

That will play out in the months and years ahead.

Mitt Romney wins the first debate against a listless Barack Obama -- A debate with a flood of facts and figures to befuddle everyone

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama at the Denver presidential debate

Mitt Romney won the first debate against Barack Obama just by showing up in a fighting mood against a lackluster incumbent.

In a debate weighed down by facts and figures and financial data, Romney was faster on his feet than Obama.

The aura of invincibility that descends on every White House occupant was scraped off by Romney’s combative performance.

It was Obama’s first debate in four years and it showed. He seemed disengaged, not the fiery candidate who took the stage by storm four years ago against John McCain.

Beforehand 72 percent of Americans thought Obama would win, the typical numbers for an incumbent. So Romney did far better coming from a lower expectation base.

But while Romney won on style, Obama landed some punches, especially when focused on Romney’s plan to cut $5 trillion in taxes.

“We have a horse race,” said David Gergen on CNN, the most seasoned of all political operatives who gave Romney the verdict on a night that may have changed the course of the race for the White House.

Even James Carville, the attack dog Democrat, had little good to say about Obama’s performance, saying he gave the impression he did not want to be there.

“The president did not bring his “A” game," said Carville

Obama was somehow subdued, his best moments were in his closing remarks when he finally felt and looked passionate when asking the American people for four more years.

At the same time, the two were reminiscent of two fighters clutching each other in the center of the ring without landing any punches for very long periods.

In the end, there was no knockdown, no moment like when Ronald Reagan floored Jimmy Carter, or Lloyd Bentsen when he decked Dan Quayle with his “You’re no Jack Kennedy” line.

All of which means that Romney will pick up some momentum making this a closer race than the pundits were predicting just a few weeks ago.

Read more: IrishCentral's up-to-date stories on the US presidential election 2012 here

Money from immigrants to be a key part of Irish recovery? -- Back to the sad 1950s for Irish economy if this keeps up

Photo Credit: DAVID MONAHAN

Is Ireland heading back to the days when money from emigrants abroad was a mainstay of the economy?

A recent report by a leading hedge fund in Britain stated it was highly likely that emigrant remittances would play an increasing role in the Irish economy.

We have all heard tales of the 1940s and 50s when money from emigrants in Britain and America kept many an Irish family going through very hard times.

Former Irish Times writer John Healy wrote very movingly about his aunt in Brooklyn who kept his family in rural Mayo going.

He had always imagined she lived in finery in America, but when he eventually visited her it was in a fourth floor walk up in a dingy building. She had sacrificed everything to keep them all together back in Ireland.

She had never married, had kept down two jobs and scraped and saved to see her relatives in Ireland better off.

That was not an unusual story.

When I lived in England during the mid 70s, the final stops at the weekend were always the same for many in my construction crew.

Read More: Irish economy to become dependent on emigrant funds by 2020, expert warns

There was the pub on Friday night and the post office on Saturday morning to send money home to the folks. Despite the fact that many were living in abject conditions themselves and saving little, the money home was always a sacred duty.

Many a rural town and village depended on those remittances in the form of money orders and it is so strange to see them being talked about again

The emigrant parcel was a lifesaver in many homes, especially from America. As the emigrant trails have started up again there will be many households back home, especially where the breadwinner has left, awaiting those funds again.

They won’t come via post office money order I'm guessing but by wire and bank transfer.

Soon the technology will exist where funds can be transferred by cell phone - thanks to Irish businessman Denis O'Brien who has created just such a system for Haitians for which he was praised in a Time Magazine cover story by Bill Clinton.

Leave it to an Irishman to come up with way for emigrant remittances to be conveyed at speed back to the family back home.

The hedge fund expert in Britain stated: "Having not depended on remittances for many decades, Ireland, like Portugal, will come to rely on these once more.”

 Plus ça change, you might say.

Latest "Get Gerry Adams effort" is led by deeply troubled woman -- Dolours Price has long history of mental illness after force-feeding

Political activist and former volunteer for the Provisional IRA Dolours Price
(Photo: Pacemaker)

Long ago and far away there seems little doubt that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the IRA in West Belfast.

How could he not be? His neighborhood was under siege from the British Army and every able-bodied man back in the days when the Troubles were at their height was involved.

What is interesting about recent attempts to get Adams to admit the past is how the context is never given.

Decades of  complete Unionist misrule led to a tinder-box situation after civil rights marchers were batoned and beaten off the streets in 1968 and 1969.

It all  inevitably exploded and then all hell broke loose when the British Army was called in to defend the indefensible status quo we had Bloody Sunday and a fully fledged IRA campaign. That was the Northern Ireland that Gerry Adams grew up in

Dolours Price, now Gerry Adams chief accuser was caught up in it too, coming from a strong Republican family.

In March 1973 she was arrested on board a plane going to Ireland just as a 300 pound bomb detonated at the Old Bailey courts and one person was killed and many injured Her sister Marian was arrested alongside her.

Her time in prison did not go well. She and her sister went on a hunger strike and were force- fed for 200 days an horrific experience which has caused much of the mental trauma she experiences today.

Almost 40 years on, Dolours Price the former wife of actor Stephen Rea, is sadly still suffering the effects.

“She had a history of psychiatric problems and substance abuse,” said journalist Ed Moloney.

“She has been diagnosed with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], had been hospitalized repeatedly, and....(is)  taking strong psychotropic drugs.

Indeed, on the day she spoke to [The Irish News] she was on day leave from St Patrick’s psychiatric hospital in Dublin.” Moloney said referring to the controversial interview she gave  to that newspaper where she first alleged Adams sent informers to their death.

She is unrepentant about her past and makes no bones that she wants to destroy Adams and the process if she can.

The Irish Sunday Times quoted her this weekend  saying she defended her acts while in the IRA and actually enjoyed them. “It was an exciting time, there was no real order or structure to everyday life, the war had taken away all normal routine ... I should be ashamed to admit there was fun in it in those days,” she said.

The same Sunday Times article notes that in 2001, Price was found guilty  in a Dublin court of stealing prescriptions. “She seems to have an alcohol problem but is taking steps to address it,” said Judge Thomas Fitzpatrick .

Five years later Price was disallowed access to Maghaberry prison, where she was visiting a dissident republican prisoner “She was verbally abusive and threatening and was in no condition to be allowed into the visiting area,” said a senior Prison Service source.

She has also received three convictions for theft in recent years and has attempted suicide.

Little wonder Adams does not feel it is politic to pursue her accusations against him in court.

Last weekend he stated: “I am not of a mind to trail Dolours Price through the courts . . . she is unwell.”

Those who are putting her up to the statements she is making, given that she is a seriously ill woman have a lot to answer for it seems to me.

She should be allowed time and space to try and recuperate from her many problems It is sad to see her used as a “Get Gerry Adams” vehicle by sections of the media.