Thanks for the memories - 25-years of the Irish Voice

Where did the 25 years go? Is there a thief of time who has accordioned all the years together so that 25 years ago really seems like five?

Is it really 25 years ago that the pressmen at the Evergreen Printing plant in Belmar, New Jersey pressed the button and started the presses on Volume 1 Number 1 of the Irish Voice?

I remember my mother and brother were there, and my best friend Eddie Holt and a bottle of champagne and a very late night....

I remember the first issue with its bold headline "We’ll Never Return” based on a survey of young Irish undocumented who had washed up on America’s shores.

Some things never change, even after 25 years.

In that issue we featured little Kathleen Flannelly, daughter of a great friend, Adrian Flannelly, sitting in the Sam Maguire Cup, the trophy for the All-Ireland football champions.

Now she’s an accomplished lawyer, a woman of the world. Was that really 25 years ago?

There was John Spain and Cormac MacConnell, and they are still there all these years later charting the goings on in Ireland, urban and rural, and they too must feel that déjà vu moment with Ireland in bad shape again and the political class failing the people.

A strange memory, shortly before our first issue when a new fangled machine arrived in the office. It was a fax machine, and we all gaped in wonderment as the front page of The Irish Times came crackling over the wires. The Internet was still a pipedream.

Good and bad moments crowd in. The day Debbie McGoldrick, an Irish Echo refugee, took over as editor of Irish Voice and whipped the paper into shape for once and for all is among the best.

Among the worst, the suicide of a young Irish construction worker in the Bronx who hung himself after being mercilessly exploited by his own.

The best -- Merrifield Madness, when thousands of Irish descended on a Virginia post office in October of 1991 to mail their Morrison visa applications in a night to remember.

Best again -- sitting in the stands at Giants Stadium as Ireland beat Italy in a World Cup shocker in 1994.

Worst -- the news story that someone had placed an innocuous classified ad with us looking for a few strong men. It turned out he wanted them in order to murder his wife. Incredible but true.

Best -- waking up on a freezing morning one January to learn that the Clinton White House, over the objections of the British State Department, CIA, FBI, etc. had given a visa to the U.S. for Gerry Adams.

Best -- standing in the center of Belfast as hundreds of thousands chanted the name of Bill Clinton as the American president, unbelievably, visited the city.

Worst -- reading of the incredible tragedy of Phoebe Prince, a little Irish girl bullied to death when she moved to Massachusetts.  She took her own life in 2010.

Best -- President Clinton attending our event at the Plaza Hotel as Irish American of the Year. Standing at the traveling White House podium introducing him was a surreal experience. At times like that you really do feel you have made it in America.

Worst -- writing my toughest ever column on the tragic death of my beautiful nephew Rory Staunton, who died needlessly of a bacterial infection at age 12 in April. It does not come tougher than that.

Best -- getting to meet you, the Irish Voice readers in so many places over so many years and hearing your feedback, good and bad, on what we do.

And to all those advertisers who have supported us over the years – thanks again. You made this Irish emigrant’s dreams come true.

Australia replaces real estate as the main topic of Irish conversation -- Land Down Under beckons for a new generation as economy fails

Sydney Opera House went green for St. Patrick's Day.

Dublin -  If you came to Ireland a few years back the topic of conversation inevitably turned to real estate, no matter whom you talked with.

Now that topic is Australia.

Nothing signifies the shift in Ireland’s fortunes more than the new reality that emigration to Australia in particular is on the minds of millions of Irish.

Everyone seems to know someone who has a family member who has emigrated there or is about too.

In a restaurant in Meath on Friday an overheard conversation went like this.

“Not gone yet Down Under?” addressed to a mid-twenties young man.
“No off next week, thanks be to God.”

And so it goes.

 The mining boom in Western Australia in particular has meant that the geography of cities like Perth are discussed as intimately as Cork or Dublin.

A few years back the topic was the number of houses someone owned, how much they had escalated in value, and the latest overseas hot place to buy a second home.

The place to be seen was the latest housing expo featuring properties in Spain, Turkey, or pick your spot in America, especially Florida.

Now tens of thousands line up for hours waiting to enter job fairs for Australia and Canada, which finishes a strong second.

Some of the stories emerging from those fairs are tough to read with families splitting up, people re-emigrating, and especially older intending migrants, their lives in ruins after the bust in Ireland, getting out.

In a local paper here, a vox pop asked a dozen people what they would do if they won the lottery. Three said they would visit Australia to reunite with their sons and daughters who had moved there.

When my nephew Rory recently passed away he was prayed for in Sydney and Melbourne at masses there because of extended family connections there.

It is all part of the new reality or should that be the old reality?

I have often written that emigration waves from Ireland come every thirty years, the 1920s, 1950s, 1980s, and now again.

What I never predicted was that Australia would be the fulcrum of the new exodus.

Neither Britain nor America seems the focus this time. The British economy is only marginally better than Irelands and visa laws make it difficult to access the US.

Australia and Canada, because of restrictive banking laws, are also the only two major industrialized countries that avoided the worst of the banking and real estate boom and bust. Both countries also have massive natural resources.

China’s demands for natural resources and raw materials has fueled the mining boom in Australia and the Irish in search of work have gladly settled there.

Centuries ago the worst fate was to be deported from Ireland to Van Diemen’s Land and forced to work at penal labor. Read Robert Hughes’ classic account ‘The Fatal Shore’ to see just how awful conditions were for the Irish who were sent there.

Now they are leaving on jetliners by the planeload. Sometimes plus ca change.

What were Nike thinking, marketing Black and Tan sneakers for St. Patrick's Day? Irish Americans surely deserved better than that

What were Nike thinking?

They have a $3 billion dollar budget worldwide for marketing and the best they can come up with for the Irish this St. Patrick's Day is the 'Black and Tan' sneaker.

Did no one at this giant company just check on Google exactly what most Irish relate the term Black and Tan to?

It was the equivalent of Al-Qaeda for a generation of Irish during the War of Independence. A bunch of merciless thugs and scum, many from British prisons, released on the Irish to kill and shoot as many as possible and terrorize them into subjection.

Surely not a fitting name for a St.Patrick's Day-themed pair of sneakers?

Nike made the elementary mistake of linking their product to a drink called Black and Tan on sale in some bars. But the drink has nothing like the world wide reputation or impact that the original term does.
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Read more: 
Sh**e Irish parents say on St. Patrick's Day to their American kids

GOP Senator Grassley still blocking Irish and hi-tech immigration bill in US Senate
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It is a marketing strategy straight out of the "Nova," the car marketed in Hispanic countries which means "no go," and the Ford Probe, which reminded every woman of a gynecological inspection.

It is up there with Umbro marketing Zyklon runners a few years back in Israel -- Zyklon B was the form of gas that killed millions of innocent Jews in the Holocaust.

The sheen has come off Nike in recent years with lots of issues around child labor in their Far East sweat shops.

This latest gaffe will certainly not help with Irish Americans and neither should it.

Nike should just do it -- get rid of these offensive sneakers.

Boston keeps its Irish roots - community’s presence felt through out Massachusetts

BOSTON – 38% of the state of Massachusetts is of Irish extraction, and every fourth face or so you see here reflects that ancestry.

On the plane from New York to Boston on Monday, I felt like I was on Aer Lingus. Across the aisle sat a red haired beauty straight out of The Quiet Man, and an elderly pair of ladies in front of me were ringers for every Irish nun I knew.

The Irish experience is overwhelming and heartening in Boston. The great Kennedy dynasty came out of here of course, but also generation after generation of Irish leaders in every possible field.

From church to education to business and politics, the Irish in Massachusetts often led the way nationally. It is a proud history that is being lived every day.

Not far from here is the town of Scituate, the most Irish town in America where, according to ancestry records, almost 50% are of Irish background.

The latest American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau shows 34 million Americans claim Irish heritage. If it seems like many of those live in Massachusetts then it may be because it is true.

All in all 16 communities within the South Shore neighborhoods of Boston have the highest percentage of people of Irish descent in the U.S.

In addition to Scituate, at least 44% of the population in Braintree, Hull, Marshfield, Avon, Pembroke and Milton claim Irish ancestry also, according to the Census Bureau.

Scituate, on Cape Cod Bay, is also close to Plymouth Rock where the Mayflower arrived. It has a population of a little over 17,000

The data shows that the South Shore's "Irish Riviera" hasn't significantly changed since the census of 1980, the first one where the ethic question was asked. Irish Americans continue to dominate the large majority of suburban Boston.

According to the 2005-2009 American Community Survey, 19 of the top 20 most Irish communities in Massachusetts are south of Boston. 

A decade ago there were similar results. These same towns were among the top Irish American communities in the state of Massachusetts, according to the 2000 census.

Richard Finnegan, professor of political science and director of Irish studies at Stonehill College, maintains that the South Shore has long been home to a large Irish community.

The migration of Irish families from Boston to the South Shore dates back to the end of World War II, and continued through the 1950s and ‘60s.

Finnegan says that many gravitated towards the South Shore because of geography.

"If you live in Dorchester or Hyde Park, you don’t think of moving to Swampscott,” he said.  “Where will I move if I can get ahead and move up the social ladder? Quincy, Weymouth, and down the South Shore.

“When you’re on the South Side (of the city) and looking to rent a beach house for a few weeks, you go to the South Shore.”

This same pattern continues today.

“Families move where their family and friends are,’’ said Finnegan.

He is right of course. The Irish are still a huge part of Boston and its surroundings, and long may it stay that way.