Top twelve highlights of 2013, the moments that mattered

My personal favorite memories of the year just passing.

Soon 2013 will be in the rear-view mirror and time to face 2014 will be here. But before that a quick look at the highlights of 2013 from a personal perspective.

The Gathering

The Gathering was a huge success.

Once derided by Gabriel Byrne, among others, The Gathering surprised everyone by becoming so successful and in the process proving that when it comes to marketing Ireland shouting loud and hard and early and often is the best policy.

GAA Game played at Notre Dame

Notre Dame is forging a strong bond with the GAA.

Notre Dame and Ireland are two great ships in the night, but who can forget how well they came together when Notre Dame played in Dublin in September 2012.

In 2013 it was the turn of the Gaelic Players Association, a dynamic new breed of GAA activists, to take Irish games to Notre Dame, which they did on the same day as the USC match.

Over 5,000 fans squeezed ( it seemed) into the lacrosse stadium and many more would have attended if there had been room. They saw a historic clash between two great hurling teams drawn from Ireland’s best players.

Vice President Joe Biden at Irish America Hall of Fame

Vice President Joe Biden

Our sister publication continued on a roll of attracting major honorees to its Hall of Fame with Joe Biden following Bill Clinton, Don Keough, Maureen O’Hara and Chuck Feeney among others.

The very affable Biden spent over two hours meeting and greeting the Irish Americans gathered and left a lasting impression. His secret service code name is “Celtic” for a very good reason.

Kerry Versus Dublin All Ireland football semi final

The Dublin vs. Kerry Senior All-Ireland football semifinal was a game for the ages. 

In late August I was in Ireland and caught what was, by most measures, one of the greatest football games ever played, which Dublin won narrowly on their way to winning the All Ireland. It was truly a game for the ages with quarter neither sought nor given and Dublin just shading a memorable contest in the end.

A week in Dingle early September

Leabharlann An Daingin Branch Librarian Bernard Mac Brádaigh,
Niall O'Dowd and Mayor Seamus Cosaí Fitzgerald.

This was the summer to end all summers in Ireland and I had a wonderful opportunity to experience it during a week in West Kerry. God’s own country in the sunshine was never better. I spoke at the Dingle Historical Society and connected up with so many relatives I had never met it qualified as my own personal Gathering. A week to remember.

The White House St. Patrick’s week

President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner & Taoiseach
Enda Kenny  (Credit: White House by Pete Souza)

It never gets old – the annual gathering of the tribe at the world’s greatest venue. President Obama has gamely carried on the tradition of a White House bash started by President Clinton. Irish leader Enda Kenny, given his rural roots, fits right in with the Irish immigrant culture and there is always a wonderful sense of a 'hooley' at the White House with some serious business getting done.

New Ambassador takes lead on immigration

President Obama and new Irish Ambassador Anne Anderson. 

After an Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform breakfast for Congressman Paul Ryan new Irish Ambassador Anne Anderson took the leaders of the Irish immigration lobby groups to her residence for a think-in on immigration reform. It was a revelation as the full force of the Irish government effort finally dovetailed with the thrust of the ILIR and other groups; it was a very impressive debut by the new ambassador, the first female to hold the post.

Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson in New York

NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, with Northern
Ireland's MLA, and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, and First Minister R. Hon Peter D. Robinson.

It never gets old – seeing two former sworn enemies such as Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson jointly speaking out on behalf of peace and economic development in Northern Ireland.

The two were in New York in September and wowed the Irish America Wall Street 50 crowd. While there are massive problems, there is no question that we are witnessing one of our rarest phenomenons, a successful peace process.

Mario Cuomo speaking on emigrants

Michael Dowling and Mario Cuoma at the Irish America Business 100.

The former New York governor demonstrated that he has not lost a step at 82 when he introduced Michael Dowling, his former Health Commissioner, at the Irish America Business 100.

Always an eloquent speaker on the topic of emigration, the 82-year–old recounted his parent’s journey from their native Italy, not speaking the language, uneducated and working 16-hour days and seeing their son become Governor of New York – inspirational!

Boston’s New Irish Mayor

Boston's Mayor-elect Marty Walsh. 

Marty Walsh is a throwback in many ways, but he is also a new kind of Irish politician in Boston, one who is able to build powerful coalitions with groups that were once fiercely opposed to the Irish.

When he attended the Irish Emigrant/Irish Central New England heroes event honoring the heroes of the Boston marathon and the Sandy Hook shootings he made a powerful impression. A politician to watch.

Ireland Fund annual conference in Ireland

The K Club in Kildare. 

Seeing 300 wealthy Irish Americans and other Irish from Britain, Australia etc. coming together in the sylvan setting of the K Club in Kildare and talking about doing good for Ireland was inspirational.

The 3rd Annual Diaspora forum Dublin Castle

Taoiseach Enda Kenney (left) and President Michael D. Higgins.

The highlight was the closing night banquet at Dublin Castle where both the Irish president and Prime Minister attended, as did every cabinet minister. It was an interesting insight into how important Diaspora thinking has become.

The community response to Kalie Gill tragedy

In a tragic accident in Yonkers, NY, Kalie Gill (left) was killed, and her sister Lindsay was seriously injured. 

When a young recent immigrant Kali Gill was killed and her sister badly injured in a car accident the Yonkers Irish community responded magnificently for the stricken family. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised, helped in no small part by Sarah Jessica Parker – who has close Irish connections – donating several items to an all star auction.

IrishCentral reaches 2 million monthly unique monthly visitors

IrishCentral's popularity has skyrocketed.

A final personal highlight was reached when this publication touched the 2 million uniques mark, thanks to the almost 70,000 who come in and read IrishCentral every day. When we started that number was 2,000 a day. Congrats too to all the staff of the four publications Irish Voice, Irish America Irish Central and Irish Emigrant in Boston who make it all possible.

A flight from hell landing into the teeth of a massive Irish storm

Dublin: I have been travelling to Ireland from the U.S. since about 1980 but never experienced a flight like Thursday night’s into the teeth of an incredible storm in Ireland.

I was aboard Delta flight 0411 approaching Dublin early Friday morning and the term white-knuckle flight was never more appropriate.

Wind gusts of up to 100 miles an hour had led to what some were calling the worst Christmas storm in decades across Ireland and here we were dropping down from 35,000 feet and experiencing the worst buffeting I have ever experienced.

How bad was the storm? Waves up to 20 feet high were crashing ashore in Waterford, Cork and Kerry. Winds reached hurricane force in Galway harbor. What the Irish Independent called “howling gales” elsewhere were reaching over 100 miles an hour. Thousands lost electricity; several coastal towns were flooded.

Almost every other U.S-based airline flight we learned later had diverted to Manchester or London and the pilot later made it clear he was making one effort at Dublin and pulling up and heading to Britain if it didn’t work.

Usually when you are on a turbulent flight it begins soon after take off, but the flight from New York to the Irish coastline was smooth as silk.

Indeed I had begun to believe the storm I had been reading about was all hype but the next 30 minutes as we descended into the near hurricane gusts was like nothing I had ever experienced on a plane flight – or want to again.

The plane pitched and yawed like a drunken sailor, leveled out and pitched again. Each time it fell there were screams throughout the cabin. We seemed in the grip of a dervish-like wind, throwing us about at will.

I now know what the term white-knuckle flight refers to, as my hands gripped the seat with the hold of a drowning man. Around me grim-faced passengers were also clinging on for dear life.

Call it turbulence, call it wind gusts, call it hurricane-like conditions, but the feeling of dropping, lurching, rising, shaking doing it all over again was petrifying.

Eventually we could see the airport coming up straight ahead, the good news the pilot was clearly intent on making the Dublin landing, the bad news was the plane was now performing an even more crazy Riverdance and shaking and rattling like an old junkyard car.

There were regular screams coming from all around and then the sound of rubber hitting tarmac was never more welcome. Still even on the ground the plane appeared to lurch left and then right before finally we slowed to a stop.

“Worst ever” said the very frequent flyer behind me, so I wasn’t exaggerating. The applause for the pilot was deafening and we appreciated more than ever what landing on terra firma feels like.

The winds when I drove from the airport to the city were scattering debris in every direction, the traffic lights were swaying like salsa dancers, and the streets were deserted. The storm had done its worse but all souls were safe and that was all that mattered.

Well done anonymous Delta pilots, rarely do we get to understand just how skilled such men and women are.

As for me, a sea voyage back to America looks good right now!

Will Notre Dame play Navy in Dublin again in November 2016?

Will Notre Dame play Navy in Dublin once again?

The announcement that Notre Dame and Boston College will play their 2015 game in Fenway Park has ruined hopes that the game would end up in Ireland.

It is known that talks between the sides and Irish backers had been underway but obviously no agreement had been reached.

The Fenway Park location was a master stroke anyway, clearly knocking Ireland out of the box.

Now the question arises if it will be another opponent that plays the Irish in Dublin as there is clearly enormous goodwill for such a game.

If you study the 2015 and 2016 schedules just released there is only one game that has no confirmed location.

That is the Navy home game on November 5th 2016 which at the moment has no announced venue.

Obviously, as a Navy home game they get to decide and could play it anywhere in the world for that matter.

But Navy too had a tremendously positive reaction to their Dublin game last year and may be anxious to come again.

There is certainly a large base of support from Irish government on down for such a game. The incredible sight of 35,000 Americans in Ireland for the last game was a massive tourist boost.

Irish-based billionaire businessman and philanthropist Martin Naughton a Notre Dame director. played a huge role in the success of the last game and seems keen to help again.

With a bit of luck the Fighting Irish will be back in their home from home in relatively short order.

Vice President Biden's Christmas party imparts a warm Christmas glow

Peggy Egan, Vice President Biden, Debbie McGoldrick, Alana O’Dowd, Niall O’Dowd and Dr. Jill Biden at the vice president’s holiday party.

The White House is known to everyone, but the vice president’s residence far less so. It was a real thrill to go there with my family last Friday as guest of Vice President Joe Biden for a Christmas party.

We had been at the White House the previous evening for a wonderful press party thrown by the Obamas, and had the opportunity to meet them in a receiving line. As a Christmas location, the beautifully decorated White House is impossible to match.

That is … unless you are going to the vice president’s digs the following night. The residence is nestled amid the compound at the U.S. Naval Observatory site in North West Washington where scientists study data from space.

When night stirs on the seas the observatory comes alive and the telescopes come out.

The Vice President's residence glows with Christmas warmth. 

The house itself was originally intended for the superintendent of the observatory, but it was so lovely that in 1923, the chief of naval operations kicked out the superintendent so he could move in himself.

Historically, vice presidents and their families lived in their own homes, but the cost of securing these private residences grew substantially over the years. Finally, in 1974, Congress agreed to refurbish the house at the Naval Observatory as an official home for the vice president.

I’m glad they did.

It is a beautiful Victorian residence that mixes warmth, charm and history in equal measure. It is far smaller than the White House but exudes a lived-in feel that contrasts with the often museum-like feel of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

A portrait of John F. Kennedy hangs over the fireplace.

In that respect it is a perfect home for Biden and his wife Jill. He has that lived in feel himself and suffered many slings and arrows in his long political life, none more so than when his first wife and infant daughter were killed in a dreadful car crash.

That would have finished lesser men but not Joe Biden.

That he recovered, served decades in the Senate and is now vice president of the United States with a shot at the big job in 2016 says volumes about the man.

He’s 71, looks 60 and acts like a man who can’t believe that a kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania has made it so far in the world.

There is a genuine modesty and interest in others about Biden that is usually knocked out of politicians at his level.

The Biden family's Christmas tree.

On several occasions during the evening he grabbed cell phones and called relatives of attendees, in the process giving people like my wife’s aunt, Nora Murphy, who is 87 and from Co. Kerry, one of the most pleasant shocks of her life when he called to say hello.

Biden has been exceedingly loyal to Obama, even when it was reported that replacing him with Hillary Clinton on the 2016 ticket had been discussed.

He is very much in Clinton’s shadow for 2016 as Democrats consider a further historic step in nominating the first woman after the first African American presidential candidate.

But Clinton looked a similar shoo-in in 2008 and fell to Obama, and there are some in Washington who see Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as a viable candidate from the left, like Obama became.

In such a scenario Biden could very well figure. A long-shot yes, but he’s been a long-shot all his life and he sits a heartbeat from the presidency. Stranger things have happened.

Why Albert Reynolds was the greatest Irish leader of my lifetime

Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds. 

Albert Reynolds was the greatest Irish leader of my lifetime.

The news that he is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s is profoundly upsetting. He is a man who will walk in history. Though he only served from 1992 to 1994 he turned peace in Northern Ireland from an impossible dream to a startling reality.

He oversaw good economic times, but it was his decision to take what many deemed a reckless gamble and confront the massive issue of the Northern troubles that really sets him apart.

A pragmatic businessman who came to politics later in life, he saw an opportunity where career politicians had refused to take the risk.

Sure they all talked the talk, but always within safe parameters prefacing everything with simple platitudes about stopping the violence and never doing too much about it.

Then came Albert, the”country and western” politician from rural Ireland, an accidental politician in many ways, and a hugely successful businessman. He was widely derided as a country bumpkin but he was clever as a fox.

On his first day in office he said Northern Ireland peace was his priority and the jaded press corps duly yawned and went back to sleep. There was clearly zero expectation he would deliver.

But Reynolds meant what he said and he was never going to allow platitudes to form his policy.

He knew there was a shift within the Republican movement towards an unarmed strategy and he wanted to give that space to grow.

He knew that the new British leader John Major had no bloody hands on the issue like Thatcher and could be engaged.

He knew the U.S. had just elected a new president Bill Clinton who had drawn major support from Irish Americans for his promises on peace in Ireland and an American role.

He was fearless in pursuit of all three strategies. I knew he was a different kind of politician on one of my early meetings with him as part of an Irish American peace delegation which featured businessmen Chuck Feeney, Bill Flynn, former congressman Bruce Morrison, Labor leader Joe Jameson and myself.

Albert threw all his advisors out of the room and engaged us straight on his daring policy switch. He drilled us on Clinton, who we were persuading to give a visa to Gerry Adams. He made it clear he was a man of direct words and action and that he had reached the conclusion the IRA wanted to stand down. His job was to make that possible. I doubt if there was another politician in Ireland who shared his optimism.

The Downing Street Declaration in 1993 was his crowning moment, when the British at last acknowledged they needed to be neutral towards Irish unity and partners, not imperial powers.

With such daring moves he gave the key players a space in which hope could grow. He backed the Adams visa, backed the Irish American outreach, kept the Brits neutral and held secret talks with IRA figures.

The country and western politician instead was a high wire political  artist, who, amazingly kept his balance.

We met him again shortly before the IRA ceasefire which changed everything in August 1994. Again he threw the advisors out and gave us a message to deliver, that only an all-out ceasefire would do. When it came it was just that.

On the day of the ceasefire we met in the RTE studio in Donnybrook in Dublin. He bounded into the room and almost crushed my hand with his handshake. I was witnessing a politician on the greatest day of his career. He took many plaudits that day from all over the world and deserved every one of them.

Amazingly, a few months later he was out of power after a bizarre series of events involving his Attorney General  who failed to prosecute a notorious pedophile priest.

Albert never saw it coming. As he sagely remarked it was the little hurdle that tripped him up, not his incredible and dangerous work on the peace process.

I last saw him on a wonderful day in Stormont when Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness announced the power-sharing government in 2007 and I had the pleasure of introducing him again to Senator Edward Kennedy who had flown over for the day. They warmly embraced, two great men who made peace possible.

Teddy is now gone and the night draws in for Albert, but he was a bright shining star in the peace process, the most difficult of all political tasks an Irish leader has tackled. Imagine how much worse off the Irish would be if in the midst of the current economic slump the mayhem in the North was still continuing. The country owes him a debt of gratitude.

May his remaining days be bright and filled with the love of the exceptional family he and his wife Kathleen raised.

Claims that Irish lobby is racist to seek visas for their own undocumented

Jennifer Nugent Duffy, associate professor at Western Connecticut State University (Photo: NY Times)

The most racist, anti-Irish book I’ve read in a long time crossed my desk today.

No, it wasn’t some Celt-hating citizen of Britain who wrote it. Rather, it was an “associate” college professor, Jennifer Nugent Duffy, the Yonkers-born daughter of Irish immigrants who still run a prominent bar there called Nugent’s. I won’t be paying a visit anytime soon. 

I should have known by the name of the book, perhaps, and “Who’s Your Paddy” as a title gives the plot away. It is a blatant attempt to demonize and denigrate the Irish in Yonkers where she grew up.

Nugent Duffy is especially scathing about Irish efforts to win immigration reform. The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, she says, has adopted a “race-conscious and racist lobbying agenda.”

The basis of Nugent Duffy’s book is that she divides the Irish into “Good Paddies” and “Bad Paddies” (racist in itself), but really finds there is little difference between them.

The Good Paddies pretend to be upstanding Americans, but most become Bad Paddies and spew hate the first chance they get.

This monstrosity will be published in time for Christmas by New York University Press, surprising given that university’s stellar tradition in Irish Studies. Did they ever hear of proper editors?

Nugent Duffy is associate professor of history at Western Connecticut State University. 

Her world-view is that of a self-hating Irish Catholic woman, and everyone she encounters must fit the stereotype.

Even her own parents do not escape the name-calling and are called “White Flighters,” people, she explains, who endorsed a white-only racial mix and fled mixed neighborhoods.

Slamming your own parents? This is truly a monumental steaming pile of horse dung of a book.
Are there racists in Yonkers? Of course.

Are there racists in every community in America? Of course.

To demonize and conclude that all are racist is something else entirely.

Such nuances completely escape this colleen on a kamikaze mission against her own kind.

Coming in the week when that same Yonkers community turned out in its thousands to help the stricken Gill family, who lost their daughter in an horrific car accident, it is a dreadful indictment of a beleaguered community from one of their own.

No mention either of the great work of the Aisling Center which organizes food runs for the homeless of whatever color every week.

Because of Nugent Duffy’s local ties, she secured numerous interviews with local Irish. I’m sure many will deeply regret the access given as they are presented in the worst possible light in order to confirm her own prejudices.

Even though she uses pseudonyms, it is obvious to me who many of them are.

She even has “informants” who she sends to various events to report back to her with the worst news they can gather.

ILIR meeting

Mostly that is about Irish having drinks or carousing after events for the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR), of which I am a founder.  That’s when she says the “Bad Irish Paddy” slips out.

Nugent Duffy had one informer go to a fundraiser for ILIR, which was a variation on a popular bachelor dating game. She reports in horror that “all the bachelors were loaded.” Some also used bad words!

“What if members of Congress saw this?” the book exclaims.

What indeed! Heavens to Betsy.

She castigates another ILIR fundraiser, a “Cultchie (sic) of the Year” fundraiser – a harmless event celebrating rural Ireland at which everyone, almost all from rural parts of the country, has a good time.

But they had way too much fun for associate professor Nugent Duffy, who accuses them of “mocking a rural stereotype.” She just can’t help her political correctness.

But wait, there’s more. The esteemed professor gravely accuses the band Cray and Dempsey of changing words to a song they sang at ILIR rallies. The original lines are “We’re Irish and we’re rocking. All we wanna do is rock and roll.”

Allegedly their crime is that they changed the words on a raucous weekend night in a Yonkers bar to “We’re Irish and we’re rocking and all we wanna do is f*** and drink.”

This dreadful slight on the professor’s tender ears takes a full page in her book and is used as evidence of Bad Paddyism.

There are even bars in Yonkers who are serving underage drinkers she claims, and one was even closed down for a while. Coming from a bar owner’s daughter that is some comment to make.

On the way back from an ILIR rally in Washington, the professor is disgusted to see some “Bad Paddies” light up and smoke.

“Then,” she writes, “the Bad Irish Paddy could be kept hidden on this day, but only for so long.”

Jesus wept.

Senator Charles Schumer and ILIR President Ciaran Staunton

It also appears we are not allowed to lobby for our undocumented the way so many other groups lobby for theirs – and if we do we are racists for doing so.

Were the Australians racists when they got a special visa deal? How about the Mexicans when they got one? The Polish when they sought one?

But the book contains no mention of those groups. Just the racist ILIR.

The president of ILIR is my brother-in-law, Ciaran Staunton, and I often joke with him about the amount of time he spends lobbying with other groups, liaising with ethnic lobbies from across the country.

If she had bothered interviewing him instead of using secret little informers she might have learned a lot more in her research.

He and other leaders in ILIR such as Bart Murphy in San Francisco and Billy Lawless in Chicago have reached out across this country to build grassroots links with other ethnic groups to bring about immigration reform.

Billy Lawless (left) attending an immigrant rights meeting

None of this permeates the dull blade of a brain of Miss Prim and Proper, but it surely should have impacted some editor to ask some pertinent questions about where the associate professor’s racist taunts came from – or has political correctness run amok in our colleges altogether?

Apparently a whole clutch of academics helped Nugent Duffy write her garbage. They too, especially those from NYU, should be listed in this Hall of Shame.

The writer gives a special shout out to her Irish family and friends, so let’s give them a rip roaring acknowledgement too.

Let’s hear it for Seamus, Nora, Jimmy and Sean Nugent, the Boyles and Boylettes and the Dundalk Duffys – not forgetting her partner Niall Duffy.

Folks, be proud. Gypo Nolan has nothing on your girl.

Inside the beautiful White House on a cold Christmas evening (PHOTOS)

A perfect gingerbread White House

PHOTOS: Inside the White House media Christmas Party

White House: A visit to the White House is always to be treasured, but at Christmas time it becomes truly special.

My wife Debbie and I were invited on White House press night when the media gathers to meet the president.

Waiting in line to meet President Obama and First Lady Michelle is a little like waiting for communion.

We shuffle forward slowly until suddenly there we are in a small room with the President and First Lady and the marine guard announcing the next guest.

It all seems a little surreal as Obama shakes our hands, indulges in polite conversation for a minute or two about his Irish trip and hope for immigration reform and then we pose with him and Michelle.

You can never say enough about the magic of the White House at Christmas; it is truly the most magnificent venue in the world to observe the festivities.

It makes you incredibly proud of this country as your stroll the halls Lincoln walked, the rooms the Kennedy family gathered in, the East Room where Reagan spoke on so many occasions.

Now it is the realm of the Obamas, but the history of the place overwhelms any single president.

It is a rare highlight and my wife and I enjoyed it as a great occasion. Here are some pictures we took inside the sanctum on Christmas 2013.

Enjoy!

PHOTOS: Inside the White House media Christmas Party

 

Mario Cuomo and Mike Dowling dazzle at Irish America lunch

Michael Dowling and Mario Cuoma at the Irish America Business 100

If there is a better orator in America than former New York Governor Mario Cuomo I have yet to hear him or her.

And if there is a more extraordinary story of success after tough beginnings among Irish emigrants than Michael Dowling, president and CEO of the huge North Shore-LIJ health system, I have yet to read it.

Put the two together, throw in dynamic new Irish Ambassador to the U.S. Anne Anderson and music legend Judy Collins and you have the recipe for a marvelous afternoon, which is just what we had last week at the Irish America magazine Business 100 luncheon at the Metropolitan Club in New York which honored Dowling this year.

Cuomo may be over 80 now, but the resonant voice, the ability to empathize, the extraordinary insight into the mindset of the emigrants to America’s shore is still unparalleled.

I first heard him speak in 1984 at the Democratic Convention in San Francisco. I was a raw, wet behind the ears young immigrant myself at the time.

Cuomo’s speech about his parents, who came to America, uneducated, lost their first child and scraped a living for years to care for their family was widely considered the best ever speech on the topic. It bowled me over.

This is the segment about his father. “I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example. I learned about our kind of democracy from my father. …“

It is a democracy that elected not only the son of those penniless immigrant parents to the highest office in New York State, but their grandson too, current governor Andrew Cuomo.

I think it still is an incredible speech, and Cuomo has not lost his fastball all these years later as he gave a magnificent tribute to Dowling, the Knocaderry, Co. Limerick native who was Cuomo’s health commissioner and social services commissioner for 12 years during his terms in office.

Cuomo called on Dowling to be the national spokesman on health for this administration, no easy task given how badly they screwed up over Obamacare.  It would take a man of Dowling’s genius to rescue them now.

For his part Dowling’s poor Limerick background puts Frank McCourt in the ha’penny place. He grew up on a tiny farm, his father died young and his mother was deaf.

From age 15 or so he was the breadwinner, working jobs in Britain and eventually here where he grabbed the American dream with both hands, worked and studied incredibly long hours and ended up a professor of social policy at Fordham University.

Along the way he encountered Cuomo, who hired him despite the lack of Harvard degrees or fancy background. Dowling was, by all accounts, the best health commissioner and also social services commissioner in decades.

Nowadays Dowling runs North Shore-LIJ, the third largest hospital chain in the U.S. with 46,000 employees. But he has never forgotten his humble immigrant roots. He spends as much time with the janitor as the doctors, he says proudly, and can often learn more from them than the highly paid professionals.

Anderson added to the occasion as a bright new face of Ireland in America, an accomplished woman who has put teeth into the Irish contribution to the immigration reform debate.

Also adding to the atmosphere was a wonderful off-the-cuff performance by music legend Judy Collins who sang a new Irish ballad she recently composed. Look for her PBS Special from Dromoland Castle around March 17 for a wonderful evening.

All in all an afternoon to remember.

Recalling Irish America’s greatest moment: President Clinton’s first visit to Belfast

President Bill and First Lady Hillary Clinton arrive in Belfast in 1995. 

It was 18 years ago this week when I stood among the 200,000 people crammed into the center of Belfast waiting for President Bill Clinton to appear for the city’s Christmas tree lighting.

While we waited Van Morrison warmed us up on a cold and frosty afternoon with the song “There Will Be Days Like This.”

With perfect hindsight I can say Van was wrong. There will never be another day like that one.

On the chairs beside me sat Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams and Joe Cahill, the leadership of the Irish Republican movement. Not far from me sat David Ervine, Gary McMichael and Gusty Spence, heads of the Loyalist movement.

Once they had been trying to kill each other. Now they were making moves for peace thanks in large part to the work of the Irish American president.

Up until that day the notion of an American president in Belfast was fanciful in the extreme, yet here Clinton was. I’ll always remember Martin McGuinness especially, and the disbelief and joy in his eyes that this day had finally dawned.

If there is ever a day that will stand out in history, this was it. Indeed, it was the greatest day of my journalism career and in some ways my worst, but more on that later.

I was reminded of the day this week by an excellent article by James Carroll in the Boston Globe remembering the occasion and what the message of the first American president ever to visit Northern Ireland meant to the multitudes. Interestingly, as Carroll noted, Clinton reached back to the American Civil War.

“I grew up in the American South,” Clinton said. “My forebears were soldiers in the Confederate Army . . . They lived the experience so many of you have lived.”
And then Clinton recalled the first post-Civil War Arkansas governor, who had fought for the Union.

“We have all done wrong,” Clinton said, quoting a speech an earlier Arkansas governor gave to his constituents, who had been split between the two sides.

“No one can say his heart is altogether clean, his hands altogether pure. Thus, as we wish to be forgiven, let us forgive those who have sinned against us and ours.” Then Clinton drew the lesson: “That was the beginning of American reconciliation, and it must be the beginning of Northern Ireland’s reconciliation.”

Maureen Dowd of The New York Times later wrote that she never saw Clinton happier than that day when he stepped out onto the stage before Belfast City Hall and thousands chanted his name. (Though in the Belfast accent, hilariously, it sounded more like “Bull, Bull” than “Bill, Bill.”)

“In Ireland Mr. Clinton discovered the joys of being a foreign policy president,” Dowd wrote.

And Ireland discovered the incredible potential when American soft power – no troops, no drones – is brought to bear on a world problem.

Earlier that day former Congressman Bruce Morrison and I had had a very different kind of meeting with senior Republican members who warned us all was not well, and that British refusal to act on the IRA ceasefire in August 1994 had produced incredible strains within the movement. It was a chilling moment in an otherwise remarkable day.

So it proved a few months later when the Canary Wharf bombs signaled the end of the first ceasefire.

Though he gets major praise, I have always questioned then-British Prime Minister John Major’s handling of the initial IRA ceasefire, believing if he had grabbed it instead of seeking to exploit it, the end of the war would have come much sooner and there would never have been a ceasefire breakdown.

But it was all won back, again with much help from Americans and the incredible determination of men like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness and then George Mitchell who came in to stamp his indelible imprint on the peace talks.

It all seems long ago and far away now, but life for many Irish reached a zenith that December day in Belfast in 1995. America had at last stepped in to the Irish/British conflict, and peace for the first time had a chance.

I’m just glad to have had the chance to witness history in the making.

Inquiries into pre-Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland crimes must end

Northern Ireland Attorney General John Larkin.

The Northern Ireland Attorney General John Larkin told an inconvenient truth when he stated that inquiries into crimes committed before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement should be discontinued.

He is correct. Northern Ireland needs to draw the line under the past and get on with the future.

That is a hard truth for people on both sides, especially victims, to swallow, but better tell the truth than wallow in an everlasting land of false promises when it comes to actually carrying out such inquiries.

The people of Northern Ireland have proven remarkably resilient in their ability to move on – look at Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson sharing power for instance.

Larkin was only stating the obvious. He pointed out that prosecutions following such inquiries, given the time that has passed and the human fallibility involved in terms of memories and health, would be next to impossible.

What he did not mention was that many of the inquiries, such as the Patrick Finucane murder and the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, have been utterly stymied by a refusal by authorities to grant access to the most relevant information.

Such crimes will likely never be prosecuted at this stage as the evidence has been withheld. The Unionist community no doubt have longed for similar inquiries into wrongs they suffered. There is no shortage of victims anywhere.

All the more reason then, that after a gap of at least 16 years and much longer in many cases, the truth must finally be told that such inquiries are no longer possible.

The just-released Smithwick inquiry in the Irish Republic into police collusion in the deaths of two senior RUC policemen, killings that occurred in 1989, is a case in point.

It found there was significant evidence of collusion, but could take the findings no further.

Such is the reality of what happens with the passage of time and the failure to have access to vital contemporary records and interviews.

Many cite the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an example of what can be achieved to right old wrongs.

But one could also cite Rwanda, where a genocidal civil war between Hutu and Tutsi tribes ended in reconciliation, not in terms of investigating wrong done but in creating democratic structures that led the country to peace.

The level of condemnation of Larkin’s comments from all sides makes it clear he was telling an inconvenient truth. The stark reality is that the passage of time has forever dimmed hopes of fully examining crimes and prosecuting those responsible.

Those are the facts, and Larkin deserves praise not condemnation for so saying.

It also has the additional benefit of allowing Northern Ireland to begin building a civil society based on equality and reconciliation without any untruths uttered to those who suffered the most.

“Philomena” a must-see movie that breaks your heart (VIDEO)

Dame Judi Dench and the real Philomena Lee photographed at a BFI event

Run, don’t walk, to see “Philomena,” the new movie about the true story of an Irish Magdalene laundry woman, the child she gave birth to and his subsequent adoption to America.

Judi Dench in the title role gives a performance I can only describe as breathtaking, and surely an Oscar winning one. Steve Coogan as journalist Martin Sixsmith who joins her on her quest for her son is also outstanding.

Philomena Lee’s baby was snatched from her at age 3 at the laundry where she worked and sold to America. All her life she sought him, only to find he was seeking her too, but the nuns in Roscrea, Tipperary, who sold him never told her.

He had risen to the top levels of the Reagan administration in America, but had always wanted to find the mother who gave birth to him.

She on the other hand had made a successful life as a nurse in Britain and had a new family, but never forgot the little boy she last saw through the bars of the prison-like laundry she was locked up in.

The incredible courage of Philomena, determined to seek her son despite being told by the nuns they had no idea where he was, is at the heart of the movie.

Somehow Philomena enlisted noted BBC journalist Martin Sixsmith in her quest and the interaction between the two, played by Dench and Coogan is wonderful.

Throughout I had to pinch myself that I was watching fact not fiction as the incredible tale unfolded, especially with the incredible twist at the end. What occurred was a microcosm of what happened during the blighted 1950s era in Ireland when church and state lorded over everyone and pushed a punishing God who deliberately punished the weak.

As a young girl Philomena fell in love and became pregnant. Punished for her sin, she was sent to the convent in Roscrea where she endured agony in a breech birth with the nuns saying she deserved it for having sex.

She was condemned to a dreadful life as effectively a slave laborer, but was allowed to see her young child an hour a day – until one day the child was gone, snatched by a wealthy American couple who paid the nuns handsomely for the privilege.

In an interview with the LA Times the real Philomena discussed her incredible quest.

(SPOILER ALERT)

“All I ever, ever, ever wanted to do was find him. And once I'd found him, I found out he was dead. That was an awful shock, but then again, as I say, that's how life is. But now I've got his whole life story. He had a wonderful life in America, a very good education, he was a very clever man and I was so sad when I heard he'd died, because he was only 43 at the time and I was very sad.

But at least he had his ashes brought home to Ireland. Living in England, I'm not far away from the grave, so I can go over and have a little prayer there. We tried to find him for so long over the years, we tried to find him ever so. But it wasn't meant to be.”

Here’s the trailer for the movie:

What JFK’s America was really like in November 1963 - Time capsule of New York Daily News paper of the day

New York Daily News edition from November 23, 1963

On Friday, the New York Daily News republished its entire edition from Saturday, November 23, 1963 the day after the Kennedy assassination.

It is a glimpse into a time capsule perfectly preserved.

We learn John F. Kennedy was not the only Kennedy whose death was mentioned in the Daily News edition on the day after the assassination.

James R. Kennedy, 70,  was laid to rest in the Bronx, a former police deputy commissioner. 1,000 people attended the funeral mass. One can only imagine the impact of the news from Dallas on the Catholic gathering.

The Irish names were everywhere at the burial. The Commissioner was Michael Murphy, his deputies were Murphy and Monaghan, the D.A. was Frank Hogan.

On a very different vein how far the country has come since November 23rd 1963 can be judged by this headline.

“Negroes? Bowl Ducks Issue” tops an article about whether “Negroes” would be invited to play in the annual football all-star game in January scheduled to take place in Alabama.

NBC announced they would not cover the game if Negroes were not invited.

Wonder what the people of that era would make of the first black president?

Meanwhile, from England came a story that all footballers in the First Division (now Premier League) would wear black armbands for JFK, an indication of how extraordinary the impact was worldwide.

At Aqueduct Racetrack in New York the crowd of 24,000 (amazing for a Friday) was stunned when the announcement was made. The horses on the track for the seventh race were led back and the program abandoned.

Among the horses down to race that day at Pimlico in Washington were Blue Bullet and Phantom Shot.

“News of Kennedy’s Death is TVs Saddest Moment” wrote Ben Gross the TV critic.

He noted that all channels went off the air presumably as a sign of grief at about midnight bar ABC which continued broadcasting.

“Regular programs abandoned, schedules thrown overboard, all entertainment shows vanished,” Green noted. Extraordinary to notice how accurate the reporting was, especially in naming and getting key background information on Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin.

The fashion pages of the Daily News paid no attention to the tragedy “All White Is Season Favorite for Parties” ladies were told.

They were also warned about sweating and using deodorant under a headline “This Delicate Subject Shouldn’t Be Avoided.”

Meanwhile the dirty movie house in Times Square was showing “Traveling Light” with the tagline “Join nudists at play, see sun-kissed maidens frolic.” Covering nudist colonies passed for porn back then and was advertised in a family newspaper.

Meanwhile, as a long-suffering Long Island Railroad commuter the headline “Better LIRR Service Urged” certainly strikes a chord.

Some things don’t change folks.

An afternoon with Chuck Feeney, Irish America’s greatest hero

Chuck Feeney with fellow philanthropist Bill Gates

A crisp autumn afternoon with Chuck Feeney (82) on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is a wonderful opportunity to sup with greatness.

Yesterday the talk was of family, grandchildren, his beloved Ireland and mutual friends such as Don Keough, former head of Coca Cola and like him, a great philanthropist.

He eagerly scanned the copy of Irish Voice I brought him with the tribute to JFK on the cover.

Feeney and I have been friends for over 25 years, since he called me up soon after I started Irish America magazine and Irish Voice and demanded to know if the Irish in America were ever going to hang together.

I never knew he was rich because he acted poor, meeting me in scrappy diners and leaving me with the check.

I put up with it because he was always worth the price of the coffee and the scraped-out onion bagel.
His insights were incredible.

Then Forbes magazine published that he was one of the richest men in the world.
He was mortified.

So was I, that he hadn’t picked up the breakfast checks.

He subsequently explained it was because he wasn’t that rich.

He had simply given away most of his $7.5 billion dollars, a fact ultimately revealed on the front page of The New York Times. His philosophy was “giving while living,”which he did through his Atlantic Philanthropies.

The working class Irish kid from Elizabeth New Jersey surpassed the Rockefellers and Andrew Carnegie when it came to charitable giving.

He invented “giving while living,” which is now all the rage. His example directly inspired Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to give it all away too.

One of his most important legacies is that he has convinced so many powerful people there are no pockets in a shroud and helping in the here and now is preferable to dribs and drabs over decades.
“Chuck has been an inspiration to both of us for many years and was living the Giving Pledge long before we launched this project," Bill and Melinda Gates said recently.

“He’s a true innovator and example to anyone who seeks to make the world a better place," Buffett said.

But there are no Chuck Feeney buildings or libraries or research centers or medical pavilions.
Everything was done anonymously. He jokes that it is very clever because he gets the praise for every anonymous donor these days.

Conor O’Clery’s brilliant biography “The Billionaire Who Wasn’t” captures the man so well. Buy it if you want an uplifting read.

When it all came out he was runner up for Time’s Man of the Year, the only man in history who got a joint honorary degree from all nine universities in Ireland, all together. There is deserved talk of the Nobel Prize.

There is simply no greater Irish American ever in terms of his incredible commitment to the underdog and those in need of an education.

Not to mention his role in peace in Northern Ireland,  where he was a huge player in the Irish American peace delegation that got President Clinton involved.

Back then we spent many hours on planes and cars together going back and forth to Belfast. We never talked money but he finally did spring for dinners.

Once he took me on a long walk to a public library in Connecticut so he could pick up magazines for free there. I met him once in the Merrion Hotel in Dublin sampling the free Sunday newspapers.A few weeks later he was up to the same trick in Fitzpatrick’s in Manhattan.

These days he has given away about $7.5 billion dollars with another billion or so to go. Irish charities and education institutions got about $1.5 billion of that. Fair to say he transformed Irish education.

After making his fortune as a founder of Duty Free Shops he resolved early on that he wanted nothing to do with wealth other than to make it work for others.

He gave a billion or so to Cornell because they let him come to their Ivy League college when he was rejected elsewhere.

He just seeded a new Silicon Valley type jobs scheme on Roosevelt Island in New York, creating a third level innovative campus with a $300 million grant. He has lavished huge grants in South Africa and Vietnam to name two countries.

Then there’s the incredible state-of-the-art hospital he is building in San Francisco that he took me around last spring.

Yesterday, I could see he is still powered by a fierce vision. He is the lion in winter, still driven to succeed.

When I parted from him and his wonderful wife Helga he asked me to come again and bring bagels the next time.

Still cheap, I’m still paying for breakfast it seems.

How the Gaelic Players Association has saved lives in Ireland

Dessie Farrell, Niall O'Dowd, Ciaran Murray CEO of ICON, and Donal Og Cusack
at the NYC gala dinner

PHOTOS - The Gaelic Players Association Awards and Gala Dinner in New York 2013, in pictures

It was an exceptional night at the Gaelic Players Association awards at the New York Athletic Club on Thursday last.

The GPA has quickly become a major force both in Ireland and America and the 500 who attended the organization's second annual dinner was adequate proof of that.

There were Wall Street titans, construction magnates, community leaders, top sportsmen and a star-studded delegation from Ireland, including leading members from this year's All-Ireland winners from Dublin and Clare.

The GPA has transformed the lives of many young men and women in Ireland. It offers a sounding board and outreach for players and young men and women in trouble.

In an era where suicide and depression and such issues have become major problems in the Emerald Isle their work is desperately important.

Much of their work is with elite former players who find it very hard to adjust when the cheering stops. Unlike in America, where retired sports stars have massive nest eggs thanks to the huge contracts they got as players, Irish players are amateurs and face into uncertain futures after giving their lives to Gaelic games.

On the day of the dinner there were two stories in the Irish newspapers, one involving a player recovering from a desperate gambling addiction with the help of the GPA, the other about a former top player who discovered during a heart scan, first introduced for all players thanks to GPA pressure, that he needed immediate major bypass surgery.

Such stories are merely the tip of the iceberg for the GPA and its top team is led by Cork hurling legend Donal Og Cusack and former Dublin star Dessie Farrell.

Here in America the GPA first made an impression last year when they volunteered teams of workers in the Rockaways to help with the recovery from Superstorm Sandy.

Their work was widely praised, including an extraordinary mention by President Obama during his speech at the White House during the St. Patrick’s period.

The honorees on the night were Ciaran Murray CEO of ICON, a major Irish drug company that has helped out GPA enormously and myself.

I told my story of how the GAA helped me start my life in America. When I came here in the late '70s I had no immediate relatives to go to.

But when I got off the plane I had a job, a bed and group of friends thanks to the St. Mel’s Club in Chicago and its chairman, Kerry man Joe Gleeson.

The same thing happened when I moved to San Francisco, where the San Francisco Gaels helped set up my life there for six wonderful years.

Without the GAA I would never have been able to put together the Irish network that eventually helped me start my career in publishing.

My story is a very common one concerning Irish lads coming to America looking for that first, and most vital, leg-ups.

Today the very same thing is happening every summer. Wherever the young Irish go they still find in the GAA a welcome home and a chance at a new experience.

The GPA is the Delta Force of the GAA, reaching out and extending its boundaries and informing its decision-making in key and important ways.

It was great to attend their event, even better to be an honoree this year. The GPA is simply the best new organization out of Ireland in a very long time.

PHOTOS - The Gaelic Players Association Awards and Gala Dinner in New York 2013, in pictures

Ray Kelly is right, politicians who attacked him are full of it

Ray Kelly let rip in a frank interview with "Playboy"

Hooray for Ray Kelly, who says politicians are "full of sh**" for the way they abandoned him during the recent mayoral election. He was speaking in a frank Playboy interview.

He has kept New York safer than any police commissioner in history, has an approval rating of 75 percent and is beloved by millions of New Yorkers

We had the pleasure of hosting Kelly at our Wall Street 50 event this summer and the reaction to him was incredible.

People see a straight shooter, a man of integrity doing an incredibly difficult job for a very modest salary. One can only imagine the stresses and strains he faced on a daily basis in this dangerous world, yet on the evening of our event he was as always, courteous to a fault, and spoke about his fierce commitment to his city and its safety.

It was at a time when he was coming under scrutiny for "stop and frisk" in crime-ridden neighborhoods and there was something deeply unfair about the way he was being targeted, especially by the incoming mayor Bill de Blasio.

De Blasio rode stop and frisk all the way to City Hall, bitterly condemning Kelly for the policy, despite the fact, as Kelly noted, de Blasio and others had frequently called him looking for advice.

There is something out of whack in New York City when the most successful police commissioner in history, one who dragged homicide levels down to what they were fifty years ago, is targeted and vilified by the politicians.

Kelly kept New York safe in perhaps the most dangerous time in its history after 9/11. As thanks he gets dragged through the mud by pols not fit to tie his shoelaces

It is all part of an incredibly cynical game where vilifying a decent and honorable man becomes a political sport.

I’m glad Ray Kelly answered his detractors and I hope he continues to confront these newly minted critics.

Ray Kelly is not a man to mince words and he certainly did not in his Playboy exit interview. He is speaking the truth, no matter how inconvenient it is for the new mayor.