The impact of The Gathering evident in Ireland’s summer landscape - Homecoming have provided countless memories for Diaspora

Caroline Kennedy, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny and 
Jean Kennedy Smith at the JFK remembrance in Wexford on Saturday.

DUBLIN -- What is striking about driving around Ireland this summer is the impact that The Gathering has had on the island.

Every small town I drove through on a recent visit seemed to have a large poster outside of town advertising their Gathering get-together.

Outside the tiny hamlet of Julianstown in Meath, it was their roots seminar for descendants whose clan members had left the area.

In Monaghan it was “Local Connections to the Battle of the Little Big Horn” which sounded fascinating.

The Gathering has been an important lesson in self-help for many communities, especially smaller one outside Dublin.

Given Ireland’s dire economic state, it was a refreshing opportunity for so many grassroots organizations to show what they could do with their local history.

With The Gathering now widely seen as a huge success, perhaps it is time to extend it in some form into the future.

It also gives locals an opportunity to discuss some positive steps rather than dwell in the negative.

There is a need for every town and village to acknowledge real local lore and history, and to act on it.
So many have done so this year that it has transformed Irish tourism, where authorities are now looking at a very special 2013.

It is widely expected that the number of American visitors will crack the one million mark for the first time – a real achievement.

Last weekend when I was in Ireland, 10,000 showed up in New Ross, Co. Wexford in showery, blustery weather for the Kennedy clan gathering.

There was massive coverage in all the national newspapers and a feel good moment for a nation as it remembered America’s most iconic figure of the 20th century and his local connections.

It was one of the major gatherings of the year, and there was hardly a dry eye when JFK’s sister Jean, still standing tall at 85, arrived to light the eternal flame.

The Irish are learning that if you build it they will come -- not a hokey sentimental version of history, but a very real one.

Our sister publication Irish America has its Hall of Fame in New Ross, and it was wonderful to see how many visitors it drew over the weekend.

The weather has been cooperating with the warmest summer in some time which has really helped. As everyone knows, planning outdoor events in Ireland is a roll of the dice no matter if it is the height of summer.

But there are few places more magical on a long, hot summer evening where darkness only falls when midnight nears and spirits are high.

There is always a match or a festival or some event to go to, and the people themselves seem energized by the foreigners who flock to their shore.

The Gathering has focused all that attention and created many new events surrounding it.

Even events that were to be staged anyway have received a boost in attendance numbers and financial backing.

It is as if Ireland has cast aside its penitent robes after the shock of the bad times and found a new suit that fits the upbeat mood perfectly.

Sure there will be problems ahead, and winter’s dark days will draw in again, but the summer of 2013 will rightly be remembered as when The Gathering called countless Irish home.

Senator Marco Rubio is the GOP braveheart who leads the immigration fight - Remembers Irish and other immigrants in remarkable speech - VIDEO

Senator Marco Rubio

There was a wonderful speech on immigration delivered by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as the reform bill was being debated a few days ago.

It was no surprise that politicians of all shades gathered round him after he had finished to congratulate him.

In a country parched of bipartisan politicians, Rubio, the 42-year-old son of Cuban immigrants and a frequent Tea Party hero, stepped outside the party lines to support something special.

He caught much flak from colleagues for doing so but he knew he had to stop the rot in the GOP over immigration.

The party has lost the HIspanic vote and cannot secure the White House unless they win back a significant percentage.

Rubio is the Republican front runner for 2016, a marvellously eloquent young man who could transform his party’s prospects.

As an Hispanic, as a competent right wing senator but also as a compassionate conservative, Rubio ticks the box of future American superstars.

Democrats knew that without Rubio’s support and cover it would be impossible to pass immigration reform in the senate.

Just as John McCain had been the GOP bellwether on immigration in the past, now Rubio was that man.

If he voted yes over a dozen Republicans knew they had cover.

Rubio not only voted yes, he delivered a stemwinder of a speech that will go down in history as a possible turning point for the GOP.

This man can hold Florida, win back Colorado and give the GOP an opportunity to hope again -- if they listen to him.

That is no sure thing. The party has buried itself in divisive politics for so long now they may not know which way up is. It is the way Rubio is pointing to.

Here are his abridged comments on immigrants:

“For over 200 years now they have come in search of liberty and freedom for sure,” he said. “But often just in search of a job to feed their kids and a chance at a better life. From Ireland and Poland, from Germany and France, from Mexico and Cuba, they have come.”

“They have come because in the land of their birth, their dreams were bigger than their opportunities. Here they brought their language and their customs, their religions and their music, and somehow they’ve made them ours as well,” Rubio said.

“Even with all our challenges, we remain that shining city on a hill. We are still the hope of the world. Go to our factories and our fields, go to the kitchens and construction sites, go to the cafeterias in this very capitol and there you will find that the miracle of America is still alive. For here in America those who once had no hope will give their kids the chance at a life they always wanted for themselves.

“Here in America generations of unfulfilled dreams will finally come to pass.”

When have we last heard such rhetoric in support of a decent cause? Certainly not from Obama.

Folks, Marco Rubio is the real thing.

Could Governor Martin O’Malley end up in the White House in 2016?

Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has expressed interesting in the US presidency for 2016

Dublin: Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, with roots in County Mayo and the West of Ireland, where he is staying this week, has made clear he is interested in the White House job in 2016.

It is no idle speculation. If you go on PaddyPower.com odds making site he is ranked second favorite after Hillary Clinton but ahead of Joe Biden and Mario Cuomo for the Democratic nomination.
He fits in well in Ireland. He was the guitar player at the after-dinner sing song at the American Ireland Fund dinner in the K Club, 20 miles from Dublin on Saturday night, .

The music went on late into the night as the assembled sang every Irish song they ever knew and he matched them note for note.

Even though he sings a mean "Fields of Athenry” and loves to belt out Christy Moore numbers, Martin O’Malley’s real ambitions tend elsewhere.

Given that he  is among the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination in 2016 and  the hugely enthusiastic reception he received in Ireland there are many there who see him as the new Kennedy. The fact he was here as the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy homecoming was being celebrated was timely.

There has certainly not been a presidential contender since Kennedy who is as familiar and connected to Ireland.

At the American Ireland Fund dinner he fitted in seamlessly with Prime Minister Enda Kenny and Irish American icon Michael Flatley as the evening’s celebrities. He is at home as easily in Dublin as the streets of Baltimore.

I met him first when we were seatmates on a President Clinton trip to Ireland in 2000 and he informed me about Irish history and famous landmarks rather than the other way around.  This was a different kind of Irish American politician I concluded.

His great grandfather, also Martin, left Maam, County Galway, settling in Arizona before moving to Pittsburgh. The pirate queen Grace O’Malley is somewhere in the deep ancestral background.
He understands how the struggles of the Irish allowed them to understand others.

“There is among the Irish, by and large in America, a keen and heartfelt awareness that we are a nation of nations and we have all been strangers in a foreign land at one point, so that gives to Irish public servants in America, not always but for the most part, a certain ability to relate to others,” O’Malley told the Irish Times recently.

His fierce commitment to his Irish heritage was fueled firstly by his love for Irish music, especially Celtic rock. For years he had his own band “O’Malley’s March” which played Irish festivals and even the White House one St.Patrick’s Day.

Some of the comparisons to Kennedy hit home. He is an East Coast liberal politician elected to statewide office very young. He has an extraordinary way with people, and is considered among the finest policy minds in his party. His wife, Judge Katie O’Malley, is a highly accomplished woman in her own right.

He is head of the Democratic Governor’s Association and his Irish-born former Chief of Staff Colm O Comartun is now Executive Director of the DGA and gearing up for a huge battle next year to bring more Democratic governors into statehouses. A candidate called Bill Clinton once followed the same path as head of the DGA and used it to make invaluable fundraising contacts.

It is easy to see why he is considered a front runner. Hillary may not run, Biden will be 73 if he does, Cuomo is handicapped by his New York base where no president since Roosevelt has emerged from. Along with Cuomo, he represents a new generation and there is a clear scenario where the party will turn to its next generation, as Republicans seem increasingly likely to do with Senator Marco Rubio or Governor Chris Christie.

O’Malley matches looks and ability and in our media besotted age that is important.
He delivers a great speech -- here are a few paragraphs from one he delivered about John F. Kennedy in Dublin this week.

“It is suggested by some that a small country can do little in a world that seems increasingly dominated by the very large few. But the reality is that Ireland is often the forerunner of truly democratic aspirations and realizations.

“This is the Irish example that President Kennedy celebrated and extolled during his visit: that a nation and a people need not be large in size, or powerful in force of arms, in order to influence the conscience of the world.”

Watch for O’Malley in 2016.

Governor Martin O'Malley of Maryland address the Irish America Wall Street 50:

America claims privacy invasion but British intercepted all Irish communications in early 1990s

American whistle-blower Edward Snowden

In the midst of all the brouhaha about spying on U.S. citizens, it is worth recalling that the U.K. was found guilty in 2008 in the European Court of Human Rights of spying on all telephone calls, faxes and emails to and from Ireland between 1990 and 1997.

The British and indeed the Irish have been acting aggrieved, shocked and offended by the American case first revealed in the British newspaper The Guardian.

But they certainly do not have clean hands when it comes to intercepting communications In the Liberty v. the United Kingdom case, “The European Court of Human Rights has held that a system of mass surveillance operated by the U.K. government to spy on all telephone calls, faxes and emails to and from Ireland was in breach of the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights,” according to DigitalRights.ie.

The digital rights people noted that “the case, brought by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty and British-Irish Rights Watch dealt with a system operated by the Ministry of Defense which monitored, between 1990 and 1997, up to 10,000 simultaneous telephone channels coming from Dublin to London and on to the continent.”

The European case revealed that during that time the Ministry of Defense intercepted all public telecommunications, including telephone, facsimile and e-mail communications, carried on microwave radio between two of British Telecom’s radio stations (at Clwyd and Chester), a link which carried much of Ireland’s telecommunications traffic.

“Those telephone calls, faxes and emails were then stored and filtering using search engines and keyword lists before being passed to intelligence analysts.”

Wow.

So every call and fax and e-mail was monitored by the British Big Brother between Ireland and England, and there was hardly a peep anywhere about it before two courageous human rights

groups, British/Irish Watch and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties brought a case.

The European Court decision stated:

“In conclusion, the court does not consider that the domestic law at the relevant time indicated with sufficient clarity, so as to provide adequate protection against abuse of power, the scope or manner of exercise of the very wide discretion conferred on the state to intercept and examine external communications.

In particular, it did not, as required by the court’s case-law, set out in a form accessible to the public any indication of the procedure to be followed for selecting for examination, sharing, storing and destroying intercepted material. The interference with the applicants’ rights under Article 8 was not, therefore, in accordance with the law.”

Afterwards the Irish Council for Civil Liberties called for urgent reform of surveillance laws after securing the significant victory in their case before the European Court of Human Rights.

Director Mark Kelly said, “The Strasbourg Court has vindicated the ICCL’s belief that data ‘fishing expeditions’ by the intelligence services will fall foul of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judges have found that the United Kingdom’s relatively sophisticated rules on data interception have failed to prevent unlawful interference with privacy rights.

“This has clear implications for Ireland’s lax data interception regime, which will require a thorough overhaul in order to ensure that it meets the standards required by the European Court of Human Rights.”

It also became public knowledge that all data from Ireland was being retained by Irish authorities.

TJ McIntyre, chairman of Digital Rights Ireland and lecturer in a law in University College Dublin, said the judgment would be significant for the legal challenge to data retention currently

being brought by Digital Rights Ireland in the High Court.

“This is a landmark case which casts further doubt on the legality of Ireland’s ‘data retention’ system which tracks the telephone calls and internet use of all citizens without discrimination.

It is a clear statement from the Court of Human Rights that indiscriminate surveillance will generally be incompatible with the right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights.”

Nothing much has changed in the interim I gather with cases still pending.

So next time the British or Irish begin reporting on how intrusive the American spy system is, let them take a look at their own rules first.

Multiculturalism comes to Ireland and the country is better for it

Multicultural can only help Ireland

Lucan, Ireland:  Multiculturalism is alive and well in Ireland and indeed, thriving.

That is bad news for many. As Father Bobby Gilmore, a fierce immigrant rights advocate noted in an article on Journal.ie there is some resentment and hatred as a result.

“Immigrants are the new ‘weak’, the new ‘enemy’. So many citizens are ignorant of that fact. They resent the presence of other nationals working in their neighborhoods yet see no contradiction in their own sons and daughters emigrating to seek work abroad.”

While many view the prospect of outside cultures integrating into Ireland with fear, I think it can be the making of the country.

I also think Ireland has done a remarkable job, despite some naysaying, in integrating other nationalities into the Irish way of life. There have been no race riots, no blatant xenophobia. The country is getting it right.

In fact I am reminded of America’s shining moment, the melting pot of the 19th and 20th centuries which allowed millions to emigrate to America and become part of a national tapestry where race and every background found a way to fit in.

Was that an easy process? Of course not, but the Irish experience will prove an overwhelmingly positive one in years to come I predict.

I say so after getting a tantalizing peek into that future.

Come with me to St. Thomas National School in Lucan, a Dublin suburb where I spent Thursday afternoon as part of an American Ireland Fund delegation.

Amazingly, the school has 44 different national identities represented among its 1,000-pupil population split between it and another school for older kids on the same premises.

From Nigeria to Pakistan to India, to a slew of Eastern European countries as well as Asia and even North America, the country of origin of many of the kids I saw was not Ireland.

I was there to see the remarkable success of an Ireland Fund project, the creation of the Esker Amateur Boxing Club for youngsters in the area which has massive unemployment and deep social problems.

The boxing club had arranged a ‘Friday Night Fights’ scenario where we saw the youngsters square off against each other in the makeshift ring in the school gymnasium.

Thanks to a dedicated core group of locals led by Ed Griffin, the boxing club, starved of funds, has become a local success story taking kids off the street and giving them a chance.

The 2nd grade school kids had turned out for the boxing tournament and lent an ear splitting and giddy presence to a remarkable afternoon.

What struck me immediately was how many colors of the rainbow were represented among the kids. Asian, Black Eastern European, Irish, all mingled happily chanting ‘Ireland, Ireland’ as the young boxers competed.

When I was in grade school in Ireland the definition of a stranger was one who came from another town or a country area. Now the far-flung regions of the globe have come to Ireland and the country is the better for it.

Sure there are problems, but St. Thomas school principal Michael Maher explained how the foreign born children or children of immigrant parents are taken under the wing of the school when they arrive.

That is evident from a huge map of the world pinned up on the bulletin board where the countries from which the kids come from are proudly identified. The map says treasure this extraordinary diversity.

He explained that while the school has a Catholic ethos the religious needs and expression of many of those who arrive are catered for and allowed expression.

The focus is on inclusivity but he says the balance must be right, encouraging the children to understand and appreciate their new country too.

He finds parents of whatever background are interested in one thing primarily, a good education for their children.

That goal remains his clear mission, one not made any easier in recent years as the Irish economy tanked and education was one of the government programs hardest hit.

Judging from the easy mingling and camaraderie I witnessed among the kids, spectacular progress is being achieved at St. Thomas’.

I hope it is a good barometer for the rest of Ireland. The country needs to look outward to avoid the mistakes of a Germany or France or other European countries where immigrants are never given a place at the same table and are relentlessly informed of their differences to the host country. That has led to riots and the fear of the ‘other’ we are all familiar with.

In the modern world where global shifts in population happen much faster, that is a dangerous policy. Ireland to its credit has avoided that pitfall and as witnessed in Lucan, has pursued an inclusiveness that is immediately familiar to Americans.

Long may it last.

Kennedy mania grips Ireland as 50th anniversary of 1963 JFK visit arrives

JFK pictured during his 1963 visit to the Kennedy Homestead in Wexford

Kildare, Ireland: If you thought Ireland had got too sophisticated for some old time Kennedy mania then think again.

The 50th Anniversary of the JFK visit to Ireland in 1963 is taking place this weekend and the country has decided to celebrate with a vengeance.l

The two major newspapers, The Irish Times and Irish Independent, have created special supplements around the anniversary, one outdoing the other with gushing prose about the meaning of the visit 50 years ago.

Meanwhile in New Ross, Wexford on Saturday, the Prime Minister Enda Kenny will be accompanied by senior Kennedy family members, Jean Kennedy Smith and Caroline Kennedy when he inaugurates the old Kennedy homestead as a major cultural attraction.

Irish television is covering the event live and up to 50,000 people are expected to pay homage near the remote farm at Dunganstown where Patrick Kennedy left with only a pocketful of dreams in 1847.

Boys who sang for him, girls who danced for him, cops who guarded him, reporters who covered him have all come alive this week  retelling their memories of June 26 to 29th 1963.

Given the week that is in it with President Obama in Northern Ireland, Bill Clinton stopping by on a brief Shannon stopover and Kennedy mania everywhere, it is tempting to think Ireland is an extension of Irish America these summer days.

Also in town is a future presidential contender, Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who is giving a Kennedy speech in Dublin. All we are lacking is a drop in by Hillary Clinton or Chris Christie.

Consider also that the American Ireland Fund is bringing 200 Irish American business leaders to Ireland this week and the sense of living briefly in the 51st state takes hold.

It is incredible to see the analysis of the Kennedy visit. In real politics terms it meant little compared to Bill Clinton’s visit to Belfast in 1994 when he firmly set the Irish peace process on course.

But the Kennedy visit was an electric moment for a country that had slumbered through most of the 20th century at that point after achieving independence in 1921.

It is amazing how many commentators say that Kennedy appeared to be in Technicolor during that first visit when the rest of the world seemed black and white.

They describe an almost mythical figure. Novelist Colm Toibin who was there as a young lad on the day remembers how incredibly youthful he looked at a time when many men his age in their 40s looked old through hard times.

It is a thought repeated again and again by those who saw him that day, a radiant young war hero running the most powerful country in the world, coming back to where it all began, a country just about to emerge into the modern era.

He vanquished the negative image of the Irish in the U.S. forever but it is clear he had a remarkable impact on the Irish in Ireland too.

Fifty years later they still speak his name in awe.

We will never see his likes again.

President Obama’s visit to North comes at a critical time for peace process - Hopes that he can help stop slow slide into the dark side

President Obama speaking at the Waterfront Hall
in Belfast on Monday morning (Credit: Reuters)

Don’t look now but President Obama’s trip to Northern Ireland is coming at a critical time.

Contrary to some opinion it is a vital visit.

His speech at Waterfront Hall was less significant for what he said rather than the fact that he made it.

When the President of the United States pays attention to an issue then everyone else does too.

It is American soft power at its best and it has always worked in Northern Ireland.

It was no coincidence that British leader David Cameron met Northern Ireland’s two leaders, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, last week and announced a major economic package.

In addition, he announced an investment conference for October aimed at bringing new industry to Northern Ireland.

The announcement came after strong pleading from the North that the gains of the peace process were endangered if there was not a significant increase in economic activity leading to jobs and opportunity.

It is doubtful that the new initiatives would have happened if the United States president was not on his way.

Northern Ireland has languished out of the headlines and a gradual erosion of the peace process has taken place.

Most serious was the issue of securocrats attempting to undermine the peace agenda.

Last month Irishman John Downey was arrested in Gatwick Airport and charged with the Hyde Park bombings and death of four soldiers in 1982.

Deeply significant was the fact that Downey had been assured in a letter that following the peace process, he was free to come and go in the general amnesty that prevailed.

There are many horrific and unsolved murders from all sides during The Troubles. Clearly there are groups within the British establishment, given the Boston College subpoenas and now John Downey who want to start the war all over again.

That is why the visit of President Obama is so vital.

Coverage of Northern Ireland exposes these latest negative developments and also forces politicians there on all sides to make greater efforts to reach agreement on issues.

It was thus during President Clinton’s time when many major developments occurred in the arc of a visit by the U.S. president. George Bush, in fairness, also helped achieve breakthroughs.

Now it is Obama’s turn and his visit is a critical moment in cementing a peace that has looked even more uneasy in recent times.

Watch President Obama speaking in Belfast this morning

Boston Irish Immigration Center continues to lie about their role in turning woman in to State Department

Boston IIIC lied about having reported Irish woman to the State Department

The Boston Irish Immigration Center is lying again about how it handled the issue of the Irish intern they reported to the State Department. They seem incapable of displaying any integrity.

I was prepared to let this matter lie hoping they had enough sense to move on as well but they are still justifying their Big Brother tactics.

 In fact they are now blaming me for the entire incident on their website which would be hilarious except it shows how out of touch they have become.

Let me briefly recap: The Boston IIIC was exposed by this publication for canceling a young Irish woman’s visa after they snooped around online and in print and discovered to their horror that she had written about working a few shifts in a bar to make ends meet.

They made contact with the girl and they informed the State Department her visa was canceled. Those are two indisputable facts.

They decided to play Big Brother and tell her to get out of the country and ran to the State Department to cancel her visa. Anyone in their right mind with the welfare of immigrants at heart would have ignored the minor transgression, or at worst, called and said be careful about writing that kind of stuff.

They instead informed her in a threatening and bullying phone call to the girl who worked at our office and followed up with a threatening letter warning her to leave the country by mid June.

It was an incredible overreach having an immigration center act as immigration officers, a clear example of an organization totally losing touch with their basic mission to help immigrants, but this center has become famous for this as I can now outline from other letters we have since received.

This it turns out is no isolated incident with this bunch. Here is an extract from a  letter from another young Irish woman who suffered at their hands

“Niall I would like to remain anonymous with this. Quite simply because I am so scarred by my experience and I fear the Boston Immigration Center and what they are capable of....  “I was on a J1 12 month visa.

"Basically they called the organization where I was serving my internship and found out I was there more like 24 unpaid hours a week than the required 36 or whatever hours are required.

“They then heavily threatened the person who I was doing the internship with and told them if was a federal offense to sign my papers if I wasn't there the exact number of hours.

“They requested all of my financials, savings accounts, credit card statements etc so that they could see that I was living of my money and credit cards that I had in Ireland and not earning illegally in the States.....

"On the following Friday evening at 4.50, Anne Marie Byrne called me and gleefully told me that I had ten days to get out of the country and to have a nice weekend.

“I was then served with the same papers that girl received,...  I was summoned to Boston for a tribunal before their board in what I can only describe as a kangaroo court...”

Is this helping immigrants?

Can we see a pattern here? Yes, we can, one of bullying and intimidation of very vulnerable people by the Boston Irish International Immigration Center.

As for the latest story, after the girl had been contacted and reduced to tears at that point I intervened and called the Boston IIC and spoke to two members of the staff, Jude Clarke, who had made the obnoxious phone call telling the girl to get out, and Director Ronnie Millar.

I told both of them I was going to write an article about their dreadful treatment of her but would hold off if they simply let the matter rest and not report the incident, as I felt it was much more important to protect the girl than turn it into a major story.

They both declined in quite specific terms to spare the girl and I wrote the article. That has now been translated in their speak as the following and I quote from their web site:

“When the publisher of the Irish Central website informed us that an article attacking us was going to be immediately published on IrishCentral.com, only then did we call our program manager at the Department of State about the situation, as we are explicitly required to do by US regulations whenever there is “any serious problem or controversy which could be expected to bring the Department of State or the sponsor’s exchange visitor program into notoriety or disrepute to force her to leave the country.""

They are not telling the truth. They were in touch with and canceled her visa with the State Department, pure and simple which had no connection whatever to my phone call.

Anne Marie Byrne, another of their staff, had written telling the girl her visa was canceled on May 22nd, which meant they had to inform the State Department.

This is now such a cover up and justifying bad behavior  I have serious questions about whether Millar or Clarke could ever be trusted to work with the Irish community. This is their version of an alternate reality where they acted in good faith.

No they did not, They acted as informers on a young girl who did nothing worse than hold down a few shifts in a bar to make ends meet, and destroyed  her American dream.

Shame on them and for now trying to shift the blame for their disgraceful behavior. I know the Irish government has commissioned an investigation into the incident as they provide $250,000 in funding to the center every year.

They should really think about reconsidering and helping the Boston Irish Pastoral Center instead which has far more credibility in the Irish American community in Boston than these people have ever had. It is now clear why.

Why no effort to repair damage to Irish Famine memorial in New York nearly one year after? - Car slammed into memorial and ugly plywood and metal barricades still mark the site

A year after a car slammed into the NY Irish Hunger Memorial the damage has still not been repaired.

It is a disgrace that almost a year after a car slammed into the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York the significant damage has not been repaired.

The memorial is located in Battery Park, just a short distance from Wall Street.

Instead a cheap plywood fixture covers the gaping hole in the outside structure and a metal barrier stands in front of it. No attempt has been made to fix it permanently by the City of New York or Battery Park authorities.

One can only imagine if a car slammed into the Metropolitan Museum or some other august structure how quickly the city would find funds to repair it. Yet the Irish Famine memorial is obviously considered a very low priority.

The Famine Memorial in Battery Park City is actually considered sacred ground by many Irish Americans since it was opened by Irish President Mary McAleese in 2002 in a very moving ceremony.

I was there on the day and still remember it as one of the highlights of my time in America. At last a permanent memorial to the millions of Famine Irish would be present in America’s greatest city.

The quarter acre site beautifully replicates a deserted famine village in the West of Ireland, including a ruined cottage imported stone by stone from Ireland and plants and bushes and grass from every county.

I know many who were moved to tears when visiting the memorial with its extraordinary evocation of the era of the Famine and the million who fled.

Kudos to Kevin Ellis head of the AOH DIvision 1 in Yonkers who first noticed the damage had not been repaired and decided to try and do something about it.

He said what is there now is an eyesore and a disgrace.

He wrote to me saying, “I was just walking by the Irish Hunger Memorial in downtown Manhattan and was shocked to see that the damage from a car accident nearly a year ago has yet to be repaired ... In fact, it looks ridiculous the way they have just leaned a piece of plywood over the damage and placed a metal barricade in front of it.”

The damage occurred in August 2012. DNAInfo.com reported on August 13 that year that a speeding car plowed into the Irish Hunger Memorial.

The online site reported that a “driver behind the wheel of the Chevy Impala was weaving down River Terrace just before 5 p.m. Sunday when he blew through the stop sign at Vesey Street, jumped the curb and slammed into the memorial's northern wall, police and witnesses said.”

A shirtless man later named by police as Antoine Odom, 24, of Long Island was driving the car which was stolen. Police say he was under the influence of drugs.

The Battery Park City Authority manages the memorial. It is time to ask them and the batch of Mayoral candidates whether they will commit to restoring the Famine memorial to its proper structure without unsightly plywood and barricades used to close up a gaping hole.

Those who came before us would ask for nothing less.

How sports helped defeat the 'No Irish Need Apply' racism in America - Top baseball exec Tim Brosnan tells Irish Sports 50 how Irish served as example

Tim Brosnan, Executive Vice President of Major League Baseball

The inaugural Irish Sports 50 awards presented by Irish Voice newspaper were held on Thursday night in Manhattan at the beautiful surrounds of the American Irish Historical Society on Fifth Avenue and were an outstanding success.

They came from California, Dallas and Ireland. Sports and business figures from all the major U.S sports were present to hear keynote speaker Tim Brosnan, Executive Vice President of Major League Baseball, describe the Irish journey to success in sports as an example for every immigrant community.

Brosnan pointed out that our forefathers came with nothing and that sport was one of the first arenas in America where Irish were welcome.

At a time when “No Irish Need Apply” signs were still being hung out  the Irish were making it in baseball and other sports he pointed out.

Other ethnic groups would follow the same path and African Americans would eventually break the barrier too.

Sports were one of the first places that Irish were accepted he said. It was an invaluable lesson for other groups who faced discrimination too.

Now, Brosnan pointed out, sports is open to all “If you have the skill you can play it doesn't matter where you came from.”

It is true. The first thing the child of immigrants will do,whether Irish or these days Hispanic,  is grab a bat or a ball and try to compete on the only truly level playing field around -- sports.

We take it for granted these days that sports is the great melting pot of American society but as the Jackie Robinson biopic this Spring showed clearly it was a hell of a battle to get there.

Deputy Consul of Ireland Peter Ryan talked about the healing power of sport when it came to the fallout from Hurricane Sandy in the Rockaways.

Some of Ireland’s top athletes, members of the Gaelic Players Association came on their own time to America and rebuilt the sports gymnasium at Breezy Point that had been ruined by the storm. 1,500 members of the Irish community had lent their skills all over the different Rockaway neighborhoods.

GPA Chairman Dessie Farrell talked about the extraordinary response to their gesture including coverage on NBC Nightly News and many other organizations stepping forward to help. This weekend the GPA will conduct a Gaelic sports 7 a side tournament in Breezy Point to aid local charities.

I spoke about being present at the greatest Irish American sports event I have seen, the Notre Dame game against Navy in Dublin last year when 25,000 Irish fans made the trip across the Atlantic to their ancestral home.

The goodwill engendered between Ireland and America on that trip alone speaks volumes for the power of sport.

The first-ever Irish American Sports 50 was put together by Irish Voice editor Debbie McGoldrick and business manager John Dillon. Judging by the success it won’t be the last!

Sandy scourged Rockaways is on the mend with a little help from community spirit and perseverance

A group  of Irish volunteers who took part in the first Irish Day of Action
for the Rockaways last November

Driving along Cross Bay Boulevard to the Rockaways for the Irish festival there on Sunday, I was struck by how incredibly different the scene was from just a few months back.

Back in October, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, there were small boats in the middle of the road, shuttered buildings everywhere, cops and ambulances every few hundred yards and desperate placards asking for FEMA to intervene.

It was like a scene out of Mad Max and reminded me of the aftermath of 9/11 when there were quite literally tanks on the FDR Drive in New York, and armed cops and soldiers every 20 yards.

You live long enough and you see such sights I guess, but New York has certainly seen its fair share of them in the last 13 years.

On Sunday all electricity was back on along Cross Bay Boulevard, the parking lots were full and sun worshippers were everywhere making their way to the nearby beaches.

In Rockaway itself the wear and tear was still evident. The broken boardwalk stands out like a bad dream, lancing along the length of the beach, a reminder of the power of Mother Nature. Even the ocean will never be seen the same, and the calm waters will never seem so unthreatening again.

On Sunday afternoon there was a hot wind from the south, mercifully cooling down the Irish festival-goers at St. Camillus schoolyard.

But wind and water will never seem the same again to those who lost loved ones or homes or possessions to Hurricane Sandy. The huge mounds of garbage and shards of houses torn apart are gone, a testament to the unsung heroes of the New York Sanitation Department who literally moved mountains to restore the Rockaways.

The summer breeze, the sunshine, the relaxed atmosphere helped erode the memories of that dreadful October day when Sandy struck in all its fury.

So too did the extraordinary work of the Irish all over New York and even from outside who held three days of action to help the residents of Rockaway and Breezy Point recover. The AOH, which hosted last weekend’s Irish festival to help St. Camillus parish recover and worked tirelessly on the days of action, has also surpassed itself, as has the Irish government who supplied much needed leadership to the mobilization effort.

The fact that it was St. Camillus, a mostly minority parish which has suffered greatly, that was the beneficiary of the Irish festival, is important.

There are those who will hold that the Irish only look after their own. That has not been the case at all in Rockaway.

Right from the beginning the decision was made to help every area of the Rockaways -- Irish, Black, Italian, Hispanic, Jewish.

That was what was done, and teams were sent on days of action to vastly different locations.

On Sunday all the proceeds were going to a church which has very few parishioners of Irish extraction but needed help the most.

The parish hall that was rebuilt by Irish money and effort will help restore community pride and activity in a neighborhood that badly needs it.

The 5,000 or so Irish who turned out for the Irish festival sent a powerful signal that the Rockaways is more united than ever after Hurricane Sandy.

While the hurricane shattered many lives, it also engendered a new spirit of community and togetherness in an area that now badly needs both. It was indeed an ill wind, but as usual the Irish have overcome.

5,000 Irish Americans gather to help Rockaway recover from Hurricane Sandy - An Irish festival in a suffering parish brings the community back together again

5,000 Irish Americans came out to help the community of the Rockaways

Rockaway Beach: Close to 5,000 Irish Americans came together this weekend to help a shattered Catholic congregation in Rockaway, New York come together.

Many wore t-shirts emblazoned with the AOH logo and “Rockaway Beach, Breezy Point Strong” and that said it all.

Amazingly, in an mayoral election year, no politicians showed up, though City Council Speaker Christine Quinn did provide some buses. As for Mayor Bloomberg, “He wouldn’t dare show his face around here,” one festival goer said to me.

Sure, the Irish have long memories but when you consider Bloomberg prioritized holding the NYC marathon after Sandy and not local relief efforts it is easy to see why.

The absence of City Hall denizens and would-be mayors made no dent on the days however. On a glorious weekend that must have been ordered up by the saints, the crowds milled around at the Irish festival arranged by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an organization once again showing remarkable community leadership in times of crisis.

There was Irish dancing, marching bands, pounding drums,  rebel songs, sweaters for sale, lots of Guinness and craic and good cheer. But behind the smiling faces there was a deadly earnest mission – to make things right in Rockaway, the isolated inlet pounded by the hurricane.

The weekend was one more example of the best of the Irish in adversity. The Irish festival in the grounds of St. Camillus raised tens of thousands of dollars for the stricken parish.

I was shown the dreadful destruction still evident in the church hall and community center, stripped bare after the angry ocean poured in during Sandy. The money raised by the Irish will go a long way to repair it.

So too will the busloads of Irish who arrived from all five boroughs many skilled in the construction trade. It was the third “Irish Day of Action” in the Rockaways and the community gave its usual warm-hearted response.

Kudos to the Irish consulate in New York which organized the five-borough presence and previous days of action. Consul General Noel Kilkenny and Deputy Consul Peter Ryan can be rightly proud of what they have achieved.

St. Camillus parish, just blocks from the ocean, took the full onslaught of Superstorm Sandy last October and now, eight months later, is still in dire need.

St. Camillus is not in a wealthy area and many of the parishioners are in dire need themselves. Like the saint himself who ministered to the poorest, Camillus Parish has its fair share of people in need.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians, under dynamic Queen County leader John Manning, grabbed the initiative and put together the festival. The Irish community came on board and added work crews as well.

“We wanted to make a difference,” he told me, “this was the way we decided to try and do it.”
Another leading AOH man Dan Dennehy summed up the weekend perfectly. “This is what we Irish do best, help ourselves and help others.”

 “I'm humbled by the faith of the people, by the generosity of the people, and by the spirit of the people...” Father Richard Ahlemeyer, the pastor said recently describing his parishioners.

“They've banded together, and they have worked together, shared together, and they're doing that now … It's really been a remarkable experience of what was always there, a community and a cohesiveness of people wanting to work together.”

That sounds like what the Irish have pulled off in Rockaway these days.

A hearty well done to everyone.

Family of murdered IRA gunrunner expect justice in Whitey Bulger case to begin this week - John McIntyre brutally slain after FBI tipped off Bulger he was linking him to Valhalla gunrunning - VIDEO

Whitey Bulger

Whitey Bulger goes on trial this week in Boston and it will be justice at last for the family of IRA gunrunner John McIntyre.

They believe that the former U.S. marine, who was brutally murdered, was ratted on by former FBI agent John Connolly who was secretly working for Bulger.

McIntyre had become an FBI informant against Bulger after an IRA gunrunning expedition from Boston ran astray.

McIntyre was a crewman on the Valhalla, a ship that ran 7 tons of guns for the IRA from Boston back at the height of The Troubles in 1984. Whitey Bulger had set up the shipment say federal authorities.

Tipped off by an IRA informant named Sean O’Callaghan, the IRA guns were intercepted after being handed off to a fishing trawler called the Marita Ann off the coast of Kerry.

Current Sinn Fein TD Martin Ferris of Kerry who was on board the Marita Ann was convicted of gun running after the interception.

Back in Boston, Valhalla crewman McIntyre was arrested on a different matter and spilled the beans on Bulger and others to beat the rap.

Among those he gave the information to was FBI agent John Connolly who was secretly protecting Bulger.

Bulger and Connolly went way back to South Boston together.

Connolly recounted in his criminal trial how they had first met.

As Connolly testified it began in 1948 in a Boston ice cream store when he was eight-years-old. 19-year old Bulger offered to buy him an ice cream.

Connolly refused at the time and told him that his parents had told him not to take gifts from strangers.

“Hey, kid, I’m no stranger!” Bulger said. “Your mother and father are from Ireland. My mother and father are from Ireland. What kind of ice cream to do you want?”

“Vanilla,” young Connolly replied. It was the beginning of a bizarre relationship that saw Bulger protected at all costs years later even when he was carrying out an alleged 19 murders.

One of those was John McIntyre. He was lured to a meeting with Bulger and brutally murdered.

Joe Bergantino former investigative reporter for WBZ-TV in Boston, now director of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University recalled what happened next.

“In the early 1980s, we got a phone call from an informant who tipped us off that Whitey Bulger was running arms to Ireland — for the IRA, of course. We had a long phone conversation in which he explained that he was aboard the trawler that delivered the guns. The informant — John McIntyre — disappeared within a few days after the phone call. His body was unearthed several years later. If I remember correctly, Whitey and his gang tortured him — pulling out his teeth, one by one. We did several stories in the early '80s about the trawler and its connection to Whitey...

After their son was murdered the parents of John McIntyre cooperated in a 1989 book that alleged that British intelligence had carried out the interception.

They did so they said to avoid Whitey Bulger coming after them, as they strongly believed he had been responsible for their son’s torture and murder.

The McIntyre’s later won a $3.1 million dollar wrongful death judgment against Connolly and the FBI and the Department of Justice

But this week they will finally get to see Bulger on trial for the death of McIntyre. One of the key informants against Bulger will be former mobster Irish American Kevin Weeks who was allegedly there when McIntyre was murdered and has given graphic testimony.

No doubt the McIntyre family are finally hoping for justice for John.

Kevin Weeks, Bulger informant on the death of John McIntyre among others: