Irish America April / May 2011

APRIL/MAY 2011 $3.95IRISHAMERICA

0 874470 73334

05>

2011 HALL OF FAME / IRISH AMERICAN OF THE YEAR ISSUE

DISPLAYUNTIL 4/30

COVER NEW.qxd 3/5/11 2:14 PM

AIF-Spread 2/28/11 4:31 PM Page 1

AIF-Spread 2/28/11 4:30 PM Page 2

DE

PAR

TME

NTS

4 IRISH AMERICA APRIL / MAY 2011

IRISH AMERICA

30 A GLIMPSE OF IRELANDPAST: “Romantic Ireland is deadand gone?” Ní Chonchúirbegs to differ.

36 IRISH AMERICAN OF THEYEAR: JOHN LAHEYThe President of QuinnipiacUniversity speaks with SheilaLangan about the many hats hewears as an educator, a universityleader and an Irish American.

42 HALL OF FAME: Irish Americainducts nine outstanding and diversenew honorees into its Hall of Fame.

78 COMMODORE BARRY: TimMcGrath tells the history of theFather of the American Navy.

8 The First Word 10 Readers Forum 12 News From Ireland14 Hibernia20 Irish Eye on Hollywood90 Roots104 Television108 Music112 Books114 Sláinte116 Those We Lost118 Crossword120 Photo Album122 The Last Word

84 LEADING THE PARADES:Katie McFadden introduces theGrand Marshals of St. Patrick’s DayParades across the nation.

88 CELEBRATING 250 YEARS:John Dunleavy, New York City’sSt. Patrick’s Day Parade chairmantalks with Aliah O’Neill about hislong history with the parade.

92 PORTRAITS OF THE IRISHLEAVING HOME: DavidMonahan has been powerfully andcompassionately documenting therecent wave of Irish emigration.Story by Sheila Langan.

96 THE HANNAH: AN IRISHODYSSEY: The long-lost relativesof shipwreck survivors are brought together in a documentary.By John Keraghan.

100 WHAT’S THE STORY WITHTHE NUNS? Mary Pat Kellyspeaks with nuns about the work

F E AT U R E S

April / May 2011Vol. 26 No. 3

36

96

4288

100

Page 59 Special

Supplement:THE DUNBRODY

PROJECT

they do and the Vatican investiga-tion into U.S. Catholic women’sreligious orders

106 WHAT ARE YOU LIKE?We kick of this new column withthe chief Chieftain Paddy Moloneytaking questions.

110 WHEN THE MEN AREGONE: Tom Deignan interviewsSiobhan Fallon, author of a recent-ly released short story collectionabout the lives of Army wives.

COVER: Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) by Odette Videau

IA.Contents.rev.qxd 3/5/11 12:55 PM

WaterfordAd 1/12/11 8:28 AM Page 1


SHARON NÍCHONCHÚIR lives and works in WestKerry, Ireland, and muchof her writing is con-cerned with the changingface of modern Irish cul-ture. She writes on someof the more enduring traditions in Ireland in this issue.

{contributors}

TIM MCGRATHis the author of JohnBarry: An AmericanHero in the Age ofSail (2010). He is anexecutive who livesoutside ofPhiladelphia. Anavid sailor, he hasbeen published inNaval History maga-zine. He contributes a piece on Barry,the Irish-born “Father of the AmericanNavy” in this issue.

MARY PATKELLY writes onthe demise of thenuns in this issue. As an author andfilmmaker, Mary PatKelly has told vari-ous stories connectedto Ireland includingher bestselling histor-ical novel Galway Bay (2010).

Vol. 26 No. 3 • April/May 2011

Mortas Cine Pride In Our Heritage

IRISH AMERICA875 SIXTH AVENUE,

SUITE 210, N.Y., NY 10001

TEL: 212-725-2993 FAX: 212-244-3344

E-MAIL: [email protected] WEB: http://www.irishamerica.com

Founding Publisher:Niall O’Dowd

Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief:Patricia Harty

Art Director:Marian Fairweather

Assistant Editor:Sheila Langan

Vice President of Marketing:Kathleen Overbeck

Advertising and Events Coordinator:Tara Dougherty

Director of Special Projects:Turlough McConnell

Financial Controller:Kevin M. Mangan

Ad Design and ProductionGeneive McCarthy

Copy Editor:John Anderson

Editorial Assistants:Kristin RomanoKatie McFadden

Irish America Magazine ISSN 0884-4240) © byIrish America Inc. Published bi-monthly. Mailingaddress: P.O. Box 1277, Bellmawr, NJ 08099-5277. Editorial office: 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite210, New York, NY 10001. Telephone:212 725-2993. Fax: 212-244-3344 E-mail: [email protected]. Subscription rate is $21.95 for one year.Subscription orders: 1-800-582-6642.Subscriptionqueries: 1-800-582-6642, (212) 725-2993, ext.16. Periodicals postage paid at New York and addi-tional mailing offices. Postmaster please sendaddress changes to Irish America Magazine, P.O.Box 1277, Bellmawr, NJ 08099-5277. IRISH AMERICA IS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

JOHNKERNAGHANwrites about the documentary on theshipwreck of TheHannah, and is a free-lance writer based inOakville, Ontario. Hisparents immigrated toCanada fromMonaghan andArmagh.

TOM DEIGNAN For over a decade, TomDeignan has written theweekly “Sidewalks” col-umn for The Irish Voicenewspaper. He also writescolumns about moviesand history for IrishAmerica and is a regularbook reviewer for theNewark Star-Ledger andAmerica magazine.

ODETTE VIDEAUOdette’s painting, Vol deNuit (Night Flight), is featured on our cover. Bornin Saigon,Vietnam, in aFrench culture, Odette is agraduate of the paintingdepartment of the presti-gious École des Beaux Arts

in Paris. Shealso has aLicenseDegreeFaculté ArtsPlastiquesfrom theSorbonne.Prior to

focusing on painting,Odette was in advertising/art direction with EURORSCG-HAVAS France, spe-cializing in cosmetics (L’Oréal) andfragrance. Residing inParis, Odette is presentlyusing her art and communi-cations skills for educationand social work to helpdisadvantaged children.

IA.contributors.REV.qxd 3/5/11 12:56 PM

MOA-AD 3/2/11 10:13 AM Page 1


{the first word}By Patricia Harty

From Hunger to Hall of Fame

As I write this, the sound from a lone bagpiper comesthrough my window. Not as unusual an occurrence as youmight think. Irish America’s office is up the street from

a church, the St. Francis Friary, the cornerstone of which was putin place in 1844, and where the friars still feed the hungry (whatbetter way to remember your ancestors this St. Patrick’s Daythan to give to a food program?) I don’t know if the piper isheralding a wedding or lamenting a death. Is he/she part of the annualcelebration of mass for the laborers’ union, or just someone prac-ticing for St. Patrick’s Day? There’s a fire station across the streetfrom the church, perhaps it’s one of the FDNY Emerald PipeBand making his pipes ready for the parade?

I’m too busy to leave my office to find the source of the music,but as I strain to identify the tune, I’m given to musing how the Irishhave put their stamp on American cul-ture. How at wakes and weddings, nomatter the ethnicity, an Irish piper isoften on the scene, and always, it seems,we are leading the parade, any parade.

It’s extraordinary really, given the poorstart we had in America, how we havecome to be such an integral part of it. Thediverse group of leaders in our Hall ofFame, and Irish American of the YearJohn Lahey, are proof positive of ouraccomplishments.

Indeed, there are days when it seemsthat we have a hand in, or a connectionto, every aspect of American life – evenin outer space where astronauts MarkKelly and Cady Coleman are keeping theIrish-American flag flying.

Cady, an avid flautist, has with her inspace a tin whistle given to her byIrish musician Paddy Moloney. (Checkout our new “What Are You Like?”column, which we kick off in this issuewith Paddy himself taking questions.)Paddy and Cady are working out the logistics of doing a duet together.He from earth, she from space!

Perhaps Cady is related to the Sligo fiddler Michael Colemanwho emigrated in 1924 to America but whose recordings broughtthe music back home again, reinvigorating the traditional musicscene in Ireland.

This back-and-forth between Ireland and America and the crosspollination of cultures is a major theme in this issue, and as always

our motto is:“Cuimhnigi ar na daoine a dtainigh sibh uathu,”which translates as “Remember the people you came from.”

In choosing John Lahey as Irish American of the Year we are hon-oring someone who is an educator and a memory keeper. ThroughQuinnipiac University’s “Famine” collection he is ensuring that thesuffering the Irish endured is not forgotten. Sean Reidy, the CEOof the Dunbrody Famine Ship, is doing his part too. The Dunbrodymade many trips across the ocean, ferrying the Irish over to the NewWorld during Famine times. A replica of the ship is now in dry dockin New Ross, County Wexford, and will open in May along withan interpretive center. It is here that we will house our Hall of Fame.

With the Famine in mind, let’s look at our cover painting,which I first interpreted as a Famine ship making its way acrossthe ocean. I see the spirals as a symbol of hope and home. But if

you look closely at the painting you will also seea butterfly, and the image at the bottom may not onlyrepresent a ship but also a cocoon. (In Irish folk-lore the butterfly is a symbol for a soul crossing overinto the Otherworld.) This symbol of metamorpho-sis, the painter Odette Videau says, can be interpretedas “the courage, fearlessness, and resilience ofthe Irish spirit in confronting adversity and discov-ering a spiritual dimension.”

The painting, called Vol de Nuit (Night Flight)is based on the fable of the butterfly who cannotwait for the daylight and comes out at night. In thepast the Irish couldn’t wait either. They had to takea leap of faith and cross that ocean, sometimes inthe dead of winter, in order to survive. The best ofus, including those in our Hall of Fame, have an inherited memory of that dark night of the soul andreach back to bring others into the light.

Painful as it is, Ireland is going through anothermetamorphosis, and once again the youth are tak-ing flight to all corners of the world. We can onlyhope, as in the past, that something good willcome of this painful leavetaking. And we can findsome consolation in the fact that everywhere those

young Irish go they will be carrying their culture and music withthem. And that is a great gift to the world. IA

“Cuimhnigi ar na daoine a dtainigh sibh uathu.”Remember the people you came from.

PH

OTO

:KIT

DE F

EV

ER

Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) by Odette Videau

IA8.qxd 3/5/11 1:00 PM

QuinnipiacAd 2/28/11 4:22 PM Page 1

THERE’S SOMETHINGABOUT TARA

I liked your editor’s “Imagine Ireland”column (Feb./Mar.) and get the feelingthat you understand Tara in a way thatmany people outside Ireland strugglewith.

I have been involved with the SaveTara campaign for about seven years now,mostly involved in research, letter writingand general bugging the hell out of peo-ple. Mostly our problems have not been inresearch but in getting information outinto public knowledge.

It took at least 365 letters – we’re astubborn lot – and almost a year to get the“facts” of what had actually happened atthe planning permission process and tostop Fianna Fail politicians from incor-rectly saying the route [the M3 motorway]was a result of the largest public consulta-

tion ever taken in the republic. It wasn’t.The public chose the other route – west ofTara at Killmessan. The result of this pub-lic consultation was ignored as not a legalrequirement for building the motorwaywhich runs through the heart of the sacredlandscape of Tara.

Despite our efforts the motorwayopened last June. But the Tara campaignis still continuing to fight to protect Tarafrom malls and large-scale housing devel-opments.

Currently, the issues we need to get outthere are:

1. The fact that M3 can be re-routedcheaply with a short 8km link if the pro-posed Lenister Orbital is routed correctly– the current proposed route once againimpinges not only on Tara’s landscape butalso on Bru Na Boinne (Newgrange).

2. Build awareness, knowledge andsupport for Tara Landscape Plan. This isextremely important as it protects thelandscape from large scale development.There is a misinformation campaignbeing put forth by certain Meath County

Councilors that this plan also stops localdevelopment. This is why we need a com-munity-and-archaeology-based planninggroup to set up a sustainable developmentplan so that the sites can be protected forthe next generation.

Currently, Shane McEntee, a Fine GaelTD for Meath East, is leading a new con-sultation with Conor Newman, lecturer,Archaeology Department, NationalUniversity of Ireland, Galway. It would behelpful if Irish American organizationsencouraged McEntee, the Meath Council,and the new government to act responsi-bly to implement these realizable changesso that the Fianna can once again restpeacefully and Tara can be restored.

As Countess Markievicz said in 1901“There’s something about Tara.”

It is not only a duty but a privilege toprotect it.

Plauline Bleach,

Received by E-mail.

For more information see:

http://www.hilloftara.blogspot.com

or email Pauline Bleach

at [email protected]

NO MORE LISTSCould you please stop taking up space withthe lists – 18 pages of Business 100 profilesin the December/January issue. It is justmeaningless and makes no sense whatsoev-er. These awards do not hold my interestone bit. Please just keep writing about Irish topics – they are so much more interesting.

Mary Kelly, Park Ridge, Illinois

Your “Those We Lost” column andobituary of Gil McDougald in theFeb/Mar issue reminded me of anIndians game I attended where GilMcDougald hit a foul ball into theupper deck. It then bounced off thehands of two men before headingstraight for my little nose. Luckily Igot my hands in front of my face inthe nick of time.

My nose is still intact, my handshurt for a couple of days and I wenthome with a free baseball.

Love reading your magazine.

Sally Lanigan, South Euclid, Ohio

IRELAND’S VIKING HERITAGEI really enjoyed reading Edythe Preet's Sláinte column in the

December/January issue, “Ireland's Viking Heritage,” especially discover-ing the Viking origin of certain words in the English language.

After reading the article, I asked myself a question: When was theBattle of Clontarf? The article said (a typo I’m sure) that the date wasApril 3, 1014, when it was actually April 23.

Sean Kinnevy,West Creek, New Jersey


A Close Call With Baseball

Write to usSend a fax (212-244-3344), e-mail

([email protected]) or mail (Letters,Irish America Magazine, 875 Avenueof the Americas, Suite 201, New York,NY 10001). Letters should include the

writer’s full name and address andphone number and may be edited for

clarity and space.

readers forum

IA.10.qxd 3/5/11 12:57 PM

UCD Corporate 1/12/11 8:13 AM Page 1


ELECTION REPORT:

A Change in Leadership for Ireland

PEOPLE | HERITAGE | EVENTS | ARTS | ENTERTAINMENT{hibernia}

The political face of Ireland haschanged following one of themost important general elec-tions in generations, which took

place on February 25th.Fianna Fáil – the party that has held

power for 61 of the past 79 years – wasthoroughly rejected by the Irish public.They have changed their allegiance to FineGael, who look set to form a coalition gov-ernment with the help of the Labour Party.

Fianna Fáil’s representation in the Dáil(the Irish equivalent to the American

Senate) has fallen from 77 seats to 20.Some of the party’s most high-profile can-didates, including former Tánaiste MaryCoughlan and Minister for Tourism MaryHanafin, lost their seats. Only one FiannaFáil TD (Dáil member) – the formerMinister for Finance Brian Lenihan – wona seat in Dublin. And in total, 34 outgoingFianna Fáil TDs failed to get re-elected.

The party is reeling from the blow.Brian Cowen, who took over as Taoiseach(Prime Minister) from Bertie Ahern in2008, admitted that the day of the electoralcount was “a very, very difficult day for theparty.”

Mícheál Martin, who replaced Cowenas the leader of the Fianna Fáil party inJanuary, following months of pressureover Cowen’s mishandling of the econo-my, was downcast yet defiant.

“There’s no question but that it’s been adisappointing day for us,” he said. “ButI’m looking ahead. We can rebuild.”

The party that has gained the most fromFianna Fáil’s loss is Fine Gael, its tradi-

tional political rival. Fine Gael increasedits seats from 51 to 76 and it is now thelargest party.

Its leader Enda Kenny is elated. “This isa great day for Fine Gael,” he said. “Theparty set out to achieve two ambitions.The first was to be the largest party in theDáil and that’s been achieved. The secondwas to increase our vote and that’s alsobeen achieved.”

However, Fine Gael is still short of the83 seats required for an outright majority.During the election campaign, the options

suggested for such an outcome were acoalition with the Labour Party or withindependent politicians.

The Labour Party also had a very suc-cessful election, increasing its politicalrepresentation from 20 seats to 37, thehighest tally in its history. There are 15independent TDs, several of whom havedeclared a willingness to engage in discus-sion with Fine Gael.

This willingness has been ignored thusfar and the Fine Gael party are currently innegotiations with Labour. Although theydiffer on several important policy issues –such as taxation, cutting child benefits andimposing a college graduation tax – theprevailing attitude seems to be that FineGael believes the significant majority itcould achieve in partnership with Labourwould lead to more stable government.

These are the main stories to haveemerged from the general election butthere are others which are also of interest.There’s the fact that the political left hasemerged as a significant voice in Ireland

for the first time. Forty-two percent of theoverall vote and sixty percent of the vote inDublin went to the left, with the LabourParty taking just under half of that.

The other half went to communityactivists such as Joan Collins and SeamusHealy; the United Left Alliance (a collec-tive that includes the Socialist Party andthe self-styled People Before Profit); andSinn Féin.

Sinn Féin’s campaign in this electionwas bolstered by Gerry Adams’ decision torenounce his seat in the Northern IrelandAssembly and to run for election in theRepublic. He won his seat in County Louthwith the third highest number of first pref-erence votes in the country. He will bejoined in the Dáil by 13 others, a hugeincrease on the four seats Sinn Féin had inthe last Dáil.

The decimation of the Green Party isanother cautionary tale. They paid a costlyprice for going into government withFianna Fáil in 2007, when they lost everyone of their six seats.

“We have suffered a major defeat but wewill continue,” insisted party leader JohnGormley. “We’re a party with a set ofbeliefs and values and a vision for thefuture. We have great people and we willrebuild.”

The Haughey family name is another tohave disappeared from the Dáil register. Amember of the Haughey family held a seatin the Dáil for the past 54 years, untilCharles Haughey’s son Seán lost his seat inthis election.

New and unexpected names have takenhis place. Some of the independent TDselected to the Dáil are colorful characters.Mick Wallace, a soccer-mad and flame-haired property developer, won a seat inWexford, while Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan –who styles himself on Ming the Mercilessfrom the TV series ‘Flash Gordon’ – won aseat in Roscommon.

While the talks between Fine Gael andLabour are still ongoing and the newlyelected Dáil deputies are growing accus-tomed to their responsibilities, one thing iscertain. The 31st Dáil will face huge chal-lenges, the most important one beingreducing the interest rate on Ireland’s 85billion euro international bail-out. Thepolitical face of Ireland may have changedbut the problems it faces remain the same.

Enda Kenny,leader ofFine Gael.

IA.News.qxd 3/5/11 10:54 AM

{news from ireland}

APRIL / MAY 2011 IRISH AMERICA 13

By Sharon Ní Chonchúir

NEWS IN BRIEF:

Ascientist in Belfast has given the thousands of

people with breast cancer cause for hope. Dr.

Helen McCarthy of the School of Pharmacy at

Queen’s University Belfast has created a way of

destroying breast cancer cells without damaging the

healthy cells that surround them.

Her new treatment makes use of a gene that

produces poisonous nitric oxide, a substance that

has long been known to counteract cancer.

“We knew that nitric oxide had shown anti-

tumour effects but we hadn’t been able to devise a

system which used it,” Dr. McCarthy explained.

She and her team have now devised this system,

which produces nitric oxide within the cancerous

cells, destroying them from within. She hopes to

develop a medicine which can be directly injected

by the patient and which could be particularly

successful in the treatment of secondary cancers.

“The idea is that this will be delivered systemati-

cally around the body and to other tumours,”

explains Dr. McCarthy.

An Irish-born biochemist is developing a

product that may help alleviate the symptoms

of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Pearse Lyons, originally from Co. Louth, now

heads Alltech, one of the largest animal health com-

panies in North America. The Kentucky-based com-

pany has a new product that has shown some suc-

cess in the treatment of the disease.

“The late world-renowned Alzheimer’s expert,

Dr.William Markesbery, said he’d never seen anything

like our product being so beneficial to people

with Alzheimer’s in all his 40 years in medicine,”

said Dr. Lyons.

Alltech are now in the process of approaching

pharmaceutical companies with this product. Their

hopes for success are very high and could have a

positive impact in both the US and Ireland.

“This is the first time we’ve done something like

this within Alltech,” said Dr. Lyons. “If we succeed

and create a new business division, we’ll invest and

expand in Ireland and the US.”

The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty

to Animals is warning that the practice of

badger baiting appears to be on the rise.

Badger baiting is an age-old practice which

involves dogs and badgers being forced to fight with

each other. Although badgers have been protected

since the passing of the Irish Wildlife Act of 1976,

ten people have been convicted of badger

baiting in the last 20 years.

The ISPCA has said that it has recently cared for a

number of terrier dogs found with “horrific” injuries

to their necks and lower jaws – injuries that are

consistent with the sorts of wounds found on dogs

involved in violent encounters with badgers.

Mná na hÉireann are finally being heard. Twenty three female

TDs were elected to the new Dáil; the largest number of

women representatives in Irish history.

Fine Gael, the party that won the most overall seats in the general elec-

tion on the 25th of February, fielded ten successful female candidates. The

Labour Party had seven female candidates elected to the Dáil. There are

also two independent female TDs and two representing Sinn Féin, one of

whom is Mary Lou MacDonald, the party’s Vice President (above left).

While the increase in female representation has been welcomed,

many groups don’t think it is good enough. Women still only account

for 13% of the Dáil, or 23 TDs out of 166.

“Ireland’s performance of 13% women TDs is well below the interna-

tional average of 16% and is way behind the level of advanced countries

like Sweden, which has 47% female representation,” says Joan Burton

(pictured above right), a TD with the Labour Party. “More than 30

years of effort to deliver parity between men and women in terms of

Dáil representation has not been successful and I believe it is now time

to try a different approach.”

There are hopes that the new Dáil will bring in new measures to

encourage more women to enter politics and to succeed.

RECORD NUMBER OF WOMEN TDS ELECTED

JEDWARD TO REP IRELAND AT EUROVISION

Ireland’s most hair-raising twins have been chosen to represent thecountry at the Eurovision Song Contest. ‘The X-Factor’ favouritesJohn and Edward Grimes – otherwise known as Jedward – will

perform ‘Lipstick’ in Düsseldorf in Germany on the 12th of May.The 19-year-old identical twins who are known for their irrepressible

energy competed against four other musical acts on Ireland’s ‘Late LateShow.’ The final decision was made by a panel of judges in conjunctionwith a public vote.

With their gravity-defying quiffs and unusual brand of bubble-gum pop;there could only be one winner. The only question now: what Europe willthink of Jedward?

IA

IA.News.qxd 3/5/11 10:54 AM


{hibernia}

When astronaut Cady

Coleman blasted off for the

International Space Station

from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in

Kazakhstan, she took three rather

unexpected things with her: a flute

from Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, an

old Irish E-flat flute from Matt

Malloy of The Chieftains, and a

penny whistle from Chieftains front

man Paddy Moloney (see page 106

for a series of questions with him).

As it turns out, in addition to being

an astronaut Colonel Coleman is

an avid flautist, and is particularly

interested in traditional Irish music.

For her six-month term in space,

Coleman wanted to “share how

amazing it is up here,” she told

Melissa Block, host of the NPR

show All Things Considered.. “I relate

to flute players and I just wanted

them to understand what a cool

place it was and how many possi-

bilities there were to play music up

here on the space station.” In this

giant step for mankind and Irish

music, Coleman is joined by

Commander Scott Kelly, twin

brother of fellow astronaut Mark

Kelly and brother-in-law of

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

– S.L.

Flutes inFlight

Alarge piece of pre-Famine historyis going digital. St. Patrick’sCollege, Maynooth, Co. Kildare

will be digitizing a 19th- century“Testimonial Roll.” The massive manu-script, which measures 400-meters inlength, holds the signatures of residentsof Ireland in the year 1841.

The document was an offering to LordMorpeth, a beloved chief secretary ofIreland for five years until he left forEngland to take on the role as the seventhEarl of Carlisle. Supporters who didn’twant Lord Morpeth to leave stitched theirnames into the lengthy cloth petition,called the Testimonial Roll.

The signatures come from around300,000 supporters from all around thecountry. Among some of the famousnames are writer Thomas Davis, politicalleader Daniel O’Connell, and nationalist,Charles Gavin Duffy.

Morpeth called the scroll “the richestheirloom’’ he could pass on to his family.Until the manuscript was brought toMaynooth in 2009, it was believed tohave never been opened since it wasstored in Castle Howard in 1841.

The manuscript will be photographedand put into digital form byAncestry.co.uk for the public to viewonline. Maynooth College will attempt totrack the footsteps of the people on thelist to see where exactly the pre-Faminepopulation ended up.

– Katie McFadden

If you haven’t already watched RosieO’Donnell’s story on Who Do YouThink You Are? (the NBC TV series that

follows celebrities as they trace their fam-ily roots) see if you can access it onPrimetime on Demand or NBC.com. It iswell worth an hour of your time. Irish onboth sides of her family tree, Rosie tracesher mother’s side back to County Kildare,birthplace of her great-great-grandfatherAndrew Murtha and his wife Anna. The

couple and four of their children spenttime in a workhouse before takingassisted passage to Canada in 1855,and Rosie is visibly moved as she toursa defunct workhouse in County Offaly,similar to the one that her ancestorslived in. She seems to have been previous-ly unaware of the history of the Irish, par-ticularly what they suffered during theFamine times, and said that the worldshould know what happened. She alsosaid that discovering her family historyput her own life, and particularly the trau-ma she suffered when her mother passedaway when she was 12, into perspective.“I only knew one thing, that I had a moth-er who died and that felt like an unlivable,unbearable tragedy, but now I think tomyself her life existed because of the suf-

fering and pain [my ancestors wentthrough]. It doesn’t diminish my own suf-fering but it’s not any longer the focalpoint of my existence. I think that’s agift.” Rosie added that she couldn’t waitto tell her own children the story of herancestors who “were alive and wellinside” of her.

It’s a story of horror and the redemp-tion, she said, and “the trick is to focus onthe redemption.” – P.H.

Those We Found

Who Do You Think You Are?

Rosie O’Donnell, in flowered pants, ispictured with her siblings..

Lord Morpeth, 7th Earl of

Carlisle

IA.Hib14+15.qxd 12/22/11 6:07 PM

{hibernia}

Each March, the Holyoke St. Patrick’sDay Parade Committee recognizescertain Irish Americans for their

contributions to Irish-American societyand their deep connections with Ireland.This year, Loretta Brennan Glucksman,chairwoman of The American IrelandFund and founder of New YorkUniversity’s highly regarded GlucksmanIreland House of Studies, will be present-ed with the 2011 Irish Ambassador’sAward. The award celebrates those whohave promoted cultural and economic tiesbetween the United States and Ireland,and the recipient must be approved by theIrish government. Previous awardeesinclude the late Frank McCourt, IrishAmerican of the Year Dr. John L. Lahey,and our Editor-in-Chief Patricia Harty.

Prolific historian David McCulloughwill be honored with the John FitzgeraldKennedy National Award, another of theHolyoke Parade Committee’s prestigioustraditions. McCullough has previouslybeen awarded the presidential Medal ofFreedom and has won two Pulitzer Prizesand two National Book Awards. Theauthor of New York Times bestsellingbooks such as 1776 and John Adams,McCullough will be celebrated at the JFKNational Award dinner on March 19, theevening before he, Glucksman, and theother award recipients march in theHolyoke St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

– Sheila Langan

With all the St. Patrick’s Day festivities circling around the 17th, it’s

easy to forget that, in fact, the whole month of March is a cele-

bration of all things Irish in the United States. Each year since

1991, either Congress or the president has declared an official Irish Heritage

Month on the first of March.This year, President Obama issued the procla-

mation. In a release from the White House, he stated “From the earliest

days of our Republic, the Irish have overcome discrimination and carved out

a place for themselves in the American story.Through hard work, persever-

ance, and patriotism, women and men of Irish descent have given their

brawn, brains, and blood to make and remake this Nation – pulling it west-

ward, pushing it skyward, and moving it forward.” Let’s be sure to keep

these words in mind before, during and after the 17th – and to celebrate all

month long everything that the Irish have done.

– S.L.

Irish Heritage Month

In celebration of the 250th anniver-sary of the New York City St.Patrick’s Day Parade, Quinnipiac

University Press and The St. Patrick’sDay Parade Committee have released abeautiful 145-page book chronicling theparade’s immense history and sharingsome if its finest moments captured onfilm (see page 113 for a review). Thebook was launched on February 9th atthe American Irish Historical Society onNew York City’s Fifth Avenue, to anappreciative crowd of almost 100. Theevening included speeches by Irish-American radio broadcaster AdrianFlannelly; John T. Dunleavy, the chair-man of the parade; John T. Ridge andLynn Bushnell, the author andeditor of the book; paradeGrand Marshal Mary HigginsClark; and New York CityMayor Michael Bloomberg.

In what quickly became themost controversial moment of the evening, MayorBloomberg made a harmlesslyintended but ill-chosen quipabout walking past theHistorical Society on St.Patrick’s Day and seeing “peo-ple that are totally inebriatedhanging out the window.” Theremark produced a flood of reactionsfrom those in attendance and the Irish

American and local media. AfterIrishCentral.com broke the story,Bloomberg’s gaffe was covered on localnews stations and in the New YorkTimes. Some saw it as benign, but mostdeclared it to be in poor taste: offensive,out of date and unnecessary.

But things move on. MayorBloomberg issued an apology, the bookhas received a wonderful reception, andthe mayor will, as usual, welcome mem-bers of the parade committee to a break-fast at Gracie Mansion on March 17th,before the big procession up FifthAvenue – one of the world’s largest andoldest displays of Irish pride and style.

– Sheila Langan

Holyoke, MACelebrates

Prominent IrishAmericans

A New Book Chronicles 250 Years of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Book author John T. Ridge, editor LynnMosher Bushnell, Mayor Bloomberg andparade Grand Marshal Mary Higgins Clark.


PH

OTO

:DO

MIN

ICK

TO

TIN

O

(And A Sour Quip Almost Spoils the Party)

IA.Hib14+15.qxd 3/5/11 1:08 PM


{hibernia}

O ne week before the 50th anniversary of President

Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and

David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States,

announced the launch of The John F. Kennedy Presidential

Library and Museum’s Digital Archives on January 13 in

Washington, DC.

Currently, the library houses a collection of 48 million pages

of documents, photographs, recordings and films.This first digital

release consists of over 200,000 documents, 1,500 photographs,

1,240 audio files, 80 video files and nearly 300 museum artifacts.

With a goal to eventually digitize all of the documents, the digiti-

zation process is ongoing. Future additions to the digital archives

will include items from the Jacqueline B. Kennedy Collection.

Reflecting the shift to digital research, the digital archives will

enable students, teachers, researchers and the public to search

through millions of documents from their home, school or

library, without traveling to the Presidential Library in Boston. A

search through the digital archives reveals a plethora of docu-

ments and images that are rarely seen outside of the library.

Search under the subject space and click Sound Recordings, and

President Kennedy’s speech to Congress on May 25, 1961 set-

ting the goal to put a man on the moon before the end of the

decade can be found.

Whether one is interested in the Kennedy presidency, the

Kennedy family or looking to pass the time, the digital archives

offer up a little bit of everything. For people born after

Kennedy’s presidency, the online content provides a window

into the events that their parents have talked about and their

teachers have taught them. For those who remember the

Kennedy presidency, the digitized documents allow them to

relive Camelot, and perhaps learn something they did not know.

In either case, the digital archives will permit easier learning

about the U.S.’s thirty-fifth president.

- Kristin Romano

On Tuesday, February 15, President BarackObama presented Medals of Freedom to 15recipients, including Jean Kennedy Smith, a

2011 Irish America Hall of Fame inductee, and JohnSweeney, the current President Emeritus and formerPresident (1995-2009) of the American Federation ofLabor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) – and the son of Irish immigrants.

The Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honorthat can be awarded. The current president personallyselects the recipients, and receives recommendationsfrom the Distinguished Civilian Service AwardsBoard. The medal can be awarded “to any person whohas made an especially meritorious contribution to (1),the security or national interests of the United States,or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significantpublic or private endeavors.”

Ms. Kennedy Smith was honored for her work withVery Special Arts, a non-profit organization associatedwith the John F. Kennedy Center, and for her work asa diplomat – notably in her role as Ambassador toIreland from 1993-1998, when she played an instru-mental role in the peace process. Mr. Sweeney washonored for his work as President of the AFL-CIO,bringing new life to the American labor movement andworking hard to protect the American worker. Fellowrecipients included former president George H.W.Bush, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, poet Maya Angelou and for-mer Boston Celtics star and coach Bill Russell.

- Kristin Romano and Sheila Langan

Jean Kennedy Smithand John Sweeney

AwardedMedal of Freedom

The KennedyLibrary Goes Digital

IA.Hibernia16.qxd 3/5/11 11:18 AM

TourismIreland 3/3/11 2:56 PM Page 1


{hibernia}

St. Patrick’s Day in New York City: a phrase thatusually conjures memories of trad-music anddance, shamrocks in shop windows and green neck-

ties lining Fifth Avenue. However, in the days leading upto March 17th, another celebration of Irish cultureentrances the city: Craic Fest. Now in its twelfth year, theCraic Fest, named for its celebration of fun, is a showcaseof modern Irish and Irish-American song and film.

Two nights of music will be held at Mercury Loungeon Manhattan’s Lower East Side, as well as a special one-night engagement with Julie Feeney at Joe’s Pub, whichwill mark the beginning of the Craic Fest on March 9.Ireland’s most prized export of late, Feeney is classicallytrained in composition and creates a backdrop of orchestral instru-mentation, which she then contrasts with quirky, staccato vocalharmonies. Her style is refreshingly upbeat and original.

Another visitor from abroad will be Belfast singer-songwriterFoy Vance who, at least on the surface, seems to fall in line withearly 2000s Irish troubadours like Glen Hansard and DamienRice. His voice, reminiscent of Otis Redding and RayLaMontagne, combined with his use of looped recording systemsto create his own band live on the spot, quickly silences even therowdiest of St. Paddy’s Day audiences.

The film portion of Craic Fest will consist of various screen-ings, Q&As, and after parties graced with the presence of many

famous Irish names. Perrier’s Bounty, directed by Ian Fitzgibbonand starring Cillian Murphy, kicks off the Craic Film Fest, fol-lowed the next night by the documentary An Evening withGabriel Byrne. The list goes on with The Eclipse starring AidanQuinn and Ciaran Hinds; a documentary, The Yellow Bittern: TheLife and Times of Liam Casey, which celebrates the life of thefounding member of the Clancy Brothers; and the recent film fes-tival darling White Irish Drinkers, which chronicles the endeav-or of two brothers to get the Rolling Stones to play at a local mob-ster’s bar in Brooklyn the night before the Stones’ big 1975 con-cert at Madison Square Garden.

– Tara Dougherty

Irish At The OscarsThe 83rd Academy Awards featured many winners and nomi-

nees of Irish descent. Irish-American actors, creative design-

ers and directors, and Irish-based films were all honored at

the ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood on February

27th.The film The Fighter, about Irish American boxer Micky Ward,

was nominated for several awards including Best Picture, though it

lost to the big winner of the night, The King’s Speech. Melissa Leo

and Amy Adams were both nominated for Best Actress in a

Supporting Role for The Fighter, and Leo won for her portrayal as

Ward’s mother and manager. Christian Bale also won for his

Supporting Role as Micky Ward’s brother and trainer, Dicky Ecklund.

Irish Americans Karen O’Hara and Colleen Atwood took home

Oscars for their creativity on the film Alice in Wonderland; O’Hara

for Set Decoration and Atwood for Costume Design.

Many others of Irish background were nominated, though they

didn’t go home with the gold statuettes. Producer Trish Adlesic was

nominated for the Documentary Feature Gasland, but the award

went to Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job. New-comer Michael Creagh

of Belfast was nominated for his short live action film The Crush,

about an eight-year-old Dublin boy who has a crush on his engaged

teacher. Danny Boyle was nominated for his adapted screenplay,

127 Hours.Once again, people of Irish background proved to the Academy

that they are key players in the making of quality films.

– Katie McFadden

Liz Carroll Awarded TG4’sGradam Ceoil Traditional

Composer of the Year Award

Chicagoan Liz Carroll has been awarded the GradamCeoil Traditional Composer of the Year Award byTG4, Ireland’s Irish Language station, making her

the first American-born composerto win the award.

This is the latest of many acco-lades in Carroll’s prestigious career.At 17, she won the Senior All-Ireland championship on the fiddle.Since then, she has recorded tenalbums. Her latest, Double Play,recorded with John Doyle, wasnominated for a Grammy in 2010.Also in 2010, Carroll publishedCollected, a compilation of heroriginal compositions. She was

awarded the National Heritage Award Fellowship in 1994,named Irish Traditional Musician of the Year 2000 by theIrish Echo, and twice named to Irish America’s list of theTop 100 Irish Americans.

The 2011 Gradam Ceoil Awards will be presented at theWexford Opera House on April 2, and will be aired on TG4on Easter Sunday, April 24. – Kristin Romano

Craic FestJulie Feeney

IA.Hib18.qxd 3/5/11 11:24 AM

GeierGroupAd 2/28/11 4:23 PM Page 1

It’s still early in 2011, but so far theIrish newcomer of the year has to beColin O’Donoghue. The Droghedanative starred alongside AnthonyHopkins in the Exorcist-style thrillerThe Rite, which should be out onDVD soon. It was O’Donoghue’sfilm debut, and though some criticswere a bit rough on the film, The Ritespent a week as the number onemovie in America in January.O’Donoghue, 30, had previouslystarred (alongside fellow Irish thespi-an Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in theShowtime drama The Tudors. Priorto that, O’Donoghue had simplydone theater work and televisionshows for Ireland’s TV network RTE.With his performance in The Rite(which also stars Irish screen veteranCiaran Hinds), O’Donoghue cer-tainly opened some eyes and set himself upfor an interesting career. What’s next forO’Donoghue? He’s playing things coy.“I’ve got something else in the works,” hetold About.com. “But I can’t talk about it.”

As for Ciaran Hinds, you can also see theNorthern Ireland native later this year(alongside ageless wonder Helen Mirren) inthe international thriller The Debt. Hinds isalso among the Irish actors who will appearin the final installment of the Harry Potterseries, Harry Potter and the DeathlyHollows: Part II, which hits screens in July.Fiona Shaw, Brendan Gleeson andEvanna Lynch will also be giving Harry aHibernian bent.

Another busy Irish screen veteran is Sinead Cusack.The Dublin-born actress is entering her sixth decade ofmovie-making, since appearing in Alfred the Great in 1969.She has also, along the way, received two Tony nominationsfor her stage work. This March, you can catch Cusack in afilm that was released in the U.K. several years back and hasfinally made its way to the States. The film, entitled Cracks,is about life and love at a posh boarding school for girls in1930s Britain. Directed by Jordan Scott (Ridley Scott’sdaughter), Cracks features Eva Green, Juno Temple andImogen Poots. Green plays Miss G, a passionate teacherwho wants her students to share her zest for life. But thisnonconformist streak rubs some of the more strict people atthe boarding school the wrong way. Things only get morecomplicated when a new student arrives from Spain.Fiamma (Maria Valverde) forces the girls, not to mentionMiss G, to confront their repressed desires.

The great, cursed writer F. Scott Fitzgeraldonce described himself as “half black-Irishand half old-American stock with the usualexaggerated ancestral pretensions.” Thelevel of Irishness to be found in Fitzgerald’swork is debatable. (Some scholars think theCatholic influence is more predominant.)Either way, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby isone of just a few books that could be men-tioned as The Greatest American Novel.Already the basis for one mediocre 1974movie (starring Robert Redford and MiaFarrow), The Great Gatsby is about to bemade again – in 3D! This might sound pro-foundly ill-conceived, but you can’t arguewith the star power lining up to make thefilm. Leonardo DiCaprio (whose Irish rolesinclude The Departed and Gangs of New

York) will play the mysterious title character, while TobeyMaguire plays narrator Nick Carraway. Academy Awardnominee Carey Mulligan (An Education) will also star inthe film, to be directed by the always-ambitious BazLuhrmann (Moulin Rouge).

James Brown used to be known as “the hardest workingman in show business,” but Liam Neeson now seems to bevying for the title. After the Ballymena star had anothernumber one action hit in February with Unknown (co-star-ring Aidan Quinn and Mad Men’s January Jones) he hasanother trio of movies in various stages of development andproduction. On the popcorn front, Neeson is set to staralongside pop singer Rihanna and the uber-hot (in moreways than one) Brooklyn Decker in the film Battleship.You’ve heard of movies based on books, TV shows and evenvideo games? Well, Battleship is based on the old-school


ColinO’Donoghue in

The Rite.

{irish eye on hollywood}By Tom Deignan

IA.IEOH.qxd 3/5/11 11:26 AM

board game. Neeson plays an admiral onthe titular vessel who must do battlewith aliens on the high seas. The direc-tor slated for Battleship is Peter Berg (anactor who has also directed big budgetmovies such as Hancock and smallerpics such as Friday Night Lights). Lookfor Battleship to set sail in May of 2012.Neeson will also appear in The Greyalongside Dallas Roberts, JamesBadge Dale and Dermot Mulroney.The film is about a group of oil-rigworkers stuck in the Alaskan tundrawho must elude a pack of nasty wolves.Finally, Neeson will keep his vocal cords warm so as to even-tually reprise his voice role as Aslan in the ongoing Chroniclesof Narnia series, a fourth entry of which is expected furtherdown the road.

Meanwhile, Aidan Quinn, the quintessentialworking actor, just keeps on working. InMarch, look for Quinn in the inspirational truestory The Fifth Quarter. Also starring RyanMerriman and Andie McDowell, The FifthQuarter is about the Abbate family, whose sonLuke died in a terrible car accident. Luke’sbrother went on to play football at Wake Forest,and thus began a poignant tradition in which thefinal quarter of every Wake Forest game cameto be known as Luke’s quarter – or “The FifthQuarter.” Quinn plays family patriarch StevenAbbate, whose deceased son had already madethe world a better place by donating his organsfollowing his death. The family now spearheadsefforts to educate teens about the dangers ofreckless driving. Look for The Fifth Quarter tohit screens March 25.

Cillian Murphy, fresh off the blockbuster Inceptionand the Irish gangster flick Perrier’s Bounty, will staralongside Robert DeNiro and Sigourney Weaver inthe Rodrigo Cortes-directed thriller Red Lights. Weaverplays a psychology professor studying paranormalactivity, who becomes fascinated by the world-renowned psychic played by DeNiro. Murphy playsthe love interest of Elizabeth Olsen, one of Weaver’sstudents.

Crying Game thespian Stephen Rea is among thestars of an upcoming BBC thriller The Shadow Line.Rea is slated to play a character described by RTE asa “brilliantly lethal puppet master.” The seven-part

series will also star Christopher Eccleston and AntonySher and takes a multi-layered look at the murder investiga-tion of a crime boss. Rea remains busy off-screen as well.Recently he lobbied the Northern Irish government to avoiddeep cuts to arts programs. “We should be proud of …theactors, directors, script writers, lighting engineers, set design-ers, costume designers and make-up artists from NorthernIreland who have gone on to develop successful stage, filmand TV careers, learned and developed their craft at local the-atre venues. If it weren’t for the initial investment in ourhome-grown product and talent, so much opportunity wouldbe lost to Northern Ireland,” said Rea.

The Irish Film and Television Awards are an importantguide to emerging Irish film talent and the big winner thisyear was Juanita Wilson’s As If I Am Not There, about theBosnian War. The movie nabbed best film, best director and

best script. Last year, the Dublin-born Wilson received an Oscar nom-ination for her short The Door, andwas dubbed a rising star by closely-read Variety Magazine. Othermovies that garnered praise at thisyear’s IFTAs were Perrier’s Bounty,Swansong: The Story of Occi Byrne,The Runway and Sensation.

One final note originating fromthe other side of the Atlantic is a newdocumentary called Born Fightingabout the Scots Irish. Based on thebook of the same name by U.S. sen-ator James Webb, the film recentlyaired on TV in Scotland, and it’s agood bet it will soon be available toU.S. viewers. Webb convincinglyargues that the Scots Irish have had aprofound impact on U.S. history, yetare rarely discussed, or are men-tioned only in the context of redneckstereotypes. IA


Above: Andie McDowell and Aidan Quinn as theAbbates in The Fifth Quarter. Right: Filmmaker

Juanita Wilson with her three Irish Film andTelevision Awards.

IA.IEOH.qxd 3/5/11 11:26 AM

QuinnipiacSpread 3/4/11 10:37 AM Page 1

QuinnipiacSpread 3/4/11 10:38 AM Page 2

The New York Public Library for the PerformingArts at Lincoln Center will open “IrelandAmerica: The Ties that Bind” in its Oenslager

Gallery on March 14th.Curated by NYU Professor Marion R. Casey, the exhi-

bition will explore key aspects of Irish-American performance historyin the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. Casey says that “Irishmusic and theater have carriedthe cultural markers of identityacross an ocean and downthrough two centuries. From theenduring melodies of ThomasMoore to the infectious percus-sion of Riverdance, songs, tunes,dances, plays, and dramatic rolesfrom the past resonate in the pres-ent,” and that this bedrock “ensuresthe continuing appeal of Irish artsfor American audience.”

The exhibition, which is a collab-oration with NYU’s GlucksmanIreland House, the Irish Film Institute andCutlure Ireland, is open to the public freeof charge and runs through August 13th.It is a part of Imagine Ireland, the year-long presentation of Irish arts in theUnited States. The library, in collabora-tion with the Irish Film Institute, will alsoshow a documentary film series on Thursday evenings at 6:30 pm. and on selectedSaturdays at 6:30 pm from March 17 through May 19. The screenings include EdSullivan’s 1959 television show filmed on location in Ireland.

For information about this and other free public programs visit http://www.nypl.org

{hibernia}

Ireland and America at theNew York Public Library

2

3

4

1.The Colleen BawnSongster, 1873. 2.

Dancer and variety performer KittyO’Neill, 1877. O’Neill was a featured Irishdancer with the major Irish-American vari-ety performer songwriters, Harrigan & Hart,and Tony Pastor. 3.Title page of The Musicof Erin, printed in New York, 1807. 4.BarryFitzgerald and Sara Allgood in the 1940Broadway revival of Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey.

1

NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House presents its annual

University Day on Saturday,April 16th.The theme

this year continues to ask the question “Who Do

We Think We Are?” with a focus on the Irish family in

Ireland and the United States and a program that will

include scholars, writers and artists.

The keynote speaker is Dr. Garrett O'Connor, CEO of

the Betty Ford Institute, and an expert on addiction and

recovery. His lecture will discuss the concept of ethnic iden-

tity and 'malignant shame', examining the historical and cul-

tural factors at work in influencing the Irish psyche and

behavior at home and abroad.“We are delighted to wel-

come such an eminent speaker and to build upon the great

success of our inaugural University Day last year,” said Judith

McGuire, President of the Advisory Board of Glucksman

Ireland House.”We wish to invite those among the Irish

American and other New York and tri-state communities to

join us for a day of compelling and enjoyable discussions on

the meaning and role of ethnic identity and heritage.”

The full program and ticket details are available at

www.irelandhouse.as.nyu.edu or call Glucksman Ireland

House at 212-998-3950.

University Day at NYU – April 16th


IA.HIB.24.qxd 3/5/11 11:28 AM

Atlantic Philanthropes 2/28/11 4:21 PM Page 1

Two years ago, shortly after the birth of his son, ChrisConway decided to revisit his Irish roots by delving intohis collection of Irish literature. Tucked into Steve

Balmires Celtic Tree Mysteries, he found a scrap of paper withsome intriguing markings he had written some years before: theyspelled out his name in the Old Irish Ogham alphabet.

Chris had first discovered Ogham one college summer he spentstudying Pre-Christian Celtic Traditions at Trinity College,Dublin.

Also known as the Celtic Tree Alphabet, Ogham is the oldestwritten representation of the Irish language. The first form had 20symbols, a system of intersecting horizontal, vertical and diago-nal lines, which corresponded to the Latin alphabet. Over time, asymbol for the letter “P” evolved, and a few of the markings cameto represent dual letters. There are various theories about the exactorigin of Ogham, but it is known that each letter name corre-sponds to the name or a tree of shrub. In addition to its practicaluses, the alphabet is also thought to have been used by Druids fordivination.

After finding the scrap of paper, Chris delved into a study of theancient alphabet. Inspired, he also began making art and decora-tive pieces that featured words spelled out in Ogham. As Chrisand his wife, Colleen, recalled in a recent interview with IrishAmerica, “The response [from friends] was so encouraging that inearly 2010 we began brainstorming ways in which his Ogham artcould become more than just a hobby.” The couple then embarkedon an eight month journey of building connections with printers,sculptors, pewter craftsmen, engravers and web and graphic

designers. Then, on October 25, 2010, they formally launchedtheir new company, Ogham Art.

Via their website, www.oghamart.com, the line offers framedinscriptions, seasonal prints, pewter pendants, ornaments, andboth blank note cards and the very popular custom-made mono-grammed stationary sets. They also make window clings for eachcountry and region in Ireland, with the names written in English,Irish, and Ogham. The alphabet Chris and Colleen work from isprominently displayed on their website, and each personalizeditem is made with care to ensure accuracy. Thus far, they say, theline has received a glowing response, and they are looking for-ward to reaching out to the Irish-American community at festivalsand other events throughout the year. “We are proud to bring thecelebration of Ogham to these alternate levels,” they added.

— Sheila Langan


IA

{hibernia}

Rónán and Conor McGarvey have been busy.The Loughanare, Co. Donegal

boys, ages 14 and 10 respectively, are just like any young boys, going to

school and doing their homework. Unlike their peers, after they do their

homework they head to the woodturning workshop in their parents’ garden shed

and create wooden pens which they sell through their company, Donegal Pens.

The boys became interested in woodturning two years ago after visiting a

woodturning fair. Subsequently, they began to ask for a lathe, a machine which

holds the material in place and rotates along the horizontal axis. Eventually, their

parents bought them one and set up a little woodshop in the shed.

Last summer, Rónán and Conor began selling their pens through local shops.

Since then, they have sold over 600 pens, earning themselves somewhere

between $4,100 – $5,474.The boys use a variety of wood – such as oak, elm, yew

and beech to name a few – in crafting the pens.The pens are available for pur-

chase on their website, www.donegalpens.com, and in several retail shops in

Donegal.

While most people would be satisfied with this level of skill, the McGarveys

are not.They recently joined the Irish Woodturners’ Guild, with a desire to fur-

ther sharpen their skills and learn from woodturning professionals.

-Kristin Romano

Two of the Youngest Entrepreneurs in Ireland

A Connecticut CoupleRevives an Ancient

Irish Alphabet

Prints (“Health”/ Sláinte and “Soul Friend”/Anam Cara)

IA.Hib18.qxd 3/5/11 11:30 AM

ON BEHALF OF THE MANY

WHO BENEFIT FROM

YOUR TIRELESS WORK,

AN EXTENSION OF GRATITUDE

TO NIALL O’DOWD AND

PATRICIA HARTY.

OUR DEEPEST THANKS FOR

ALL THAT YOU DO FOR THE

IRISH-AMERICAN COMMUNITY.

KEvin CahillAD 3/4/11 10:28 AM Page 1


{hibernia}

“It’s supposed to hurt.”– A teary-eyed coach Rex Ryan after his New York Jets lost to the Pittsburgh

Stealers and failed to get to the Super Bowl. – NY Post

QuoteUnquote

“There’s no such thing as a non-recoursehome mortgage in Ireland. The guy who paystoo much for his house is not allowed to simplyhand the keys to the bank and walk away. He’son the hook, personally, for whatever he bor-rowed. Across Ireland, people are unable toextract themselves from their houses or theirbank loans. Irish people will tell you that,because of their sad history of dispossession,owning a home is not just a way to avoid pay-ing rent but a mark of freedom. In their rush tofreedom, the Irish built their own prisons. Andtheir leaders helped them to do it.”– From “When Irish Eyes Are Crying” by Michael

Lewis, March 2011 issue of Vanity Fair

“You guys hearthis. Egyptianofficials say thatPresident HosniMubarak isgoing through asevere psychological condition.Yeah, it’s calledgetting dumped like a weekbefore Valentine’s Day.”

– From Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

“There were a few years when the majority of Irish people seemed to be onvacation and shopping trips, just here for a few days or a long weekend.My office is downtown near the super stores, Century 21 and J&R, andyou would see and recognize Irish people all the time with huge bags ofpurchases. You would know that they were just here for the shopping orheading to see the Ground Zero site nearby. That has changed dramaticallyin the last year or so and we are now seeing people from Ireland cominghere with much longer term plans.”

– James O’Malley, an immigration attorney in New York, on the new Irish immigrants. From the Irish Voice

“There seems to be moreopportunities for old guyslike me to do a little fightingand running because thelead characters also requirea bit of depth and maturityand gravitas that one is like-ly to acquire doing dramaall those years.”

– Liam Neeson on the recent trendof older, established actors being

cast in action films. EW.com

“I have asense that thisnext genera-tion is goingto be muchstronger thanus.”

– Bono from the Irish Daily Star and IrishCentral.com, talking about his children“Ireland is a prime example of

what the church is facing,because they made this islandinto a concentration camp wherethey could control everything.And the control was really allabout sex…Generations of peo-ple were crucified with guiltcomplexes. Now the game is up.”

– Mark Patrick Hederman, abbotof Glenstal Abbey, a Benedictine

monastery in County Limerick,Ireland, in conversation with

Stephen Castle from The NewYork Times

“Beyond that was Galway Bay, the limestoneheights of County Clare, and off to the right, aglimpse of the Aran Islands, where we’d touredthe smallest one, Inisheer, in a horse cart justthe day before. But for all the beauty of thatview — and all the places we visited in thewest, and later in Dublin — what I’ll remembermost from my visit to Ireland is the people whomade us feel at home there.”

— Tom Tolan from “Ireland: Exploring Rootsand Finding a Sense of Home,” a travel piece in

the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

IA.Quotes.qxd 3/5/11 11:31 AM

Congratulations to

Delighted you can join me in the Irish America Hall of Fame!

A more deserving group for this honor could not be found.

To the 2011 Irish America Hall of FameInductees, a salute to your accomplishments

and a warm congratulations.

Don Keough

Dr. Kevin CahillPresident William J. Clinton

Charles F. FeeneyMichael Flatley

William J. FlynnMary Higgins Clark

Denis KelleherAmbassador Jean Kennedy Smith

Dr. James Watson

Don KEoghAD 3/4/11 1:13 PM Page 1


‘Romantic Ireland is dead and gone. It’s with O’Leary in the grave.’

This was Yeats’ lament in theIreland of 1914 and it was oftenrepeated during the Celtic Tigeryears. In our frantic quest formaterialistic modernity, Ireland

and its people were said to have forsakenthe traditions of the past.

But how true was this assertion? Didthose age-old traditions really die away?

I’ve spoken to individuals who are liv-ing proof this is not so. These people havekept alive some of the most interestingand unique aspects of life in old, romanticIreland.

When asked to imagine Ireland, peo-ple often picture green countryside dot-ted with whitewashed cottages andthatched roofs. What they don’t realizeis how close the skill of thatching cameto being lost.

For centuries, thatch – made fromreeds, straw or whatever material grewabundantly in the local area – was theroofing material of choice in Irishhomes. It was freely available and pro-vided excellent insulation throughout thetempestuous Irish year.

Ireland has dramatically changed over the years, but, as Sharon Ni Chonchuir discovered,you can still see how your ancestors lived and experience the pleasure of age-old traditions.

A Glimpse of

Ireland Past

IA.Travel.qxd 3/5/11 11:33 AM


What’s more, there wereskilled thatchers. They couldbe called upon to repair orreplace the thatch as needed.These men trained their sonsin the craft and so the skillswere passed down the generations.

As Irish society began to change, theyoung no longer automatically followedin their fathers’ footsteps. This meantthatchers were no longer replaced and thecraft appeared to be dying.

Brian Simpson met his first thatcher inthe early 1990s. He had just moved toSkerries in Dublin and the encounter wasto change his life.

“This man was a fourth-generationthatcher and the last surviving thatcher inthe area,” says Brian. “He taught memany traditional skills.”

Inspired by this man, Brian set up hisown thatching business in 1998. Sincethen, he has worked all over the eastcoast, mostly using the native slice orsketch style of thatching to restore oldthatched cottages and build new ones.

In 2004, he was asked to join a commit-tee charged with training a new genera-tion of thatchers. “There was a skillsshortage,” explains Brian. “Peopleweren’t passing on the old traditions sowe were asked to devise a trainingcourse.”

This year-long course was held for thefirst time in 2006. Twelve trainees

enrolled and one of these was EoinMurphy from County Louth.

Initially, he wasn’t that enthusiasticabout thatching. “I was 20 and out ofwork,” he remembers. “I saw an ad for athatcher’s apprentice and I liked the ideaof working outdoors so I went for it.”

Five years later, he is as passionate asBrian. “There are all sorts of differentways of thatching and materials to workwith,” says Eoin. “It makes it very enjoy-able. In my area, we work with longwheaten straw and use it in old houses andnew homes.”

There has been a decrease in demandfor thatchers since the recession started.However, both Brian and Eoin believe thecraft will live on.

“Thatching is a sustainable roofingmaterial that looks great,” believes Brian.“People will always be interested in it.”

“And now there are plenty of youngthatchers trained in the skill, there’s nochance of it dying out,” adds Eoin.

Eighteen-year-old Raymond Ryan fromBandon, Co. Cork isn’t as optimisticabout road bowling, a sport he loves.

“There aren’t many people my age who

play as much as I do,” says the currentUnder-18 Irish Road Bowling Champion.“There will be very few left in a fewyears’ time.”

So, what is road bowling? Bowlers(pronounced to rhyme with howl) throwan 800g (28oz) ball, made from iron andsteel and the size of a tennis ball, along anarrow country road. The aim is to finishthe course/road with the fewest throws.

This sport can be traced back to the sev-enteenth century and was once played allover Ireland. Today, it can only be foundin Counties Cork and Armagh where roadbowling events attract large crowds andresult in road closures.

“What happens is that people bet onyou to win,” says Raymond. “Then followyou along the road, giving you advice onthe best way to throw the ball.”

They aren’t the only ones helping himeither. The bowler works with a partnerwho stands ahead with his feet apart toindicate the best target for the throw.

Raymond started at age 14. “I’d seenpeople playing in the Bandon area andstarted practicing on my own,” he recalls.“I got help from a few players in their 20sand 40s and got good.”

The skill of the game is what firstattracted Raymond. “It’s all about yourstride, speed and straightness,” he says.“You can improve these all the time.”

He also likes the competitive side of thegame. “I usually play every weekend,” hesays. “I go all over the country. If theyphone me to ask me, I’ll go.”

His neighbors in Bandon follow him atthese competitions. Many put money onhim to win. “I bet on myself too,”Raymond admits. “And when I win, thepeople who bet on me give me some oftheir winnings.”

OPPOSITE PAGE: LEFT: BethMoran giving a demonstrationat Ballina Heritage Day. RIGHT:

Beth Moran on Clare Island.THIS PAGE: ABOVE: BrianSimpson with a group of

thatching trainees. ABOVERIGHT: Eoin Murphy thatching

a cottage roof. RIGHT: BrianSimpson at work.



Despite his passion for the sport, he ispessimistic about its future. “People sayit’s dying,” he says. “There aren’t a lot ofyoung people going into it and that’s apity. I’ll have no one to play it with inanother couple of years.”

I’m in a farmhouse near Abbeyfeale inCounty Limerick, holding the ribs of aheifer in my right hand. Don’t panic.

This isn’t a macabre Irish ritual. I’m actu-ally being given a crash course in playingthe bones.

“Hold them like this,” instructs DavidMurphy as he places the ribs on either sideof my middle finger so they curve awayfrom each other. He then tells me to clickthe bones together in time to the jig play-ing on the stereo.

Awkwardly, I try to do as I’m told butthe sound that emerges is neither rhythmicnor musical. “Don’t worry,” David reas-sures me. “Everyone finds it difficult atthe beginning.”

He then takes the bones and starts to

play. He clicks in time to each note andsoon the rhythmic clicks are echoing offthe kitchen walls and I can’t help but tapmy feet.

I’ve only recently heard of bone play-ing, an ancient Irish tradition now only tobe found in small pockets of North Kerryand West Limerick. Here, bone playersjoin music sessions in the pubs and com-pete in the annual All Ireland BonePlaying Championship in Abbeyfeale.

David Murphy first became interestedin the bones when he was twelve. “Afriend of mine invited me to a session inAbbeyfeale where I saw Patrick SportMurphy playing the bones,” he says.“He’s a local man whom I still consider tobe the best player I’ve ever heard. Wewere both so impressed we got our ownbones the following day.”

David was determined to master thebones and spent every spare moment prac-ticing. When Patrick – who lived downthe road – heard of his enthusiasm, heoffered to give him lessons.

“There’s a lot you can figure out foryourself but it’s good to be shown sometechniques,” says David. “Patrick hadwonderful moves and shapes when play-ing. I was lucky to learn from him.”

David eventually improved so muchthat he went on to win the All IrelandChampionship in 2007 and 2009, just asPatrick had done before him.

These days, he no longer has as muchtime to practice. “I work. I farm part timeand I’ve got two children,” he says. “It’shard to find time for the bones.”

He has started to teach his young chil-dren to play. He hopes they will continuethe tradition but is doubtful.

“It’s not cool as it was when I wasyoung,” he says. “But if I teach them toplay now, they might come back to it inthe future.”

Irish dance, music, songs and stories arepopular with audiences all over theworld. With the success of Riverdance

and The Chieftains, it’s hard to imaginethere once was a time when people fearedthey might be lost forever.

In the early 1970s, Fr. Pat Ahern found-ed Siamsa Tíre (pronounced She-am-saTee-ra), the National Folk Theatre ofIreland, with the aim of keeping Irish per-forming arts alive and bringing them tonew audiences.

“He wanted children to be immersed inthe old traditions,” says Jonathan Kelliher,the current Artistic Director of SiamsaTíre. “He wanted to ensure the traditionscarried on into the future.”

To make this happen, he set up twotraining centers in tradition-rich parts ofrural County Kerry. Jonathan grew up fourmiles away from the centre in NorthKerry.

“My brother and sister went there tolearn music, song and dance, and when Iwas seven, I started to go there too,” herecalls. “I spent the next three yearsattending classes there once a week.”

That was more than 30 years ago andchildren still attend the centers today.Auditions are held annually to spot chil-dren with talent, and approximately 20children join each center each year. Theyare then taught music, song and dance ona weekly basis for the next three years.

Those students who show significantpromise then graduate to advanced classesin Tralee, where they work with SiamsaTíre’s permanent performance troupe.

This is what Jonathan did. “I trainedwith Siamsa Tíre to the end of my teensand developed a huge interest in tradition-

TOP: Road bowling in Cork. ABOVE: Raymond Ryan with his tro-

phy at the All Ireland Under 18 RoadBowling Finals. RIGHT: Jonathan

Kelliher launching a show atSiamsa Tíre.



l For those of you interested in thatching, BALLINA HERITAGE DAY – whichtakes place on the 13th of July – will celebrate a wide variety of crafts, includ-ing thatching, that are indigenous to County Mayo. More information is avail-able at www.ballinasalmonfestival.ie.

l Alternatively, you could visit SKERRIES on the 12th of April. On this day, theSkerries Historical Society is using the 1911 census to recreate life in the NorthCounty Dublin fishing village of that era. A series of talks and demonstrations(including one on thatching) will be given. See www.oldskerries.ie for moredetails.

l A demonstration may not be enough for some of you. You may want toexperience the romance of staying in a thatched cottage in the Irish country-side. You’ll find just what you are looking for at www.hogansirishcottages.com,www.irishcottageholidays.com and www.rentacottage.ie.

l Having read about Raymond Ryan’s passion for road bowling, some of youmay be eager to witness the sport for yourselves. ALL IRELAND FINALSDunmanway, Co. Cork: July 9-10, 2011 and in Armagh, July 30-31, 2011.You’ll find details about upcoming fixtures at www.irishroadbowling.ie.

There are three organized leagues in the United States, and the sport is gain-ing rapid popularity throughout the country. Contact the West Virginia IrishRoad Bowling Association for more information. Tel. 202 387-1680. Web:www.wvirishroadbowling.com

l Others among you may want to hear the bones being played. If so, theLimerick town of Abbeyfeale hosts the annual FLEADH BY THE FEALE from April28 to May 2. The All Ireland Bone Playing Championship is one of the high-lights of this music festival and attracts bone players from all over Ireland andbeyond. See www.fleadhbythefeale.com.

l If you’d like to catch a performance by the dancers, musicians and singersof SIAMSA TÍRE, you can find information about their upcoming shows atwww.siamsatire.com. Or telephone: 353 (0)66 7123055

l And finally, if you want to follow in Beth Moran’s footsteps and learn thetraditional crafts of spinning, dying and weaving, she gives classes from herhome on Clare Island. Find out more at www.clareisland.info/loom.

l The Weavers’ Guild of Ireland also organizes regular workshops and courses.For information, visit www.weavers.ie.

Following the TraditionYou too can travel the country and see some of these old traditions in practice.

al performing arts, especially in dance,”he says. “I became a professional per-former and continued performing withSiamsa Tíre until I became ArtisticDirector four years ago.”

Siamsa Tíre employs five professionalperformers and they are kept very busy.Not only do they teach youngsters comingup through the ranks but they also createshows which run at the theater and otherswhich tour nationally and internationally.

The shows are popular. “There’s a hugeinterest from audiences,” says Jonathan.“Last summer, tourism numbers weredown in Ireland overall but ours were up.We had 122 performances with more than85 percent occupancy.”

The young people of Kerry seem to bejust as interested in learning traditionalmusic, song and dance too, although theirfocus often changes.

“Five years ago, the success ofRiverdance meant there was a renewedinterest in dancing,” says Jonathan. “It’smusic that’s popular at the moment. Itreally varies with trends and fashions.”

Whatever the changing fashion, SiamsaTíre will continue to celebrate the rich-ness of Irish dance, music and song.

“We want to bring our old traditions tonew audiences in fresh ways,” saysJonathan. “We’ll never let them becomestale.”

Massachusetts-born Beth Moran isnot someone you’d expect to be aflag bearer for traditional Irish

weavers. But since arriving in Ireland 29years ago, this is what she has become.

“I was a photographer then,” she says.“I came to the west taking pictures and assoon as I set foot on Clare Island off thecoast of Mayo, I knew I would neverleave.”

This decision caused her to abandonher photography. “There wasn’t any wateror electricity where I was staying so pho-tography was impossible,” says Beth,laughing.

She decided to try weaving instead. “Itseemed obvious,” she says. “There weresheep whose wool I could spin. Therewere natural dyes. And when a womancame from the mainland to teach the localshow to weave, I grabbed my chance.”

Almost three decades later, Beth ismarried to one of the island’s sheep farm-ers. She has raised a family. And she hasher own cottage industry – TheBallytoughey Loom – creating naturalwoven products which she spins, dyesand weaves by hand.

It’s been quite a journey getting here.At one stage, Beth’s loom was in her bed-room, next to her child’s cot. At another,she shared tips with the only remainingold lady on the island to still have a spin-ning wheel.

“I was also lucky local people knewabout natural dyes,” she says. “Theyshowed me this lichen that grows on therocks and gives a wonderful rusty redcolor. I love using it to this day.”

Beth now passes this hard-won knowl-edge on to others in regular workshops onthe island. “People come from all over,”she says. “It seems there will always bepeople interested in the old traditionalways.”

In fact, she thinks the current econom-ic crisis is making people reassess thevalue of traditional crafts. “People arereturning to the old ways and rediscover-ing the value of things,” she says.“Weaving offers a way of making anincome and it’s an enjoyable skill to mas-ter. In some ways, I think the recessionmay just enhance the craft industry.”

If I’ve reached any conclusion frommy conversations with weavers, perform-ers, road bowlers, bone players andthatchers, it’s this: Mr Yeats, you appearto have been mistaken. Romantic Irelandand her traditions live on. Make a littleeffort and you’ll soon find them. IA


A Message From Joe ByrneIt is with great pleasure that I extend ourwarmest congratulations to the 2011Inductees into the Irish America Hall ofFame. The impacts that these individualshave made in the worlds of business, culture, diplomacy and humanitarian aidare staggering testaments to their talentand character.

The accomplishments of these honoreesdisplay not only compassion and diligence,but also the spirit of Ireland - that of a joyous and optimistic people. Irelandremains the true keeper of the craic - aplace of fun and spontaneity.

For Irish America that spirit is familiar andfor others, it takes just one visit to Ireland,one conversation with the local shopkeeper,a shared joke with the man tending bar ora chance encounter with a traditional Irishband in a pub to feel it for themselves.

Ireland has always been a place where onedoesn’t need pots of gold to explore, butrather an open-mind and a thirst foradventure. It is always a welcome shock toour visitors just how much they can see andexperience on their travels and the greatvalue that a trip to Ireland offers.

From the rich history of artifacts to therich welcomes of the Irish people, Irelandis a land apart. Just as much as these honorees demonstrate the country's greatspirit, they also show its wonderful respectfor history, and a commitment to preserving thevitality of the land and culture of theancestors.

It is with open arms we welcome morevisits to Ireland from these Irish Americansand future inductees into this prestigiousHall of Fame. For those who share theirdrive and passion, we wait with great anticipation for your visits, youraccomplishments and the future of IrishAmerica. To all the inductees, we areproud and honored to claim you as sonsand daughters of Ireland and IrishAmerica!

Joseph P. ByrneExecutive Vice President

United States & CanadaTourism Ireland

CIETours 2/28/11 4:34 PM Page 1


John Lahey: John Lahey:

IA.Lahey.qxd 10/31/11 11:12 AM


hen John L. Lahey was a boy, he once accom-panied his father, a hard-working bricklayer, toa worksite. He wanted to see what his father’sjob was all about, and to try it out for himself.His grandfather, Daniel Lahey, an immigrantfrom Knockglossmore, Co. Kerry, had been a

stone mason, so the craft was in the family. After a few unsuccessful attempts by Lahey to learn the trade, hisfather asked him to stop. It was fairly clear that his future didn’t liein masonry. On the way back to their home in the Riverdale sec-tion of the Bronx, the elder Lahey advised his son. “You’re smart,”he said. “I think your future is in education.”

As it turns out, he was right. For the past 24 years, Lahey has been president of Quinnipiac

University in Hamden, Connecticut. During his tenure there, theuniversity’s academic programs, facilities, enrollment, nationalranking and prestige have grown at an unprecedented rate. Onesemester each year, Dr. Lahey returns to the classroom with hisPhD in Philosophy, teaching a course on logical reasoning or socialand political philosophy. In addition to his work as university pres-ident, Lahey devotes significant time to his Irish roots. He has beeninvolved with the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade since he was achild, and currently serves as vice chairman of the parade commit-tee. Lahey has also worked thoughtfully and tenaciously to correctwhat he openly calls the “whitewashing” of the true story ofIreland’s great hunger from the history books and from culturalmemory: namely, that it could have been prevented and that idle-ness on the part of the British was largely to blame for the magni-tude of the famine’s devastation. Though he may not have beenvery good at literal bricklaying, Lahey has proven to be a master ata more conceptual sort of building.

The university president is the first to admit that he has alwaysbeen more intellectually inclined. Thirsty for knowledge from ayoung age, Lahey attended the Fordham Preparatory School inRiverdale. “In a way,” he reflected during a recent visit to the IrishAmerica offices, “we studied philosophy without calling it philoso-phy: we took theology courses and asked where the world had comefrom and where it was going – great, essential philosophical ques-tions. I had an interest in those big questions from an early age.”

He was also very involved in the community, spending each St.Patrick’s Day marching in the New York City parade underFordham University’s banner. He loved New York and he loved St.Margaret’s Parish, the very Irish enclave where his family lived.But when it was time to choose a college, Lahey made the toughdecision to leave his city and attend the University of Dayton, Ohio.

Lahey found his niche when he enrolled in his second philosophycourse at Dayton. The class explored the philosophy of St. ThomasAquinas, and little else. “At this point,” he explained “it was still

The president of QuinnipiacUniversity is honored as aleading educator and keeperof our heritage. By Sheila Langan.

WPH

OTO

CRE

DIT

: G

ALE

ZU

CKE

R



1964 or ’65, and only certain types of phi-losophy were officially taught. SinceDayton was a Catholic university, theywere still only teaching the traditional phi-losophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, uponwhich much of Catholic theology is based.There was a whole index of banned worksthey weren’t allowed to teach: essentially,anything that was deemed to be inconsis-tent with St. Thomas Aquinas or Catholicdoctrine.”

However, Lahey wound up learningmuch more than the approved Thomisticphilosophy. “Another student and I wereasking a lot of questions in class,” herecalled. “We didn’t want to getProfessor Balthasar in trouble, but wewere curious about how to reconcile sci-entific thought with Catholic doctrine.One day, he asked us both to stay afterclass, and he said ‘Look, you two. I’llgive you an A for the course, you knowwhat you’re doing in terms of St.Thomas Aquinas. You don’t have tocome to class for the rest of the semester,but come to my office and I’ll teach youthe philosophy of Pierre Teilhard deChardin. I can’t teach you this officiallyin the classroom but there’s nothing toprevent you from reading the books.’

“So he gave me two of his books:Phenomenon of Man and The DivineMilieu. And it was exactly what I hadbeen looking for. The author, PierreTeilhard de Chardin, was somewhat of acontradiction at that time: he was a Jesuitpriest, a philosopher, and a scientist, andhad written extensively about his beliefthat the creationist theories of how man,the world and the universe came intobeing could be reconciled with evolution;that Catholicism and the theory of evolu-tion could co-exist. At the time, this wasdeemed to be totally inconsistent withCatholic teaching. But I was a young per-son, and evolution understandably had alot of enticing aspects. Not only was itsupported by a lot of scientists, Catholicand non-Catholic alike, but it was also adynamic kind of philosophy that allowedfor change. I had heard there was a contra-diction between being a good Catholic andbelieving in evolution. But here was a bril-liant scientist who was also a Jesuit priest!He used philosophical thought to combinethe two things I wanted to combine in myown life. I was totally taken by it.”

Considering the carefully calculatedpercentages of students who meet withprofessors outside of class and student-to-faculty ratios in today’s college guides,

this may not seem all that significant. Butto Lahey, it was huge. “It’s harder to appre-ciate today, but back then, because of thetime [the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement], the philosophy professorswere among the most sought after teacherson any campus. They were dealing withwar and peace; human rights and civilrights. For me it was a transformativeexperience and it was what led me tomajor in philosophy.” It also led him tostay on at Dayton for a master’s degree inthe field, and then to the University ofMiami, where he earned his PhD.

Lahey’s first teaching post was at asmall college in Alabama. At this point, hehad been away from New York for 13years. In addition to all the philosophy hehad studied during that time, he had alsolearned that he missed the Northeast andwanted to go back. A tough decision wasin store as the professor of philosophybegan to realize that it was unlikely hewould return if he remained at the mercyof the tough academic job market.Determined to stay involved in the acade-my in some way, he returned to New Yorkin 1977 and enrolled in a master’s coursein academic administration at ColumbiaUniversity. Upon graduating, he wasquickly hired by Marist College inPoughkeepsie, New York, where hesteadily climbed the ladder until he wasnamed executive vice president.

After ten years with Marist, at the ageof forty, Dr. Lahey was hired as Presidentof Quinnipiac. It’s telling that, when askedwhat he is most proud of from his 24 yearswith the university, Lahey cannot namejust one thing. “We’ve come so far,” hesaid with pride. When he started atQuinnipiac, it was still QuinnipiacCollege – a small, quiet commuter school.Today, it has a student population of about

8,000, with close to 6,000 undergraduatestudents, 2,000 graduate students, and 500enrolled in the law school.

The law school is another ofQuinnipiac’s great achievements. It wasestablished under Lahey’s lead, when thelaw school at the University of Bridgeportclosed and was restored by Quinnipiac.Lahey has also had a hand in the athleticteams’ entrance into the NCAA Division INortheast Conference; the establishmentof the highly regarded Quinnipiac PollingInstitute; the wide expansion of the cam-pus; and the school’s overall transitionfrom a small college to a competitivelyranked, nationally recognized university.

The next project is a medical school,which will employ the same philosophythe president has seen implemented in theschool’s other programs: an emphasis onthe actual practice of the subject beingtaught. “Take the law school, forinstance,” Dr. Lahey explains. “Many ofthe top-ranked law schools in the countryteach their students all there is to knowabout the law, but not as much about howto actually practice it. In a lot of casesthat’s fine, since a significant number oftheir graduates go on to teach rather thanpractice. But I think it’s important that stu-dents know how to apply what they havelearned to practical situations. That’s whythe medical school will put an emphasison primary care.”

There’s another thing that makesQuinnipiac stand out from the crowd. Inthe campus’s Arnold Bernhard Library, aspecial room designed to mimic the insideof a ship, houses the Lender Family SpecialCollection, one of the country’s largest col-lections of art and literature pertaining toAn Gorta Mór – Ireland’s Great Hunger. Itcontains 700 volumes, historic and con-temporary texts, and a growing number of

Gerry Adams and Dr. John Lahey pictured in the Lender Family SpecialCollection room, with a miniature version of John Behan’s Famine Ship.


TO HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES AND IRISH AMERICAN OF THE YEAR

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR WELL DESERVED HONOR

WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS

TO IRISH HERITAGE NORTH AND SOUTH. YOU MAKE US ALL PROUD WITH YOUR

PASSION, TALENT AND HUMANITY.

MAY YOU CONTINUE TO INSPIRE US ALL.

The Northern Ireland Bureau is the diplomatic office of the Northern IrelandExecutive in offices Washington, DC & NY. Its role is to pursue areas of collabora-tion and partnership with the U.S. in the following areas: Economic Development,Education and Citizenship, Enhancing Civic Engagement, Cultural Development,

Research and Technology, Regeneration, and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.

For more information please visit our website at www.northernirelandbureau.com

NI BUreau 3/4/11 11:55 AM Page 1


works of art that portray or respond to theloss of more than 1.5 million Irish livesbetween the years of 1845 and 1852.

This is the common ground on whichLahey’s work as an educator and his com-mitment to his Irish roots come together.Growing up, he had always been aware ofThe Great Hunger and the shadow it castover Irish history, but this was more of aperipheral awareness. “I knew about it, Ihad heard it talked about, but it wasalways called ‘The Famine,’ which does-n’t point to the truth of what happened.True, there was a famine, the potato cropsdid fail for a few years, but that [alone]could not have caused the widespreaddeath from starvation and related diseases.The untold story is that there was morethan adequate food produced in Irelandduring the years of the famine that couldhave been used to feed the Irish. But sinceIreland was a part of the United Kingdom,the ports remained open for export.”

Lahey became fully aware of these factsin 1997, when he was honored as GrandMarshal of the NYC St. Patrick’s DayParade. It was also the 150th anniversary ofBlack ’47, the deadliest year of the GreatHunger. Wanting to learn more, he readhistorian Christine Kinealy’s The GreatCalamity, which revealed many facts aboutthe Famine Lahey hadn’t known before.

“[She] really blew the lid off all of theinaccuracies and the dramatically down-played scale of the tragedy,” he said. “Shedocumented all kinds of food exports andfound that the shipment of food out ofIreland actually increased during the yearsof the Famine. She also argued that muchof the guilt and self-blame felt by the Irishwas misplaced. For the greater part of 150years, the world and the Irish believed thatthe Irish themselves had played some rolein bringing about the famine. But the con-ditions of poverty and the disproportion-ate dependence on a single potato cropwere imposed, over time, by the British.We now know that this was the greatesttragedy in 19th century Europe, and prob-ably the greatest catastrophe in Ireland’shistory, and it is all the more tragicbecause it was largely preventable.”

As an educator and an Irish-American,Dr. Lahey became determined to help cor-rect the record. He used all of his speakingengagements as Grand Marshal to talkabout the Great Hunger, and jumped at theopportunity when the brothers Murrayand Marvin Lender (of the Lender’sBagels family), who had been deeply

moved by Lahey’s account, proposedforming a collection at Quinnipiac ded-icated to An Gorta Mór.

With the Lender Family Collectionand his advocacy of introducing a GreatHunger curriculum into public schoolsystems, Lahey’s aim is to correct andaccurately communicate the history ofthe famine. “This is not just about com-memorating what happened,” heemphasized, “we have to rewrite thehistory books and we have to rewrite thestory that has been passed down fromgeneration to generation of the Irish.”

One of the most notable componentsof the collection is its artwork. Withinthe Lender room, sculptures inspired byThe Great Hunger are prominently dis-played, and more are dispersedthroughout the Bernhard Library. WhileLahey is involved with all aspects ofthe collection, he takes a particularinterest in the art, and reminisced aboutcarrying the first piece he acquired for thecollection, Roan Gillespie’s “The Victim,”with him on the flight back from Ireland.“It’s such a powerful work,” he said. “Ididn’t want to let it out of my sight.”

For Lahey, art is a vital tool in re-shap-ing our understanding of the faminebecause of its ability to impart essentialinformation across many barriers. “In thelong run history and education areextremely important, but there’s nothingmore powerful for me than art. Art, likemusic, is a kind of universal language. Youcan bring anyone of any nationality or lan-guage into the Lender room. If they don’tspeak or read English then they might notunderstand the words, but they can look atthose images and the sculptures, andunderstand everything instantly.”

The Great Hunger collection continuesto grow, and will soon be moved to its ownspace on Whitney Avenue, the main roadthat runs right from Hartford to NewHaven. Lahey looks forward to this: “In itscurrent location, the collection is in themiddle of campus, a bit out of the way foranyone who wants to stop by and see it.It’s going to be so important for the wholecollection to be on display in its ownbuilding. After all, its purpose is to educate,so the more accessible it is, the better.”

As vice chairman of the New York CitySt. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, hekeeps a very busy schedule in March. Buthis love of the parade runs deep – back tothe years in high school when he marchedbehind Fordham’s banner. He has been

volunteering with the parade for 30 years,and has held his current position on thecommittee for the past ten.

Dr. Lahey’s favorite thing about theparade is that its history mirrors that of theIrish in America. “It reflects how long theIrish have been a presence here and howfar we have come.”

Though its history is of great signifi-cance, Lahey also feels that the paradeitself has never been more important thanit is today. “When I was a kid I thoughteveryone was Irish,” he said with a laugh.“This was because I grew up in a veryIrish neighborhood. All my teachers wereIrish, the police on the beat were all Irish,the firefighters were Irish, the other kidswe played sports with were Irish, and soon. In that environment there were a lot ofways in which the Irish were able to passon their history, culture, values and tradi-tions to their kids, to the next generationin these Irish neighborhoods. But today,neighborhoods like that don’t really existin New York in the way that they did then.Because they don’t, the parade is, at leastfor me, the single most concentrated eventevery year that brings the Irish together. Itallows us to remember, celebrate, andpass on to the next generation what itmeans to be Irish, and what our strugglesand accomplishments have been over thepast 250 years in this country.”

His point is valid. But it must also beadded that with people like Dr. John Laheyaround, we won’t be forgetting our past,values, or traditions any time soon.

Dr. Leahy led the NYC St. Patrick’s DayParade as Grand Marshal in 1997.

IA

IA.Lahey.qxd 3/5/11 3:24 PM

www.dunbrody.comemail: [email protected]: 00 1 353 51 425239

The John F. Kennedy Trust would like to extendits congratulations to the Hall of Fame Inductees.

We are also honored to give these prominent IrishAmericans recognition for their contributions tosociety within the Irish American Hall of Fame, apermanent exhibition at the Dunbrody Famine Ship in New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland.

The Irish American Hall of Fame will stand as a permanent tribute to their achievements,

in the land of their ancestors.

DunbrodyAD 3/4/11 10:43 AM Page 1


IRISHAMERICA’S

A dedicated diplomat; the scientist who cracked the DNA code; a titan

of Wall Street; a wildly popular writer; the billionaire who gave it all

away; a leader in business and a force for peace ; a doctor devoted to

humanitarian pursuits; the man who forever changed and revitalized the

face of Irish step dancing. They are a diverse and accomplished group

of leaders, all tied together by one intrinsic thing: their Irish heritage.

The Irish America Hall of Fame honors these eight outstanding

inductees for their unforgettable contributions to their respective fields

and their unwavering commitment to the betterment of Ireland and the

Irish-American community.

IA.HallofFame.1.qxd 3/5/11 11:38 AM


Several buzzwords, not all of them kind,have been used to describe the currentstate of health care in America. The wordthat guides Dr. Kevin Cahill’s nearly 50-year career in medicine is ‘solidarity.’

“Solidarity is a wonderful Latin American wordthat means “Are you willing to get down in themud with people?” he says. “So that’s why I staypracticing medicine.”

Solidarity – more than pride or even sympathy –

is what Dr. Cahill, 74, feels most strongly when hereflects on the countless people he has met andcared for during his time as a physician in some ofthe most war-torn places on this earth. Dr. Cahillhas cared for patients in 65 countries and at hispractice on 5th Avenue in New York City. Draftedinto the U.S. Navy Medical Corps early in hiscareer, Dr. Cahill first completed a degree at theLondon School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicinebefore being assigned to the Naval Medical

Kevin Cahill Doctor as Peacekeeper. By Aliah O’Neill



Research Unit-3 in Cairo, Egypt. Alongwith him came his wife, Kate, who wouldvisit 45 countries with Dr. Cahill until herdeath in 2004.

Almost instantly in their travels, theywitnessed heart-wrenching examples ofgreat suffering and chaos during times offamine, drought, and war. While undertak-ing field investigations in Sudan, Somalia,Ethiopia, Egypt, Turkey, and across theMiddle East in the Navy Medical Corps,Dr. Cahill “became increasingly aware ofthe extra-medical complex demands onefaced in dealing with the trauma of naturaland man-made disasters in areas wherethere were few resources.” He began torealize that “medicine offered an almostideal platform for preventive diplomacy.”From the ‘corridors of tranquility’ inSouthern Sudan, where de facto ceasefirezones could be established even during abloody civil war, to the tree under whichchildren and mothers could safely play inrefugee camps, medicine allowed peopleto have peaceful interludes even as itafforded a unique view of the infrastruc-tural collapse that often accompanies ahumanitarian crisis.

Since his discharge in the mid-1960s,Dr. Cahill’s résumé has grown incon-ceivably long with titles, accolades, andachievements. From 1969-2006 he wasChairman of the Department of TropicalMedicine at The Royal College ofSurgeons in Ireland, where he taughtover 4,000 medical students over thecourse of his career. In addition, he hasbeen Director of the Tropical DiseaseCenter at Lenox Hill Hospital, ClinicalProfessor of Tropical Medicine andMolecular Parasitology at NYU MedicalSchool, and Consultant in TropicalMedicine for the United Nations HealthServices. Through all of these positions(to name just a few), he has maintained astrong connection to his Irish back-ground. He currently serves as Presidentof the American Irish Historical Societyand has published, among a string ofinfluential works that chronicle his expe-riences as a tropicalist and a physician,articles and essays on his love for Irishliterature, art, and culture.

Raised in an Irish immigrant home inthe Bronx, Dr. Cahill was taught fromchildhood the importance of Irish poetryfrom his own family members. Themajority of his relatives establishedthemselves in America and becamepolicemen. His father, who as a physi-cian was the exception to the rule, wouldbuy up land in his native Rathmore, Co.Kerry, and give it to the family memberswho stayed behind. Cahill’s first visit toIreland was when he was only 11 or 12,and since then he has maintained a strongconnection to the country both throughprofessional and personal work.

Indeed, in a room full of antiqueapothecary jars, old-fashioned medicalinstruments, wall-to-wall diplomas andaccolades where we had our interview,Dr. Cahill pointed excitedly to the oneitem that was not immediately recogniz-able. It was the original print designedfor the cover of Irish Essays, a collectionof works on Irish literature and culturethat Dr. Cahill published in 1980. A sim-ple image of two groups of vaguelyhuman figures come together to makeone mass as they float across the whitebackground. It’s amazing to think thatsomeone who has traveled to 65 coun-tries, many in states of war, degradation,and suffering that are impossible to putinto words, still would have time toexpress his passion for Irish culture, or

that he would even want to. But thisexpression, Dr. Cahill explains, has actu-ally been strengthened by the humanityand joy that transcended the horrors ofwar during his travels. “I think beinggrounded in your own ethos allows youto see and appreciate other cultures andbe more sensitive…I come away withtremendous admiration for them. TheDinka in the Southern Sudan have a cul-ture that to them is just as proud and richas our Irish culture.”

Dr. Cahill’s life has been so full, sojam-packed with humbling experiencesthat, at best, it can only be uncovered anddescribed anecdotally: “I remember onetime in Somalia coming back from wayup country…in those years there were[only] 12 miles of paved roads, so whenwe traveled 400 miles across the desert,we found a disease that had never beenrecorded in Africa. I went to theAmerican Embassy – I was a youngnaval officer – and I said, ‘We found thecause of this disease that is killing largenumbers of people.’ And I was told thatthe American ambassador was busy.How you can be busy in 1963 in SomaliaI don’t know…[but] I had the obligationto try to help save lives. So I walkedacross town and gave that information tothe World Health Organization office.They gave it to China, which got theright to bring in the antibiotic and got theright to build the roads.”

Dr. Cahill’s great passion and drivinginfluence has clearly not just been thepractice of medicine, but its ability to lifta barrier between countries, factions, andcultures and reveal our basic humanity.“When I first started teaching in Irelandin 1969…that was the year of BloodySunday. Throughout the 70s I would goup to Belfast and lecture. I had goodmedical friends, both Catholic andProtestant, who had members of theirfamilies killed because they dared tomake house calls. It wasn’t always easy,but through The College of Surgeons inDublin we made certain that doctors inBelfast were invited down to confer-ences, and that you made rounds in thehospitals with them. So I think medicine

IRISHAMERICA’S


does allow you to do that if you’re notjudgmental.”

Dr. Cahill tells me that the codes ofneutrality and patient confidentiality aretraced back to Hippocrates, a practicethat “goes back to a long time before ourcountry was founded. That goes back tothe very essence of what we try to do asa profession.” Despite some flare-ups attimes (he has been stopped by American

Immigration more than once and askedto divulge details of his visits with people at odds with American policy),Dr. Cahill says, “Medicine has its owntraditions and you can’t go out and useyour position to spread a rumor or detail.Patients get to know very well if theyhave your confidence.”

This confidence also provides a uniqueconduit for education and mediation. Dr.

Cahill has written widely, particularly inhis book Preventive Diplomacy, that themethodology of public health offers anopportunity to combine diplomacy withhumanitarian solutions. “I used to think Iwas the most important person in thecamp as a doctor. But the first thing amother or child wants is a place to play.That becomes very important becauseit’s the protected area you can use toteach children better nutrition or hownot to step on a landmine.”

At the core of Dr. Cahill’s understand-ing of humanitarian crises is the need foreducation. His recent book, Even inChaos: Education in Times ofEmergency, teaches how the field ofmedicine can provide unbiased insight.“At the launch of the book at the UnitedNations, someone asked how long ittook to put the book together. I said 30-40 years, because I think I’ve beenthinking about it that long, how impor-tant education is in the life of a child.[Medicine] has to be a very broad field,embracing anything that interferes withthe welfare of the people you’re tryingto serve.”

Sometimes, as Dr. Cahill points out,there’s only so much nations can do togive aid, and amassing large amounts ofmoney is not the answer to the multifac-eted problems that developing and war-torn countries face. “I think the focuspurely on individual diseases and not onthe infrastructure and health needs indeveloping countries is probably a mis-take… [With] a lot of the chaos in revo-lutionary areas, health services arealmost always the first thing to breakdown. It’s very artificial to think thatdiseases or aid works within barriers.Mosquitoes don’t know where the barri-

er is.” A medical consultant for the United

Nations, Dr. Cahill says the organizationis crucial in coordinating all the playersand countries who want to help during anatural or man-made disaster, includingthe United States. “America has everyright to be proud of what it’s done histor-ically, but whether it’s all done in the bestway is sometimes constrained by poli-

tics,” he says, referring to how aid allo-cation is shaped by foreign policy in theUnited States. “We are a fairly majorplayer, and every citizen should feel thatthey can participate, individually orthrough donations…I think that’s some-thing that enriches them as well as thepeople they serve. But it’s not allmoney.”

Dr. Cahill’s work in changing this atti-tude towards health and infrastructuralneeds has been so effective because hehas led by example. He has been instru-mental in the creation of an educationalprogram in the field of humanitarianassistance at Fordham University. Now,for over 20 years, Fordham has offeredboth a post-graduate master’s degree andundergraduate minor in this field, whichcombines public health, medicine, law,security, technology, and even anthropol-ogy and philosophy. To date, over 1500students from 133 nations have graduat-ed from this unique, multidisciplinaryprogram that is changing the way weapproach complex humanitarian crises.

“[The program is] trying to develop a cadre of people who are professionalsin this field. It’s not a field for ama-teurs…You deal with many, many fac-tors that no one talks about. You dealwith corruption. You deal with incompe-tence. You deal with theft, with peoplemaking profits out of disasters. It’s not afield where having the feeling that you’redoing good is its own rationale. Thatreally doesn’t change a lot of thingsunless you can change the system.”

Despite the immense challenges, Dr.Cahill is extremely confident in the abil-ities and compassion of these humanitar-ians, who will shape, moment bymoment, individual by individual, theway organizations and even nationsapproach future humanitarian crises. Dr.Kevin Cahill has been a luminary for thisnoble cause of peace and diplomacyalong the way.

“I think the fact that I’ve been privi-leged to serve poor and oppressed peopleis my greatest achievement. That really isthe satisfying thing that continues todrive me.”

I’ve been privileged toserve poor andoppressed people.I think that is my greatestachievement. That really is the satisfying thingthat continues to drive me.


IA



As a major supporter of theIrish peace process, BillClinton moved mountains.The 42nd President of theUnited States took the

strongest position on Irish issues evertaken by an American president. In1994, he granted a visa to Sinn Féinpresident Gerry Adams, fulfilling acampaign promise and stating “theU.S. cannot miss this rare opportuni-ty for our country to participate in thepeace process.”

Then in November, 1995,President Clinton became the firstsitting American president to visitNorthern Ireland.

I was there and wrote the follow-ing account of the occasion:

Belfast: November 30, 1995: Itwas an evening that dreams weremade of, a crystal clear Belfast night,the winter air crackling with anticipa-tion. On the soundstage adjacent toCity Hall, Van Morrison was blastingout his “There’ll Be Days Like This,”the unofficial anthem of the peaceprocess. A huge and enthusiasticcrowd, later numbered at 100,000,was rocking along to the music.

All day long the people of Belfasthad streamed to this spot, mainlyfrom Protestant and Catholic neigh-borhoods abutting the downtownarea. They had filed through thenarrow downtown canyons under the shadow of the tall buildingsbedecked with American flags beforecollecting in their tens of thousandsin the areas surrounding City Hall. Asfar as the eye could see, back upthrough the shopping malls, downthe narrow sidestreets and along thepedestrian areas, the crowds hadgathered.

Even Van Morrison was not hold-

ing their undivided attention. Everyten minutes or so a chant would passthrough the crowd like a ripple. “Wewant Bill. We want Bill.”

The rumor had spread that hewould play the sax with Van the Man,so every stranger arriving on stagewas closely scrutinized. Severaltimes the rumor ran that he was aboutto make his appearance, and the full-throated roars of the crowd werestilled only when it proved to beanother false alarm.

On such a clear night every soundseemed magnified. The tolling ofnearby church bells swelled in theevening air. The chants of the crowdcarried like a relentless drumbeat, thestrains of Van Morrison seemed tocarry back even to the furthest regionsof the crowd, who were cheering andstomping and waving plasticAmerican flags thoughtfully suppliedby the advance team. We all knew wewere witnessing something special.

When the long-winded LordMayor of Belfast, Eric Smyth, threat-ened to go on forever during theintroduction, he was drowned outwith chants of “We want Bill.”Quickly the mayor skipped to the endof his speech.

A few moments later the Presidentand First Lady finally arrived at thepodium. It had been a long day forhim; his aides stated later that he wasfeeling tired and jet-lagged. But thecrowd lifted him, their extraordinarywelcome lasting several minutes. ANew York Times reporter later wrotethat Clinton had that “suffused lookof ecstasy” that politicians acquirebefore adoring crowds.

Clinton had earned the huge recep-tion. As he had done throughout the day, he appealed over the headsof the politicians to the people them-selves.

“The people want peace and thepeople will have peace,” he pro-nounced, pounding the podium foremphasis. The people promptly wentwild.

I was sitting near a Protestant com-munity worker from the ShankillRoad. She had a careworn face, likeso many in Belfast, old beyond her40 or so years, the impact of far toomuch worry and stress.

“We’ve had so little to celebrate inthe past 25 years,” she told me.“When someone like the AmericanPresident comes and shows he caresabout us it means so much to all ofus.” Her eyes seemed ready to tearup.

She told me that she and her hus-band had been to Dublin for the firsttime ever a few weeks before to seeRiverdance, the Celtic dance spec-tacular. “It was brilliant,” she said,“and we’re going back soon again.We’d never ever have thought ofgoing during the Troubles.”

In front of her, a few seats to theleft, sat Joe Cahill, a reveredRepublican figure who was oncespared the hangman’s noose only by

President William ClintonPolitician, peacemaker and hero to millions of Irish.

By Niall O’Dowd

IRISHAMERICA’S


a last-second reprieve. Cahill’s journeyto America on the eve of the IRA cease-fire had been a critical step in ensuringits success. Only he, it was reasoned,could convince Irish American hardlin-ers that the new peace was worth a try.

“Did you think we’d see days likethis?” I asked Cahill, paraphrasing thesong.

“No, not like this,” he answered. “Thishas been a real high point for all of us. Itis marvelous, really special, to see thePresident here.”

The sentiments they expressed fromboth sides of the divide were echoedeverywhere throughout the two-day trip.The groundswell for peace and the evi-dent goodwill for Clinton – who had, afterall, taken risks for peace no AmericanPresident ever had – was clear. Now hehad come to their own beleaguered land, aplace where during the Troubles somecommentators had derided those wholived there as subhuman.

But they, like everyone else, just need-ed the acknowledgement that they are nobetter or worse than citizens in New York,Washington or London.

Everywhere President Clinton went inIreland was a triumphal progress. Fromthe huge crowds in Belfast, Derry andDublin to the intimate moments such asthose with Nobel Prize-winner Seamus

Heaney at the U.S. Ambassador’s resi-dence in Dublin, the President had theperfect pitch, understanding just wherethe line between American interferenceand positive involvement lay.

Upon assuming power in January 1993,President Clinton had set about building anew “special relationship” with Ireland,which in several important instances hadeclipsed the historical tie with Britainwhen the two have come into conflict.

“No president has ever invested hisprestige and his concern for the people ofIreland and for the Troubles in NorthernIreland in the way Bill Clinton has,”Bruce Morrison, the former Connecticutcongressman, a key player in the peaceprocess, said.

The New York Times called the Clintonvisit “the best two days of his presiden-cy.” The President himself was clearlyecstatic that he had struck such a chordwith a country weary of war and desper-ate for peace. Clinton had made the Irishpeace process his own. Indeed, withouthim it is unlikely it would have happenedat all.

We can take no less an authority thanthe IRA for that. In a secret IRA memorevealed in the Sunday Tribune newspa-per in Ireland on April 23, 1995 the rea-sons for the IRA ceasefire of August 31,1994 were detailed. Among the three key

reasons given was the support ofPresident Clinton for the new peaceprocess.

Once the peace process began, Clintonthrew the full weight of the White Housebehind it. When the process was lagging,his White House Economic Conferenceon Ireland in May of 1995 provided animportant boost. Clinton became the firstever U.S. president to deliver a majorspeech on Irish issues when he addressedover 1,500 delegates.

Held at the Sheraton Hotel inWashington over a three-day period, theconference was the first time that anyAmerican President has committed hisadministration to that kind of direct eco-nomic and political involvement in theaffairs of Ireland since the dawn of theAmerican republic. The future was therein that conference. A future for NorthernIreland that promised peace instead ofbloodshed. “The good that he has donehere will last long after him in Ireland,”Donald Keough, president emeritus ofCoca-Cola, predicted.

In March, 1996, President Clinton,whose ancestors the Cassidys are believedto have emigrated from Ballycassidy,County Fermanagh, was Irish America’sIrish-American of the Year. We aredelighted to induct him into our 2011 IrishAmerica Hall of Fame.


IA



IRISHAMERICA’S

The oldest living resident of New York diedrecently at age 111 and in a New York Timesarticle only months earlier, she told the reporterthat she had kept her mind alert by readingAgatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clark.

A Higgins Clark novel keeping someone alive?Usually someone dies in the first few pages, but onceyou pick up a Higgins Clark book it’s impossible to putit down (or it seems, die) until you’ve found out whodone it, and as often as not, it’s not who you think it is.

Higgins Clark is one of the most admired and popu-lar writers alive today – her novels frequently top thebest-selling charts. She is also one of the highest paidauthors. But it wasn’t always so.

Mary always wrote, but the untimely death of herhusband, Warren, made selling her work a necessity inorder to support her five young children. Every morn-ing she got up at five and wrote until seven, when shehad to get the kids ready for school. She supported herfamily writing short historical clips for radio andflooded the publishers’ offices with her short stories.She received lots of rejection letters but her storiesfinally started appearing in popular magazines, and in1975 her first suspense novel, Where Are the Children?became a bestseller. Some 40 novels later, HigginsClark is still keeping readers on their toes.

“The Irish are by nature storytellers,” says Mary,whose father was an Irish immigrant from Co.Roscommon and whose mother was first-generationAmerican. She considers her Irish heritage an impor-tant part of her life and will serve as Grand Marshal ofthis year’s New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade. “As theparade goes up Fifth Avenue I will be thinking of thefather who came over with five pounds in his pocketand who died when I was only eleven, the mother whoencouraged my dreams of being a writer by treatingevery word I wrote as though it was scripted by theangels,” she wrote in a foreword to her recently re-released memoir Kitchen Privileges.

Mary, whose many honors include the 1997 HoratioAlger Award, numerous honorary doctorates, and theGrand Prix de Literature of France, is married to JohnConheeney, a retired Merrill Lynch CEO whom shemet on St. Patrick’s Day, 1996. When she is not writ-ing, she likes to spend time with her children andgrandchildren. “I have five children and six grandchil-

dren. John has four children and eleven grandchildren.People say we must have great reunions. My answer is,we don’t need them. We see the children and grand-children all the time. Most of them live within a fewmiles, none more than 45 minutes away. But on the bigholidays, we’re all collected in our home in SaddleRiver, New Jersey along with nieces and nephews. Wedoubled the size of the kitchen/family room so we canset tables for forty with room to spare.”

I sat down with Mary at her apartment in Manhattanin early February. And talk quickly turned to her writ-ing. Her latest novel is I’ll Walk Alone, which will bein stores in April.

Do you write every day, what is the process?The process is sloppy. Between now and April

[when l’ll Walk Alone hits the stores] I don’t write. A,I’m exhausted. B, I want to give my brain a clearing.But I will start the next book by April. In the meantime,I might be writing down ideas, I will do biographies ofcharacters. I’ll give them names and then they oftenchange, because ‘he’ doesn’t look like a Jimmy, hedoesn’t sound like a Jimmy. I have pages of notebooksand a bunch of outtakes from other books that I’ve keptbecause someday I might do a factual book on writingthe novels from conception to publication.

You describe yourself as an Irish storyteller.Yes. I’ll leave it to other people to decide whether

I’m a writer or not. What I am is an Irish storyteller.And another thing, I love to go to parties. I’ve said thatI’d climb out of my casket to go to my wake. The otherthing I’ve said is be sure to put a big spiral notebook, acouple of pens and a glass of wine into the casket withme because I’d miss not writing.

Do you believe in an afterlife?Of course I do. How can anyone think this all stops?

I don’t know what it is but I know there’s a God andhis plan is there. And I do think there is perfect peaceand perfect happiness [in the afterlife]. I believe in it. Iabsolutely do.

Does that come from your Catholicism?Oh sure, my Catholicism is very much a basis for the

way I live and think.

Mary Higgins Clark A bestselling author who isproud to call herself “an Irish girl from the Bronx.”

By Patricia Harty



Tell me a bit about growing up. My father had a bar and he worked

hard to make it successful. He used toleave at eleven in the morning and comehome at five for an early dinner, and thengo back to the place. The only night ofmy life I remember him being home wasthe night he died. He came home withchest pains and he didn’t say anything buthe leaned against the fireplace, whichwas typical when his chest pains werebad, to put his arm over the mantel. Andhe died in his sleep that night.

We lost that middle-class security thatwe had, with my father dying at 54. Mymother was the same age and she hadthree kids, my brother Joseph was 12, Iwas 11 and Johnny was 7 and she had$2000 and no other money. So that’swhen we moved downstairs. For the nextfive years we had boarders. We had acouple evading bankruptcy, they had hada car dealership and it folded; anotherguy working on his PhD, and a teacherwho couldn’t afford an apartment so shehad a room. She tried to teach me thepiano but I was lousy at it. I’d ask her totell me about her boyfriend Howard whohad come home from the war and was ina nursing home. His lungs were gone.She always cried when she told me thestory.

Your mother encouraged yourwriting.

She thought everything I wrote waswonderful. And she’d make me recite itfor the relatives when they came. I wroteskits and I’d have my brothers perform.And I wrote plays for the neighborhoodkids. I was always writing.

Whenever I speak to parents or teach-ers I always say, “see where the creativi-ty is, whether it’s a drawing, a poem or alittle skit, praise it to the skies. Becausein the case of the writer, the editors willbe happy to tell you how lousy you arelater on.”

My mother would’ve thrown herselfacross the tracks for the three of us butshe adored my brother Joseph, the first-born. I found something that she wrote, asort of journal that she kept. And in it shewrote, “I never left Joseph that first year,

he was the most beautiful baby. I was soafraid he’d slip away. The other two hadallergies.” So much for the other two!But then my brother [Joseph] died at 18.He was only six months in the Navy andhe got viral meningitis. I remember shesaid, “God wants him more than I do.”And six months later when I graduatedfrom high school she said, “Joseph had aparty last year. You’ll have a party.” Soshe took off all the heavy mourning andhad a party for me.

She was 81 when she died. Her two sisters lived for much longer. They werein our house all the time when I was grow-ing up. That’s where I got the Irish stories.They’d sit around the table with endlesscups of tea and it would be, “Oh remem-ber when this one...” or, “Oh poor darling,no wedding dress…” and “She could havehad anyone and she married that one.”

My first book, which was aboutGeorge Washington, was published a fewmonths before my mother died, so shegot to see that, which was wonderful.

And she was there for you whenyour husband Warren died.

Warren was 45, I was 36, when he suffered a heart attack and died. Mymother-in-law dropped dead when shesaw Warren was dead. She said, “I do notwant to survive my son.” They took thebodies out and then the funeral directorcame back to the house and I was pickingout shoes for Warren. My mother said,“Mary, it’s a half-casket [viewing], youdon’t need shoes. Someone else coulduse them.” I said, “Mother I’ll buy thema goddamn pair of shoes if I have to, butI’m putting shoes on Warren.”

You have to see the humor in a situa-tion. And you have to carry on. You don’thave a choice when you have children. Ihad five children. Also Warren wasfunny, he was not just witty; he wasfunny and witty. And I wanted to keepthat spirit alive in the house.

And you found love again.I was very blessed. Fifteen years ago

on St. Patrick’s Day, John and I met. AsI say, I had a prince at the beginning anda prince at the end.

John had retired as Chairman ofMerrill Lynch Futures. And he was invit-ed to be on the board of the New YorkMercantile Exchange where my daughterworked. When she met him, she saidsomething about Mrs. Conheeney. Andhe said, “No, my wife died two yearsago.” Then she found out he lived inRidgewood, which is four miles fromwhere I was living. And she called meand said, “Have I got a hunk for you.” Iwas planning a cocktail party to celebratethe publication of my novel MoonlightBecomes You and she said, “I know he’llcome, he’s read a couple of your books.”So he came, and ten days later he calledme on the phone and said “I wantto invite you out but I haven’t had a date since I was 23.” He was engaged at 23, married at 25. But he took me outand that of course was it. And then inJune he said, “Mary, would you like to get married in a couple of years?” Isaid, “John, how old do you think weare?” So we were married the day afterThanksgiving.

IRISHAMERICA’S

I’d climb out ofmy casket to goto my wake. And be sure toput a big spiralnotebook, a couple of pensand a glass ofwine in the casket becauseI’d miss not writing.

IA


Charles “Chuck” Feeney hasamassed billions of dollars inwealth. However, he doesn’t ownan opulent house, a car or aRolex. He prefers taking cabs,

riding the subway, or just walking whenhe’s in New York. He flies economy, evenon international flights. And since the1980s, he has given away his fortune tohumanitarian and educational causesthroughout the world. Preferring to give itall away while he is still alive, Feeneywants to better the lives of people aroundthe world in the here and now.

From New Jersey to FranceChuck Feeney was born in 1931 and raisedin a working class section of Elizabeth, NJduring the Great Depression. His father, theson of an immigrant from Co. Fermanagh,Ireland, was an insurance underwriter andhis mother was a nurse. In 1948, at age 17,Chuck enlisted in the United States Air Force, serving forfour years in postwar Japan and Korea. After his militaryservice, Feeney received a GI scholarship and enrolled atCornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. Itwas at Cornell that Feeney’s flair for business was first dis-covered. His GI scholarship funds were sent to him inmonthly installments of $110, scarcely enough to cover theIvy League university’s tuition. To make ends meet, hebegan to sell sandwiches that a fellow classmate wouldmake, earning a decent income.

Upon graduating from Cornell in 1956, Feeney still hadfour months of scholarship funds left and no idea what to dowith his degree. He decided to study political science at theUniversity of Grenoble.

EntrepreneurAfter studying in Grenoble, Feeney decided to travel tothe south of France. He eventually landed in Villefranche-sur-Mer, and began running a summer camp for childrenfrom the U.S. fleet stationed there. On a trip to Barcelona,he ran into Robert Miller, a fellow Cornell alumnus.Feeney had an idea: sell goods to the fleet duty free – with-out tax. Miller and Feeney partnered up and began sellingperfume, tape recorders and transistor radios.

In 1960, the partners founded Duty Free Shoppers(DFS), opening up duty-free shops in Honolulu and HongKong. When the Japanese government lifted travelrestrictions on its citizens in 1966, the company foundsuccess. Feeney learned Japanese and arranged dealswith tour guides to bring groups through the shops. DFSbecame a global retail giant with duty-free shops all overthe world, and made the partners incredibly wealthy.

PhilanthropistForbes estimated Feeney’s wealth to be $1.3 billion in1988, landing him in the top 20 of its 400 richest peoplelist. However, he was actually worth less than $5 million.Six years earlier, Feeney transferred his 38.75 percentinterest in DFS to a charitable foundation. As he said in aprevious interview with Irish America, “I did not wantmoney to consume my life.”

The impetus for Feeney’s charity career was a $700,000bequest to Cornell University in 1981. After the bequest,Feeney was bombarded with requests for donations.Wanting to do something but on his own terms, he turnedto his friend Harvey Philip Dale for advice. Dale’s advicewas to set up a foundation to carry out all future donations.Feeney proceeded to found The Atlantic Philanthropies, a


CharlesFeeneyThe billionaire who selflessly and quietly gave it all away.

By Kristin Romano

PHOTO: PETER FOLEY



IRISHAMERICA’S

collective of separate foundations, inBermuda in order to avoid disclosurerequirements that a U.S.-based organiza-tion would have to meet. Unlike manyphilanthropists, Feeney wanted anonymi-ty. The foundation did not, and still doesnot, bear his name, and he never took taxdeductions on his philanthropic work. Theanonymity allowed him to walk down thestreet unrecognized and keep his familysafe. However, it also prevented him frombeing able to correct any inaccuracies.

This anonymity spread throughout theAtlantic Philanthropies. Rules were estab-lished within the foundation. Any unso-licited requests for money were rejected,and all donations were given via cashier’scheck. When he was an honored guest atevents, Feeney would bring his own pho-tographer, who would pretend to take pic-tures without any film in the camera.

The anonymity did not last. In the mid-1990s, Feeney decided to leave DFS. Hewanted more cash flow for the AtlanticPhilanthropies and foresaw the decline induty-free shops. The LVMH Group,owner of Louis Vuitton and Moët &Chandon, purchased DFS in 1997, result-ing in the foundation being worth $3.5 bil-lion. However, Feeney’s partner, RobertMiller, objected to the sale. As a result,their partnership ended, with Miller filingsuit against Feeney. Knowing that he andthe Atlantic Philanthropies would beexposed in court, Feeney decided to let thecat out of the bag himself. In January1997, he called two reporters, David CayJohnson and Judith Miller, and revealedeverything. The news shocked everyone,especially his former partner.

HumanitarianFeeney’s desire to help extends beyondthe philanthropic to the humanitarian. Hisinterest in Ireland originates in his Irish-American background and was nurturedthrough his business trips to Ireland dur-ing the 1970s to purchase whiskey forDFS. However, he did not begin to getinvolved with Ireland and NorthernIreland until November 1987, when hewitnessed the aftermath of the EnniskillenRemembrance Day IRA bombing whilevisiting London. In researching how he

could help, Feeney came across the IrishAmerican Partnership, founded by thenFine Gael TD Paddy Harte and based inDublin. He met with John Healy, then thepartnership’s head. After talking, Healytold Feeney that the Irish AmericanPartnership could use funds to establishan office in New York. Feeney mentionedthat he knew of an organization thatwould possibly consider a proposal forfunding. Healy sent in the proposal andthe funds arrived, anonymously of course,from the Atlantic Philanthropies.

This was only the start. Feeney becameinterested in reconciliation, and when theAmericans for a New Irish Agenda(ANIA) formed, Feeney was one of itskey members. The group traveled toNorthern Ireland numerous times with thegoal of encouraging Republicans to laydown arms and begin negotiating.Likewise, they also worked to convincethe Clinton administration to reach out toNorthern Ireland. Today, Feeney modest-ly places the group in the big picture.“Clearly we weren’t players in theaction…We were not dumb enough tothink that we were a motivating force.”Yet, the group did play an important andinfluential role.

Feeney’s involvement was not one-sided. He funded for three years a SinnFéin office in Washington, DC, an actionthat resulted in criticism from the media.Yet, he also personally funded loyalistgroups desiring to stop the violence inNorthern Ireland.

At the same time as he began hisinvolvement with the peace process,Feeney began aiding Irish universities.The same day he met Healy for the first

time, the two had lunch at the UniversityClub in Dublin. Sitting at the table next tothem was Ed Walsh, president of whatwas then called the National Institute ofHigher Education in Limerick. Healyintroduced him to Walsh, and Feeneybecame a major benefactor of theNational Institute, which is now knownas the University of Limerick. In keepingwith his beliefs, Feeney’s name does notappear on any buildings at the university.

Giving It All AwayIn 2002, the Atlantic Philanthropiesannounced it would spend down itsendowment within the next twelve to fif-teen years. What was at the time a high-ly unusual action has become a growingtrend, with the Bill & Melinda GatesFoundation being the most prominentcharitable organization to set a closuredate. Though far from widespread,Feeney’s belief in giving while living isstarting to find a wider audience andmore practitioners.

Today, the Atlantic Philanthropies nolonger gives grants to universities.Instead, the organization is focused onthe issues of health, aging, children &youth, human rights and reconciliation.As of December 31, 2009, the AtlanticPhilanthropies was worth approximately$2.2 billion, including $814 million inalready committed grants. Over $5.4 bil-lion in grants had been given out, life-time, by the end of 2010.

Feeney has found immense pleasureand satisfaction in giving away his for-tune. He believes that by giving themoney now, it is already accomplishinggood work. IA

Belfast: Bill Flynn, Gerry Adams and Gerry Kelly, with Chuck Feeney in the background andBruce Morrison in the foreground, celebrate the announcement of the IRAceasefire in 1994.



Michael Flatley The man who brought Irish dance to the global stage.

By Debbie McGoldrick

He’s been the world’s mostfamous lord for the past 15years. Now Michael Flatley ispoised to become a movie star. . . and a 3D one at that.

The Chicago native always had it in theback of his head that his wildly success-ful stage show, Lord of the Dance, wouldtranslate well to film, given the right cir-cumstances. But re-creating the rawenergy and electricity of a live perform-ance proved elusive until the widespreadpopularization of 3D movies these pastcouple of years.

Finally, Flatley was ready to make hismove, and he did so in more ways thanone. Not only did he film Lord for a bigscreen 3D experience, but he also tookhimself out of retirement to reclaim hisstarring role in the show.

The decision required months of get-ting his body back into fighting shape fora sold-out European tour in theautumn/winter of last year, which showedonce again why Flatley is one of theworld’s most captivating performers.

When Flatley sets his mind towards agoal it’s an excellent bet that he’ll thrivein spectacular fashion given his trackrecord at the helm of the planet’s twomost successful Irish dance shows ever,Riverdance and Lord of the Dance.

Lord of the Dance 3D, opening nation-wide on St. Patrick’s Day, seems tailormade for a three-dimensional experience,with its breakneck Irish jigging, dazzlingstage design and overall non-stop action.

Flatley has legions of fans who willundoubtedly savor the chance to go totheir local theater, don a pair of largeglasses and feel like they’re right on thecusp of the stage.

Lord of the Dance, since its Dublindebut in 1996 – about 18 months afterFlatley and Riverdance parted company– has played to more than 60 million fansin 60 countries . . . grossing more than $1billion in the process. That’s not to men-tion sales from DVDs, CDs and othermerchandise.

Flatley’s vision about how Irish dancecould be freshened up and showcased to



a global audience in a bold and excitingway has brought him fame and fortunebeyond his wildest dreams, and thoughhe likes to think big – really, really big –he’s never, ever forgotten how the seedsof his success were planted.

His parents, Michael Senior (a nativeof Co. Sligo) and Eilish (from Co.Carlow), made the difficult but necessarymove across the Atlantic to the shores ofAmerica back in 1940s, and in typicalimmigrant fashion, Michael and Eilishworked hard to create a prosperous lifefor their five children.

Digging ditches, working constructionsites, doing whatever needed to be done .. . all those life lessons clearly rubbed offon their second eldest, Michael Junior,who didn’t start formal Irish dance les-sons until he was the ripe old age of 11.

Michael was a quick learner, though,and for good measure he also mastered theflute and even became a top-flight amateurboxer. Put it all together and you get some-one who was hyper-determined to makehis mark on the world, and that’s exactlywhat this multi-talented entrepreneur hasdone with his Lord of the Dance franchise.

Though performing has always beensuch a vital part of his life, it’s certainlynot all work and play for Flatley. In 2007he married his long-time dance partner,Irish native Niamh O’Brien, in a lavishceremony at his Co. Cork mansion,Castlehyde. Flatley bought the historicproperty back in the 1990s and spent mil-lions restoring it to its former grandeur.The following year the couple welcomedtheir son, Michael St. James Flatley.

Michael Junior is the light of hisfather’s life, it’s safe to say. The worldused to center around performing and jet-ting here and there for business, andmany other bachelor pursuits as Flatleyhimself freely admits, but these days it’sall about Michael Junior and Niamh, whohave without a doubt made Flatley’sworld truly complete.

Flatley recently spoke with IrishAmerica about his new film, his careertriumphs, and his plans for the future,which include induction into the maga-zine’s Hall of Fame this month.

“Oh, it’s such an honor for me to berecognized,” he said. “My parents aregoing to be so proud!” Spoken like a son

who has always stayed true to what real-ly matters.

Seeing Lord of the Dance live isamazing enough. But seeing it in3D has to be even more spectac-ular. Was doing a feature film ofthe show always in the back ofyour mind?

I had been approached a few times toput the show on film, but I was neverreally tempted because you can’t get theenergy that you get in the live show, andI didn’t want to dissipate the energy, youknow, or the brand in any way. I didn’twant it to look less than.

But now with these new achievementsin 3D, to me it was a remarkable oppor-tunity to do something great.

I went and took a look at the processand really liked what I saw. So I imag-ined my show and I decided that I wasgoing to film it.

There’s a really great punch off of it.You can feel the energy. To me, I thinkit’s very special.

I saw it for the first time finished in abig theater in London two days ago and Icame out of there buzzing. As you knowI’m my own worst critic. But I think it’s

terrific. The dancers look sensational andthe whole show has a great feel.

Do you think the film is almostlike being at a live show?

Yes it is. You can feel the energy of theaudience. We filmed in London, Dublinand Berlin. It’s a seamless transaction.

I’m thrilled with it. I hope it will givea big shot in the arm to all of us Irish.

How involved were you in thefilmmaking? Film is a new experience for you.

That’s true, but you know me – I wastelling them where to put the cameras,where to shoot the shots. I’m terrible likethat! But I have to be. It’s my little babyand it’s what I worked all my life for. SoI know how it should look. I know howto edit it and I know how to shoot it.

You started dancing again lastyear after a lengthy retirementfrom the stage so you could starin the movie. I can see you danc-ing until you’re 80!

(Laughs) Oh, you know, probably! I’lllook like an old guy, but I’ll still do it!

I really enjoyed coming back. I had agreat time. I really wanted to do some-thing in 3D, and I trained eight monthsfor this.

It’s got to be hard to keep your-self at such a peak physical levelwhen you’re performing.

Well, you can’t do it forever. I’m justblessed to be able to still do it.

Can I jump as high as I used to? Idoubt it. Can I tap as fast? You know,that’s probably debatable. But my heartdoesn’t get any smaller.

Michael Junior must have seenyour live shows and loved them!

Yes, he comes running up to me athalftime and says, “Daddy, go off andbeat up the bad guy!”

Lord of the Dance has been sophenomenally successful for you.

It is. We are so lucky, less than 20 per-cent of our audience has any Irish con-nection now. But our demo is age 5 to 95.It’s all over the place.

IRISHAMERICA’S

Can I jump ashigh as I usedto? I doubt it.Can I tap asfast? You know,that’s probablydebatable. Butmy heart doesn’tget any smaller.



What is it about Lord of theDance and Riverdance that hasmade them such cultural touch-stones?

We are so blessed. I just think the godswere favoring me somehow. The harder weworked for it, the more luck we got.

You know yourself, some of our dancenumbers, they’re 30 seconds long, butyou work on them for hours. It’s not easy,but if you do it right and build it to lastthen it will last.

I think that both of those shows arebuilt to last.

Where are you living these days?I’ve read that you are based inBeverly Hills.

We were in Beverly Hills for a coupleyears, but we really didn’t like it. I’mmore of a New York guy than an LA guy.

Right now we’re living in London –actually we’re splitting our time between

London and Castlehyde, a place whichis heaven on earth. Little Michael rideshis little red tricycle up and down thosehallways. He has more energy than me!

Is Michael Junior showing anyinclination to dance given thoseamazing genes he has?

Yeah, he definitely has movementthere. He’s spinning around the house allthe time. Any time any kind of musiccomes on he’s up on the floor shaking it.I told him, take up something safer likecage fighting!

Where will he go to school?It’s hard to say right now. The big

problem is that I just cannot be awayfrom him. I have to be close to him allthe time and all my offices and business-es are based in London, so he might haveto go to school in London, at least for thefirst two years. We just don’t know.

What do you make of the death ofthe Celtic Tiger Irish economy?

Well, it’s been heartbreaking. Butmoney has never been the god of theIrish race. I don’t think a few rottenbankers are going to keep us down. It’slooking tough now, but we’ve gotten upfrom the canvas many times before.

What is next on your agenda?Your wheels are always turning.

That’s true. A new flute CD should beout by St. Patrick’s Day on iTunes calledOn a Different Note, and that’s kind ofnice. And we’ll be doing lots of promo-tion for the film. I’m counting on all ofthe Irish to come and see it. They won’tbe disappointed!

(Visit www.michaelflatley.com forinformation on advance tickets and

showtimes for Lord of the Dance 3D).

IA



When William J. Flynn was celebrated in aspecial issue of Irish America in 2008, theoutpouring of praise from both sides of theAtlantic was immense. Irish PresidentMary McAleese, Sinn Féin leader Gerry

Adams, deputy First Minister of Northern IrelandMartin McGuinness, Edward Cardinal Egan, GovernorHugh Carey, and many more came forth with words ofgreat appreciation for Flynn and all that he has done.Though certainly impressive and meaningful, none ofthis was all that surprising.

To say that William J. Flynn has embodied theAmerican dream millions of immigrant parents have fortheir children is true – but it also understates all that hehas accomplished. His story is one of determination andcare; of no possibility overlooked and no opportunityabandoned. He has been a leader in business, a catalystfor peace, and he has always been equally committed tohis native country and the land of his ancestors.

The Boy With a CallingOne of four children of Bill Flynn Sr. fromLoughinisland, Co. Down and Anna Connors from out-side Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Flynn grew up in the EastElmhurst section of Queens. His childhood spanned theyears of the Great Depression, but Bill Sr. was fortunateenough to stay employed as a stationary engineer, some-thing the family never took for granted.

At a young age, Flynn felt he had a calling. Afterattending Cathedral High School Preparatory Seminaryin Brooklyn, Flynn went on to the Seminary of theImmaculate Conception in Huntington, Long Island toprepare himself for the priesthood. There he studied the-ology, language and philosophy, but he also came to therealization that the life of a priest was not his path. Hisreal calling lay elsewhere.

It first took him to Fordham University where, havingreceived an expansive education at the Seminary, Flynnwent straight into a master’s program and earned hisdegree in economics. Fascinated by and talented in thefield, he was accepted into a PhD. program and startedteaching high school mathematics in New York City.

The following four years brought many changes to theyoung economics student’s life. In 1949, the Korean Warbegan and Flynn took a break from his studies to enlist inthe Air Force, stationed in Texas and Washington D.C. In

1953, he married his sweetheart Peg Collins, the Bronxborn-and-raised daughter of immigrants from Co. Kerry.The war over, the two newlyweds were soon living onLong Island and starting a family.

The Student Turned BusinessmanWith a wife and children to support, Flynn made thetough decision to leave his doctorate thesis behind andenter the world of business. His first job was with theEquitable Life Assurance Society. There, his back-ground in economics served him in good stead as hequickly discovered his skill in the insurance industry –expertly calculating risk on retirement and long-terminsurance plans and developing the now standard prac-tice of Guaranteed Insurance Contracts (GICs). He rap-idly climbed the ranks, eventually becoming seniorvice president of pension operations.

Flynn’s approach to business was always a humanone. Colleagues called him a fair leader, attuned to thecustomer’s needs and concerns, which allowed him tolook at the industry in ways that eluded others. In his2008 interview with publisher Niall O’Dowd, Flynnoffered his sage, down-to-earth business philosophy,culled from his experience at Equitable: “Greed is thebiggest problem...Look at the recent mortgage crisisand all the Wall Street firms that overextended them-selves. It’s the same mistake over and over…My adviceis, don’t get greedy, help the other guy, and stay in thereal world.”

This approach served him well in his next position:president and CEO of the National Health and WelfareInsurance Company. Under Flynn’s direction, the small,struggling company became Mutual of America, theinsurance giant we know today. One of his finest accom-plishments in this role was to steer Mutual’s attentiontowards the non-profit sector, where it now providespension plans for the employees of more than 15,000charities throughout America. He was also responsiblefor the establishment of the impressive Mutual ofAmerica Building at 320 Park Avenue.

The Humanitarian Flynn was right from the start in thinking that he had acalling, though it didn’t lie with the church, as he firstbelieved. Throughout his professional career, Flynnwas a leader and innovator. But the scope of his influ-

William Flynn A leader in business and a force forprogress in the Northern Ireland peace process.

By Sheila Langan

IRISHAMERICA’S



ence has traveled far beyond the world ofbusiness. The Mutual CEO also used hisposition of power in corporate America asa force for peace, communication andunderstanding in the social and politicalspheres.

With his guidance, Mutual of Americatook on a significant philanthropic role,sponsoring landmark events and discus-sions such as the “First Liberty Summit”in Williamsburg, VA, the subsequent“First Liberty Forum” in New York, andthe international “Anatomy of Hate” con-ferences hosted by the Elie WieselFoundation for Humanity. These eventsbrought Nobel laureates, leading intellec-tuals and involved citizens together forimportant meetings of minds.

Flynn’s personal involvement ran evendeeper. He became a board member of theElie Wiesel Foundation and joined theNational Committee on AmericanForeign Policy (NCAFP). When theNCAFP encountered financial difficultyin the late 80s, Flynn came to the aid ofthe nongovernmental organization.Shortly afterwards, co-founder GeorgeSchwab invited Flynn to assume the posi-tion of chairman, which he accepted andholds to this day.

Having already been party to manyimportant conversations on the religiousand political conflicts in the Middle Eastand South Africa, Flynn was drawn to anddeeply affected by the troubles inNorthern Ireland. As an advocate forhuman rights and peace, the son of twoIrish immigrants couldn’t ignore the vio-lence and discord.

In 1992, Mutual of America sponsoreda conference in Derry, entitled “LivingWith Our Deepest Differences.” At thispoint too, many Irish political leaderswere beginning to consider how IrishAmericans could play a role in the path topeace. In New York, a small group beganforming in response to Bill Clinton’s cam-paign promise that, if elected, he woulddevote attention to Northern Ireland. Itwas decided that in order to be successfulthey would need help from influentialpeople within the Irish American commu-nity. Though he knew that public involve-ment could potentially pose a threat to his

professional reputation and even his per-sonal safety, Flynn became one of theAmericans for a New Irish Agenda(ANIA), a group that included fellow Hallof Fame honoree Chuck Feeney, formercongressman Bruce Morrison and pub-lisher Niall O’Dowd.

In December 1993, the Downing StreetDeclaration granted the people ofNorthern Ireland the right to self-determi-nation – to choose, by their own design,their sovereignty and political status. Inthe wake of this, Bill Flynn strove to facil-itate what he wisely saw as the next vitalstep: communication. With the NCAFP,he decided to organize a conference inNew York that would bring all of themajor players in the conflict together,including Gerry Adams, the head of SinnFéin; John Hume, leader of the SDLP;John Alderdice, head of the AllianceParty; and two Unionist leaders: theReverend Ian Paisley, the leader of theDemocratic Unionist Party, and JamesMolyneaux the head of the UlsterUnionist Party. Nothing like this confer-ence had ever happened before.

It took place at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria on February 1, 1994, attractingattendees, members of the press, and pro-testers from all sides. Though the Unionistleaders did not attend that day, the confer-ence was deemed successful in its aim ofestablishing communication and negotia-

tion as the way forward. BothPaisley and Molyneaux acceptedinvitations to speak at later dates.

The Peace BrokerA large part of Flynn’s efficacywas due to his businesslike, level-headed tactics: The Mutual CEObecame, in a sense, a broker ofnegotiation and peace. He wasinvited, often with other membersof ANIA, to Ireland both northand south for talks with the lead-ers of the various parties – allwith an eye towards working upto a ceasefire.

In August of that year, themembers of the group got wordthat they should return to Irelandfor a meeting with the Sinn Féin

leadership. In Belfast they met again withGerry Adams, who announced to themthat the IRA would soon be declaring acomplete cessation of operations.

In a true testament to Flynn’s non-par-tisanship, six weeks later he was also con-tacted by Gusty Spence and David Ervineof the Loyalist side. It was thus that theCatholic son of a man from NorthernIreland was invited to and present at theannouncement of the Loyalist ceasefire,and was even consulted on its wording.

In the years that followed, Flynnremained an active part of the talks nego-tiations, often flying over to Ireland on amoment’s notice to help facilitate com-munication or smooth things. MartinMcGuinness declared him to be “one ofthe heroes of the peace process.” Theaccolades are many and they continue togrow: Flynn was honored as GrandMarshal of the New York City St.Patrick’s Day Parade in 1996, he holdsseven honorary degrees from prestigiouscolleges and universities, and is thenamesake of the recently launchedWilliam J. Flynn Center for Irish Studiesat the University of St. Thomas. In addi-tion, the businessman and peacemakerhas also been a loving husband, fatherand grandfather. Flynn’s calling wasn’tconfined to one area or institution;rather, he has been a leader in so manyways.

IRISHAMERICA’S

1996: GrandMarshal of the St. Patrick’s DayParade, New York City.

IA


Dunbrody supplement Feb 2011 revA.indd 1 03/03/2011 12:58

Ten years is a long time in the life of a famine ship. Over the last decade 750,000 people from all around the world have trodden the deck of the Dunbrody, a replica of a ship that transported thousands of emigrants from Ireland to North America in the 1800s. These visitors experienced authentic accounts of emigrants’ experiences, but they had an insatiable appetite for more information.

We decided to meet this real desire for knowledge and understanding with a more contextualised story of emigration in the 19th century. The resulting USD $3.4m (€2.5m) Irish Emigration History Centre at the Dunbrody Famine Ship in New Ross, Ireland, opening in June 2011, will include an exhibition centre with displays based on new research, a complete fit-out of the ship itself, a Hall of Fame and a well-equipped study area. The Centre will appeal to people who want to trace the footsteps of their ancestors, those curious about where great Irish Americans started their journey and people who want to understand more about an important part of both Ireland’s and America’s history.

On the River Barrow in New Ross, Ireland’s only inland port, the Dunbrody is moored to a riverbank that has seen a wealth of history. It was from this point that US President John F. Kennedy’s ancestors embarked on their journey for America. Over a century later in the 1960s, President Kennedy visited the townand gave an inspirational speech on the quayside, close to where the Dunbrody is now docked. This quayside is an example of the cyclical nature of our economies and our lives. In fact, as Irish people continue to turn to other countries to pursue careers, emigration is still a live topic.

Through emigration, Ireland and America remain inextricably linked and there will be new generations of Irish Americans. When our emigrants return we’d like to see them bringing visitors with them to Dunbrody’s Irish Emigration History Centre and the accompanying Irish America Hall of Fame.

American playwright Eugene O’Neill was descended from James O’Neill who left Ireland on the Dunbrody in 1852 and settled in New London, Connecticut, home to the Coast Guard Academy. In 2011 the US Coast Guard’s Tall Ship Eagle will visit the Waterford Estuary, and sail along the same waters as the Dunbrody. Members of the crew are to pay a visit to the O’Neill ancestral home in nearby south County Kilkenny.

Positive experiences like these may be woven into the tradition of Irish American philanthropists and influencers who have supported initiatives in Ireland. The cycle doesn’t stop. Take for example Donald Keough, whose ancestor came from County Wexford. In 2009 this ancestral link was evident when Mr Keough, former President and Director of Coca-Cola announced a USD $300 million investment and the creation of more than 100 jobs in a plant outside Wexford town.

The Irish Emigration History Centre at the Dunbrody Famine Ship

Ireland will continue to recognise the good work of these people. Irish Americans have done a lot for Ireland, and these people, such as Jean Kennedy Smith, former US Ambassador to Ireland, who performed the launching ceremony of the Dunbrody, will be permanently recognised in the Irish American Hall of Fame at the Dunbrody Famine Ship.

As this recognition continues along with our aim to improve the visitor experience and understanding of an important period in history, so does our need to continue the good work through fundraising and getting the word out. We would love to hear from you.

Sean Reidy CEO Dunbrody Famine Ship [email protected] www.dunbrody.com


‘I shall be there with my chests’

At the heart of the research is the archive of Graves & Sons, the New Ross shipping firm which built the original Dunbrody. The six metal boxes of documents dating from the 1840s sat forgotten in a warehouse for almost a century until they were handed to the Trust in the 1990s. Today the archive is held by the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin, a time capsule of an incredibly significant period in Ireland’s history and a goldmine of information, stories and period detail.Roughly sorted into bundles according to ship and date by an unknown clerk

working for Graves & Sons, the archives contain letters written by the ships’ captains to Graves, letters from prospective passengers seeking travel information, negotiations with agents, copies of crew agreements, receipts for supplies – in short, all the ‘behind the scenes’ backroom administration necessary for the smooth running of a successful shipping business.

There are many letters from Captain John Williams. Just 27 when he took over theDunbrody in 1848, he was to be her captain for the next 20 years. He wrote hundreds of letters from the ship to his employer, reporting on the weather: ‘very wild’; the crew: ‘all well and hearty’; fishing for cod and sharks: ‘useful for fresh messes’ and the state of the cargo: ‘a little damaged on top’. Williams seems genuinely to have cared about his passengers. Arriving in Quebec after a stormy passage he wrote: ‘The poor passengers were greatly frightened. They thought they should never see the land again.’ In 1847 on another Graves ship, the Aberfoyle, when passengers fell ill he nursed them himself, reorganising the ship to create a hospital area and improve ventilation. This is a far cry from the brutal captains that we thought we knew. We start seeing the Dunbrody as less of a ‘coffin ship’, and more a ‘cradle of opportunity’.

Too often has the difficult and emotive subject of emigration from Ireland been painted using only the broad brush-strokes of secondary sources. Original sources for the Dunbrody were known to exist, but their historical depth and context had been only partially explored. Would a case study focusing on a single vessel – even a single journey – hold enough interest or add to our understanding of these difficult issues?

The interpretation team began with a detailed review of all available Dunbrody-related sources, striving to reveal the experiences of those who travelled or worked on the Dunbrody. As you read this article we hope that something of the wider value and ambition of the project may become apparent.

Back to the source

The principle behind the exhibition is that every element of the visitor experience is grounded in research. Every character the visitors encounter, hear or read about is based on a real person of the period; every story is rooted in a genuine source from the past. And as far as possible, these sources originate with the Dunbrody.

An advertisement for the Dunbrody, Wexford Independent, March 1849 (Wexford County Council Public Library Service Collection)

In 2001 the JFK Trust launched its replica 19th-century three-masted ship – the Dunbrody. Since then visitors have enjoyed first-hand encounters with a real ship, learnt from engagement with live interpreters and connected with the passenger experience. So when the time came for a major refurbishment of the Dunbrody and visitor centre – to re-open this year – the decision to enrich the existing approach by emphasising the unique story of the Dunbrody was an easy one. But could it really be done?

The Dunbrody Project

Dr Mike SpearmanElspeth MackayCMC Associates


‘I had myself a pleasant voyage’

A few letters from emigrants can be found in the Graves archive. W. O’Connor writes to Graves from New York in 1849, calling for his wife and six children to join him, and commenting on his ‘pleasant voyage last spring in your good ship the Dunbrody’. He gives no details of his new life, nor how he is making a living: these remain a mystery.

An additional mystery is that the only W. O’Connor to appear on the Dunbrody passenger list for spring 1849 is aged just 18; rather too young to be father of six …did someone record his age wrongly? Did he change his name? Like so much of the material, this letter raises more questions than it answers.

In August 2010 Pat Gorman, a third-generation Irish-American living in Dixon, Illinois, contacted us. According to family history, Ann Morrissey, the wife of Pat’s great-great-uncle had travelled out on the Dunbrody in 1849. Sure enough, Ann is there on the passenger list, together with her younger brother. And, purely coincidentally, Ann is mentioned in a letter in the Graves archive, dated March 1849: ‘One passenger Anne Morrissey deposit paid of 20/ (bal. £3.7.0) she will pay you when they find themselves in Ross. They

Letter from Nick White, March 1849 (Graves Archive)

‘They all expressed their gratitude’

Material held in other archives helped us to flesh out the story of emigration further. The record books of the Gorey workhouse hold the story of ‘female paupers’ who travelled on the Dunbrody in 1855. We traced their story. On 5th April, the names of 35 women are listed who have been ‘selected’ to be sent to North America from the workhouse, most aged between 17 and 20. Sadly, we hear nothing from the emigrants themselves – whether this was regarded as an opportunity or a great blow. Then follows a series of updates on various issues: clothing for the emigrants, the costs of travel to the port and ultimately for their passage across the Atlantic. We learn that they are to be provided with supplies for the journey, including ‘30lbs of salt meat or fish, vegetables consisting of Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots or Turnips, Bedding, Saucepans, Drinking Vessel, Knife, Fork, Plate, Spoon’. Finally, on 21 July we hear about the women’s arrival in New Ross:

[the Master] left the workhouse with the assistant schoolmistress, 43 adult women and 9 children Emigrants to see them on Board the ‘Dunbrody’ vessel bound to Quebec. He gave each of them on leaving 2lbs of white bread. On their arrival in Ross Mr Higginbotham (clerk) and Mr Thomas Harvey Emigrant agent in Gorey had all their beds ready in the Ship where they slept those nights. He had to give them their breakfast of bread and tea next morning as the cooking apparatus was not ready. They all expressed their Gratitude in tears to the guardians for their kindness. Their conduct and appearance was the admiration of every person that saw them.

What happened to these women on their arrival? Here the trail goes cold. And this leads us to one of the big challenges of the project: to trace the story of the Dunbrody’s emigrants once they stepped off that gangplank into their new lives.

Letters from prospective passengers reveal the multitude of reasons for emigration. Many were professional people, such as engineer James Little, who wished to ‘try his fortune’ in America. Others were ‘poor but respectable’, sponsored by wealthier patrons. About other passengers we know tantalisingly little. ‘Send me the day. I shall be in New Ross with my chests’, wrote Nick White. Who was he? Where was he off to with his chests and why? Did he ever get there?

Letter from Captain Williams, April 1849 (Graves Archive)

Letter from W O’Connor, December 1849 (Graves Archive)

prefer going to see for themselves’. From this one line we get a picture of Ann as an independent young woman who wants to check out the ship before handing over full payment.

Ann settled in Peoria, Illinois where she married another Irish immigrant and died a wealthy lady, the owner of several properties. Pat was able to supply us with striking pictures of Ann taken in the 1870s – and we have our first Dunbrody emigrant story.

There remain other significant gaps in our knowledge. We have many names of passengers, both steerage and cabin class, but have no first hand accounts of their journey written by any of them. We know the names of many crew-members of theDunbrody but we have no accounts written by them; no diaries, no reports, no letters. Details which bring these men even slightly into focus are therefore very precious; we learn from one of Williams’ letters that two crew members ‘deserted during the night’ – and later we learn, perhaps to our surprise, that one of these men was black.

For the sake of the exhibition, we have turned to other accounts from other sources to fill these gaps, written around the same time and as relevant as possible. But our plans are developing within the Dunbrody project for further research. We hope, for instance, to dig deeper into the American side of the stories of the Dunbrody passengers, to follow up in American archives the 176 names of that one passenger list of 1849.

Often we have used personal accounts as the basis of audio dramatisations. Many of the letters or documents speak for themselves and simply need a good voice to breathe life into them. In other cases we have been more creative. We know that a young professional, Willy Mason, wanted to work his passage to Canada, and was offered a place on the Dunbrody in 1849. We don’t know if he took up the position, but in audio on the ship, we learn about the baffling workings of the ship through his eyes.

We have been fortunate to have worked with a highly skilled band of local actors under local director Milo Walsh; their expertise and knowledge of local accents has contributed hugely to the authenticity of the dramatisations. Local band ‘Barrowside’ and friends have created the musical soundtrack to the exhibition; alongside studio-quality performances, we have aimed to recreate the atmosphere of informal musicians playing together on the passenger deck.

We hope that this authenticity will shine through, creating a rich and sometimes challenging experience for visitors. So ingrained is the belief that all ship’s captains were uncaring, exploitative monsters – and undoubtedly many were – that we are expecting some resistance to our presentation of Captain Williams as a good man – which he undoubtedly was. We hope that looking at the original sources will expand visitors’ views of the emigration experience, and by focusing on the Dunbrody we aim to add another layer to the story.

What stories, what people, what descendants might emerge? If and when funding becomes available, this would be a worthy research project and legacy of the ship. In the meantime, should any readers have any historical connections with the passengers of the Dunbrody, then we urge you to contact us.

Making the most of the sources

The Dunbrody project is much more than a research project. The exhibition is above all a visitor centre, and visitors are not noted for reading ‘books on the wall’. The true challenge is to turn the rich and varied fruits of our research into engaging and satisfying content for our visitors.

In some cases this can mean simply reproducing archive material as facsimiles, sharing the immediacy of the handwriting from the past. The 1849 passenger list of 176 names, for example, is a uniquely evocative document that needs little interpretation. Visitors feel a direct connection with familiar names, even at a distance of 150 years.

Elsewhere we have taken the content of archive material and redesigned it to make it more accessible to visitors and to increase its impact. From an official list of 24 rules for passengers on board the ship, for example, we are planning to select just a few and paint them up as full sized signs to be hung about the passenger deck – Rule 22: Swords and other offensive weapons to be placed in the custody of the Master.

Ann Morrissey, now Mrs Gorman, in the 1870s (Patrick Gorman)

Recording the audio (CMC Associates)


The Dunbrody for visitors

The transition from content research to visitor experience has been a careful and interactive process. Some visitors will bring knowledge; others will bring prejudice. Many will simply be looking to be entertained. All must be engaged and quite literally brought on board.

Key to this process is the gradual immersion of the visitor in the journey. Visitors become ‘observers’. On the reconstructed quayside, ‘observers’ become ‘participants’. Then on leaving the ship the new ‘emigrants’ return to the centre and gain a sense ofperspective and scale on this mass-migration. We establish this illusion through creating a theatre of set reconstruction, audio engagement with the voices of the past and a seamless interaction with live re-enactors. As in all the best plays the exhibition is divided into three acts: Departures, Journey and Arrivals.

Entering Departures visitors are introduced to the story of the historic ship – the original Dunbrody. Moving down a corridor lined with wooden beams and sailcloth, visitors discover the range of emigrant motivations. Here we meet Ann Morrissey for the first time, the 25-year-old housekeeper from Glenmore. We discover how the business of Graves & Sons positioned itself to make the most of the demand for high-quality emigrant ships, and gradually built up a reputation for – relative – comfort and safety.

From this broad picture of mass emigration, the exhibition gradually homes in on one ship and one journey: the Dunbrody’s journey to New York in April 1849, the one journey for which a full passenger list survives. In the lively, bustling Port area, the visitor steps back in time and on to the quayside of New Ross, ready to make a one-way trip to America, making the move from 21st century observer to 19th century participant.

As visitors peer into William Graves’ office they overhear Ann Morrissey paying the

Port

Embarkation

Live interpretation


balance of her fares. Opening baggage reveals possessions taken on board by emigrants and triggers their stories, their hopes for their new lives. Smells of tar and paint drift over the quay. We witness tearful departure scenes as families are separated – and share in the excitement of the adventure of young travellers.

Exhibition tickets are exchanged for boarding passes and visitors join the throng of emigrants gathering in the Embarkation area. Here visitors are confronted with the emotional tug of departure. An audiovisual presentation reveals farewell rituals and taps into emigrant fears. Into this zone strides the Purser, who takes control and briefs travellers about the journey ahead. He is the first of our ‘live interpreters’: talented actors well-versed in the period and, just as importantly, skilled in interacting with visitors. Hauling back a curtain, he reveals the Dunbrody for the first time. Visitors pass a cursory medical check, leave the comfort of the known world, and step aboard.

The next section of the exhibition, Journey, takes place entirely on board the ship. On deck we encounter the cook preparing meals for the crew; below, in the gloomy steerage accommodation area we meet

‘passengers’ who engage us in conversation, freely sharing their opinions and experiences of the journey. Other emigrants are overheard discussing plans for the future, and we see how tensions can mount in this overcrowded space. Arguments break out, babies cry, jokes are cracked and over in the corner a musical session seems to be gathering pace.

Close by is the crew’s quarters, the captain’s cabin and the altogether plusher accommodation for the ‘cabin’ passengers. One area is given over to a selection of the cargo which the Dunbrody carried on her return journeys from America, the other half of the ship’s story.

Eventually we step ashore into Arrivals, the world of mid-19th-century North America. Visitors witness heartrending tales of the tragedy at the quarantine station of Grosse Ile, and see how their fellow emigrants sink or swim in their new environment. Drawing back a little from the past, an audio-visual display emphasises the variety of the Irish-American experience as emigrants set to work finding jobs, making homes and building communities. One final display in this main exhibition area concludes the story of the original Dunbrody with her shipwreck in 1875.

The Dunbrody Hall of Fame

Moving upstairs the tone changes. We return to the 21st century to consider the legacy of the Dunbrody and the enduring impact of Ireland’s emigrants on American culture. At the heart of this exhibition area is the Hall of Fame. Here visitors honour the Irish-Americans who have made significant contributions to our world: the Kennedy dynasty, Henry Ford, Georgia O’Keeffe, Eugene O’Neill, James Watson, Grace Kelly…

Ceremonies are planned to inaugurate new additions to the Hall of Fame on a regular basis, to highlight the achievements of significant Irish-Americans of today – business people, scientists, philanthropists and cultural figures. We are already shortlisting for our first new ‘intake’ – and competition is stiff! The Hall of Fame emphasises that the links between Ireland and America remain vibrant, and that Irish-Americans continue to enhance all aspects of our world.

Whilst respecting these celebrities, we must not forget the humbler contributions of ordinary Irish men and women who had the courage to leave their homes and the strength to establish new lives overseas.

Arrival Hall of Fame


Our community exhibition invites local groups to share their own family links with America and Canada, and present their stories in a regularly changing display. In a study area, visitors can access the Irish America Database and other genealogy websites to take the first steps to exploring their own family history.

From this first floor, visitors can enjoy elevated views of the Dunbrody over the River Barrow from a balcony area. An audio-visual display tells the remarkable story of the construction of the replica ship and of her voyages.

Conclusion

As the team works round the clock to put the finishing touches to the ship and exhibition, we recognise that this is just another chapter in the story of emigration from New Ross. We have big plans for the future: continuing the research into the Dunbrody, her sister ships and the stories of her passengers, developing the community history of emigration from the Wexford area, and establishing the Irish Emigration History Centre here in New Ross. There is much to do. We look forward to welcoming you on board.

The Team:- CMC Associates- Studio SP- Paragon- Zolk C Limited- New Ross Boat Yard- Falk Andraschko- The Dunbrody Staff- Peter Southern- Minihan Crane Architects- Malone O’Regan Consulting Engineers- Ronan Meally- Clancy Construction

We would also like to thank the following individuals and groups for their contributions:- Patrick Fitzgerald and Brian Lambkin of the Centre for Migration Studies, Omagh- Aude Bates (original researcher)- Anne Finn (researcher)- Milo Walsh and the New Ross Drama Group- Dave and Helen Howard of Kilcullen Studios- ‘Barrowside’ musicians: Bob Van Son, Ollie Grace, Jack Stacey, Yvonne Stacey, Sean Reidy, with Bob Walshe, Eddie Doyle and Hazel Cloney- Grainne Doran, Archivist (Wexford County Council)- Patrick Gorman (descendant of Ann Morrissey, emigrant)- Derek Hill (descendant of Thomas Hamilton Oliver – ship builder)- Many others too numerous to mention

Project Funders:- Failte Ireland (Irish National Development Plan)- Wexford County Council- New Ross Town Council- JFK Trust

Belfast

Dublin

New Ross

[email protected] • www.dunbrody.com


Denis Kelleher The Irish immigrantwho became a titan of Wall Street.

By April Drew

Denis Kelleher, the son of a shoe-maker, immigrated to NewYork in 1958, at age 18, with$1.50 in his pocket. He was insearch of a better life and deter-

mined to provide for his widowed motherback home.

In a matter of days the bright young

Kerry man charmed his way into a job inMerrill Lynch. In less than a month hewent from messenger boy to payroll clerk.

Kelleher had excelled in math, eco-nomics and accounting at St. Brendan’s inKillarney and, determined to continue hiseducation, he enrolled in St. John’sUniversity at night as he worked his way


Denis Kelleher and his son Sean atthe Wall Street Access office.



up the ladder at Merrill Lynch.Although it’s over half a century since

Kelleher landed in New York, he stillremembers how awestruck he was by thecity. “It was early in the morning and allI remember is thinking how beautiful thecity was. The sun was glistening off thesnow on the ground and on the rooftops.It was magical,” he recalls as he brieflyglances out the 11th floor window of hisWall Street office, which overlooks theHudson River.

He first settled in Brooklyn with helpfrom an uncle who had emigrated beforehim. After some time there, he moved tothe Bronx where he enjoyed an Irishscene that felt “just like home.” Afterestablishing himself in a house withfriends, he rolled up his sleeves andbegan his quest to become successful.

But he was soon asked by the U.S.military to put the pause button on hisaccelerating career. Kelleher spent fiveplus years serving in the Army at FortKnox, Kentucky.

He returned to New York when histime was served and continued his careertrack in the financial industry. He servedin various high level positions, includinga stint as president of Ruane Cunniff &Co., Inc. and as vice president and treas-urer of the Sequoia Fund.

Kelleher says there is no big secretbehind his achievements and happiness.“I’ve always had the motto: dream big,work hard, learn constantly and have funwhile doing so,” he says.

In 1981, he founded his own firm,Wall Street Access, and some 30 yearslater, he continues, as chairman andCEO, to provide the vision for the firm,which specializes in institutionalresearch, trading and money manage-ment.

One would expect the office of such ahighly successful Wall Street executiveto be adorned with finance books andvarious accolades, but portraits of familyand friends, and pictures of Ireland pro-vide warmth and atmosphere.

Kelleher, too, is warm and welcoming.Though he is reluctant to talk about him-self, he mentions his family at everyopportunity. “Family is very important to

me,” he admits. He credits his wifeCarol, his three children (two of whomwork in the firm) and eight grandchildrenas the driving forces behind his persever-ance.

“I enjoy what I do, but they keep memotivated,” he says.

When times were tough in his indus-try, Kelleher met any challenges head onand did the best for his clients. “I’vealways had the attitude that in a cyclicalbusiness like this you must save for thebad days,” he says.

He also believes strongly in helpingothers. In an effort to pass on his goodfortune, he and wife, Carol, set up anorganization called the Good DeedsFoundation. One recent endeavor was toestablish a middle charter school forMexican children living on Staten Island.He and Carol are also committed to fund-ing suicide prevention efforts in ruralIreland. And, although he keeps it quiet,Kelleher was instrumental in workingbehind the scenes in advancing theNorthern Ireland Peace Process.

“I’ve been fortunate in my life so it’simportant for me to give back to those inneed. But I couldn’t do it without Carol,”he says. He speaks movingly of the com-panionship she has shown him throughthe years and her dedication to the vari-

ous charities and trusts they havefounded together.

Kelleher experienced the pain ofemigration early in life whenhis father had to leave the fam-

ily for short periods of time to workin England.

“He couldn’t get leather [for hisshoe-making business] in Ireland dur-ing the war so he went to England andran a factory,” Kelleher recalls.“Times were very tough back then,Ireland was a third world country, butwe got through it because my dadwas a great man.” He adds that with-out fail his father sent a check homeevery two weeks to feed the familyand keep them well.

He is very much in touch with thecurrent economic situation in Irelandand the fact that many young people

are once again facing emigration. Hecautions those who may be relocating toAmerican shores not to be “arrogant”and to enjoy what they do. “Anyone whoenjoys what they do and perseveres at itwill be very successful, whatever theodds,” he says.

When not working, Kelleher tries hishand at golf. He is well read and he andhis wife enjoy attending the theater.

He also keeps himself busy with vari-ous boards. He is the director of TheNew Ireland Fund, a member of theboard of trustees of the MetropolitanMuseum of Art and a member of theStaten Island Foundation. He serves onthe board of trustees of St. John’sUniversity, and served as the board’schairman for eight years. In 1995, he wasrecognized with the Ellis Island Medal ofHonor and in 2005 he led the New YorkSt. Patrick’s Day Parade up Fifth Avenueserving as the Grand Marshal. He washonored by this magazine as one of theWall Street 50, and Business 100 and isincluded in the book Greatest Americansof the 20th Century, compiled by IrishAmerica editor by Patricia Harty.

Although he is a few years past thestandard retiring age, Kelleher said he isgoing nowhere fast. “I’ll retire 10 yearsafter I’m dead,” he laughs.

IRISHAMERICA’S

First HolyCommunion:

Denis andhis cousin

Maura.

IA


The family of Wall Street Access proudly

congratulates their founder, Denis Kelleher and

all of the other 2011 Hall of Fame Inductees.

UST-WSA 3/4/11 11:54 AM Page 1


IRISHAMERICA’S

Jean Kennedy Smith Activist, humanitarian, diplomat.

By Kristin Romano

Often referred to as the shyKennedy, Jean KennedySmith has quietly blazedher own trail while stillholding true to the family

legacy of public service. The last of theKennedy siblings still living, KennedySmith has devoted her life to advocat-ing for the disabled and workingtowards peace in Northern Ireland.

Early LifeJean Ann Kennedy was born onFebruary 20, 1928 in Brookline, MA,the eighth of the nine children born toJoseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. and RoseFitzgerald Kennedy. Her siblings wereJoseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. (1915-1944), John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963), Rosemary Kennedy (1918-2005), Kathleen Agnes Kennedy (1920-1948), Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver(1921-2009), Patricia Helen KennedyLawford (1924-2006), Robert FrancesKennedy (1925-1968) and EdwardMoore Kennedy (1932-2009). She waseducated at a variety of Sacred Heartschools, both in the United States andEngland, where her father served as theUS Ambassador from 1938 to 1940.

During World War II, Smith’s eldestbrothers, Joseph and John, served inthe Navy as an aviator and PT boatcommander, respectively. AfterJoseph’s death in 1944 during a flightmission, she was chosen to christen theUSS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a Navydestroyer named after her brother. In1948, her older sister Kathleen waskilled in a plane crash.

Jean attended ManhattanvilleCollege, at the time a Sacred Heartschool and the alma mater of both hermother Rose and sister Eunice, gradu-ating with a degree in English in 1949.While there she met and becamefriends with her future sister-in-law,Ethel Skakel, who married BobbyKennedy in 1950.

On May 19, 1956, she marriedStephen Edward Smith in SaintPatrick’s Cathedral in New York City,where the couple eventually settled.The Smiths had four children: StephenEdward Jr. in 1957, William Kennedyin 1960, Amanda Mary in 1967 (adopt-ed) and Kym Maria in 1972 (adoptedfrom Vietnam). They remained mar-ried until Stephen’s death from lungcancer in 1990.

On the Campaign Trail In addition to their legacy of publicservice, the Kennedys are known asbeing a close family who work togeth-er – the most well-known example isprobably Robert Kennedy’s term asAttorney General during JFK’s presi-dency. Jean worked on her brotherJohn’s political campaigns, startingwith his 1946 Congressional run foroffice. In 1960, with the rest of thefamily, she traveled across the country:going door to door, talking to voters,answering their questions and gather-ing support for her brother’s cam-paign. In September, she left the cam-paign trail – her second child was dueand born later that month. Two monthslater, JFK was elected president by oneof the slimmest margins in history. Intelling her campaign trail stories,Kennedy Smith recently recalled beingasked to lend Jacqueline Kennedy amaternity coat for the officialannouncement that Kennedy had beenelected president.

Her brother’s presidency wouldhave a great impact on her life.Kennedy Smith, as well as her sisterEunice, traveled with JFK when hemade his historic trip to Ireland in1963. Together the three siblings visit-ed Dunganstown in County Wexford,the place their great-grandfather camefrom. Later that year, PresidentKennedy was killed by an assassin’sbullet in Dallas.

Five years later, Sen. RobertKennedy was running for president, andKennedy Smith and her husband helpedto run the campaign. They were at theAmbassador Hotel in Los Angeleswhen Bobby was assassinated there.

Advocate for theDisabledIn 1964, Kennedy Smith was named atrustee of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.Foundation, a non-profit organizationfounded in her brother’s memory andcurrently devoted to improving thelives of the intellectually disabled.That same year, she was named to theBoard of Trustees of the KennedyCenter for the Performing Arts, a posi-tion she has been named to by everyPresident since. In 1974, KennedySmith founded Very Special Arts, nowknown as VSA. Associated with theKennedy Center, the organization isdevoted to creating “a society wherepeople with disabilities learn through,participate in, and enjoy the arts.”VSA is an international organization,working with 52 international affiliatesas well as a network of affiliates in theUnites States. A major influence andmotivation in Kennedy Smith’s workwith the disabled was her older sisterRosemary, who was developmentallydisabled from birth.

Ambassador to IrelandIn 1993, President Bill Clinton ap-pointed Kennedy Smith the U.S.Ambassador to Ireland. It was athrilling honor and achievement formany reasons – particularly because itgranted her a direct, active role in poli-tics and made her and her father, JosephSr., the first father and daughter to serveas U.S. ambassadors. Additionally, asshe stated in a previous interview withIrish America, “Next to President of theUnited States, Ambassador to Ireland issurely one of the best jobs an Irish



American can hold.”Kennedy Smith was appointed ambas-

sador at a crucial moment in theNorthern Ireland Peace Process. Fightingand conflict had been frequent, but signsof change were apparent. In September1993, John Hume and Gerry Adamsissued a joint statement outlining theHume/Adams Initiative, the goal ofwhich was the creation of a peaceprocess. Crucially, the IRA welcomedthe initiative. The next important stepwould be the issuing of a U.S. visa toSinn Féin President Gerry Adams.Kennedy Smith would play a crucial rolein this task.

Since the outbreak of the Troubles in1969, the U.S. government had refusedto grant a visa to Adams, whom theyconsidered to be a terrorist. In earlyJanuary 1994, Adams again applied for avisa. However, he presented himself tothe U.S. Embassy in Dublin instead ofthe U.S. Consulate in Belfast. It was acrucial moment in Kennedy Smith’sambassadorship. Having paid closeattention to the events in the North sinceher arrival in Ireland, and having trav-eled there several times, Kennedy Smithbelieved that Adams and Sinn Féin wereserious about the peace process. Ever thediplomat, before making any decisionshe contacted Taoiseach AlbertReynolds, who favored the granting ofthe visa. Then, she consulted with herbrother Senator Ted Kennedy. He alsogot on board. Shortly after that, Humealso gave his support for the visa.Kennedy Smith made her decision: shesent a cable to Washington recommend-ing that the visa be granted.

The U.S. government had a lot to con-sider before granting the request.Foremost was the “special relationship”between the U.S. and Britain. Yet,President Clinton had made a campaignpromise to grant Adams a visa, and theIrish American lobby was pushing for it.The British government vehementlyworked to block the visa. Everythingcame down to the wire. Finally, onJanuary 29, 1994, President Clintonordered the visa be granted. Two dayslater, Adams entered the U.S. and made

an appearance on Larry King Live. Theworldwide censorship of Adams andSinn Féin was over.

Six months later, Kennedy Smith wasfaced with another important visa issue,this time with an IRA ceasefire hangingin the balance. Sinn Féin wanted to sendJoe Cahill to America to talk with theirsupporters in the U.S. Cahill was 74 andhad fought the British for most of hislife. The IRA made a condition of theirceasefire the granting of a visa to Cahill.Kennedy Smith and Reynolds workedhard to convince the U.S. government togrant the visa. The president agreed andCahill entered the U.S. The day after, onAugust 31, the IRA declared a ceasefire.

Throughout the remainder of her tenureas ambassador, Kennedy Smith played animportant role in the peace process. InSeptember 1998, seven months after thehistoric Good Friday Agreement, sheresigned as ambassador. The late historianand Pulitzer Prize winning author ArthurSchlesinger said of Kennedy Smith, “Jeanmay well be the best politician of all theKennedy’s, but she needed this position toreally show that.”

Recent YearsKennedy Smith has always kept a lowerprofile in comparison to her siblings. Now83, she rarely gives interviews, thoughshe did give one to ABC News in January,on the 50th Anniversary of her brother’spresidential inauguration.

As ever, family is still a priority. InAugust 2009, Kennedy Smith chose tomiss her sister Eunice’s funeral to stay byEdward Kennedy’s side as he was dyingof cancer. Now, though she is the last ofthe nine Kennedy siblings, she does notdwell on that, focusing instead on the hereand now.

Since leaving diplomatic service, JeanKennedy Smith has received numerousaccolades for her work to bring peace toNorthern Ireland and for her work withthe disabled. The government of theRepublic of Ireland granted her honorarycitizenship in 1998. She has received hon-orary degrees from multiple institutions.Most recently, Kennedy Smith wasawarded the Presidential Medal ofFreedom by President Barack Obama forboth her diplomatic service and herhumanitarian efforts.

IRISHAMERICA’S

Jean KennedySmith and

Gerry Adams onthe occasion of

Smith beinghonored as IrishAmerican of the

Year in 1995.

IA



James Watson helped unravelthe structure of DNA, a featso stunning that it is consid-ered the greatest scientificachievement of the 20th cen-

tury. A Nobel Prize winner as aresult, Dr. Watson is deeply proudof his Irish heritage and is “verypleased” to be inducted into theIrish America Hall of Fame onMarch 15th.

Next up for Watson is a cure forcancer, and he believes he onceagain holds the key to that extraor-dinary breakthrough. And who candoubt him? At 82, he is as commit-ted and hardworking a scientist asever.

He spoke to me from the ColdSpring Harbor Laboratory in LongIsland, New York.

Tell me about your Irish heritage.

I’m a quarter Irish through mygrandmother Elizabeth Gleesonwho was born in 1861. Her parentscame here from Ireland, I believeit was Tipperary, around 1847 or48 and went to Ohio for 10 yearsand farmed there and then movedto a farm six miles south ofMichigan City, Indiana. It’s adecent farm which I believe theymaintained through the 1930s.

You’ve been to Ireland many times, right?Oh yes, I have accepted degrees from Trinity College

and Limerick and Cork universities. I was there lastSeptember. I’m deeply proud of my Irish heritage.

I was amazed to read that in 1953 when youpresented the paper on DNA, the major mediabarely covered it. It is now considered by mostexperts the greatest scientific breakthrough ofthe 20th century.

They didn’t cover it at all. Time magazine was going torun a story and photographs were taken, so we have pho-tographs, otherwise we wouldn’t have anything. But Timenever ran the article.

And then there was a very short notice in the News

Chronicle, another paper at that time, which came outmaybe in early June [1953]. In genetics, the discovery wasthought very important but it didn’t have much impact onthe way biology was done until about five years later, andthen there were some experiments which sort of con-firmed our main hypothesis that the strands would sepa-rate and that was through an experiment done in 1958. ButI would say, it wasn’t until the early sixties when thegenetic code was being worked out that people began totake it seriously.

I wrote the first work about why DNA was so importantand that came out in 1965 to mark the biology of the gene.

When you made the discovery, or co-shared thediscovery with Francis Crick, were you awarethat this was a Nobel Prize-winning feat?

James WatsonHe helped map the structure of DNA. Next up is a cure for cancer.

By Niall O’Dowd



IRISHAMERICA’S

Yes. I mean it was so obvious. I wouldsay in less than a minute we knew that itwas more than big. I didn’t jump up andsay, “We’ll get a Nobel Prize,” but it waspretty obvious to us that it was a bigbreakthrough. But the majority of peoplein science weren’t interested in how thegenetic chromosomes and sources ofinformation worked. It was a new way ofthinking. The first person from the out-side who saw the information [as a]breakthrough was the great Russian-bornphysicist George Gamow, who wrote aletter about it in June, 1953.

Amazing when you consider that today everybody talks about DNA.

DNA is sort of everywhere now ineveryday life. People are always won-dering about [the question of] Nature orNurture, and what we can learn from ourhereditary genes.

What’s the answer?We don’t know but we should and I

think we will. And I think knowledge ofDNA will eventually encompass allmedical knowledge about it, but it willprobably take years.

The thing now is to learn the influencethat DNA has on your medical history –we still know very little. When we doknow it will be a huge breakthrough forour medical treatments. And this will bea huge, huge issue when doctors becomeliterate and able to explain and decipherit.

I had my entire genome traced but ithasn’t affected me at all, because wedon’t know how to interpret that heredi-tary information yet. So when we learnthat, it will be a massive breakthrough.So now you have the map, but you’re notquite sure where it all leads or what itmeans.

In an immediate sense, medicalrecords have to be digitized because ifyou ask most people “do you have yourmedical records since birth?” the answeris “no.” You probably have them withyour current doctor and before that yourprevious doctor. But [earlier than that]they’re effectively lost.

A lot of your work now is on can-cer. How do you see that going?

My main interest now is curing cancer.I think we just might pull it off over thenext ten years. I’m sure we can curemost major cancers. We are hopeful nowabout [curing] a totally incurableleukemia. We think we know how tocure it. So I think we want to go aheadunder the assumption we’re going tocure [cancer] over the next 10 years, notover the next 30. You generally hearfrom people that it’s 10 to 20 years away,whereas when I was in California tryingto raise money for [research into] pan-creatic and prostate cancer, I was saying,maybe we can cure [these diseases] in 10years. But we have to work differently. Iwanted a million dollars to do prelimi-nary experiments on both the cancersbased on the assumption we’re going tocure it in 10 years.

How do you think that will happen?

Well, because the thing we neverthought of [before] is that cancer is a sortof failure of differentiation. You know,you have a blood cell, but you don’tmake the products of the blood cell and

if you converted a cancer cell back into adifferentiated cell, that cell would liveforever, it wouldn’t modify, and youwouldn’t have cancer. We think we’vedone this for leukemia. And I want to tryit for melanoma. So, we’ll see!

That is incredibly exciting.Oh it is very exciting and for the first

time we can sort of write down on paperhow we can do it.

Wow, so the idea that cancer can be cured would obviously be a real breakthrough.

Yes. I think that people might thentreat scientists like, uh, basketball players.

And pay them as well.I saw the Lakers in Los Angeles on

Friday night. I thought, boy, what a bas-ketball player that Kobe Bryant is.

He’s a great player. Absolutely. The Knicks are looking good too.

Yes.

You have said that you’re anatheist, can you talk about that?

Watson with fellow scientist

Francis Crick


We would like to extend a very special thank you to our sponsors

Dunbrody Famine ShipMutual of America

Coca-ColaUCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School

The American Ireland FundTourism Ireland

CIE Tours InternationalFitzpatricks Hotels1-800-Flowers.com

Go raibh míle maith agaibh


Yeah, I’m an atheist. [I’ve found] noevidence for God. On the other hand,I’ve always liked Jesus. I don’t think he’sson of God, but, you know, I was in aCatholic hospital in Santa Monica thatwas run by the Sisters of Charity. Youknow, of all the virtues, the greatest ischarity. I don’t think the Crusaders werevery good and the Inquisition was prettyawful, but the Sisters of Charity do won-derful work.

When people actually ask me if I am aChristian [I say that] I follow thesebeliefs. It’s a set of values. I don’t feelmy values are any different from[Christian] people because I was broughtup on these values.

So what’s after cancer? What’s left?

I’ll leave that to someone else, I think.

Time magazine had a piecerecently saying that one couldconceivably have a lifetime of150 years.

I’d like to make 90 in good shape and

then I’m willing to give up.

You seem like you’re in great shape.

I can still play singles’ tennis and I’mstill hitting back, not super big serves,but hitting back. I’m still living as if I’m30, you know.

Do you have a favorite possession?

I have this painting by Ireland’s bestartist, Bobby Ballagh, which showsPatrick Pearse and James Connolly. So Ipersonally own one of Ballagh’s mostfamous paintings. I bought it from a cat-alogue. He painted my portrait when Iwas lecturing on genetics at TrinityCollege and I’ve formally given [the por-trait] to the college. I wanted it to be inTrinity so people realize that I’m as muchIrish as I am Scottish.

My mother, I’d call her not an IrishCatholic, I’d call her always an IrishDemocrat. She was a faithful member ofthe Chicago Irish tribe

I have always followed my Irish side.

I know all about what has happened withthe Irish economy. I know things are badover there, the German bankers shouldhave to endure some of that pain of thelost money they lent those Irish bankers.I mean it’s going to be tricky. FinanceMinister Brian Lenihan promised to payall the bankers off, but Ireland can’t paythose taxes and the realization hasdawned that it is a case where you can’tget blood from stone. There was a levelof irresponsibility, but now one needs avery good government.

Both the Financial Times and theEconomist basically said thebondholders have to lose somemoney.

Absolutely, absolutely. You have torenegotiate, and it will take a year, butuntil it’s done, no one can move forward.

But Ireland will survive. They are atough people and have survived muchworse. I’m sure of that. They are a won-derful people.

Thank you, Dr. Watson. IA


Allen&Co 3/3/11 11:19 AM Page 2

CONGRATULATIONSKEVIN

FROM YOUR FRIENDS

ATALLEN & COMPANY

Allen&Co 3/3/11 11:42 AM Page 1


n a fine spring day in 1787,John Rossiter’s merchant-man, the Rising Sun, glidedtowards the Philadelphiawaterfront after a success-ful voyage from CountyWexford. The hold wasfull of Irish goods –

flaxseed and linen – butRossiter was happiest about

the passengers standing ondeck with him: Michael andPatrick Hayes, teenage orphansfrom Wexford, summoned by theiruncle (and Rossiter’s good friend)to come live in Philadelphia.

The boys’ uncle was also a ship’scaptain, who’d left Wexford twen-ty-seven years earlier to makePhiladelphia his home. As well-respected as Rossiter was, thismariner was a legend for both hisseamanship and heroics in therecent war for independence fromGreat Britain. Rossiter searched for him among the smallcrowd at the dock. At 6’4”, he was easy to spot, standingwith his wife, their faces anxiously gazing at the RisingSun. Rossiter pointed him out to the boys.

No sooner was the gangplank lowered than they were

swept into the arms of John andSarah Barry, who were ten yearsmarried but childless. Barry’snephews became the sons theynever had, and were the latest in along slew of Irish immigrantswho had found both shelter andguidance from the Barrys

For Irish Catholics in the eigh-teenth century, charity began athome out of necessity. JamesBarry was a tenant farmer, similarin hardship and poverty to the lifeof a sharecropper in the post-Civil War South. When John wasborn in 1745, the ProtestantAscendancy – descendants ofBritish colonists who made up theIrish Parliament – was beginningits second century of runningIreland under the draconian PenalLaws, banning Catholics fromowning land, practicing their reli-gion, even speaking their native

Gaeilge. In a few years, James and Ellen Barry had fivemouths to feed and John, the oldest son, now about ten,was sent to sea, placed under the watchful eye of hisuncle Nicholas, a ship’s captain who took advantage of aglitch in the Penal Laws: he could not own the goods in

John Barry, the Father of the American Navy, wentto sea as a child to escape the Irish penal laws androse to command the entire U.S. fleet. Tim McGrathwrites that Barry’s skills as a mariner and warriorwere rivaled only by his heart.

O

Brother’s Keeper

His

BRUCE GIMELSON GALLERY/PRIVATE COLLECTION

PAD

DY

T.D

ON

OVA

N

IA.Barry.qxd 3/5/11 11:59 AM


his hold, but he could own his ship.Nicholas Barry’s trade allowed him towork with his head held high, and theexample he set for his nephew was astrue as a compass. Each time hereturned home, young John’s smallwages were a godsend when hepoured them on the family table.

For generations, Barry’s coming toPhiladelphia was told as a HoratioAlger-like story of a happenstancearrival to the New World. In fact, hewas sent there. By 1760, there wassuch an established Irish presence inPhiladelphia that one official, scorn-fully describing them as “bold andindigent strangers,” warned Quakerand Anglican alike that “It looks as ifIreland is to send all its inhabitantshither.” Among them was Jane BarryWilcox, an aunt or older cousin ofJohn’s, whose husband was one of a small but growinglist of Irish-born merchants. Whether young Barry stayedwith Jane for just a few nights or used her home as awaystation in between voyages is not known, but over

the next six years his ambition toequal his uncle was rewarded, as herose from seaman to mate until, in

1766, he was given his first com-mand, a schooner and a crew offive, making several voyages a yearto Barbados.

A captain’s pay meant moremoney could be sent home. It alsoallowed him to marry a young Irishgirl, Mary Cleary, and move into asmall house near the Philadelphiawaterfront (within the awful stinkof the city tannery). Over the nextdecade Barry, climbed the riggingsof his profession, hired by a succes-sion of increasingly affluent mer-chants, even owning his own ship atone point. He and Mary moved tomore upscale housing and took in aservant.

He joined the prestigious Societyfor the Relief of Poor, Aged, andInfirmed Masters of Ships, andTheir Widows and Children, betterknown as “the Sea Captains’ Club.”As in other ports, Philadelphia’smariners took care of their own, and

their dues assured just that. But the club also providedBarry the opportunity to observe how to behave in thegentlemen’s dining room. While some members camefrom as rough and tumble a life as he, there were others,

Left: September, 1956: The arrival of theJohn Barry statue at Rosslare HarbourPort, Co. Wexford aboard the USS Rhodes. Above: The statue’s erection at theCrescent Quay, Co. Wexford. Below and opening page: The statue of Barry in Crescent Quay.Opening page: Portrait of Barry byGilbert Stuart, c.1801.

JOH

N S

CA

NLO

N C

OLLEC

TIO

).

PHOTO: PADDY T. DONOVAN



like Charles and Nicholas Biddle, equal-ly at home on a merchantman’s deck andin a salon. With quiet intensity, Barryscrutinized their posture and language,right down to what fork went with whatcourse.

It wasn’t long before Barry’s otherbrothers made their way across theAtlantic. Patrick was already an experi-enced mariner, while Thomas embarkedon a quieter career as a clerk. When Marydied while John was at sea in February1774, it was Patrick who was rowed outto his brother’s approaching vessel tobreak the news. Only twenty-nine, JohnBarry found himself a widower.

All of this took place beneath darken-ing political clouds. Barry’s ascendanceoccurred during the troubling years whenthe American colonies’ rela-tionship with the Britishcrown and Parliament werefraying. The Stamp Act, theTownshend Acts, the TeaAct and the Intolerable Actsall met with resistance inthe colonies, particularly inBoston and Philadelphia,whose merchants basedtheir opposition on theirrights as British citizens.Where their Quaker coun-terparts urged passivity,most Anglican merchantswere vociferous in theiropposition to any new taxesand duties. Their opinionswere shared by Barry andother captains over pipesand punch bowls at the City Tavern.Resistance to British authority was easyfor an Irish-born captain like Barry tosupport. When hostilities broke, Johnoffered his services to the nascentContinental Navy, while Patrick servedas a privateer. Sadly, Patrick’s ship waslater lost at sea in 1778; three years later,Uncle Nicholas informed John that bothhis parents were also dead.

The war slowed Irish immigration toAmerica down to a trickle, and Barry’shomeward contributions became fewer,for while Barry served his countryadmirably (and was severely wounded),he went largely unpaid for his services.His new in-laws, however, more thanmade up for any slack in family intrigue.

In July 1777, Barry remarried. His

bride, Sarah Austin, was nine years hisjunior, beautiful according to contempo-rary descriptions, and a stitch-sister ofBetsy Ross; one of her flags flew atopJohn Paul Jones’ ship Ranger on her voy-age to France. The year before, Sarah’sbrother Isaac marched with Barry andother Philadelphians, followingWashington’s Continentals to Trentonand Princeton, while William, the eldestof Sarah’s siblings, was more than will-ing to demonstrate his loyalty to thecrown. Upon capture of Philadelphiaafter the Battle of Brandywine, GeneralHowe charged William to save the cityfrom being burned by departing rebels.William became an officer in a Loyalistregiment, departing Philadelphia withthe British Army for New York in 1778.

He was immediately accused of treasonby the Pennsylvania Assembly. TheAustin family business and homes wereseized, forcing Barry and Isaac into yearsof political maneuvering to recover thefamily fortune.

And William wasn’t through yet. In1781, he commanded an eighteen-gunship, particpating in Benedict Arnold’sraids along the Chesapeake in 1781.From there, William sailed to Yorktown,where he was captured and placed in aprison ship bound for New York.

News of William’s misfortunereached Barry in Connecticut, where hewas refitting his frigate, the Alliance.Knowing full well Washington’s hatredof Arnold, Barry wrote and later visitedthe general, asking him to intercede on

Top: View of Wexford in1796. Left: U.S. sailors enjoying the hospitality of Wexford at Mythen’s Pub, Cornmarket.Above: The unveiling of aplaque at Barry’s birthplace in Tacumshane.

PHOTOS: JOHN SCANLON COLLECTION.



William’s behalf – calling William hisfriend while tactfully omitting hisinvolvement with the traitor of WestPoint. Washington, one of Barry’sstaunch admirers, promised to look intothe matter.

William spent the rest of his life inexile, living in Nova Scotia, London, andSouth Carolina over the next thirty years.Throughout that time, Sarah and Isaachad nothing to do with him, but Barrybegan a correspondence with him thatlasted until Barry’s death. His lettersbegan, “My Dear Brother,” whileWilliam’s equally cordial letters wereaddressed “My Dear Barry.” FromLondon, William sent him an“Axminster Carpet” and other furnish-ings; in one letter, Barry requested thelatest books, including Tom Jones. Everfrugal, he instructed William to givethem to the ship’s captain for delivery,sparing Barry any customs duties.

War’s end found Barry so broke thathe was forced to write General AnthonyWayne, his partner in a cattle roundupthat helped feed Washington’s army dur-ing the Valley Forge winter, to loan him$200. Wayne didn’t have the moneyeither. Sad news arrived from home,from his brother-in-law Thomas Hayes;his wife Eleanor – Barry’s sister – wasdead, and he was gravely ill. Barry’sother sister, Margaret Howlin, was alsowidowed, living in poverty. Hayes calledBarry’s contributions their “only relief”and “praised God for having such afriend” in his later days; Barry assuredhim that he would “prove a real father”to Hayes’ children when the time came.Another letter soon followed, fromUncle Nicholas. The time had come.

Nicholas’ missive was delivered by“Mathew Doyle a lad of good repute”whom Nicholas was sure Barry wouldassist in finding proper employ, being“brought up to husbandry.” His arrivalsignaled the beginning of a steady streamof immigrants who made their way toBarry’s doorstep, seeking lodging,employment, and counsel. Barry alwayshad an ample supply of each.

Over the next three years Barry joinedother naval officers with memorials toCongress and the PennsylvaniaAssembly, chasing down agents inFrance and Cuba for the money due himfrom captured prizes. The money came

his way very slowly. But luck beganturning his way in 1787, with an offer tocommand a merchantman bound forChina. Barry was overseeing construc-tion of the Asia when John Rossiterbrought his nephews to Philadelphia.Both boys wanted to go to sea. Michaelbegan a long association under Rossiter’semploy, while Patrick accompanied hisuncle, sailing around the world with himto China.

Few journals of the time matchPatrick’s wide-eyed recounting of thelong, fascinating, and dangerous voyageto Canton. He captured everything with aboy’s vividness: storms, lightningstrikes, the suicide of the despondentthird mate, and their layover in CapeTown, where his marvel at the exotic ani-mals of Africa is mixed with dread atinnate racism, even in the dispensing ofjustice. Patrick found “3 gibbets one forethe sailors one for the soldiers and onefore the Slaves” – after all, one wouldn’thang a white criminal on a black man’sgallows.

Bats with seven-foot wingspans andcolorful snakes sailing alongside the Asiadotted his description of the tricky pas-sage through the Sunda Straits. Whenthey finally reached Canton, Barry keptPatrick by his side in hopes of keepinghim out of the taverns and brothels, andhe succeeded, it seems, until their depar-ture. While in Macao, Patrick escaped hisuncle’s supervision. His last entry in hisjournal merely reads, “Maddam: full ofshame” – and we will never know why.

Barry returned home with his fortuneremade, and actually swallowed theanchor over the next five years.

With Sarah’s blessing, their estate,Strawberry Hill, became home for theHayes brothers when back from theirvoyages. Patrick even fell in love withand married Sarah’s niece, Betsy Keen.

Now Barry’s correspondence withfamily and friends flourished, as did hiswillingness to help those in need. A reg-ular stipend was sent to his sisterMargaret. As perfect strangers showedup at Strawberry Hill, carrying letters ofintroduction from this relative or thatacquaintance, Barry found himself a one-man employment service, finding workfor craftsmen at shipyards and positionsfor clerks in counting houses. Young

Reality BetterThan Fiction

Fictional heroes like Horatio

Hornblower or Lucky Jack

Aubrey don’t hold a candle to

John Barry. Born in 1745 in

Ballysampson, County Wexford, he

was sent to sea as a child to escape

the Irish penal laws, and arrived in

Philadelphia around 1760. At 21 he

was skipper of a small schooner; eight

years later, he was captain of the BlackPrince, the finest ship yet built in the

American colonies.While commanding

her he sailed the fastest day recorded

in the 18th century. Given command

of the Continental brigantine

Lexington, he captured the Edward and

several armed merchantmen.While

the British occupied Philadelphia, he

led barges against British shipping, cap-

turing larger British vessels while aid-

ing Anthony Wayne in a cattle

roundup that helped feed

Washington’s army.

Congress rewarded Barry with

command of the frigate Raleigh, which

he lost in a nine-hour running battle

up the coast of Maine against two

enemy ships.

After serving as a privateer, Barry

commanded the frigate Alliance, over-

coming mutiny, icebergs, a desperate

(and victorious) battle against two

British warships, intrigue with

Benjamin Franklin, and one last old

time sea-fight, fought weeks after the

Treaty of Paris was signed.

Rendered penniless after the war,

Barry attended the Pennsylvania

Assembly’s sessions in 1787 regarding

ratification of the Constitution, and

was ringleader of a gang that shang-

haied two anti-Federalist legislators,

guaranteeing a quorum for passage.

His subsequent voyage to Canton

restored his fortune.

Awarded the first commission in

the US Navy in 1794, he oversaw con-

struction of the new navy’s frigates,

including his own 44-gun USS UnitedStates. During the Quasi-War with

France, he made numerous captures

and mentored the next generation of

naval officers.



sailors always won a berth if they carrieda recommendation from John Barry.When the city was decimated by the firstin a series of yellow fever epidemics in1793, Barry’s letters of recommendationabout a young Mr. Shannon’s “integrityand sobriety” landed him a position atthe Bank of the United States, whileanother started working for another suc-cessful Irishman, the printer MatthewCarey.

Not all of Barry’s charges lived up tohis standards. When another “JohnBarry” asked assistance in getting a berthon “a Ship bound to the East,” Barryimmediately interceded, securing him asecond mate’s position on an Indiamanbound for “Maddras or Calcutta.” Thegrateful sailor left Philadelphia with afull hold, leaving a pregnant wife.Months later, Barry learned the man’stalents belied his name; for his wretchedperformance to his duties he “was leftbehind at Bengal,” abandoning his wifeand baby. “I understand she goes outnursing,” Barry sadly told a mutualacquaintance.

Philadelphians also knew where tosend any unwanted Irish castaways.When a young lass arrived to serve anindenture to a rich wastrel of such lowcharacter that she wanted to run away,the pompous buffoon sent her to Barry’sdoor.

That said, Barry was first and foremostan American. When an old acquaintancefrom Wexford wrote him about buyingland in the Mohawk Valley, Barry all butordered him to Philadelphia:

I am much at a loss to know whetheryou have a family or not and what your views can be for a man of youryears to bear yourself in the woodsunacquainted I presume with cuttingdown trees or building log houses farremoved from any place to educateyour children if you have any… If youcan make convenient to spend a few

weeks with me at Strawberry Hill with-in three miles of Philadelphia you can-not refuse my request as you wouldhave a good dale of time on your handsthis winter.

After another Irish friend looked toreturn to the old sod after a lifetimein the West Indies, Barry was gen-

uinely perplexed; after all, he believed“There is everything the heart could askfor here.”

When President Washington appoint-ed Barry first among captains of thenew United States Navy – createdostensibly to protect American shippingfrom the Barbary pirates – Barry wasjustifiably proud, anxious to live up tohis old friend’s expectations. It wasthought the new navy’s ships would bebuilt in months. They took years. By thetime they sailed into combat in 1797 itwas against a different enemy, Frenchprivateers in the Caribbean. Beset bychronic asthma and gout, Barry was nolonger the hero of the hour. Past hisprime and openly derided by PresidentAdams and his staff, Barry was relegat-ed to serving as “Mr. Chips” to the nextgeneration of naval heroes: Stephen

Decatur, Richard Somers, and CharlesStewart among them.

Nor was there smooth sailing athome. While Patrick’s career emulatedhis uncle’s successes as a merchant captain, Michael’s was tragically cutshort. His ship was lost at sea on 1801.The Barrys, particularly Sarah, wereheartsick. When the old commodore,yearning for one more chance to restorehis reputation as a fighting sailor, finally received an offer from PresidentJefferson to lead a squadron against the Barbary pirates, he was too ill toaccept, “being on his last tack.” He diedmonths later.

One of the last entreaties he receivedfrom Wexford came from a cousin,Nancy Merriman Kelly, born just daysafter his own birth so many years before.Her husband Michael, at 59, had joinedthe “Boys of Wexford” at New Ross onJune 5, 1798, and was one of the firstkilled in three days of fighting againstsuperior British forces. For years,Barry’s father had given her “half aGuinea” out of the money Barry senthome; could he send that to her, “Beingin Such Need?”

Of course he could; of course he did.

PHOTO: F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM, BOSTON.

Top: The Port ofPhiladelphia in 1783. Left: June, 27 1963:President John F.Kennedy layingwreath atCommodore JohnBarry Memorial. Alsopictured Mayor ofWexford ThomasBurne, Minister ofExternal Affairs ofIreland Frank Aiken,U. S. Ambassador toIreland MatthewMcCloskey, NavalAide to the PresidentTazewell Shepard.

IA

INDEPENDENCE SEAPORT MUSEUM, PHILADELPHIA.


ShamrockGifts 3/3/11 5:30 PM Page 1


Katie McFadden introduces the Grand Marshals of St. Patrick’s Day Parades across the nation.

A Who’s Who of[

[

Grand Marshals

From New York to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and from

Rock Island, Illinois to New London, Wisconsin, thou-sands of people from a range of backgrounds will cometogether to cheer on and participate in St. Patrick’s Day

Parades. Here’s a look at some outstanding Irish Americansaround the country who have been chosen by their communitiesto lead the marchers, dancers, bands, societies, and floats downthe parade route.

New York City’s St. Patrick’sDay parade is the largest in the

world, with around two million specta-tors and 250,000 participants. In its250th year, the New York parade honorsworld renowned Irish-American writerMary Higgins Clark as Grand Marshal.Clark is best known for her best-sellingsuspense novels such as Where Are TheChildren? She was born and raised inthe Bronx but traces her Irish roots towestern Ireland, with ancestors fromcounties Roscommon, Sligo, and Cork.Clark is a current board member of theAmerican Irish Historical Society andshe was also given the papal honor,Dame of Saint Gregory. The 83-year-old Clark will lead the parade up FifthAvenue in a horse-drawn carriage on St.Patrick’s Day, making her the firstGrand Marshal to not walk the route.(See page 48 for her profile as one ofIrish America’s Hall of Fame honorees.)

Savannah is home to the secondlargest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world. The first

parade was held in 1813 and is now entering its 187th year. Thethree-hour celebration, held on March 17, has over 350 marchingunits. The Grand Marshal chosen to lead this grand celebration isWalter Crawford who traces his roots back to Ireland on bothsides of his family. Crawford said that serving as the parade’sgrand marshal is something he’s often dreamed of. “I’ve nevermissed a parade,” he said. “You grow up with it and grow into it.”

Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade is another grandevent. On the morning of the parade, the Chicago River is

dyed a bright emerald green to represent the lands of Ireland. Thisyear’s parade, on March 12th, features Mayor Richard J. Daleyand his wife Maggie as grand marshals. Mayor Daley, who decid-ed not to run for re-election, has held his position as Chicago’sMayor since 1989, making him the longest serving mayor in thecity’s history. Throughout his tenure, he has helped improve thecity’s education system, economy, gun control, and overall quali-

ty of life. In 2010, Northwestern University

Hospital dedicated a cancer center inMaggie Daley’s name. Maggie has beenbattling cancer since 2002.

The theme of this year’s parade inPhiladelphia, held on March

13th, is “St. Patrick, Bless OurReligious Sisters Who Serve, Inspireand Educate.” In recognition of thistheme, Sister James Anne Feerick waschosen as Grand Marshal. She has beena member of the Servants of theImmaculate Heart of Mary since 1960,and serves as director and teacher at theIHM Educational Center in Bryn Mawr.In 2010, Sister James Anne was a recip-ient of the Mayo Association ofPhiladelphia’s President’s Award. Shehas kept Irish culture as a significantpart of her life. Growing up SisterJames Anne played the violin on the“Will Regan’s Irish Hour.” She was alsoa student at the Sean Lavery School ofIrish Dance in West Philadelphia, andhas taught her own Irish dance lessons,

giving her the nickname the “dancing nun.” Running for over 240 years, the Philadelphia parade is the sec-ond oldest in the country.

In the sunshine state of Florida, Wini Amaturo will beGrand Marshal of the Fort Lauderdale parade on

March 12th – part of an all day Irish Fest. Amaturo has lived inFort Lauderdale since 1970. Along with her husband Joseph, shehas contributed greatly to the community. In 1989, the couple cre-

The Chicago River,dyed green for St.

Patrick’s Day.

IA.GM.2.qxd 3/5/11 12:19 PM

ated the Amaturo Theatre at the PerformingArts Center and the Amaturo FamilyFoundation, which supports needy children,Catholic activities, and education. Amaturocurrently serves on the boards of Saint ThomasUniversity in Miami and Boston College.Parade participants stroll down Las OlasBoulevard along a green line that is painted bythe mayor in a ceremony the day before the parade.

The Parade Committee for the world’sshortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade, on the

world’s shortest street, chose a big namefor their honoree. In Hot Springs,Arkansas, actor John Corbett will marchdown the 98-foot-long Bridge Street as grandmarshal on St. Patrick’s Day. Corbett isknown for his roles on television shows likeSex and the City and Northern Exposure, and in the film My BigFat Greek Wedding. Corbett’s girlfriend, Bo Derek, served aslast year’s grand marshal. The tiny spectacle also features theWorld’s Largest Leprechaun and draws around 30,000 viewers.

At its heart, Holyoke, Massachusetts is stillIreland Parish, which is what it was known as back in

the 1800s when immigrants, mainly from the Irish-speakingarea of Dingle, County Kerry, settled here. The parade drawsupwards of 350,000 spectators and some 40 marching bandsand as many floats take part.

The Grand Marshal of the Holyoke Parade must be a residentof and have Irish ancestry. However a non-resident can be cho-sen if he or she is a member of the St. Patrick’s ParadeCommittee. Gerald Healy of West Springfield was chosen asthe seventh non-resident grand marshal inthe parade’s 60-year history. Healy is nostranger to the town, as he attended HolyokeHigh School and Community College. Healso held several roles on the parade commit-tee. The child of Irish immigrants, Healyserved as a Marine and is currently a chair-man and professor of economics and man-agement at Westfield State University.

San Francisco The celebration in this city, which kicksoff on Market and Second Street on March 12th, and fol-

lows the iconic trolley tracks, is the largest St. Patrick’s DayParade west of the Mississippi River and attracts around a millionviewers. This year the United Irish Counties Society picked Mikeand Maureen Moriarty as joint grand marshals. Mike, a sportsannouncer, serves on the Board of the Irish Football and HurlingYouth League with Maureen.

The colorful festivities surrounding the parade will showcaseIrish Culture through live performance and entertainment, artsand crafts exhibitor presentations and food andbeverage concessions. Children’s activities,cultural competitions and games are alsoplanned.

The Quad Cities Grand Parade kicks offin Rock Island,Illinois and moves

across the Mississippi River to Davenport,Iowa, making it the only interstate parade inAmerica. This year ,the Quad Cities St. Patrick Society choseWilliam M. Collins to cross the state lines as Grand Marshal oftheir 26th parade. Collins, who owned and operated Mac’sTavern in Davenport for 14 years, beginning in 1990, was a pop-ular choice. He is following in the footsteps of his father, Dr. JohnCollins, who was Grand Marshal of the seventh Quad Citiesparade. This year’s border-breaking parade takes place on March12th.

“Forever Green” is the theme of Denver, Colorado’s49th parade, also held on March 12th. To follow this theme,

the Denver St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee honored a mem-ber of the nonprofit Alpine Rescue Team, which responds towilderness emergencies. Longstanding team member Roz Brownwas chosen as Grand Marshal. Brown is a folk singer who playsthe autoharp and has been entertaining folk fans since 1975. Hestarted out volunteering to play his music at hospitals and nursinghomes. Brown has released four recorded albums. Close to250,000 people attend this annual event.

As part of a week-long celebration, the town of NewLondon, Wisconsin changes its name to New Dublin

for the duration of the festivities. In addition to the Grand Parade,the Shamrock Club of New Dublin sponsors events such asHooligan Day, an Irish Céilí, Irish caroling, a mock Irish funeral,bands, dancers, stilt walkers, and “Finnegan’s Wake.”

This year’s parade, on March 19th, honors Tony and LorraineVan Kampen as Grand Marshals. The Van Kampens have beenactive members of the New London community and own andoperate two McDonald’s restaurants in the city. They are alsoinvolved with the Old Honor GloryFlight, which transports WWII vet-erans to Washington, D.C. to visitmemorial sites.

The 30th Alexandria St.Patrick’s Day Parade in

Virginia will be led by GrandMarshals Tom and NancyVanCoverden. Tom is the Presidentand CEO of the NationalAssociation of Community Health


Mike Rowe, host of DiscoveryChannel’s Dirty Jobs, was

Grand Marshal of the 2008Hot Springs parade.

Tom and NancyVanCoverden

IA.GM.2.qxd 3/5/11 12:19 PM


• In Ireland St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated with with

parades around the country and a festival lasting four days

in Dublin, the nation’s capital. This year’s parade promises

to be truly spectacular. In honor of Dublin being named

UNESCO City of Literature, the festival parade will bring a

specially commissioned short story “Brilliant” by Roddy

Doyle to life on the streets, with some of Ireland’s finest

performers taking part. Marching bands from across the

globe will also take part, in what is billed as the world’s

largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Boxing champion Katie

Taylor, 24, will serve as this year’s grand marshal.

• Since 1824, Montreal has been hosting Canada’s oldest

St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The three-hour event features

floats, bands, community organizations and cultural groups.

This year’s grand marshal is Father John Walsh, whose roots

lie in Killarney and Cork. Father Walsh is an active member

of the Irish-Canadian community and is known for his work

on News Talk Radio CJAD.

•The largest Irish event in Japan is the Tokyo St.

Patrick’s Day Parade, organized by the Irish Network Japan.

It began in 1992 for the purpose of introducing Irish cul-

ture to the Japanese people.With the support of the Irish

Ambassador to Japan, James Sharkey, the parade took off

and is now entering its twentieth year.

• In the Caribbean, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations contin-

ue for an entire week on the volcanic island of

Montserrat. Montserrat, whose people are a mix of

African and Irish, is the only nation in the world other than

Ireland that considers St. Patrick’s Day a national holiday.

The celebration includes parades, pub crawls, feasts, and

festivals.

• This year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Sydney,Australia, the “Book of Kells” will serve as the inspira-

tion for the costumes, groups, music and floats within the

parade. This annual event is one of the largest in the

world, comparable to the parades of New York and

Ireland.

• In Shanghai, China, the St. Patrick’s Day celebration

continues to grow. The first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in

Shanghai was held in 2007. The celebration has now

expanded to a four-day festival called Féile Shanghai, which

takes place on Shanghai’s most famous street, Nanjing Road.

“The Power of the Green” was chosen as the slogan for

this year’s celebration, which includes a green Chinese

dragon, Irish dancers, and pipers. The celebration is seen

an opportunity to promote and market Irish businesses,

educational institutions, culture, and tourism to the people

of China.

• This year, the Irish Hungarian Business Cycle organized

all of their Hungarian Irish groups for the first St. Patrick’s

Day Parade in Budapest.The theme for the parade is

“Green For The Day,” as all are welcomed to come out

and celebrate Irish Culture.

Parades Around the World

Centers and has dedicated his life to supporting and strengtheninghealth care centers around the country. His wife of 40 years,Nancy, has always been at Tom’s side and has contributed to thecommunity through volunteering and donating to organizationslike a young-adult mentor program and an organization that helpsyoung baseball players enter the minor leagues.

Both the VanCoverdens have been big supporters ofBallyshaners, Inc. the mainpromoters of the parade.

In addition to the grandparade, held on March 5th,Alexandria’s St. Patrick’s Dayfestivities also include a clas-sic car show and a dog show.

The Seattle parade,the largest and oldest

parade in the Northwest, isthe high point of an IrishWeek celebration that includes an Irish Soda Bread contest, aMass for Peace between Catholics and Protestants, and an Irishfestival. The 39th parade, on March 12th, is led by GrandMarshals Michael D. McKay and his brother John Larkin

McKay, both of whom served as United States Attorneys for theWestern District of Washington. Mike McKay held the positionfrom 1989 to 1993 and John served from 2001 to 2007. Mike isalso a founder of McKay Chadwell law firm. John is a law pro-fessor at Seattle University School of Law.

The McKay brothers are very proud of their Irish heritage andhave roots in counties Tipperary, Cavan, and Galway. Bothbrothers have visited Ireland many times.

Marilee Fitzgerald, Director of the Department of DefenseEducation Activity, was chosen as Washington, D.C.’s

Grand Marshal. Fitzgerald fits the 40thparade’s theme of “A Heritage of Educationand Community Service.” She oversees 194schools in 12 countries and seven states thatoffer education to the dependents of our uni-formed service personnel.

Fitzgerald also serves as the PrincipalDeputy to the Deputy Under Secretary ofDefense for Civilian Personnel Policy. Thisyear’s parade in the country’s capital is onMarch 13th.

Michaeland JohnMcKay

IA

IA.GM.2.qxd 3/5/11 12:19 PM

“Without doubt, it was my grandmother who first inspiredme to set up shop. Her name was Kitty O Shea and she wasborn in Macroom in County Cork in 1900. The daughter ofa local greengrocer, she grew up amid the hustle and bus-tle of a busy Irish village corner shop. Across the road therewas a drapery, owned by the O Leary family and they had ason, Harry. It wasn’t long before Kitty caught Harry’s eyeand they quickly became childhood sweethearts.

“After they married, Harry established himself as a suc-cessful vet in Dublin, while Kitty refused to accept the tra-ditional role of mother and wife that was expected of her atthe time, instead yearning for something more. Despitesome disapproval from her peers, and the busy reality ofraising six children, Kitty decided to open her first shop onDublin’s Merrion Row in the Georgian heart of the city in1920. The shop was called ‘Notions’ - the first of four shopsof Kitty’s – and some of my fondest memories of childhoodwere being brought there every Saturday by my Mother tohelp Granny behind the counter.Lulu recalls.

“Those early days in Kitty’s shop encouraged me to setup my own business in 1987 under the name of

‘Interteddy’, which evolved into the award-winningGiftsdirect.com, now Ireland’s largest online gift deliverycompany providing an outstanding service worldwide.Through Giftsdirect.com, I established a loyal customerbase in the USA and this gave me the idea to set upSiopa.com where I could share my passion for all thingsIrish with our American cousins.

“Siopa.com has a special place in the heart of our loyalcustomers – it is a place where you can shop for well-known treasures from Ireland such as Tipperary andGalway Crystal or traditional Celtic and Claddagh jewelry,but also discover hidden treasures from carefully selectedIrish craftsmen and women such as Ogham Wishes andWild Irish Crafts. Siopa.com also sells products from smallartisans who use traditional methods passed down throughgenerations to produce original and exciting gifts – we arecontinually adding to our supplier list and we go to visiteach and every one of these throughout the island ofIreland before they come on board.

“Times have certainly changed. Granny sold sweets andnewspapers in a quaint corner shop while I sell gifts incyberspace but for me, the secret of success remains thesame lesson Granny thought me: combining top qualityproducts with a passion for customer service. I’ve onlybeen in business for 24 years so I have a little catching upto do with Granny (she was in business for 60 years!) but ifI know Granny she is still there keeping an eye on things!”

Whether you’re looking for top Irish quality brands or handmade craftsand jewelry from local artisans,

Siopa.com is your one-stop answer forproducts that are authentic and truly

sourced from the ‘Emerald Isle’. Set upby Irish entrepreneur Lulu O’Sullivan,the site brings you the best of Irish

giftware and a level of customer service that is second to none.

Siopa.comAn Online Store was Born…

ADVERTISEMENT

Siopa 3/3/11 11:46 AM Page 1


By Aliah O’Neill

John Dunleavy, 72, has beenchairman of the New York CitySt. Patrick’s Day Parade for 16years. Like all the other chairmen

before him, he worked his way to the top,starting as a volunteer in the formationarea where marchers line up to walk up 5thAvenue. He even used his influence as adispatcher for the Manhattan and BronxTransit Authority (now NYC Transit) tomove crosstown bus stops on March 17 sothat the parade would remain unblockedby traffic. From there, Dunleavy served asfinancial secretary, treasurer, vice chair-man, and now chairman, a position he isstepping down from in this, the 250th yearof the parade’s illustrious history.

“The worst thing you can do is to stay

on too long,” he says. “The parade by itsnature needs new blood and new ideas.But you also have an obligation to ensurethat when you step down, the parade willcontinue the same traditions.”

Dunleavy is from the village of Coole inCounty Westmeath, and grew up during atime when many modern amenities hadnot yet reached rural areas of Ireland. Hiscommunity was one of the first to get elec-tricity in the 1940s because it had a hospi-tal – before then, he did his homework bycandlelight, and used an oil lamp “onlywhen a visitor came into the house.”

Dunleavy’s school was about ten feetfrom his house so “I couldn’t mitch [skipschool],” but some days his father wouldkeep him home to help cut turf, hiding himin the back of his cart so the schoolmasterwouldn’t see. He remembers it as the hard-

est he’s ever worked in his life, but also asa time when everyone was happy and “younever complained.”

But that contentment didn’t stopDunleavy from longing for the promisedgood life in America. He first moved toLondon, where he worked for seven yearsas a conductor and bus driver, and thenmoved to America in 1963 to live with anaunt. “After about two or three days oflooking at four walls, I was bored to death.My cousins and I decided to try the sub-way for the first time. We were terrified ofgetting lost…and I found the Irish Instituteon 48th Street, which had an employmentagency. So I got myself a job.”

Along with finding a job, Dunleavy reg-istered for the Selective Service, a require-ment for young men to receive a visa to theUnited States. About six weeks later, he

ParadeThe Man

Who Runs the

[

[

‘‘I couldtell you a million andone stories,”says JohnDunleavy.“Never in my wildestdreams did I think I’d be chairmanof thisparade.

’’Photo credit: Dominick Totino

IA.Dunleavy.2.qxd 3/5/11 12:23 PM

was shocked to receive a letter from thePresident calling him for duty in theUnited States Army. Dunleavy waspromptly stationed at Fort Dix and thenspent about two years in the HawaiianIslands before coming back to New York,where he would begin his 25-year career intransit as a dispatcher.

By mere coincidence, a co-worker toldDunleavy that volunteers were needed toorganize marchers at the formation pointof the parade. That was the start of fourdecades of volunteer work, during whichDunleavy has been associated with someof the key moments in the parade’s history.

The first St. Patrick’s Day Parade inNew York City was held 14 years beforethe United States won its independence. In1762, Irish soldiers in the British Army

were stationed in the American colonies.Along with a band of Irish expatriates, thesoldiers gathered to speak the Irish lan-guage, sing Irish songs and wear green –an act that at the time was banned inIreland. Since then, the parade has under-gone many changes, one of the mostnotable being the procession, which startsat 44th Street and runs up 5th Avenue,though originally it moved towards Old St.Pat’s on Prince and Mott Streets. Stayingtrue to its military roots, this will be the160th year that the 69th InfantryRegiment, known as the Fighting 69th,leads the march up 5th Avenue. The massat St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which marks thebeginning of the parade each year, is cele-brated in honor of the deceased membersof the regiment, many of whom were IrishAmerican.

Since those early days, the New YorkCity St. Patrick’s Day Parade has becomeperhaps the most recognizable display ofIrish heritage in America. The parade reg-ularly hosts 150,000-200,000 marchers inaddition to two million spectators. It is also

watched on NBC by approximately half amillion viewers and became available as alive stream on the Internet in 2008.

One of Dunleavy’s defining moments aschairman was also the largest year for theparade in history: 2002, less than a yearafter 9/11. “The amount of participation inthat parade was awesome,” he says. “I satdown with the city officials and proposedthat we stop the parade and have every-body turn and face southward to where theTwin Towers used to be. The officials saidthere was no way we’d be able to do it, butwe notified every person in the parade tostop and stand at 12:28.

“At 12:28, the whole parade stopped inplace and Cardinal Egan (that year’s GrandMarshal) led the prayer. And at exactly12:30, every single person made a 180-

degree turn. There were approximately90,000 people on the avenue, another 70-80,000 in the formation area, and another 3million people on the sidewalks. Andevery one of them turned around and facedsouth. You could hear a pin drop. PresidentMary McAleese was there and she saidshe’s witnessed a lot of things, but never inher life had she seen anything like that.”

There have been controversies too.While McAleese was the first President ofIreland ever to review the parade, sheturned down an offer this year to preside asthe Grand Marshal. Many theorized thatMcAleese rejected the offer because of herties to gay and lesbian organizations inIreland. The Parade Committee has pro-hibited gay organizations from participat-ing in the march for over 20 years, evenwinning the right to do so in a SupremeCourt decision handed down in 1995.

“We’ve had our battles with the gay andlesbian community,” says Dunleavy. “Inever ask anybody who they are, in anyway, shape, or form if they want to marchin the parade. When you look at the per-

centages, there’s probably 160,000-180,000 people marching in the Parade,and there’s probably a couple of thousandgay and lesbian individuals [marching]with the Emerald Societies, counties,schools, colleges, Fraternals, and every-thing else. But as regards under their ownbanner, as far as we’re concerned, that’snot acceptable.”

Dunleavy was the chairman when theinitial decision was made and has not seenthe controversy die down since, nor doeshe expect it will anytime soon. Regardless,the parade goes on: the 250th march willhave Mary Higgins Clark, the renownedIrish-American author, as its GrandMarshal, and is also marked by many spe-cial events. The all-volunteer committeethat organizes the parade laid a wreath on

the Tomb of the Unknown Soldierat Arlington National Cemeteryearlier this year, among its manyevents that pay homage to the Irishconnection to the U.S. military.The committee has also planned a250th Anniversary Gala on March15th at Chelsea Piers, whichpromises to include a fireworksdisplay on the Hudson River.

But the crowning jewel, asalways, is the parade itself, whichDunleavy has timed down to theminute over the years. Throughmeticulous preparation andrenewed fundraising efforts,

Dunleavy has helped to shape the paradeinto one of the biggest, if not the biggest,event in New York City. And yet it remainsa non-profit endeavor, planned each yearby a mere seven volunteers who make upthe Officers’ Committee.

While a hardworking few run theparade, Dunleavy also wants to reach outto the next generations. “There’s manyways young people can get involved… Butit’s the input they give that is the mostimportant. When I get out on Fifth Avenue,it still puts a shiver up my spine. I’d love tosee more young people while I’m walkingup the avenue, involved with the parade.”

Dunleavy is taking his last walk aschairman this March 17th, but he isalready at work planning his next project. A recipient of a Doctorate in Humane Letters from QuinnipiacUniversity in 2007, he will soon write hismemoirs. Those million and one storiesshould come in handy.

IA

Left: Consul General of Ireland Noel Kilkenny, 2011 Grand Marshal Mary Higgins Clark and ParadeChairman John Dunleavy. Right: Mayor Bloomberg, John Dunleavy and 2010 Grand Marshal Ray Kelly, police commissioner for New York City. All photos by Dominick Totino.

You can learn more about this year’s St. Patrick’sDay Parade by visiting nycstpatricksparade.org.


IA.Dunleavy.2.qxd 3/5/11 12:23 PM

—Kristin Romano

Have you always thought the surnames Lahey and Leahywere variations of the same name? Think again! Laheyand Leahy originate from two different Gaelic sur-

names. Lahey, Lahy, Lahiff, Lahiffe, Laffey, and Lahive all orig-inate from the Gaelic surname O Laithimh, which itself is a vari-ant of O Flaithimh. O Flaithimh derives from the Irish wordflaitheamh, which means lord or ruler. By the 16th century, thename was found in Galway, Clare, Tipperary, and Kilkenny.

Leahy, Leehy, O’Leghy, and O’Leahy stem from the Gaelicsurname O Laochdha. In Irish, laochdha means heroic. OLaochdha is an old Munster surname, which, by the 1890s, wasfound throughout Ireland. It is still most common in the countiesof Munster: Counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary.

Frank Lahey, M.D. (1880-1953) founded the world-renowned Lahey Clinic in 1923, a non-profit teaching hospital ofTufts University School of Medicine.A famous surgeon, he was also ateacher and medical administrator.Lahey founded the clinic with thegoal of gathering many specialties inone place, believing the best resultscame from a collaborative effort.Highly regarded for his extensiveskill in thyroid and esophageal sur-gery, Lahey graduated from HarvardMedical School in 1904 and eventu-ally became a professor of Surgery atTufts University Medical Schoolfrom 1913-1917. During World WarI, he served as a major in the ArmyMedical Corps and director of anevacuation hospital. Ever committedto his work, he died eleven days aftersuffering a heart attack, right after hefinished performing surgery.

John L. Lahey (b. 1946), our IrishAmerican of the Year, has served asthe President of QuinnipiacUniversity in Hamden, CT since1987. Lahey is the Vice Chairman of the New York City St.Patrick’s Day Parade Committee and served as the parade’sGrand Marshal in 1997. He dedicates a great amount of his timeto educating the public on the Irish famine and its historicalimplications.

Jim Lahey is the owner and founder of Sullivan St. Bakeryand Co. in New York City. His original ambition was to becomea sculptor. Lahey’s passion for art took him to Italy, where,instead, he discovered the art of bread making. He returned toNew York with the goal of giving the bread of the Italian coun-tryside a home in New York City. In 1994, he opened SullivanSt. Bakery in Soho, eventually moving to Hell’s Kitchen. Thebakery has developed an impressive reputation, with over 340 ofNew York’s finest restaurants using Lahey’s bread. In 2009,Lahey opened his first restaurant, Co. (pronounced as“Company”) and published his first cookbook, My Bread.

Lyle Lahey is an American political cartoonist based inWisconsin. Born in 1931, he served a tour of duty with the Armyin Korea. In 1968, Lahey began to contribute political cartoonsto The Brown County Chronicle. His cartoons covered local,regional and national politics, the Green Bay Packers, worldevents and environmental issues. From 1968 to 1976, his workappeared in the Chronicle, and from 1976 to 2005 in The GreenBay News-Chronicle, which published The Packer Chronicles in1997, a collection of Lahey’s cartoons about the Green BayPackers. Lahey now creates political cartoons on his website,posting three new cartoons each week.

Heroic service to one’s country has been exemplified by sev-eral Leahys. Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, United StatesNavy (1875-1959) was the first member of the U.S. armed forcesto hold a five-star rank. His father Michael Leahy fought in the

Civil War as Captain of the Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers.William Leahy served on the USS Oregon during the Spanish-American War. During World War I, he served as captain of thedispatch boat used by then-Secretary of the Navy Franklin D.

Roosevelt. He became the Chief ofNaval Operations in 1937, servinguntil he was retired in 1939. He wasthen the Governor of Puerto Ricofrom 1939 to 1940, and theAmbassador to Vichy France until1942, when he came out of retirementto serve as Chief of Staff to theCommander in Chief of the Army andNavy. In recognition of his service,Leahy became the first Fleet Admiral(a newly created position) onDecember 15, 1944. During his dis-tinguished career, he was awarded theNavy Cross, World War I Victory

Medal with “Overseas” Clasp and the World War II VictoryMedal. Leahy was still on active service when he died in 1959.In 1969, the USS Leahy was named after him.

Officer James Leahy was killed on September 11, 2001,trying to rescue people trapped in the World Trade Center in

New York. Officer Leahy was a nine-year veteran of the NewYork City Police Department and at the time of his death he wasassigned to the 6th Precinct. He was posthumously awarded theNYPD’s Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on that day.

Laheys and Leahys can be found throughout the world of artsand entertainment. Musician Kevin Leahy is a drummer andpercussionist who has performed with artists such as JenniferNettles and Shawn Mullins. Leahy, the Canadian folk musicgroup, has toured all over the world, releasing three studioalbums and one live album. James Leahy is a Canadian artistwho is represented in galleries in Canada, Britain and the UnitedStates. His work can be found in public and private collections.

The Laheys and the Leahys have left their unique mark on theworld, and are likely to keep doing so into the future.


{roots}

IA

A Look at the Laheys and Leahys

Jim Lahey

WilliamLeahy

KevinLeahy

IA.roots.qxd 3/5/11 2:05 PM

GleannChochan 1/13/11 3:40 PM Page 1


“It is my wish to photographpeople of all nationalities, who havemade the decision to move fromIreland for economic reasons: in and around the city, juxtaposedwith landscapes that are significant to their pasts. If thatsounds like you or if you know of somebody who is about to move,please bring my proposal to their attention.

“I want to make these worksmonumental, to show those depict-ed in a true heroic spirit. For afterall, they are making a huge jumpinto the void of uncertainty andthis needs to be commemorated –perhaps like never before…”

So began David Monahan's “LeavingDublin” project: with a blog post, oneyear ago. The 47-year-old photographerhas lived in Dublin his whole life and hasseen friends and family members departfrom the city throughout the years. Somehave returned, but many have not.

Still more are leaving now – part of thedramatic surge in post-boom emigrationthat began in 2009. The statistics, as weknow, are staggering. A January report bythe Dublin-based Economic and SocialResearch Institute estimated that 100,000people – more than two percent of thecountry's population – will leave Irelandbetween April 2010 and April 2012. Thataverages to about 1,000 people a week.

From the mass exodus of The Great

Hunger to the significant population loss-es of the 1950s and 80s, Ireland is nostranger to emigration. But that doesn'tmake what is happening now any easier.The vast majority of those who are leav-ing are young, highly skilled and educat-ed, but can't find work. They see anIreland lacking in stability and opportuni-ty and, in the eyes of some, lacking asocial, political and financial conscious-ness. In addition to needing work, manyare fed-up with the way the banks andpoliticians let the nation down, and arelooking to broaden their horizons else-where. There's a sense of dismay that emi-gration is on the steady rise again, sincemany thought that it had become a thingof Ireland's past. At the same time, there's

Portraits of the Irish

LEAVINGHOME

Photographer David Monahan has been powerfully documentingthe recent wave of Irish emigration in photographs taken just beforetheir subjects’ departures to different corners of the world. SheilaLangan talks to Monahan and to some of those who have left Ireland.

Portraits of the Irish

LEAVINGHOME

Aoife O’Donnell, Meeting House Square.

IA.Dublin.qxd 3/5/11 12:51 PM

a feeling of pride and purpose; of havingmade a difficult but necessary choice; ofsetting out for someplace new. While thefigures plainly convey the volume of thecurrent wave of departures, they cannotdo much in terms of capturing this com-plicated spirit.

This is where Monahan comes in. Ayear ago, one of the photographer’sfriends and her boyfriend were leavingIreland for Australia. “He'd been out ofwork for a year and a half, she'd been outof work for about nine months,” Monahanrecounted in a recent interview with IrishAmerica. “They weren't doing too wellhere,” he continued, “so they decided togo to the Australian embassy and quick asyou like they had tickets booked and theywere ready to go. I thought it would be

nice to take a photograph of her before sheleft town, in a place that meant somethingto her.”

His friend turned out to be too shy topose, but the thought remained inMonahan's head. “I had a good sense ofwhat needed to be done and how it wouldlook…it was too good of an idea, tooimportant of a project to let it lie.”

So he didn't. He set up a mock shoot andposted the resulting photograph online,along with his initial call for participants.

Since then, he's done 30 shoots with

individuals and families who have leftDublin. The result is a body of work thattriumphs at communicating both gravityand strength, resignation and purpose,wistfulness and hope. All of the photo-graphs adhere to what has becomeMonahan's signature style for the series:dark, painstakingly lit images of soon-to-be emigrants, always with a slightly bat-tered antique suitcase nearby.

Interested subjects contact Monahanwith two or three possible locations,which he visits to examine the visual andtechnical possibilities. Once a site hasbeen chosen, Monahan and his rotatingcrew of five assistants head out to meetthe poser and begin the shoot, all of whichtake place at night. On a practical level,this helps ensure that they don't draw too

much attention from passersby and thatthere aren't any disturbances. Artistically,this allows Monahan to create the distinc-tive lighting and mood consistentthroughout all of the images. With hisHasselblad H3D 50 camera, the photogra-pher takes a few frames of his subject, andthen does additional background shots ofthe location. All of this is accomplishedusing only one light source, whichMonahan explains gives him “the possi-bility of almost painting with it. You canplace it here, you can place it there, and


Four of the people Monahan has photographed discuss theirexperiences of and reasons foremigrating. The e-mail interviewshave been edited for length andclarity.

Ryan Cronin-NeilanORIGINALLY FROM: Cabinteely, Dublin

Why did you leave Ireland? I’m arecent college graduate and as such Iqualified for a 12 month internshipvisa. With things the way they are inIreland right now, really, I would havebeen stupid to stay.Where are you now? Right now I’mliving in Philadelphia, which I love, Imust say.What are you doing? I’m currentlylooking for an internship, hopefullywith a newspaper as I’d love to workfor a newspaper when I return home.Did having to leave come as ashock or was emigration always apossibility for you? I think emigra-tion is always a possibility for the Irish.It’s what we do. We’re a tiny countryand no strangers to recession. Of, say,a core group of 20 friends or so I haveat home, I think about 7 or 8 are still inIreland. The rest are in Australia, Chile,Vietnam etc. Anywhere to get work.Will you go back to Ireland? I’ll be going back because my visa is only for a year. Whether there will be anything for me to go back to is a different story though.

Connor McMahonORIGINALLY FROM: Dublin, through and through.

Why did you leave Ireland? I lived inDublin for forty years and will alwayslove the city and its people – it’s myhome, for better or worse. That said, Ifeel it is not actually Dublin I have leftbut more so Ireland, at least in theCeltic Tiger sense of it. Before all ofthat, I can remember a relative materi-al contentment, and a much greatersense of neighborhood – both locallyand internationally. To me, thesethings represent two of our biggestlosses these last few years. And cyni-cally I choose to believe that thesetwo same things are never to return.Where are you now? I am in southLondon, right on the edge of the city.

Ryan Cronin-Neilan,G.P.O Arcade, Princes Street



Here, at least, I am close to the coun-tryside, which makes it a little easier. Imiss that most about Dublin: howquickly you can get out and up toHowth, or for a long windy stroll onPortmarnock beach. I don’t likeLondon much, but I find it does haveits compensations.What are you doing? I was fortunateenough to have had the option tomove from a contract-based role inDublin, where I worked as a designerfor a multinational firm, to a very simi-lar – albeit permanent – role within thesame organization at their offices inSurrey. Also, I pursue my career as anartist and musician, and London, ofcourse, is as full of potential in thatregard as any other city of its sizeand vibrancy in the world.Did having to leave come as ashock or was emigration always apossibility for you? Admittedly therewere other more personal circumstances that motivatedmy decision, but I had always felt it an option, regardless.As I said, I love my city and my country, but I could nevershake the feeling, even from an early age, that those withwhom we entrust great civic responsibility in Ireland ulti-mately prove themselves incapable and inept, and there-fore sooner or later likely to fail catastrophically. Will you go back to Ireland? I'll come back permanent-ly if I'm seeing significant progress on the civil front. Bythis I actually mean a less neo-liberal and more sociallyengaged political regime who will – among other things –evidence to the Irish nation a greater concern for its peo-ple rather than its banking classes.I do remind myself however, that in fact I am only fourhours away door-to-door via Gatwick. And so, with someplanning, I'm over as often as is feasible, in the meantime.

Aoife McMonagle ORIGINALLY FROM: Celbridge, Co Kildare.

Why did you leave Ireland? I had been thinking aboutmoving to another country for quite a while, and with myfixed-term contract coming to an end and prospects notlooking so good at home, the timing just seemed right.My primary motivation wasn’t really to escape the eco-nomic situation, though it is probably a big part of the rea-son that I plan to stay away for perhaps longer than I orig-inally thought.Where are you now? I’m living in Toronto, Canada.What are you doing? I’m working in marketing commu-nications for an IT company, so I am working in my field.Did having to leave come as a shock or was emi-gration always a possibility for you? As above, it wasalways something I had been thinking about, though atthe time I didn’t classify it as “emigration” per se, more anopportunity to travel and work. Obviously the situation inIreland does not seem to be improving, so I do plan to

you can light things you like and let things you don't particu-larly want to light go dark if you wish. It gives you the chanceto fine-tune the shot.” Back in his studio, he then pieces thedifferent elements of the scene together in Photoshop until hehas one final composite image, which he posts on his blogalong with a brief story about the person the photo depicts andthe journey he or she is about to embark on.

Even a cursory glance at the series shows that Monahan hasstuck to his initial aim of making the photographs “monumen-tal;” of showing “those depicted in a true heroic spirit.” Thecompassion in Monahan’s artistic vision is palpable. Thoughthe images are dark and shadowy, they cannot be described asmeek or melancholy. The subjects sit proudly and contempla-tively in their chosen locations, usually perched on a suitcaseMonahan uses as a recurring prop in every frame.

The exact age of the suitcase is something of a mystery, butMonahan does know that it was last stamped at the TilburyDocks in England in 1961. Much more than a mere prop, thesuitcase is a tangible artifact and a visual cue connectingIreland's previous periods of emigration with its current one.

Indeed, for Monahan, the suitcase cuts to the emotional coreof this project, since it was last used by one of his many fami-ly members who have moved to England. He is quick to addthat he's “not trying to be sentimental by using it;” rather, thatits purpose is to “make a little statement that it is part of thepast and [that] this cycle has happened over and over and overagain. The unfortunate thing, the sadness for me, is that Ibelieved that particular cycle had finished, as did a lot of peo-ple. But very, very quickly it [began again] and people havebeen leaving at a heavy pace ever since. It's quite saddeningthat that phenomenon has re-occurred, but it's also nice toknow and acknowledge, by the inclusion of the suitcase, thatthis has occurred before. And I suppose what we're striving foris to create a situation where it doesn't happen again.”

Though he readily admits it was not his initial intention,within the larger scheme of the project the places in the pho-tographs have become almost as prominent and important as

Connor McMahon,The back garden of hisold house in Dublin.



stay here for the foreseeable future.Will you go back to Ireland? ObviouslyIreland is still home to me, but I don't seemyself going back for the next few years atleast. After that it's hard to say, the longeryou're away the less likely it is that you'll goback I suppose, but in my mind I still seemyself going back someday.

Aoife O’DonnellORIGINALLY FROM: Cork, raised in Kildare

Why did you leave Ireland? I graduatedfrom the Dublin Institute of Technology inJune 2010 and found it near to impossible tofind steady work. I was looking for any job –not just one related to photography, which iswhat I studied in college. I spent severalmonths on social welfare until my friend saidshe was moving to New York City on a grad-uate visa. I did some research and found Iwas eligible to live and work in the United

States for up to 12 months. Essentially, the reason I movedto New York was for personal adventure and to further mycareer, which was quite stagnant in Ireland. Where are you now? I am located in Brooklyn, New York.It’s an incredibly vibrant place to live; a sort of sanctuary foranyone in the arts, as you are close to Williamsburg andLower Manhattan. The energy here is quite palpable, whichI find refreshing and inspiring as a photographer.What are you doing? I currently work as a teachingassistant in the International Center of Photography.Did having to leave come as a shock or was emi-gration always a possibility for you? I always felt thatemigration was a possiblity for me, from quite a young age.The Irish have, of course, been emigrating to Australia andthe United States for years. Thankfully, I am emigratingmore out of choice rather than being forced. I have alwayshad a passion for traveling, instilled in me by my parents,whose unconventional trips abroad broadened my world-view from a young age. It has come as a major shock tohear recently that 1,000 people per week are emigratingfrom Ireland. It leaves me with a sense of guilt, somewhat,that I am one of the many skilled graduates/workers leavingour island in a sort of mass exodus.Will you go back to Ireland? It really all depends on mysuccess in the States. There are certain opportunities toprogress in my career in New York that I know I will neverencounter in Ireland. But, on the other hand, my roots lie inIreland and my heart will always remain there. It may be acase that I might not have a choice to stay in Americalonger than what my visa stipulates, so I must remainaware of that reality. However, if it did come to that I plan todo a world trip, which could see me settling somewhereentirely unexpected. I would like to think that I (and thethousands of other emigrants) will return to Ireland some-day and that the knowledge I have absorbed from my trav-els will help me to contribute in some way, shape or form,to helping restore the vibrancy and progress of ourbeloved nation.

the people. The locations vary greatly. They've been to “thehills on the outskirts of Dublin, looking back on the lights ofthe city; the sea ports; in the city center, right in the middle;and in suburbia.”

In this sense, the photos are not just portraits of the youngemigrants, but also of contemporary Ireland. This was notMonahan’s intention, but an element of the project thatevolved over time. “Once you start talking to people andthey make the choice of a place to sit, you start getting theimpression that you're moving from place to place, thatyou're covering the entire city from pillar to post, really.

“Initially, no, it wouldn't have been a predominant thoughtof mine. I really just wanted to put people somewhere thatwas relevant to them and looked somewhat striking. But astime progresses it's definitely becoming a portrait of the city,a portrait of a city and those it has chosen to do without.”They are pictures of a city and those who no longer inhabit it.

The subjects of Monahan’s photographs are in other citiesnow. Some have made permanent moves, others are away onyear-long visas, still others have actually returned homefrom Ireland – reversing the influx of immigration Irelandexperienced during the good years of the Celtic Tiger. Aspeople continue to leave and word of Monahan’s projectspreads, he plans to continue his work of capturing people ina quiet moment before their departure. In tandem with theexpanding range of people leaving the country, the demo-graphic of his subjects is widening, too, and he hopes to fur-ther that by working with more families and more people intheir 40s and 50s. Though it will be difficult, Monahan planson stopping the shoots when he reaches 70 images, at whichpoint he will look for a gallery space to exhibit the series –not in Ireland, but abroad, where the people the photographsdepict have traveled. When asked why, Monahan replies,“Ithink it needs to be in those locations first and foremost, tobare witness to those who have left.” ___________________________________________

For more information, visit Monahan’s blog: thelillipution.blogspot.com

Aoife McMonagle, Portobello, Dublin

IA



Paddy Murphy’s body is slowlybeing stilled by a degenerativedisease, but his eyes are alive,bright and knowing as hestruggles to form words tomatch his racing thoughts.

He knows that the story he fought tokeep alive, the compelling tale of the Irishfamine ship The Hannah,which attempteda harrowing Atlantic crossing fromIreland to Quebec in 1848, only toencounter an iceberg. The captain aban-doned the sinking ship and its nearly 200passengers, many of whom miraculouslysurvived 17 hours on the frozen ice andwere rescued by the fellow famine shipThe Nicaragua. Forgotten for some time,the story is now being told on large stagesat both sides of the brig’s tragic Atlanticcrossing.

Paddy, 70, has MSA, Multiple SystemsAtrophy. He has received 24-hour care athis home in Newmarket, Ontario, justnorth of Toronto, as the disease pro-gressed.

It has been a fight against time for himsince its early stages in 2005 to make surethe world does not forget the history ofsome 70 Irish immigrants who perishedon the ice floes of the Gulf of St.Lawrence in Canada — and the 129 whosurvived.

The story of cowardice and couragewas told on BBC Northern Ireland onFebruary 21, in a Hardy Pictures produc-tion called Ice Emigrants, and will beaired on St. Patrick’s Day on CBC Canadain a different docudrama entitled Famineand Shipwreck: An Irish Odyssey in theUnited States.

(Galafilm, the Canadian documentary-maker, is looking at options for airing thedocumentary in the United States.)

The two docudramas have some com-mon scenes but while the BBC one cen-ters on the Donnellys, the CBC onefocuses on the Murphy and Evans fami-lies. All the parties who come together inmaking the story of the Hannah agree thatit would not have happened but for an arti-cle I wrote in Irish America in August,2008.

That story told of Paddy Murphy’sresearch as a descendant of Bernard(Barney) Murphy, who was rescued fromthe freezing water as a child. In a tragictwist, a woman who had leapt into thewater to save one of her own children,Mrs. Henry Grant, pulled Barney from thewater instead. All her children perished.

The story of The Hannah, an Irish famine ship that hit an iceberg in 1849, isnow a documentary. John Kernaghan explains how it happened and how IrishAmerica played a part.

An Irish Odyssey

IA.TheHannah.qxd 3/5/11 1:21 PM


The story made its way down the gen-erations, but it was not until Paddy retiredfrom a marketing career that he beganpicking up the threads.

His wife Jane, also of Irish heritage andfrom the small town of Westport, nearOttawa, where many Hannah survivorssettled, began researching too. As Paddy’sillness deepened she was critical in gettingthe background needed to make the BBCand CBC docudramas.

But she says it could all have beenwasted effort were it not for the IrishAmerica article that was available on theInternet.

In late 2009, Alun Evans had beenstymied in his attempt to learn more aboutthe legacy of his great-great-grandfatherWilliam Marshall, who as captain of theNicaragua had willed his crew to bravethe ice floes to save Hannah’s passengerswhen its captain callously abandonedthem.

Evans had a family heirloom: a silvercup that Quebec City officials had pre-

sented to Marshall for his bravery.Evans sat at his computer in Wales and

wished he could connect with descendantsof the survivors his ancestor had saved.He typed in “Brig Hannah” and uppopped the Irish America article.

If he had waited a few days more, thepiece would not have been available, herecalled.

“Your internet article from the maga-zine played a key part in the wholedrama,” Evans told me. “If I’d surfed theinternet a few days later for the word‘Hannah,’ the article would not have beenthere. It was taken down a short timeafter.”

Still, he had recorded Paddy and JaneMurphy’s names and the MullaghbaneCommunity Association in Co. Armaghwhere historians Kevin Murphy and UnaWalsh had published A Famine Link, TheHannah.

Evans connected with Murphys on bothsides of the Atlantic and then with cele-brated Canadian filmmaker Brian

McKenna, who had sought for years totell a story that symbolized the flight fromfamine that brought 100,000 Irish immi-grants to Canada in 1847 alone.

McKenna, whose great-great-grandfa-ther Francis McKenna immigrated toMontreal from Monaghan in 1874, saidthe story of a million Irish lost to faminehas been carefully managed by theEnglish over time.

“They have always come down moreon the ‘act of God’ side, which is what anEnglish governor of Ireland called it at thetime, rather than what it was: a policy ofextermination.”

The website for McKenna’s film,www.famineshiphannah.com, is pointed,terming the five years of potato-crop fail-ure “The Great Starvation” and theHannah as a “coffin ship.”

McKenna says the key to telling thestory was connecting the Murphys withEvans – the family of the saved and thefamily of the savior.

“It was remarkable that Alun found

Far left: Sharon andJane take in the sightsin Armagh. Left: The cup that theSt. Patrick’s Society ofQuebec presented toCaptain Marshall in1849 in recogtnitionof his heroic efforts inrescuing passengersof The Hannah.Below: Murphydescendants at thereunion in Westport,Ottawa. Below Left: Bernard“Barney” Murphy andhis wife, Ellen.


your piece,” he said. “Gettingdescendants of a moment in historytogether at the site of the incident issomething that provides really mov-ing moments.”

Evans did that last April, almost161 years later to the day of theshipwreck, as he came to Canadawith Padraig Carragher and SharonDonnelly-Carragher from Armaghwho are fourth cousins of PaddyMurphy and represent a wing of thefamily who stayed at home in theForkhill area and survived thefamine.

In a touching moment, Donnellypresented Paddy with the finial offthe gate of the Murphy homestead insouth Armagh.

Meeting his newfound cousins andAlun Evans and touching the cup, theonly concrete evidence of that fatefultime in 1849, made all Paddy’s years ofresearch worthwhile, his wife, Jane said.

Carragher told the Newry Reporterthat it was a moving experience to relivewhat he and Sharon’s relatives wentthrough.“The story of the Hannah isabsolutely chilling. It was captained byCurry Shaw who was only 23 years-oldand is said to have converted the coalship to a passenger ship and set sail fromWarrenpoint.”

He said one account claimed that Shawordered the ship’s carpenter to nail downthe hatch to the passengers’ quarters whenthe ship’s hull caved in. But the manrefused, allowing people out on to the ice.

Sharon and Padraig met up with Janeand Paddy Murphy and their son Tom lastspring. Paddy was by then too ill to trav-el. The party and filmmaking crew board-ed a fishing vessel in Prince Edward

Island and made their way to the sitewhere the Hannah was caught in pack iceand her hull crushed.

At McKenna’s request, Tom Murphyventured out on to the shifting ice tetheredto the ship.

Tom knew the story, but nothing pre-pared him for the emotional wallop of try-ing to move on the ice as outgoing tidesbegan to break it up.

“My leg went down to my knee in ahole, the ice was moving, and the ship wasbobbing up and down. Then I got it, thetruth of the story. My relatives had beenon this in the dark for many hours with lit-tle clothing. It just overwhelmed me.”

On the fishing boat, Jane watched herson struggling with his footing and con-nected emotionally with John and BridgetMurphy, who saw two of their four chil-dren fade into the night on a patch of ice.

Meanwhile, Alun Evans said it waseerie that the sea that day was similar towhat William Marshall recalled in hismemoirs.

“If on the 30th of April, 1849 [and the

day after], even normal conditions hadoccurred, let alone the stormy weatherthat had prevailed for several days before,surely others would have drawn closer todeath or even died aboard,” Evans said.

“But as it was, the weather hadbecome dead calm, as Marshall indi-cates. Without the about turn in winddirection that had pushed the Nicaraguaout of the treacherous ice at dawn, andthen the stilling of the sea for the nextcouple of days, many more people surelywould have perished.”

Evans says Marshall was a born-againChristian of his time and felt God’s handat work in the rescue.

Jane Murphy said there was certainlysomething mystical in all the connectionsmade over time to make the documentarypossible, including the Irish America linkin the chain of events.

The blessing for her family was thatPaddy got to see the documentary made.

“I think he wanted this legacy for hischildren, so that the story would carryon.”


Right: Tom on the ice.Below: Film director Brian McKenna

with Alun Evans and his son. Below right: Rose dedication to

Hannah victims.

IA


theMErrion 1/12/11 8:11 AM Page 1


With a green pen and agrateful smile I began tosign my book, GalwayBay, purchased by thewoman who told me shewas a nun. “To Sister

Mary,” I wrote in the flowing hand Iimagined authors used. “Stop,” she said.“You’re scribbling.”

Ah – there, in a nutshell – my experi-ence with nuns. All my life they had bothencouraged me and kept me right. I’msure many of you are remembering simi-lar moments with the religious womenwho not only taught us but helped formour very identities.

Would Irish-America ever have accom-plished all it has without the Sisters, manywith roots in Ireland themselves, spurringon generation after generation to do ourbest? Would the United States be thesame if nuns hadn’t played such a quietlypivotal role? Since the early 19th centurythey have filled the needs in areas of thecountry with few hospitals, insufficientschools, and no services for the poor.They were pioneers; heroes.

Among these early trailblazers were theSisters of Providence, founded at SaintMary-of-the-Woods, Indiana in 1840 byMother St. Theodore Guerin, who wascanonized in 2006. I spent six years as amember of the order. I didn’t take finalvows, and I left in 1968, but I remainclose to the Sisters and know how hardthey are working to continue their mission“to further God’s loving plan by devotingoneself to works of love, mercy and jus-tice in service among God’s people” –even as their members grow older andresources diminish. So it shocked me tolearn that the Vatican had been carryingout a large-scale investigation intoAmerican nuns since November 22, 2008,when Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rodé,Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation forInstitutes of Consecrated Life andSocieties of Apostolic Life, formallyissued a decree ordering an “ApostolicVisitation” or comprehensive review ofinstitutes of women religious in theUnited States. This very serious step usu-ally happens when there has been somegrave abuse. But the cardinal made no

specific accusation. Instead, he said in aradio interview on November 4, 2009,that concern about “a certain feministspirit” was one thing that had triggered thevisitation.

I decided to go to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods to learn more about the ApostolicVisitation, talk with friends about the roleof Religious Women today and, in keep-ing with the motto of this magazine –Pride in Our Heritage – celebrate theIrish-American women who made such acontribution to the Sisters of Providenceas they did to so many other Americanorders.

There has been little elaboration onwhat this “certain feminist spirit” entailsand the precise threat it poses. In his book,Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making ofAmerica, John J. Fialka makes the pointthat nuns were the nation’s first feminists,and that this very spirit has been intrinsicto all the good they have done. “Theybecame the first cadre of independent pro-fessional women. Some nursed, sometaught, and many created and managednew charitable organizations, including

What’s The Story With The

Nuns?

Mary Pat Kelly visits the nuns of her old novitiate to talk about the workthey are doing and the Vatican investigation into their lives.

IA.Nuns.qxd 3/5/11 1:26 PM


large hospitals and colleges,” he writes.“In the 1800s their work was often in

the face of intimidation from groups suchas the Know Nothings as they movedwest with the frontiers, often starting thefirst hospitals and schools in immigrantcommunities. In the 1900s they built thenation’s largest private school and hospi-tal systems and brought the CatholicChurch in the civil rights movements.”

Today, orders throughout the nationcontinue this important work, even in the

face of ever-increasing challenges. Thesisters are fewer in number and greater inage. Until the 1960s, nuns had routinelyrun their institutions, invested theirmoney, and earned PhDs when mostwomen didn’t. Once women became freeto pursue these things outside of religiouslife, enrolment dropped. But in a commu-nity devoted to providence, such thingsare seen as part of God’s plan. “Maybe areligious community isn’t intended tohave thousands and thousands of mem-bers,” Sister Mary Beth Klingle, Directorof Novices at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods,told me. “We’re pleased to have one ortwo women enter a year, if it’s God’s willand it works out for them and for us.”

The figures reflect this change. When Ientered Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, therewere about 1,200 in the order. Now, thereare 338. The median age is 78. Two hun-dred Sisters are at the Motherhouse –

most are retired. Some are on staff at SaintMary-of-the-Woods College, an inde-pendent institution not tied financially tothe order. A few others work as part of theorder’s leadership team, but 110 Sistersrequire full time nursing care, which theyreceive in a health care facility commend-

ed by the Indiana State HealthCommission, which said that if everyonetook care of their elders the way theSisters did, there would be no need fororganizations like theirs.

A further challenge lies in gatheringresources to sustain the Sisters and theorder. The 138 members who work inministries that pay some salary contributeto a common fund that helps support thecongregation. During all the decadeswhen the Sisters taught in Catholic parishschools, the Church never paid into theSocial Security fund. In 1972, the U.S.government offered religious orders thechance to contribute to the fund for theirmembers, but the congregations had tocome up with the money themselves.Most, like the Sisters of Providence, soldproperty to get the million-plus dollarsneeded to purchase retroactive member-ship for the Sisters. But present-day

Social Security payments to retired mem-bers are only around $100 per month.Where does the other money to supportthe Sisters, maintain the property, andfund the order’s missions come from?“From our friends,” said Sister DeniseWilkinson, General Superior, whose rootsare in County Wicklow. “The nuns haveto be self-sustaining.” “Doesn’t theChurch . . . ?” I asked. No, the Churchdoesn’t. Although the Sisters get a smallshare of an annual collection taken up inchurches for Retired Religious, they raisethe bulk of their large operating expensesthemselves. It means “Cutting, cutting,and begging,” Sister Denise said, “andlots of faith in Providence.” Somehowthey find ways to fund their missions

Despite the obstacles, the nuns remainas dedicated as ever to their charitableworks. In the communities near theMotherhouse alone, the Sisters have setup a free clinic that for twenty-five yearshas served the uninsured. They run the“House on Route 115,” where 170 chil-dren receive afterschool tutoring. At theecumenical Providence Food Pantry,retired Sisters serve clients with incredi-ble respect, Sister Denise said. “TheSisters understand it’s hard to have tocome and ask for free food.”

The Sisters of Providence work in nine-teen states and Taiwan in ministries rang-ing from Providence in the Desert, wheretwo nuns teach English in migrant camps,through the more traditional service asteachers and parish ministers. But with somany Catholic schools closing, manyteachers have lost their jobs. According toSister Denise, “We have two Sisters whowere principals of schools that closed.When they applied to other Catholicschools, they were told they wereoverqualified. They took jobs in publicschools.”

“Our Sisters are inventive, though,”Sister Denise said, and she told the storyof Miracle Place, a house Sister Rita andSister Barbara founded in an African-American community in Indianapolis as aservice center for seniors and students.The congregation gave them a grant tobegin their work, and somehow they havemanaged to continue to find funds. SisterDenise said, “I asked one man I met attheir annual fund-raiser how he gotinvolved,” she remembers. “‘Against my

LEFT: The Church of the ImmaculateConception, on the motherhouse grounds ofthe Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, IN. BELOW: Sister Nancy Reynolds(SP) during a liturgy installing her as a mem-ber of the order’s General Council in 2006.



will,’ he answered. ‘You try to say no toSister Rita.’” Miracle Place recentlyexpanded its ministry and began gatheringcrews to rehab abandoned houses. To datethey’d rescued five houses to providehomes for the homeless. Both women arewell past middle age.

With so few parish schools to providereligious instruction, many Sisters havebecome directors of religious education atparishes, teaching and training teachers inCCD programs and instituting familyspirituality programs. And retirementdoesn’t mean an end to service. SisterMartha Wessel directs the center whereretired Sisters live and helps design theirapostolate. “One Sister came home fromChicago yesterday,” she told me. “She’llspend one morning a week at the maxi-mum security federal prison in TerreHaute. There is no chaplain, so nuns nowconduct prayer services there. Seven ofour Sisters are ‘ministers of record’ fordeath-row inmates,” Sister Martha toldme. The retired Sister has also “decided towork at the Food Pantry, visit those inHealth Care, tutor, work at the day carecenter, and spend one hour a day prayingat the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.”“And how old is she?” I asked.“Eighty-three.”

These are the women the Vatican isinvestigating. Nancy Reynolds, SP, amember of the leadership team, treasurerof the congregation, and a canon lawyer,pointed out to me that “never before in thehistory of the Church has an ApostolicVisitation been undertaken that hasn’tbeen the result of an abuse.” It is hard tosee what the abuse might be in this case,as the Sisters gracefully fight to remainactive and effective in today’s society.

The immediate cause of the ApostolicVisitation seems to have been a sympo-sium on religious life that was held atStonehill College in Easton,Massachusetts, during September 2008.Many of the speakers were critical of reli-gious life in the United States. Ann Carey,a lay journalist who writes in Our SundayVisitor, complained about mission state-ments on congregations’ Web sites thatstate that religious communities in thefuture may be more inclusive, welcomingassociates who may be married. When Iread her speech, I thought of the youngman I met who was serving a year as aProvidence Volunteer, helping at theWhite Violet Center on campus, an organ-

ic farm and eco-justice center. In whatway was he threatening? And what aboutthe young woman I’d met who spent ayear living with the Sisters, working intheir ministries to “deepen my spirituali-ty.” I’d told Sister Denise she’d make agreat nun. “Except she’s Jewish,” Denisereplied. But to contribute her talents for ayear? Why not?

A further point of contention, and per-haps the most tangible element in all ofthis, has been the habit. I asked SisterBernice Kuper, SP, Director of Noviceswhen I was in the novitiate, about theissue.

Sister Bernice pointed out that it wasPope Pius XII who “directed the world’sreligious superiors to begin the modern-ization of their congregations. He specifi-cally urged simplification of habits, layingaside outmoded customs, and the ongoingeducation of members.” This beginning ofrenewal and adaptation culminated inVatican Council II, which Pope JohnXXIII called in 1962, and the 1965 docu-ment Perfectae Caritatis directed womenreligious “to revisit the roots of their con-gregation and to study the charism of theirfoundress . . . to be reenergized for min-istry in the modern world.”

And so they did. And you know hownuns are: they did it thoughtfully andthoroughly. I was there when we realizedthat swathing ourselves in yards andyards of expensive, black wool serge andstiff, white linen headpieces was not theessence of our mission. Most other con-gregations agreed. I remember thinking,

it’s what we are, not what we wear,that’s important.

Today, 95 percent of the 70,000 con-secrated women in the U.S. belong toorders that wear secular clothes,though any members who prefer towear the traditional habit may do so.These are the communities beinginvestigated. The other five percent ofreligious women in orders that wearhabits and describe themselves as con-servatives or traditionalists are notsubject to the Apostolic Visitation. Is therea kind of nostalgia among the hierarchyfor the way they think nuns and womenused to be and should be again?

The visitation spans three phases.Phases one and two involve written ques-tionnaires sent out to the congregations.Many orders replied by simply submittingtheir Constitution. “The answers are con-tained in our Constitution,” Sister NancyReynolds said, “which was approved byRome years ago.” Mother Mary ClareMillea, superior general of the Apostles ofthe Sacred Heart of Jesus, who wasappointed by Rome to head the visitation,then selected nuns from certain orders tocarry out phase three: on-site visits toquestion members of the congregations.During these visits, which began in April2010 and are still taking place, visitators

ABOVE: Sister Shawn MarieMcDermott teaches 5th grade at St.Agnes School. RIGHT: The Sisters ofProvidence convent cemetery. All photosprovided by the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods.



interview the leadership and members,take notes, and make a report that is puton a thumb drive and sent directly to theOffice of Apostolic Visitation and then tothe Vatican. Visitators shred their notes.The congregations are allowed neither tosee the report nor to respond.

Then what? “We don’t know,” saysSister Nancy Reynolds. In the NationalCatholic Reporter, Mother Milleaexplained that, “Each institute will subse-quently receive feedback from the Vaticanfor the purpose of promoting its charis-

matic identity and apostolic vitality inongoing dialogue with the local and uni-versal church.”

In another National Catholic Reporterarticle, Editor Tom Fox wrote, “By mostaccounts, these were conducted in a spiritof mutual respect and charity.” He wenton to say “our women religious have triednot to complain, but rather speak withtheir actions.” The Sisters have reactedwith grace and prudence, and the hope isthat their actions will speak loudlyenough. Perhaps we are the ones whoshould speak up about what seems to besuch an unjust process, one that has beenestimated to cost over 1 million dollars.After all, we are the ones who have bene-fited from the service of generations ofdedicated women, many of whom areIrish American.

I hadn’t known that Sister Nancy’sroots are in Ballymena in County Antrim,or that hers is the only Catholic branch ofthe family. She told me that when herNorthern Ireland relatives came to theWoods to celebrate her Golden Jubilee,one said that, though he wasn’t sure aboutCatholics, he thought nuns were terrific!

The last morning of my visit I got upvery early and went on my favorite walkthrough the cemetery. I felt surrounded byour ancestors as the rising sun lit thenames engraved on the white headstones

– Sister Mary Frances, Anna Egan; SisterPauline, Elizabeth Egan; Sister Rose Paul,Honora O’Donahue; Sister Maurelia,Emma O’Brien. I walked past the gravesof my own teachers – Sister MarieDenise, Hannah Sullivan; Sister Marcella,Grace O’Malley; Sister Mary Olive, MaryOlive O’Connell – row after row of mark-ers set in this open space amid the treesand green hills of the Woods.

For although the Sisters of Providenceoriginated in France and were brought toAmerica in 1840 by a Breton woman,Anne Therese Guerin – now Saint MotherTheodore, after her 2006 canonization –Irish women had joined the congregationfrom its earliest days. One of them,Mother Mary Cleophas, Margaret TeresaFoley, born in 1845 to Irish immigrantsJames Foley and Mary O’Connor, and

General Superior from 1890 to 1926, wasthe force behind the order’s expansion asthe congregation staffed up to 100 schoolsthroughout the U.S. and became the firstwomen’s religious order to open a missionin China. She turned the campus of SaintMary-of-the-Woods College into a gra-cious enclave in the Indiana wilderness,complete with a church modeled on Paris’Sainte-Trinité and a chapel with stainedglass windows inspired by King LouisIX’s Sainte-Chapelle. She was one of thatwhole galaxy of Irish women who spreadout through America, opening schools,hospitals, and orphanages where none hadexisted. Mother McCauley’s Sisters ofMercy and the Sisters of Charity of theBlessed Virgin Mary – BVMs – foundedby Mary Frances Clarke, are two of theother orders that served the immigrants ofChicago – my city. But I’m sure right nowyou’re supplying the names of many otherorders whose mission touched the placeyou live.

However, this morning, the dates aswell as the names fascinated me. MaryMullan had died in 1855; BridgetO’Neill, in 1861; Elizabeth Kehoe, in1879; on and on, through the nineteenthand early twentieth century. Do the math,I told myself; these women are survivorsof the Great Starvation. They or theirparents had somehow escaped the catas-trophe that killed one million and senttwo million more running for their lives.All of these O’Grady, Ryan, Fitzgerald,O’Connor, and O’Hanlon women couldtell a story of courage and resilience. Alldevoted their lives to serving their poorand disadvantaged countrymen, women,and children.

I felt their spirits in this place, encour-aging and protecting the Sisters whocarry on the mission they began. As theyface these many challenges, we too canoffer our support.

(Just as this article was going to press,word came that Cardinal Rodé had been

replaced by Archbishop João Bráz deAviz, who, in interviews, seems moreopen to real dialogue with women

religious. Write to Archbishop João Brázde Aviz c/o Apostolic Visitation, P.O. Box

4328, Hamden, CT 06514-9998, or e-mail www.apostolicvisitation.org to sayhow grateful we are to the Sisters who

helped so many of us.)

IA



{reader review}

It’s the buzz of Cable TV. Lights Out(Tuesdays at 9 p.m. CST) is FoxTelevision and FX Production’s lat-est small-screen success. And it’s

about a fictional Irish-American ex-heavy-weight champion.

I know what you’re thinking: justanother story about an Irish boxer.

This isn’t. The show couldn’t be furtherfrom Errol Flynn dancing around the ringin Gentleman Jim; so little of the show iseven about boxing. But it is about fight-ing. And Patrick “Lights” Leary (playedsuperbly by Irish-American actor HoltMcCallany) is nothing if not a fighter. Hehas so much to fight about.

The forty-year-old son of Bayonne,

New Jersey has five years of ring rust toremove as the show’s producers inch himslowly, trial after tribulation, back into thesquared circle and a title rematch. By theend of the third episode Patrick is broke,thanks to his woefully amoral promoter/brother, beholden to Irish loan shark (ofall things) Hal Brennan, newly implicatedin a murder, and in trouble with his wife“You quit or we quit,” insists the lissomeCatherine McCormack, as his wife andsoon-to-be medical doctor, Theresa Leary.Her demands are reasonable. Patrick isfacing the possibility of the brain-wasting,trauma-induced disease of dementiapugilistica.

The drama only intensifies in the

episodes to follow. As “Lights” takes uphis pursuit of the title (“I have nochoice”), he’s shown the door by his wife,subsequently sustains an eye injury, ismenaced by a truly vicious upcomingopponent, and unwittingly has his ringfuture sold to the leg-breaking Brennan.

Up against it, he is.So what’s an Irishman to do?If given to stereotype, the show would

focus hence on the mother of all boxingcomebacks, complete with sweaty scenesof rope-skipping and gray morning road-work. There’s almost too little of this andfor a reason: Patrick Leary’s guiding lightis his family, not his fists. If in reality thefirst Irish heavyweight champion John L.

Sullivan was famous for his blusteryappeal (“I can lick any man alive”), theworld’s latest Irish champ, in story, wantsnothing of it. “Do you know how much Ilove you?” he softly reminds his ever-defiant teenage daughter during a squab-ble. Stronger still is the intensity of quietlove his middle daughter Daniela (actressRyann Shane of Philadelphia) tries toexpress towards him. With her precociouspowers of discernment, she is painfullyconcerned about her father’s health. It’sno wonder. She has no greater role modelfor love of family than the ex-champ him-self. Patrick Leary’s concern for his clear-ly aging father/manager (performed deftlyby Stacy Keach, whose own role as a

boxer in John Huston’s 1972 Fat Citymade him a star) is yet another example ofLeary’s potential for good.

For Lights Out, family is the focus.Against the swagger of backgroundscenes – Leary’s confrontation, on hisdriveway, with the man who took his title;a bar fight; a cage fight; and the brokenlimb of a welshing dentist – the theme offamilial love will keep the show fromsinking into stereotype. We are on famil-iar ground here as New Jersey was thebackdrop of another renowned Irish fight-er. James J. Braddock (1905-1974), whowas the last heavyweight of Irish descentto hold the world championship. The tra-vails of this punching Garden Stater wereportrayed with heft by Russell Crowe inRon Howard’s tear-jerking, CinderellaMan. For love of his family, Braddock tooovercame adversity. After losing everycent in the 1929 stock market crash andbeset by crippling arthritis, he took thehard road and fought his way from hard-scrabble gloom to become the heavy-weight champion of the world in 1935.Even in losing the championship twoyears later, this fairy tale winner was oneof the few to knock down Joe Louis,arguably the greatest counterpuncher inhistory. Braddock went on to live a won-derfully envious and normal life with hisfamily for nearly four decades.

New Jersey is also the home to the fic-tional family “The Sopranos.” Alreadywith a convenient mob subplot ready forexpansion, Lights Out may well go downthe clichéd and larcenous road with predictability of outcome. I’m hoping itdoesn’t. How many current televisionshows portray an Irish family with decen-cy and strength of message? Let this sagaof the Celtic sock continue down a path ofpromise. In the meantime, my money’s on“Lights” Leary: box or not, win or lose,he’ll keep his family first in mind – anddeed – as he walks the straight and narrow.

It’s what a real fighter does. –Tim Weldon, Joliet, IL

Lights On: Lights Out“It’s a family drama. It’s about my relationship with my wife and children.”

– Holt McCallany about his character, Patrick “Lights” Leary

IA

Holt McCallanyand CatherineMcCormack inthe new FXseries LightsOut.

IA.104.qxd 3/5/11 1:30 PM

ConcernAD 3/2/11 10:11 AM Page 1


{what are you like?}By Patricia Harty

Your earliest memory. Well, that’s a long time agobut I remember my parents packing a suitcase to travel tomy grandparents’ home in County Louth for Christmas. Irecall my mother packing an old worn brown suitcase andone thing she put inside the case was a square of ‘Jelly’ fromDublin. I was in the back seat with the suitcase at my feetand after we arrived, my grandmother remarked that a

Paddy MoloneyThe leader and founder of The Chieftains, six-time

Grammy-winners and the world’s most popular Irish

traditional music group, grew up in Donnycarney,

Co. Dublin and inherited his love of music from his

parents. His first instrument was a plastic tin whistle.

He later graduated to the uilleann pipes learning to

play from the great pipe master Leo Rowsome. The

Chieftains will tour exclusively in the U.S. in 2011. In

the near future Paddy will link up for a whistle and

flute duet with astronaut Cady Coleman who took

one of Paddy’s whistles with her to the International

Space Station.

mouse must have gotten into the suitcase and eaten someof the Jelly. Of course I overheard this and knew I was themouse, but I never admitted to it.

Your perfect day. Lunch with my grandchildren inAnnamoe, in the Wicklow mountains.

Your favorite extravagance. A bottle of LynchBages red wine (old).

Your prized possession. Tin whistle that wentinto space and is currently at the International SpaceStation.

Your idea of happiness. A bottle of Lynch Bagesred wine (old).

What’s on your bedside table? A book byShirley MacLaine. In this particular book Shirley mentionssome of her experiences surrounding Peter Sellers’ death. Ialso had a remarkable episode that surrounded Peter Sellers’death. I never seem to finish a book, but a few pages is anideal match for my morning cup of tea.

Hidden talent. I love to answer birds and the birdsseem to enjoy when I repeat their songs. After a time theytend to fly off in frustration.

Movie that you will watch again andagain. The Godfather.

Your favorite quality in friends Those whodon’t discuss music.

Your motto. Nil aon tintean mar do htintean fein(basic translation – there’s no place like home).

Best opening line in a book or piece ofmusic. Mozart’s horn concerto.

If you weren’t doing what you are doingwhat would you do? I originally thought aboutaccounting, but I really love being in the garden.

Favorite painter. Scotsman John Bellany.

Favorite composer. Mozart.

Favorite hero in real life. My wife Rita who is ahero for putting up with me.

Your present state of mind. Calm.

What question do you wish someonewould ask you? When are you going to retire?

This is the first in a series of questionnaires with eminent figures in the Irish and Irish-American community

Ia.Wh.r.u.like.qxd 3/5/11 3:33 PM

DooleyAD 3/2/11 10:15 AM Page 1


{music reviews}By Tara Dougherty

Skulduggery StreetBarleyjuice

Aband sure to come under theirfair share of Pogue comparisons,Skulduggery Street’s new album

Barleyjuice is a collection of energeticsongs with a punk rock bite. The earlytracks walk a dangerous line that couldpigeonhole them into the same street-rock-meets-pub-seisiun that was seem-ingly perfected in the 90s. They play witha carefree excitement though, an attitudeto set them apart from their contempo-raries. As the album unfolds,Skulduggery Street reveals the capabilityfor much softer elements. They work inpleasant contrast to their rock drinkingsongs with sweet folky mandolin-driventunes like “Whiskey Maid,” contrastedby the traditional fiddle-driven “ThePostman Always Jigs Twice.” The albumends with the very sweet and gentle tinwhistle of “Generations.” The vocal har-monies in this closing track come as acharming surprise following a veryupbeat party album. There is versatilityin Skulduggery Street, to be sure, andthey seem to have just barely scratchedthe surface of it yet.

Smith & Gannon The Ewewith the Crooked Horn

In the world of traditional Irish music,The Ewe with the Crooked Hornbrings together two gifted players in

Irish American folk tradition. The recordoffers a traditional sound of the celebrat-ed duo of fiddle and accordion, playedwith both precision and variation. JesseSmith’s fiddle stands out with his uniquestyle of ornamentation, which still paystribute to many greats before. TheBaltimore native was born to musicianparents and grew up in the Irish music tra-dition. He moved to Ireland and begantouring and teaching music in a variety ofschools and camps.

Smith’s counterpart in this record isColm Gannon. Gannon, a first-generationIrish American whose parents hailed fromConnemara, is originally fromDorchester, MA. A competitive accordionplayer, Gannon won the All-Irelands forbutton accordion in 1994 and went on totour with Riverdance and a variety ofIrish bands. His accordion provides thesolid foundation throughout the record.

The two complement eachother seamlessly in this record, whichfeels familiar in the best sense. This is tra-ditional music played by musicians Iwould not be surprised to see becomehousehold names.

James Vincent McMorrowEarly in the Morning

Atrue stumble-upon talent, Irish-born James Vincent McMorrowpicked up the guitar at age 19,

and claims he wrote his first song just fouryears before this album dropped inJanuary 2011. The musician spent hisearly years as a “hardcore drummer,” rel-ishing in a heavy metal influence beforeexploring the folk world that would ulti-mately lead him down the path to his

debut record, Early in the Morning – apath that many will be surely grateful hefound. This album cannot be praisedenough. The arrangements are stunning,with understated vocals that melt into therecord. “We Don’t Eat” stands out in par-ticular as a track that begins as a soft andtearful song. McMorrow accomplishessomething very special in the build-up ofthis track – it feels like a story arc slowlybeing carried into exciting action and gen-tly brought down into resolution.McMorrow sticks to a very structured folkballad for “Follow You Down to the RedOak Tree,” evoking Iron and Wine vocals,as he does through much of the record.McMorrow shines lyrically and in hisability to break a listener’s heart in onesong and follow it immediately with aplayful track, neither of which is obvious-ly outside of his comfort zone. His soundis truly entrancing and will most definite-ly attract a following stateside.

The Outside Track CuriousThings Given Wings

It is rare a commodity in traditionalcultural music to find the structure ofold infused with the passion of youth.

The Outside Track is a phenomenallystructured group with five core members,each of whom has gained internationalrecognition and awards in his or her ownfield. Curious Things Given Wings, apartfrom having an eye grabbing title, isamong the most seamlessly fused combi-nation of traditional sounds out this year.The Outside Track describe their sound asa “marriage of Canadian, Scottish andIrish music and song.”

The band does not fall into the normalpitfalls of modern traditional music of fee-ble attempts to combine pop rock and fid-dles. Rather, the exceedingly talentedgroup lets the music speak for itself, usingtempo changes and new, original arrange-ments to set their sound apart. Whether onthe track “Panic!” with its almost Spanishsounding guitar bridge, or on “SilvySilvy,” a true testament to the vocal talentsof Norah Rendell and Mairi Rankin, TheOutside Track finds the perfect balance ofinstrumentation and vocals. A group towatch in the future, their ethereal tone andwillingness to take chances gives CuriousThings Given Wings more than a leg tostand on. IA

IA.Music.qxd 3/5/11 1:41 PM

KennyAD 3/4/11 10:40 AM Page 1


iobhan Fallon attended schoolin England, traveled widely inIreland (where her father,Eamon, was born) and even

worked as a teacher in Japan. But when itcame time for this globetrotter to meet herfuture husband, it was at aplace decidedly closer tohome. “I met him… in myfather’s bar,” Fallon sayswith a laugh. Thus beganFallon’s introduction to theworld of the United StatesArmy. The Fallon familypub, The South Gate Tavern,is located right near the WestPoint Military Academy inupstate New York. “We sawcadets all the time,” addsFallon, who worked regular-ly behind the South Gate’sbar. “We didn’t date military guys.”

Of course, that all changed when shemet K.C. Evans, an Army major whowould go on to serve in Iraq. Fallonended up spending long periods of timestationed in Fort Hood (Texas) and FortBenning (Georgia), as well as bases inCalifornia and Hawaii.

Fallon has now taken these experiencesand published her first book of fiction, torave reviews. You Know When the MenAre Gone (Amy Einhorn Books) hasdrawn comparisons to short story writerand poet Raymond Carver as well as theVietnam-War-era fiction of Tim O’Brien(The Things They Carried).

“The crucial role of military wivesbecomes clear in Fallon’s powerful, reso-nant debut collection, where the womenare linked by absence and a pervading fearthat they’ll become war widows,”Publisher’s Weekly gushed in a much-sought-after Starred Review. The New

York Times added that Fallon “tells grip-ping, straight-up, no-nonsense storiesabout American soldiers and their fami-lies,” and that “there’s not a loser” amongthe eight stories that make up You KnowWhen the Men Are Gone.

Fallon credits her father –born in Dromahair, CountyLeitrim – with encouragingher literary talents from anearly age, exposing her towriters such as Yeats, Behanand Joyce. “He recognizedsomething early on, since hekept giving me all of theseIrish writers to read,” saysFallon, who later added:“We’re a family of bar-tenders, so there was alwaysa lot of story-telling goingon.” (Fallon’s mother,

Bobbie, has roots in Ballinrobe, Mayo, aswell as Connemara.)

The interconnected stories in You KnowWhen the Men Are Gone are alternatelysad and funny, touching and unsettling.First and foremost, they reveal an unseenworld to readers. Much, of course, ismade of what the military does abroad aswell as what happens to the soldiers whenthey return home. Precious little, however,is known about the world of military fam-ilies. There was an MTV “True Life”episode about the wife of a soldier servingin Iraq, and there is also the Lifetime TVshow Army Wives (starring, among others,Irish American actress Brigid Brannagh).But Fallon’s stories bring fresh humanityas well as a new depth to this topic.

“I had three deployments worth ofmaterial to look back on,” notes Fallon,most of whose stories are set in Fort Hood,though others dash around the globe, fromsuburban New York to war-ravaged Iraq.

Glimmers of RealityWhile these stories are steeped in realism,Fallon adds that there was more to creat-ing them than simply recording people shesaw and heard at Fort Hood. “Certainmoments might have been lifted frompeople I knew,” she says, before adding:“But it’s more of a compilation. No one isgoing to look at these stories and say‘That’s me.’ It’s more like there are glim-mers of reality.”

Of course, there is always a concernthat a book such as this might reveal toomuch. Fallon, though, is not worried thatother military families will accuse her ofairing dirty laundry. “We had some friendsin the military look over early [copies ofthe book]. I was nervous and crossing myfingers. I was hoping people didn’t say‘My God, Siobhan, what are you doing?’But they said it was honest.” Indeed, themen and women in Fallon’s stories endurethe things men and women everywhereendure: love, lust, loneliness, regret,euphoria, betrayal. Some of the wiveshave children to deal with; others (sort of)wish they did. All of these emotions andtension are heightened, exacerbated, bythe fact that the husbands are not onlygone, but are off in a strange place wherethey might get killed.

In “Gold Star,” for example, the simplesearch for a parking spot becomes an exis-tential dilemma: Josie, the story’s protag-onist, tries to avoid “the Gold Star spot:”“Gold Star,” she muses, “with its imageryof schoolchildren receiving A’s and stick-ers for a job well done, was the militaryeuphemism for losing a soldier in combat.Family members received a few specialprivileges like this lousy parking space,but that meant the pity rising from theasphalt singed hotter than any Texas sun.”

When the Men Are GoneTom Deignan talks with author

Siobhan Fallon about her writing,her Irish-American upbringing, andbeing an Army wife.

S

IA.Fallon.qxd 3/5/11 1:44 PM

Josie, as well as several other Fallon char-acters, are adrift, unhinged. And yet, thelast thing they seem to want is anyone tofeel sorry for them. One reason for this isthat everyone is in the same boat, dealingwith the same pressures and anxieties.

Furthermore, as in any tight-knit com-munity, everyone pretty much knowseveryone else’s business. This is madeclear in the title story, when childless Meglearns “too much” about her mysteriousnew neighbor, a noisy mother of twonamed Natalya. “In Fort Hood housing,”Fallon writes, “as in all Army housing,you get used to hearing through the walls.You learn your neighbors’ routines: whenand if they gargle and brush their teeth;how often they go to the bathroom orshower; whether they snore or cry them-selves to sleep. You learn too much. And,you learn to move quietly through yourown domain.”

Visiting Leitrim and DublinDespite the popularity of Irish memoirs

and coming-of-age stories, it neveroccurred to Fallon to use her own Irishupbringing as the inspiration for a book.

“I’ve set a few short stories in a baratmosphere. But I don’t really like towrite about myself. I like the distancethat fiction gives me. Writing about myown life…it never really occurred to me.”

Fallon has fond memories of visitingIreland when she was younger. The fami-ly paid visits to relatives in Leitrim as wellas Dublin. “We went over almost everyyear when we were little,” she says. “Iwas raised listening to all the rebel songs,doing Irish dance.” She particularlyremembers hearing stories of her grand-parents’ horse farm, where her grandfa-ther could supposedly tame the wildeststallion with a shot to the jaw. “We wouldgo and stay at my Dad’s childhood home,play with my cousins, go skippingthrough the fields, climb stone walls andinevitably brush up against those horriblestinging nettles and go screaming home.”

Fallon says she always wanted a careerin the arts. She attended ProvidenceCollege in Rhode Island, and spent thesummer of 1993 in Ireland, after a yearstudying literature at Homerton College,Cambridge.

Back in the States, she worked at her

father’s bar, as a hotel receptionist, andat literary magazines. “I’d been sendingstories out to literary magazines for overten years,” she adds, noting that she alsoattempted to contact literary agents andbook publishers, to no avail. Finally, aliterary magazine in Boston, calledSalamander, published an earlier ver-

sion of the story “Camp Liberty.” A phonecall followed. It was a literary agent. “Hesaid ‘I want to see what else you have. Ithink there might be a book here.’” ToFallon, this was “like winning the lottery.”Fallon ultimately visited almost a dozencities during a book tour in January, whichincluded a reading at Fort Hood. AndFallon’s traveling days will not end there.Her husband’s new Army posting, as aForeign Area Officer, is in Amman,Jordan. Siobhan and her three-year-olddaughter, Maeve, will be joining K.C.there for at least a year. “I’m excited to seethe Middle East,” says Fallon.

She’s also working on a novel that dealswith similar themes and characters as theones we encounter in You Know When theMen Are Gone – a soldier and his wife –but also has more of the elements of athriller. Fallon acknowledges that her pathto literary success was not an easy one.But given the rave reviews and brightfuture she has, what she writes about herhusband K.C. in the touching dedicationof You Know When the Men Are Gonecould also apply to her literary career:“You are always worth the wait.”


LEFT: Siobhan Fallon with her father, Eamon, and herdaughter, Maeve, behind the bar at the South GateTavern. BELOW: Fallon with her family: parents,Eamon and Bobbie; sister, Tierney; and brother,George. BOTTOM LEFT: Eamon Fallon as the 2007Sacred Heart School Irishman of the Year.

IA

IA.Fallon.qxd 3/5/11 1:44 PM

Recommended The Empty Family

Idid everything I could to not finish ColmToibin’s latest collection of short stories,

The Empty Family. I stared out of a bus win-dow and watched the monotonous GardenState Parkway go by; I purposely did not sit

down on the subway. Thiswas not because I dislikedToibin’s latest work, but,on the contrary, because Ididn’t want to reach thelast page.

To put it simply, the sto-ries in The Empty Familyrequire pause. In his sec-ond collection of short fic-tion, Toibin grants the

same level of care and depth of inner life toeach of his characters as he does to the pro-tagonists of his seven novels, the mostrecent of which was the 2009 best sellerBrooklyn. As Toibin has acknowleged, theseare stories of exile and return. His charac-ters, all of them natives of either Ireland,Spain or Pakistan, are, for the most part,either finding their footing in a new land orfaced with some reality of their old one.These are stories of being somewhere buthaving been elsewhere, and of struggling(often unsuccessfully or unconsciously) toreconcile the two.

Toibin’s fascination with Henry James isno secret: his 2005 novel, TheMaster, centers around a fiction-alized and brilliantly empatheticaccount of James’ life. Toibin’sinterest in James also extends farinto the stylistic realm, and inthese stories Toibin is arguablyat his most Jamesian yet – fromthe quietly penetrating way herenders each of his characters tothe deceptively uncomplicatedgrammar he employs to precisely unfoldtheir thoughts and actions.

Fittingly, James makes an appearance inthe first story of the book. Based somewherein the truth (as many of the stories in thiscollection are), “Silence” details a little-known affair that Lady Gregory, co-founderof the Abbey Theatre and wife of the signif-icantly older Sir William Henry Gregory,had with the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt.Long after the affair has ended, LadyGregory yearns to relive it in some small

way, and tells a very rearranged version ofher story to an attentive James at a dinnerparty. This example of an inner world orsecret carefully tended to by its holder andbarely glimpsed by another sets the tone foreach of the powerful stories that follow –from an Irish film set designer’s quietencounter with her deceased lover’s widowin “Two Women” to the slow emergence ofa gay relationship between two immigrantsin a Pakistani encleve in Barcelona in thefinal masterpiece of a collection, “TheStreet.”

– Sheila Langan(275 pages/Scribner/$27.00)

JFK in Ireland

Ryan Tubridy, the award winning Irishjournalist and host of The Late Late

Show, brings history to life in JFK inIreland: Four Days that Changed aPresident. It opens in the Oval Office, withKenny O’Donnell, the President’s Secretary,trying to convince JFK not to go Ireland.The book quickly captures the reader’sattention as Kennedy responds: “I am thePresident of the United States, not you.When I say I want to go to Ireland, it meansthat I’m going to Ireland. Make the arrange-ments.” Having traveled to Ireland before,JFK had a strong desire to return asPresident.

Part travel narrative, part biography andpart political discourse, the book detailsJFK’s four days in Ireland, giving a stop-by-

stop account of the trip. Yet Tubridyalso takes readers on a journeythrough Kennedy’s family history,starting with his great-grandfather’semigration from Wexford toAmerica in 1848, all the way toJFK’s assassination and funeral.

With never-before-seen photo-graphs, as well as images of person-al correspondence scanned directlyinto the pages of the book, JFK in

Ireland is a complete portrait of JFK’s loveand admiration for the country of his ancestors. – Kristin Romano

(303 pages/HarperCollins/£20.00)

Journalism A Radiant Life: The CollectedJournalism of Nuala O’Faolain

Most American readers will rememberNuala O’Faolain for her brave and

powerful memoirs Are You Somebody?

(1996), Almost There(2003) or for her nov-els, Dream of You(2001) and The Story ofChicago May. ButO’Faolain, who diedtragically early of lungcancer in 2008, was ajournalist before and after she was a mem-oirist and novelist. From 1986 until 2007,she wrote an op-ed column for The IrishTimes. In those twenty-one years, O’Faolainchronicled a changing Ireland – both its deepsocietal flaws and its promising milestones –from a singularly intellectual, feminist, andtotally unpretentious perspective. Her arti-cles have finally been gathered together inthis posthumously compiled collection, ARadiant Life.

The columns are both funny and deeplyinsightful, as O’Faolain zeroes in on truthsabout Irish society and much more, cover-ing everything from the class-based com-plexities at play during a U2 concert inCroke Park to a love letter to New York following September 11. No matter what thesubject, O’Faolain is always eloquent,accessible and bitingly perceptive.

– Sheila Langan (320 pages / Abrams / $18.95)

This is Your Brain on Shamrocks

Mike Farragher, a longtime writer for the Irish Voice, has published a

collection of articles from and inspired byhis popular “Off the Record” and“Narrowback’s Corner” columns (devotedto music and the Irish-American experi-ence respectively). In This Is Your Brain onShamrocks, Farragher is as humorous anddelightfully irreverent as ever, tackling top-ics such as lessons learned from guilt doledout by his mother, memories of his highschool prom and St. Patrick’s Day, self-deprecating and honestaccounts of his effortswith diet and exercise,and a joyful account ofplaying the U2 albumJoshua Tree all the waythrough with some ofhis buddies. In this col-lection, Farragher open-ly discusses all aspectsof his experience as an Irish American in amanner that many readers will instantlyconnect with – pausing to think at certain


{review of books}A selection of recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest.

IA.NEW Books.REV.qxd 3/5/11 1:47 PM

moments and heartily laughingout loud at others.

– Sheila Langan(174 pages / Author House / $17.95)

MemoirIreland Unhinged:Encounters with a WildlyChanging Country

David Monagan, author of Jaywalkingwith the Irish and Journey into the

Heart, once again captures the essence ofIreland in his third book, Ireland Unhinged:Encounters with a Wildly ChangingCountry. Monagan, a Connecticut nativewith the hope and dream of finding a happy,mystical, culturally rich land, moves hisfamily to the country of his ancestors. TheMonagans settle in Cork and find them-selves in the midst of the Celtic Tiger periodof economic growth. Along with the chang-ing economy, Monagan takes note of thechanging culture of classic Ireland as itflourishes and falls. In great detail, herecounts his adventures all around the coun-try to places including Dublin, Belfast,Donegal, Sligo, and Waterford. With hisjournalistic background, Monagan inter-views a cast of characters he encounterssuch as his neighbors, relatives, a witch, amonk, musicians, IRA men, and famousauthor J.P. Donleavy. In descriptions ofhilarity and heartbreak, Ireland Unhingedoffers a look at modern Ireland, showing itsdramatic changes and determination to holdon. Although Monagan describes the down-fall of a once successful country, he leavesreaders with a sense of hope, saying “some-how, I think Ireland will prevail again,because it must.”

– Katie McFadden(300 pages/Council Oak books/ Kanbar & Conrad $28)

A Third Life: Sculptures for God,Notre Dame and Country

Jerry McKenna’s recently publishedmemior prompts us to wonder, how does

one make the transition from being a lieu-tenant colonel in the Air Force to becomingone of our country’s leading sculptors? AThird Life: Sculptures for God, Notre Dameand Country has theanswer. Readers will knowMcKenna as the creator ofbronze masterpieces thatdot the United States andthe world. His works areeasily identifiable for theirrealism in form and attitude

(take, for instance, his famousrenderings of Notre Dame foot-ball coaches being lifted by theirplayers after a victory or coun-seling their teams mid-game).What many people might notknow, however, is that McKenna(though always artisticallyinclined) didn’t try his hand atsculpture until he was 42. The

fact that he had already chosen a path, liveda life in the Air Force, didn’t stop him frompursuing sculpture with passion and deter-mination. This inspirational story, completewith pictures of McKenna and of his worksat various stages in the artistic process, is areal treat. – Sheila Langan

(177 pages / Haynes / $45.00)

SuspenseThe South Lawn Plot

With his debut novel, Ray O’Hanlonhas placed himself somewhere

between Dan Brown and Michael Connollywithin the realm of suspense writing.O’Hanlon, editor of the newspaper TheIrish Echo, has created a thoroughlyengaging plot that twists and turns andspans continents and centuries – from 15thcentury England to the present-daySouth Lawn of the White House.The South Lawn Plot opens withNick Bailey, a seasoned tabloidreporter, getting the scoop on amost mysterious death: a priest hashanged himself from BlackfriarsBridge. As the mystery unfolds,the chances of this being a suicidequickly diminish and turn intosomething markedly more sinister, withimplications for 10 Downing Street, theWhite House and the Catholic Church.Bailey makes for a likeable protagonist andis joined by a diverse and well developedcast of characters. O’Hanlon has formed afascinating world of words; I look forwardto his next one. – Sheila Langan

(340 pages / Gemma Media / $24.95)

HistoryCelebrating 250 Years of the St.Patrick’s Day Parade

Not many people realize thatthe New York City St.

Patrick’s Day Parade is older thenthe United States. But it’s true: the New York celebration ofIreland’s patron saint began in the1760s, and this year marks its250th anniversary. In recognition,

Quinnipiac University and the NYC St,Patrick’s Day Parade Committee haveissued a special commemorative book.Celebrating 250 Years of the St. Patrick’sDay Parade tells the long and fascinatinghistory of the world’s largest St. Patrick’sDay celebration. An incredible collection ofhistoric and more contemporary photo-graphs mark the parade’s progress throughthe years and up 5th Avenue. Author John T.Ridge and editor Lynn Mosher Bushnellhave created a treasure: turning through thepages, I was brought back to my childhoodexperiences of watching the parade, and theawe and pride it inspired. For anyone whohas ever marched inthe procession orbraved the crowdsfor a glimpse of thebagpipers and soci-eties, this book is amust. – Sheila Langan

(146 p/Quinnipiac University Press / $49.95)

Children’s LiteratureIrish Alphabet

Irish Alphabet, the second collaborationof writer Rickey E. Pittman and illustra-

tor Connie McLennan, is an A-Z guide toIrish history and folklore forchildren. Each letter is represent-ed by iconic figures and words,such as Molly Malone (M), FinnMacCool (F), the shamrock (S)and tea (T). Pittman’s stanzas foreach letter are delightful, andMcLennan’s illustrations arevivid and enchanting. Togetherthey creatively give the twenty-

six letters a distinctly Irish personality.Notable is the passage for the letter “X,” inwhich Pittman writes:

“There’s no letter X in Gaelic, / Exceptin borrowed words / And in the names ofIrish towns, / Like Foxrock and Wexford.”

In response, McLennan depicts a map of Ireland with bothtowns marked with an“X.”

The last page of thebook includes a mini-glossary, an alphabet-ical list of the thirty-two counties of theisland of Ireland, andthe lyrics to “Molly Malone.” For youngreaders, Irish Alphabet will be a stimulat-ing introduction to Ireland.

–Kristin Romano(32 pages/Pelican Publishing Company/$16.99)


IA

IA.NEW Books.REV.qxd 3/5/11 1:47 PM


{sláinte}By Edythe Preet

My Irish grandmother,Margaret McCaffrey, wasa psychic. “Pooh! Not pos-sible,” you say. Maybe,maybe not, but here’s the

story. You be the judge.One fine May week when Dad was in

first grade, his class was scheduled tohave a picnic on an island in the middleof the St. Lawrence River. At the time,the family was living in Montreal,Quebec. Like many Irish women, Dad’smother was very religious and especiallydevoted to the Virgin Mary. Her churchof choice was Notre Dame de BonSecours (Our Lady of Good Help) downby the wharf in the oldest part of town.

The church has been standing in thatspot for more than two hundred years.It’s small but breathtakingly beautiful.Dedicated to the Virgin Mother, everystained glass window depicts a scenefrom her life. Behind the altar, there’s ahuge painting of Mary’s Assumption intoheaven. Atop the bell tower, there’s agolden statue of the Virgin as Star of theSea. She is supported by cherubs and hasher arms outstretched to the river,Eastern Canada’s Gateway to the Sea,blessing the ships as they sailed away toforeign ports and welcoming themariners home safely again. Inside thechurch, interspersed among the chande-liers, hang miniature replicas of shipsthat plied the world’s waters, all built bysailors in gratitude for Mary’s protectionon their voyages.

Grandma McCaffrey attended Mass atNotre Dame de Bon Secours every dayand on each visit she lit a candle prayingthat her family would always be guardedby the Virgin Mother. On the night beforeDad was scheduled to attend the schoolpicnic, Grandma dreamed that theVirgin’s statue on the bell tower shookher head from side to side. Taking this tomean ‘no,’ Grandma did not let my dadjoin his classmates for the outing. Theboat carrying the children capsized in themiddle of the St. Lawrence and allaboard drowned in the icy waters. It

remains one of Canada’s worst schooltragedies.

Margaret McCaffrey wasn’t the onlypsychic in Dad’s family. His sister Violetwas quite tuned in to ESP as well. I willnever forget sitting spellbound at AuntVi’s tiny kitchen table while she read mytea leaves and told my fortune with play-ing cards. Dad read cards too, as did hisoldest sister Mary whose daughterbecame a well-known astrologer.

Pooh-pooh all this psychic stuff if youwill, but the Irish tradition of divinationis as old as the hills of Ireland herself.Druid shamans used Oghams, line carv-ings usually on lengths of yew wood, thatwere employed to augur future events orseek insight into situations.

The origin of the Ogham lines ismurky. According to legend, the Celticgod of light and enlightenment, OghmaGrianaineach (the Sun Face), inventedthe Ogham lines as a means wherebymortals might communicate with the

Divine through a set of sacred symbols.The tale is similar to the Norse godOdin’s invention of the Viking Runes,which may have had some influence onthe Irish tradition.

The 9th century Irish epic TochmarcEtain (The Wooing of Etain) tells thatMider, a hero of the Tuatha de Danaanfairy folk, kidnapped the beautiful butmortal Queen Etain from King Eochaid.Though he searched high and low, theking had no luck finding his beloveduntil a Druid’s services were enlisted.“The King sent to every part of Irelandfor news of Etain, but his messengers allcame back without having been able tofind her. At last a Druid named Dallanlearned, by means of ogams carved uponwands of yew, that she was hidden underMider’s sidh [fairy mound] of BriLeith…”

Unlike Europe’s Tarot cards, China’s IChing, and the Viking Runes, all ofwhich correspond to a wide spectrum of

Trees,Tea & ESP

IA.Slainte.qxd 3/4/11 4:03 PM

natural phenomena and human behav-iorisms, Oghams are unique in that,almost exclusively, they represent partic-ular types of trees, the royalty of theplant world. That the Irish should fixateon trees as their means of communicat-ing with the invisible Divine is not sur-prising. Until the 16th century whenEngland decimated Ireland’s forests tobuild an armada, the island was home tovast swaths of dense woodlands.

The Ogham meanings are drawn fromtrees’ natural properties. The mighty oak,which can withstand even gale forcewinds, symbolizes kingly power. Therowan’s berries bear a five-pointed starthat since ancient times has beenbelieved to protect one from maliciousenchantments. The yew, whose droopingbranches can take root and form newtrees where they touch the ground, repre-sents regeneration. Holly, which canwithstand a direct lightning strike,

imparts protection to home and hearth.Anyone interested in investigating thisancient Irish system of divination further,can find complete meanings in the bookOgham: The Celtic Oracle of the Trees orThe Celtic Tree Oracle, a set of cards andreference text.

How tea leaves came to be used as anIrish divination device has much moremodern roots. While the custom of drink-ing tea dates back to the 3rd millenniumBC in China, the beverage did not reachEurope until the 16th century AD whenPortuguese and Dutch traders broughtthe beverage from the Far East.England’s involvement in China andIndia led to the British East IndiaCompany acquiring a monopoly on thetea trade in 1832, making tea the mostpopular drink not only in England butalso Ireland by virtue of the Anglo-aris-tocracy that had settled on the island.

Coincidentally the work of Sigmund

Freud spawned immense interest in psy-choanalysis during the Victorian era.What began as a parlor game, discerningpatterns and symbols in errant clumps ofsoggy tea leaves, was soon adopted as anew form of divination. With an interestin oracular consultation that spannedseveral millennia, Irish tea drinkersquickly became proficient at the practice,identifying and interpreting hundreds ofshapes that wet tea leaves might produce.

While I have dabbled in decipheringthe implied messages of Ogham lineswith aid of The Celtic Tree Oracle, Iadmit to complete bewilderment when itcomes to the arcane art of tea leaf read-ing. Nor do I experience propheticdreams. Evidently, my dad did not passon those particular genes. Darn. You,however, may have more success, and Iinvite you to try awakening your Irishdivination talent with the ‘tea leaf read-ing’ instructions offered here. Sláinte!


IA

1The first thing to do before setting out to read tea

leaves is acquire a proper teacup.A coffee mug will

not work.The cup must be white or pale colored so

that the leaves can be seen easily. Its shape should be a

traditional style with a narrow base and flaring sides,

and it should have an accompanying saucer.

2Once you have set out the proper

teacup, put a pinch of loose tea in

the cup. Any leaf tea can be used,

even herbs such as chamomile, pepper-

mint, or any other mixture according to

one’s preference. Next, pour boiling water

over the leaves, allowing the tea to steep

about three minutes.While you are waiting,

give some thought to a matter on which you would

like information.

3Drink most of the tea, allowing the leaves and a

very small amount of liquid to remain in the bottom.

Then take the cup by the handle in the left hand,

rim upwards, and swirl it in a circle rapidly three times

from left to right. Some of the leaves will cling to the sides

of the cup while others stay in the bottom. Next, slowly

invert the cup over the saucer and let all the liquid

drain away.

4The cup is divided into three parts.The rim

designates the present; the side, events not

far distant; and the bottom the distant

future.The nearer the symbols appear to the

handle, the nearer to the present will be the

events foretold.

5While at first the tea leaves seem scat-

tered, after concentration you will note

that they form lines, circles, dots, small

groups and figures, even the shape of inanimate

objects, people, animals, birds, letters, and numbers.

6Starting with the leaves closest to the handle, write

down the images in their successive order and in a

clockwise direction. Finally, concentrate on each

shape, letter or numeral to determine how it relates to

your life or the question that was posed at the beginning

of the session.

This website http://tarotcanada.tripod.com/TeaLeaves.html is a good source for more information and a list of symbol interpretations.

How To Read Tea Leaves

IA.Slainte.qxd 3/4/11 4:03 PM

116 IRISH AMERICA

John Barry1933-2011

Oscar-winning composer John Barrydied on January 30 from a heart attack, atage 77. Barry’s compositions heightenedthe drama and complimented the moodsof films such as Out of Africa, DancesWith Wolves, Midnight Cowboy and BornFree. He was also the man behind theiconic music heard in all of the James

Bond installments from Dr. No to TheLiving Daylights.

Born John Barry Prendergast onNovember 3, 1933 in York, England,Barry became familiar with films at anearly age. His father, a Cork native, start-ed off as a projectionist and then ran asmall chain of cinemas in northernEngland. At a young age, Barry learned toplay the piano and the trumpet, and dab-bled in many other instruments.

After performing with an army bandduring his few years in the service, hestarted the John Barry Seven. In additionto playing live, the group also scoredtheme music for a few hit TV shows, suchas Juke Box Jury, which garnered themattention.

Soon after Barry began com-posing for films, he was signedto be Monty Norman’s back-upfor Dr. No. Years later the twocomposers disputed whetherBarry had actually taken chargeof the soundtrack and Normansuccessfully sued him for libel.There was never any doubt,however, that the rest of theBond music was entirelyBarry’s.

He married four times,including once to Jane Birkin,and spent his last three decadesmostly in Oyster Bay, N.Y. with

his fourth wife, Laurie. Barry is survivedby Laurie and their four children: Kate,Jonpatrick, Sian and Suzanne; and fivegrandchildren.

– S.L.

Mary Cleere Haran1952-2011

Mary Cleere Haran, cabaret singer,passed away on February 5, 2011 inDeerfield Beach, FL. She was 58. Harandied two days after tragically being hit bya car while riding her bicycle.

Haran was born May 13, 1952 in SanFrancisco, CA, the second of eight chil-dren. Performing was in her blood – herfather taught theater and film at SanFrancisco City College. She began as anIrish step dancer but, desiring to use theupper part of her body, Haran droppedstep dancing and became a violinist.Unable to master the violin, she foundthat she could sing.

Though she came of age during theHaight-Ashbury period of the 1960s,Haran was inspired by the music andfilms of the 1930s and 1940s. She movedto New York in the 1970s, and made herBroadway debut in The 1940s RadioHour in 1979. Her off-Broadway appear-ances included Manhattan Music,Swingtime Canteen and Heebie Jeebies.

Haran made her Manhattan cabaretdebut in 1988 at the Ballroom. Four yearslater, the first of her six recordings,“There’s a Small Hotel,” was released.In addition to her cabaret work, Haran

had a recurring role on 100 Centre Street,and produced, wrote or contributed to

several PBS documen-taries, including DorisDay: Sentimental Journeyand Michael Feinstein’sThe Great AmericanSongbook.

Haran is survived by herson, Jacob, from her mar-riage to writer-director JoeGilford; six siblings:Terence, Brigid, Ned andTime Haran, BronwynHarris and Eithne Bullick;and her stepmother, LoyceHaran.

– K.R.

John Horan1920-2011

John J. Horan, formerCEO of Merck & Co. Inc,died of natural causes inNew Jersey on January 22,2011. He was 90.

From 1976 to 1985, Horan had a largeimpact on the pharmaceutical company.Under his leadership, Merck’s research,development and sales force increased sig-nificantly, making it the largest drug com-pany in the world at the time. Horan alsoheld an important role in humanitarianefforts by supporting the research for adrug to prevent and treat river blindness.Through the World Health Organization,Merck sent the drug to countries in need,free of charge.

A native of Staten Island, Horan graduat-ed from Manhattan College in 1940. Hewent on to serve as an officer in the UnitedStates Navy Amphibious Forces from 1942to 1946, during World War II. He was a partof history: he helped to send orders that ledto the launch of the D-Day invasion whileserving as communications officer on thestaff of Admiral John Wilkes.

Following his time with the Navy, Horanearned a law degree from Columbia andworked his way up after starting out in thelegal department of Merck in 1952. Afterretiring as CEO, he remained active in thecompany, serving as a member of theBoard of Directors and as its vice chairmanuntil 1993.

Horan is survived by his wife of 66years, Julia Fitzgerald; four children, MaryAlice Ryan, Thomas, John, and David;grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

– K.M.

Kieran McGonnell1967-2011

Kieran McGonnell, a contemporaryIrish-born artist, died suddenly on January11 due to complications from a head injurysuffered in November. He was residing inChicago, IL, where he had recently movedfrom Brooklyn, NY. In an Irish Echo arti-cle entitled “Top 40 under 40,” McGonnellhad been selected as one of the top youngIrish success stories living in the U.S.

His innovative artwork was character-ized by a bold, vivid use of color, incorpo-rating everything from oil paint and water-colors to air brush spray paint. His piecesfeatured a cavalcade of dazzling imageryfrom history, mythology, literature, archi-tecture, popular culture and politics.

Those We Lost

IA.Those Lost.qxd 3/5/11 1:52 PM

IA


McGonnell’s work was exhibitedextensively over the past twenty years, onboth sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S., hiswork has been displayed at the HaggertyMuseum (Milwaukee), Jan Larsen FineArt (NY), Axel-Raben Fine Art (NY), andhundreds of other locations including TheKennedy Center Festival.

His work was used as the backdrop forthe Fall 2000 New York Fashion previewsfor the prominent men’s fashion magazineD.N.R. He also painted stage designs forSean Curran Modern Dance Company’s“Six Laments,” which has been touring theU.S. since its premiere in1999. McGonnell was pro-filed in many publicationsthroughout the U.S. andIreland, including The NewYork Times, Boston Globe,L.A. Times, Irish Tribuneand Irish Business Post.

In addition to his partnerof 17 years, Gregg Driben,McGonnell is survived byhis mother, Carmel McGonnell; brothers,Paul and Aiden; and sister, Karen.

TP McKenna1929-2011

Irish actor TP McKenna, famous for hisroles in The Avengers and Straw Dogs,passed away in London on February 13th,following a long illness. He was 81.

Thomas Patrick McKenna, betterknown as TP, was born on September 7,1929 in Mullagh, Co. Cavan, Ireland. Heattended Mullagh School and St Patrick’sCollege, Cavan, where he perfected hissoprano voice in Gilbert and Sullivanoperas and became interested in theater.

McKenna first worked with UlsterBank. When he was transferred to Dublin,

he joined the Shakespeare Society and theRathmines and Rathgar Musical Society.In 1953, the bank wanted to transfer him tothe quiet town of Killeshandra in Cavan,but McKenna quit the job to pursue a pro-fessional acting career.

McKenna acted in over 70 stage rolesbetween 1953 and 1964, joining theAbbey Theatre and performing with theRoyal Shakespeare Company and theRoyal National Theatre Company. Thisled to television roles on shows such asThe Saint, Jason King, Dr Who, TheSweeney, and Minder. He also acted in

movie adaptations of the JamesJoyce novels Ulysses and APortrait of the Artist as a YoungMan, as well as films RedScorpion and Straw Dogs.

McKenna is survived bysons Ralph, Kilian, Breffni,Stephen and daughter Sally,daughter-in-law Karin, grand-sons Tom & Finnian, threebrothers, five sisters extended

family and friends. McKenna’s wifeMay White, whom he married in 1955,passed away in 2006. He was laid to restalongside her in Mullagh, Ireland.

– K.M.

Gary Moore1952-2011Renowned musician Gary Moore passedaway on February 6, 2011 in Estepona,Spain, following a heart attack. He was 58.

Robert William Gary Moore was bornApril 4, 1952 in Belfast, Northern Ireland– one of five children born to BobbyMoore, a promoter, and his homemakerwife, Winnie. He moved to Dublin in1968, and joined the band Skid Row in1969. While his time with Skid Row wasbrief, it brought him into contact withPhil Lynott, a founding member of ThinLizzy, and a friend and collaborator untilLynott’s death in 1986.

After leaving Skid Row, Moorereleased his first solo album in 1973,Grinding Stone. He followed this with abrief stint with Thin Lizzy in early 1974,recording the lead guitar on “Still in Lovewith You” from the band’s fourth album,Nightlife. It would be the first of threestints with the band: he temporarilyreplaced guitarist Brian Robertson on theband’s 1977 tour of the United States, andrejoined from 1978-1979 to record BlackRose: A Rock Legend with the band.

Throughout his forty-year-career,

Moore toured and recorded with a varietyof artists and released 20 solo studioalbums, the last being 2008’s Bad for YouBaby. He also recorded three albums withColiseum II between 1976 and 1977, andnumerous live albums.

Moore is survived by his four children:daughters Saoirse and Lily; sons Jack andGus; and his partner Jo.

– K.R.

Charles Nolan1957-2011Designer Charles Nolan passed away onJanuary 31, 2011 in his Upper West SideManhattan home at age 53. The cause wascancer of the head andneck.

Nolan was born on June5, 1957. The fifth of ninechildren born to PhilipFrancis and ElizabethFrances Nolan, he wasraised in Brooklyn and Massapequa, NY.Nolan possessed an interest in fashion froma young age, once staying up all night towatch a royal wedding, mostly to see thegown. A graduate of the Fashion Instituteof Technology, he worked for FrankTignino, Bill Haire, Bill Blass, ChristianDior, and Ellen Tracy before becoming thehead designer of Anne Klein in 2001, revi-talizing the collection.

In 2003, Nolan left Anne Klein to vol-unteer for Howard Dean’s presidentialcampaign. A year later, he established hisown label, setting up a shop on 30Gansevoort Street and selling his designsat Saks Fifth Avenue. To showcase hisclothing’s wearability, Nolan preferred tohire regular people as models, includinga retired police detective and swimmerDara Torres.

Nolan is survived by his partner,Andrew Tobias; his father Philip FrancisNolan; and eight brothers and sisters

– K.R.

IA.Those Lost.qxd 3/5/11 1:53 PM

ACROSS1 Irish police officer (5)4 Co. Down town (6)6 Belongs to you (4)

11 Let go (7)13 Egg-citing time for chocolate loving

children! (6)14 See 25 across (5)15 See 41 across (6)16 See 39 across (6)18 Evening reception of an Irish

wedding (6)21 (& 32 down) Fishy products sold by

Molly Malone (7)25 (& 14 across) Ireland’s new

Taoiseach (4)27 New movie with Liam Neeson and

Aidan Quinn (7)28 Season of abstinence in church

calendar (4)29 Irish name version of Laurence (6031 Egyptian exhibition currently in

Dublin’s RDS (11)34 (& 5 down) Her new book is called

Saints & Sinners (4)35 Nickname for Oscar Wilde lover (5)38 Grown-up (5)39 (& 16 across) Irish milliner linked

to Prince William wedding (6)40 An ___ for an ___ (3)41 (&15 across) Film archive donated

to Galway university by his family(4)

42 _____ Tribune: Irish newspaper thatceased publication earlier this year (6)

DOWN2 Lion sound (4)3 Hit TV show of 10 down: Two and

_ ___ Men (1, 4)4 Mexican pullover or sweatshirt (4)5 See 34 across (6)7 Irish for water (5)8 Leinster county (5)9 Magical place at the back of C.S.

Lewis wardrobe (6)10 (& 12 down) Birth name of Charlie

Sheen (6)

12 See 10 down (7)14 Mary Higgins Clark memoir:

______ Privileges (7)17 TD brother of Brian Lenihan who

lost out in election (5)19 Unit of measure (3)20 Not fake (4)22 South County Dublinsuburb (8)23 House on one level (8)24 Irish witch-like creature

(7)26 Abbreviated saint (2)30 Puzzle (6)31 Most remote Irish

inhabited island (4)32 See 21 across (7)

33 This Minister Mary lost her seat inIrish general election (7)

36 Fairly useless (5)37 This Bill is President Obama’s new

chief of staff (5)


Please send your completed crossword puzzle to Irish America, 875 SixthAvenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001, to arrive no later than April 28, 2011.A winner will be drawn from among all correct entries. Winner’s name will be

published along with the solution in our next issue. Xerox copies accepted.Winner of the February/March crossword: Thomas Fitzgerald, of

Tubbercurry, Co Sligo, Ireland.

Win a subscription to Irish America magazine

{crossword}By Darina Molloy

February / March Solution

IA.CROSSWORD.qxd 3/5/11 1:55 PM

��

��

��

��

��

TO PLACE AN AD

IN THE IRISH

TREASURES

SECTION,

PLEASE CONTACT

TARA DOUGHERTY AT [email protected]

212-725-2993 EXT. 150

• We complete the required paperwork for your dual Irish citizenship.

• We cut through the red tape, and do the leg work for you.

• We provide research service in the U.S., Canada, and Ireland.

Tel. 760.772.8318Email: deirdre@dualirishcitizenship.netwww.dualirishcitizenship.netwww.dualirishcitizenship.com

NewITPage 3/3/11 6:33 PM Page 1


{photo album}Family Pictures

Large families were commonin 19th-century Ireland, andBridget Costello Gill andJohn Peter Gill from the Aran

Island of Inishmore had twelve chil-dren. My Aunt Delia, born in RoseCottage in Kilronan on Sunday,January 6, 1889, was their fourthchild and a truly wonderful woman.To her mother’s dismay and herfather’s delight, by age 13 Delia hadbecome a skilled “curragh man” and“captained” one of the famed Aransailboats, called hookers (“who-curs”), built by her grandfatherPeadar Hugh Gill.

Inishmore was then serviced bythe SS Duras, a Galway paddle-wheeled steamer that first went toAran in 1893. The old Duras,plagued by engine and boiler trou-ble, lacked skilled engineers. Alwaysfascinated by machinery, Deliahelped with repairs, and Kilronanblacksmith Ned Gow made parts ather request, copying wooden piecesshe had whittled. After the repairswere done, the captain told her thatthe vessel ran its best ever and thatthe boilers didn’t leak a drop!

Back in Galway, he told the ship’s own-ers all about the young lady engineer fromInishmore and introduced Delia and herfather to them. As John Peter Gill proudlylooked on, his fifteen-year-old daughtercalmly spoke to the imposing group like aseasoned professional, and even suggest-ed some improvements in the ship’s run-ning gear.

The captain then gave the owners a realshock by announcing that he wanted tohire Delia as chief engineer of the Duras!Delia and her father left, and the boardmet in private. They returned and weretold that all were grateful for Delia’s workand were so impressed by it that a cashbonus had been voted for her. However,the bad news was that no woman had everbeen a ship’s engineer, as this “simply wasnot done.” She could not be hired.

Angry and frustrated, Delia decided togo to America and paid her own way. As

many Irish girls did at the time, she foundwork as a maid. Her efficient work andpleasant personality made her a very wel-come addition to her first employer’s fami-ly, but it seemed as if her steam boiler expe-rience was, sadly, to be of no further use.

That was true, until the steam boiler fur-nace in her new home stopped working.After their unsuccessful efforts to fix it,the amazed repairmen looked on as Deliadetected what was wrong and in no timehad the furnace running again. With aparting jest in her Irish brogue, she hurriedupstairs. The repairmen were called andsaid that the maid seemed to know moreabout the furnace than they did and that itwas she who had fixed it. The two techni-cians were told to leave and to send a bill.

Delia was then asked how she knewhow to fix the furnace. When she spokeabout her work on ships in Ireland, theman of the house nodded his thanks, andwent to turn away. Delia said, “Sir, those

two louts did naught but watch meand they got paid. It was not my job tofix the furnace but I did. I should getpaid for the work I did and did well.You would have to get someone elseif it were not for me, and then paythem!” “Miss Gill,” he said with asmile, “you are a good business-woman and you are right! You shouldget paid.” He wrote her a check.Thanking him, she said she wouldcheck the furnace in a day or so to besure it was all right, and that therewould be “no charge for that, sir.”

Delia was fascinated by the horse-less carriages of her day and for a timeworked at the Newton, MA home of,as the “luck of the Irish” would haveit, one of the Stanley twins of StanleySteamer fame. He knew nothing ofDelia’s skill with steam poweredmachinery and was astounded at theease with the operation of this steam-powered vehicle. Soon teenagedDelia was driving these early StanleySteamers on errands with familymembers. She left the Stanleys, andher new employers, who lived inBrookline, were a wealthy Boston fin-

ancier and his wife, the daughter of a for-mer governor. The couple and their chil-dren came to love their new maid as oneof the family and Delia worked with themfor over forty years.

Delia was known for her great physicalstrength, and one day two Irish teamsterswho delivered an Italian monastery tableto the house could not get it through thedoor. Delia took over. Tipping the tableand hefting the front, while telling the twomen to hoist the rear, she guided the tableinside. The two men strained with theirwork, as Delia easily handled hers, all thewhile loudly encouraging them in Gaelic.

During prohibition, some Irish ladies,mostly maids, chartered a train coach for avacation trip to St. Ann De Baupre inCanada. This provided all with a chance tosee the spot where miracles were said tooccur, and also to buy liquor and smuggleit home. One year Aunt Delia broughtseven-year-old me with her, and while in

Aunt Delia Gill

Aunt Delia

IA.PhotoAlbum.qxd 3/5/11 1:57 PM


Please send photographs along with your name, address, phone number, and a brief description, to Sheila Langan at Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001. If photos are irreplaceable, then please send a good quality reproduction or e-mail the picture at 300 dpi resolution to [email protected].

No photocopies, please. We will pay $65 for each submission that we select.

Canada a “Mountie” rode by and shetalked him into giving me my first ride ona horse.

It was known that the train would besearched for contraband liquor by U.S.Customs. Everyone except me knew whatto expect and was well prepared. As thetrain approached the U.S. border therewas a flurry of frantic activity. Everywoman (no men were on board) hastilyremoved bottles of all shapes and sizesfrom luggage, and laughter and Gaelicjokes were heard as the bottles were con-cealed in the pockets of the voluminousbloomers specially designed to be wornfor the inspection! Aunt Delia, with herliquid treasures well stowed away,donned her most dignified expression andstared stonily out the window. She kindlycautioned me not to say a word.

As the Customs Inspectors checkedbaggage, none of the innocent, law-abid-ing-looking Irish ladies moved or said aword. Not one bottle was found. As theinspectors grimly waved the train on intothe USA, one young lady handed the grin-ning conductor a pint, which he quicklytucked under his uniform jacket with awink. There was more laughter and manymore Gaelic jokes, and after one particu-larly loud outburst Aunt Delia translated:“Patcheen, she just said this was the bestpart of the trip!”

Aran Island people are clannish. WhenI reached “middle age” (my 20s!), AuntDelia joined my mother in a quest to “Geta nice Aran lass for Patchmor” (an endear-ment they used for me). Nothing came ofthis. Years later, when they learned I had

met a Rosanna Meunier, their reactionwas: “Meunier? ‘Tis a foreign name!”Aunt Delia’s first meeting with Rosannasurprised her. Rosanna was a beautifullady with large blue eyes; neatly dressedand obviously very intelligent. Aunt Delialearned that she had been born in Bostonand spent nearly eight years as SisterMarie Carmel, a teaching nun in NewJersey. Her father, a Taunton-born French

Canadian, was chief engineer for threeprestigious Boston hotels, and her mother,Rose Noone of Clonmany, CountyDonegal, had run a fashionable dressmak-ing shop in Ireland employing a large staffof young ladies as seamstresses.

Needless to say, Aunt Delia was veryimpressed, and they became life-longfriends. She gave Rosanna and me a com-plete bedroom set, and a desk and chairbought at Jordan Marsh as wedding gifts,and we later tried to repay her with trips toCanada and holiday visits.

After decades together, Aunt Delia andher mistress became like sisters.Eventually, the lady became increasinglyweak and the family moved her to a con-stant care facility. Delia was well over sev-enty then and received a generous settle-ment from the family for her loyalty andyears of service. To her mistress’s dyingday, Delia sent cards, notes, and presents.

When my brother Dutch and I boughtour widowed mother a home, surprisingher with the deed, Aunt Delia moved inwith her and they enjoyed visits and fam-ily activities together. They liked TV pro-grams and movies, especially The QuietMan. My sister Ann lived next door andthe little kids loved visiting and hearingstories about Ireland and the Aran Islands.

In 1975 my mother passed away at 87and Aunt Delia then lived alone. She keptbusy and always knew how much weloved her. In her last year, she drove my1921 Buick touring car a short distance,laughing boisterously.

All lives come to an end, and sadly ourbeloved Aunt Delia left us many yearsago. She died in her 89th year after a shortillness. She rests in a Hyde Park cemeteryplot which she and a Kilronan cousin hadpurchased decades ago.

I had the honor of giving her eulogy atSt. Johns Church in Canton, Mass-achusetts, on September 19, 1977. The lastline was: “Goodbye, Aunt Delia. Heavenwill be a better place with you in it.Goodbye, Aunt Delia, God Bless You.”

– Patrick J. Leonard

Top: A hooker in Kilronan.Above: A photo of young Patrick J.Leonard, taken during a trip to Canadawith his aunt.

IA.PhotoAlbum.qxd 3/5/11 1:57 PM


{the last word}By Cormac MacConnell

When this election was called inJanuary, everybody knew thatFianna Fail would take a beat-

ing, and that their junior partners theGreen Party would likewise suffer.

And, of course, that is what hap-pened. The voters turned their ballotsinto bayonets.

They butchered and hacked and slash-ed Fianna Fail to death. They gave themno quarter. They showed no mercy.

They paid them back for all the mis-management of Ireland, for all the cor-ruption and cronyism and abuse ofpower and arrogance and lies.

And Fianna Fail deserved all that theygot and maybe even more. Thereare a few of them that probablydeserve jail.

Ordinary people have servedtime for less than they did. Theycrucified poor Mother Ireland onthat crass cross, robbed andhumiliated her at every level, andthen the most cunning of themrode off into the sunset before theelection with millions in theirback pockets.

And the rest of us who are tooold to emigrate are clinging tothe rigging of a sinking ship asour rising generations emigratewith all their skills and energy at the rateof at least 1,000 a day. It is nearly onthe scale of Famine times.

We are broken beneath a weight ofnational debt that is unprecedented. Wehave become the laughingstock of theworld. Our plight is incredibly bad.

If Ireland was a horse or dog it wouldhave been humanely put down sixmonths ago.

My Ireland indeed died last weekend.The once mighty Fianna Fail party, nowhas only 20 surviving deputies. Fine Gaelhas romped home as the biggest party,Labor will be the second largest group-ing for the first time ever, and SinnFéin’s performance has been so dramat-ically good that they came within touchingdistance of overhauling Fianna Fail as thethird largest party.

Fianna Fail has only one deputy left inDublin – ironically the outgoing FinanceMinister Brian Lenihan. Enda Kenny

will be the next Taoiseach (prime minis-ter) after Fine Gael inevitably coalesceswith Labor.

That bit of carpentry will be finishedinside days. Things are moving fast now.

I say that my Ireland died becauseFianna Fail, a power in every parish, werefar more than a mere political partydown all the decades of their power. Theywere a social force, initially Republicanand honorable and close to the people,especially in rural Ireland.

The TD (member of Parliament) wasas powerful as the parish priest. Theparty was represented in every con-stituency, often holding two of the three

seats in the many three-seater rural con-stituencies.

Fianna Fail had a finger in every piethat mattered. I was a loyal member formany years because I felt they best rep-resented what we are, warts and all.

I even savored the roguery and rascal-ity attached to most of the “strokes” theypulled off in the elections of the past. AFianna Fail TD was almost always liveli-er company and better craic to be withthan the normally more restrained andmiddle-class Fine Gael deputy. (In ruralIreland 20 years ago Labor Party deputieswere as scarce as hens’ teeth, and SinnFéin had almost no presence).

The Fianna Fail aura was somehowattached to the ruralities I enjoy, like fairsand markets and singing pubs and Irishmusic and summer festivals.

A case in point here in Clare was thelate legendary fiddling TD Dr. BillLoughnane, who seamlessly blended his

lively music and his political stylealongside his medical skills. Many ofhis peers had the same skills back then.They were very different to the kind offiddlers who percolated the party after-wards.

In the wake of this bloodletting it isremarkable that it is now possible to trav-el across Ireland coast to coast withoutsetting foot or tire in a constituency inwhich a Fianna Fail deputy survived.That is almost mind-boggling.

And the Green Party was wiped outaltogether by the angry people. Hugeswathes of the midlands and the westhave thrown both parties a way into the

rubbish bin.There is no Fianna Fail deputy,

for example, in the kingdom ofKerry or in traditional heartlandslike Roscommon, Sligo and Meath.No female soldier of destiny sur-vived. Dynastic clans like theHaugheys have been wiped out.

Frankly, there is a strong pos-sibility that the party that hasruled the state for most of its life-time has been so gutshot that it maynot survive at all. That probablywould the best long-term outcomefor us all.

Fine Gael and Labor are hold-ing talks in Dublin as I write. Giventheir joint numbers and the fact that thereis even a man called Ming the Mercilessamong the new herd of independents, thisis an inevitable course.

The bargaining is beginning. And Ihave to refer back to what I wrote lastJanuary: “Whatever government we electafter the election craic and excitementwill not be a helluva lot superior towhat we have now. That is a fact too.”

I still believe that. The one ray ofhope is that the oft-criticized Fine Gaelleader Enda Kenny from Mayo dis-played some signs over the weekend ofbeing able to expand his style and sub-stance sufficiently to be able to fill theshoes of a taoiseach.

Please God he will surprise us all.

Cormac MacConnell is a columnist forthe Irish Voice where an expanded versionof the above first appeared.

My Dear Old Ireland Is Dead

IA

Fine Gael leaderEnda Kenny arriving

at a party event inDublin.

IA.LastWord.qxd 3/5/11 1:59 PM

1800 Flowers 3/2/11 10:10 AM Page 1

CocaColaAD 2/28/11 4:19 PM Page 1

Irish America April / May 2011

Documents

Transcript of Irish America April / May 2011