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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Irish fight back begins in Rockaways after Hurricane Sandy devastation -- Spending time with the brave residents of a devastated beach town

The Rockaways - Once a refuge for 9/11 emergency workers Harbor Lights Pub is now destroyed

Belle Harbor, Rockaway Beach, Sunday: The cruel sea came pouring into this peninsula driven by the hurricane force winds of Hurricane Sandy.

For the first time in living memory the waters of Jamaica Bay met the Atlantic Ocean over land and left havoc and destruction in its wake.

The only frame of reference I can give you in terms of devastation is 9/11 and even that was concentrated in a small part of New York City.

I visited Ground Zero and its surrounding neighborhood just two days after that attack and Rockaway, Broad Channel, and the other communities impacted by Hurricane Sandy are déjà vu all over again.

Here in Rockaway, street after street are utterly destroyed, mounds of sand pushed in by the advancing waves clogging basements, streets, high water levels as tall as six feet destroying homes perhaps for ever.

“We will rebuild,” says Pat Nee, the proud Mayo man known unofficially as the Mayor of Rockaway, as he takes me around his destroyed neighborhood.

Pat came to Rockaway via The Bronx in 1979 and left Ireland in 1956.

At 81 he thought he had seen it all. “I had seen nothing until I saw this storm” he told me.

Down the street Brendan Brosh is newly married and had just moved with his Texas-born wife Bianca to Rockaway where he spent much of his early years. Nothing remains of his house.

He was digging the sand out of his mother’s basement as we brought a few dozen Irish breakfasts for him and his extended family and workers courtesy of my brother-in-law’s restaurant O’Neill’s. It was their first hot meal in days.

Read more news on Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath here

As they gathered round, his family told harrowing stories of the night the storm struck -- including seeing the boardwalk literally float down the street, unmoored from its concrete holdings by the power of the storm. “Surreal” said Brendan.

There are many tales of heroism which will go untold, one in particular of a woman and child saved at the last moment after she fled her home panicked as the water advanced.

Fire joined wind and water in the great destruction orgy. Houses in several streets are burnt to the ground, great tangled mess of metal and cars burnt beyond recognition.

At the Harbor Light bar at Beach and 130th Street, a forlorn shamrock flag flies while all else is in ruins, burnt to the ground.

Harbor Lights owner Bernie Heeran is one of the most beloved men in the community. He lost his son in 9/11 and his bar became a gathering place for the many heroes of that dreadful event. When it comes to cops and firefighters, Rockaway and nearby Breezy Point are Ground Zero.

The heroes this time around are the thousands of volunteers that we met from all over, armed with little more than shovels.

Among them were groups of dedicated Mormons doing sterling work, Team Rubicon, an organization composed of armed forces veterans and just ordinary folks, hundreds of friends, relatives, neighbors, and volunteers who have pitched in to try and reboot the lives of so many.

Providing food for free is Gibbons Irish Bar from Maspeth Queens, who have set up a mobile kitchen and are preparing hot meals for the many relief workers.

Providing heat in a huge “warming tent” is Navillus Construction, an Irish company we can also be proud of.

Conspicuous by their almost total absence is the Long Island Power Authority who might possibly be the worst utility company in the world, given their response to this disaster.

The Red Cross is widely criticized here too for delaying too long. “They were missing in action, It’s been friends, neighbors, volunteers,” says Brendan Brosh. “We had to fall back on our own.”

No one knows what the future holds for the newly homeless and cold and in need in the Rockaways.

What is not in question is the spirit and drive in the community which is apparent the moment you arrive there.

“We will rebuild. We will come back,” says Pat Nee. “That’s what we Irish do.”

Read more news on Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath here 

Anger towards Obama, Cuomo, Bloomberg in Irish Rockaways - President’s visit may trigger a hostile reception for governor, mayor too

Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo will accompany President Obama on his tour of ravaged areas in New York on Thursday.

Expect a hostile reception especially in the Irish Rockaways, the people that New York forgot, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Talking to people there the sense of betrayal is very real. “We feel utterly betrayed by the government” said one Rockaway Irish resident to me today.

The anger will not be aimed specifically at the president but for the two polls with him.

The Irish communities in Rockaway and Breezy Point have been devastated by this tragedy and the

Mayor and governor have not impressed them in this crisis.

Both came out talking a big game but failed to deliver. The result is widespread homelessness, no heat or light and people going hungry in New York.

The two pols did hold a lot of self-congratulatory press conferences though, deferring to each other as the disaster management geniuses they really seemed to believe they were.

Yet it took Bloomberg well over a week to figure out what Governor Christie in New Jersey quickly figured out. The gas shortage would lead to long lines and alternate day filling up was the smart move.

Then there was Bloomberg’s ridiculous decision to go ahead with the New York City marathon when the city was still grieving and bleeding from Sandy.

Cuomo was throwing threats at the Long Island Power Company telling them to shape up. When they didn’t he – well he huffed and puffed and did nothing.

As The New York Post noted:
“Now Cuomo’s searching out the guilty parties — but he would do well to look in the mirror before he travels too far down that road.”

Turns out Cuomo has ignored filling vacancies on LIPA’s board and refused to act after Newsday reported that LIA was in dire condition and totally unprepared for a hurricane.

The impact of all that will be clear to President Obama when he visits and sees the continuing tragedy unfold.

If the two men with him hang back and give him the spotlight it may not be political modesty, rather self-survival.