Category Archives: Business & Environment

Ireland will hold general election; plus other news & data

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After months of speculation, the three leaders of Ireland’s coalition government have agreed there will be a general election before mid-December. Taoiseach Simon Harris will announce the date–most likely Nov. 29 or Dec. 6–within the coming days. (This story will be updated. Email subscribers should check the website for the latest developments.)

Voters will select 174 representatives to Dáil Éireann, an increase of 14 seats from the current parliament as the number of constituencies grows from 39 to 43. Each constituency has from three to five members. The expansion is based on the growing population, now over 5 million.

The new Dáil will select the next  taoiseach, or prime minister, with Harris aiming to keep the job. It seems likely the next leader also will lead a coalition government, as has been the case since the last election, in February 2020, just before the COVID pandemic. Polling indicates none of the major parties are poised to win a majority.

The snap election comes as Sinn Féin, the Irish republican opposition party, is plagued by several scandals. “It’s been a nightmare October for Sinn Féin,” Politico.eu reports, “… raising serious questions about the political survival of Mary Lou McDonald, the Dubliner handpicked by Sinn Féin’s previous leader, Gerry Adams, to take the Northern Ireland-rooted party from the political fringe into power for the first time in the Republic of Ireland.”

The election will be the third this year on the island of Ireland. In June, voters in the Republic cast ballots in local government and European Union constituencies. The following month, voters in Northern Ireland decided United Kingdom parliamentary races.

Image from An Coimisiún Toghcháin, The Electoral Commission.

Catching up with modern Ireland. Some other contemporary news and data:

  • Ireland’s environmental health is rated “poor” in the latest assessment by the country’s Environmental Protection Agency. The New York Times describes how a Cork sculptor is trying to restore a patch of native rainforest in the Beara Peninsula.
  • The UK government plans to appeal a Belfast court ruling that the 2023 Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act was incompatible with human-rights protections secured in a post-Brexit agreement, Reuters reports.
  • Ireland won’t wait for the rest of the EU to restrict trade with Israel over the occupation of the Palestinian territories and expects to receive legal advice soon on whether it can impose its own curbs.

Data for the 28-county Republic of Ireland. CSO graphic.

‘Special relationship’ or the fading of the green?

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This month marks the 100th anniversary of official diplomatic relations between the United States and Ireland. In presenting his credentials to US President Calvin Coolidge, Irish professor Timothy A. Smiddy became not only the first minister plenipotentiary appointed by the Irish Free State, but also the first representative from any member of the British Commonwealth.

Smiddy was first appointed as the Free State’s minister in the US in March 1922, but he had to combat both official disinterest and untrustworthiness among his own staff. US officials noted the Free State had the same dominion status as Canada and therefore believed that Irish matters should be addressed through the British embassy until told otherwise, RTÉ explains.

Irish ambassador Timothy Smiddy (left) with US Assistant Secretary of State J.B. Wright at the State Department on October 7, 1924. Library of Congress

To mark the centenary of bilateral relations, Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris last week arrived in Washington to meet with US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a proud Irish American Catholic. The two leaders met at the White House, though a planned Rose Garden ceremony was postponed due to Hurricane Milton in Florida. In an official statement of fewer than 100 words, Biden “reflected on the deep cultural, people-to-people and economic ties between the two countries, and expressed confidence that the next 100 years will see even deeper cooperation.”

Deeper? I doubt it.

“As Biden’s presidency ends, it also represents the close of an era for a particular type of Irish-American political narrative and attitude given demographic, cultural and generational changes,” historian Diarmaid Ferriter wrote in the Irish Times. “…the days of an American president touching the pulses of Irish ancestral memory are over. For reasons of tradition, Irish visits to the White House may continue in some form, but they are unlikely to carry the same emotional heft or diplomatic significance of yesteryear.”

A Times‘ editorial made a similar point:

The last big wave of emigration from Ireland to the US was over 30 years ago. Moreover, the US is becoming much more diverse and Irish America is becoming much less coherent and influential. … The symbolic handing over of the shamrock may continue each March, but there is work to be done in maintaining Ireland’s real influence. The traditional calling card may not have the same power in future.

These sentiments reprise what was written during Biden’s April 2023 visit to the Republic and Northern Ireland, where he marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Since then Biden dropped his re-election bid, ending Ireland’s chance to keep a close friend in the White House for another four years. Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris will have the same personal and political interests in Ireland. Trump could be hostile to Ireland because of its stance on Palestine, though moderated by the self-interest of his golf property in Clare.

Harris (Simon, not Kamala) said the 1998 peace process is the “single most important achievement” of Ireland’s relationship with the US. “Bipartisan support has come from all levels of government and from communities in each and every one of the 50 states, and today I say thank you for that to our friends across the US,” he said at Georgetown University.

The Embassy of Ireland, USA, in Washington, D.C. Irish and EU flags at right, Ukrainian flag on balcony.

The New York Times noted the centenary of US-Irish bilateral relations as a secondary point in a story focused on how the George J. Mitchell scholarship program in Ireland and Northern Ireland might have to be discontinued after 25 years due inadequate funding.  Mitchell was the US envoy who guided the Good Friday accords. Congress pulled funding for the scholarship program in 2014 during a round of budget cuts, and Northern Ireland did the same in 2015. The Irish government remains committed to matching funds raised by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance from philanthropic sources, according to the Times.

See Irish Envoy Received By The President on the front page of the October 18, 1924, issue of the The Gaelic American.

The Washington Post, like most US media outlets, ignored the diplomatic centenary except to mention the Rose Garden ceremony was being cancelled because of the hurricane. U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and Richard E. Neal (D-Mass) issued a joint statement as co-chairs of the Congressional Friends of Ireland Caucus. Their resolution to recognize the centenary and the “mutually beneficial economic relationship” has languished without passage since July, more a reflection on the dysfunction of the US Congress than the state of US-Irish relations.

Economic factors are likely to be the main driver of the US-Irish relationship going forward. Ireland’s well-educated, English-speaking workforce and strategic location as the geographic fulcrum between the US East Coast and European continent are strong advantages. Economics will influence the politics that determine any US involvement in a potential future referendum on whether to reunify the island of Ireland.

The term “special relationship” is typically applied to the US and the UK. But it seems just as appropriate for the US and Ireland over the long century measured from Charles Stewart Parnell’s 1880 tour. The two countries are likely to remain friendly, but the special, sentimental US-Irish relationship appears to be fading.

Ireland & Northern Ireland by the numbers

Ireland’s Central Statistic’s Office (CSO) is marking its 75th anniversary. The agency grew from the Statistics Branch of the Department of Industry and Commerce, established at the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922. From that time until the CSO’s 1949 formation the population of the 26 counties remained about 2.9 million, compared to nearly 5.4 million today. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) is the equivalent body in the six counties, with just over 1.9 million people today compared to 1.2 million at partition in 1920.

Among the CSO’s latest releases is this visualization of population and migration data:

CSO graphic

CSO data related to tourism are also popular. The latest figures show 0.8 percent more visitors spent 5 percent more money in Ireland during July 2024 compared to July 2023, despite a 6.2 percent decrease of visitor nights in the country. U.S. visitors ranked third (22.7 percent) behind those from Great Britain and Germany.

A Sept. 6 New York Times guest essay about abandoned housing in Ireland relied on a different set of CSO numbers. County Leitrim journalist and photographer Rob Stothard writes:

There are various estimates of the number of vacant and derelict properties across Ireland. All are in the tens of thousands. The 2022 census recorded well over 100,000: long-abandoned rural cottages; empty apartments in city-center blocks or above shuttered shops in regional towns; fading Georgian townhouses in the center of once-prospering rural villages; and “ghost estates,” housing developments that were being built at the time of the financial crash in 2008 and were never completed.

Finally, independent scholar Philip McGuinness relied on the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) Survey in his Irish TImes analysis of nationalist and unionist voting trends in Northern Ireland. He says that 2021 census for the six counties show that 59 percent of people over age 65 are Protestant, compared to 38 percent for Catholics. However, for those under 15, the figures are 33 percent and 49 percent, respectively.

Letter describes ‘extraordinarily beautiful’ Achill Island in summer 1923

(This post marks our 12th blogiversary. Thanks for your support. MH)

Chester A. Arthur III, grandson of the late 19th century U.S. president, and his wife, Charlotte, lived in Ireland for several years beginning in 1922.[1]The couple married in June 1922 in England, then honeymooned and settled in Ireland. The also traveled to other parts of Europe and back to the United States. Chester was bisexual, including affairs … Continue reading Chester supported anti-treaty republicans in the Irish Civil War. He wrote letters to the editor and longer pieces about Ireland for U.S. newspapers.

The American couple befriended Irish nationalists Darryl and Millie Figgis. The Irish couple in 1913 had bought a small house and some land at Pullagh, Achill Island, in County Mayo, a place to escape the noise and grime of Dublin. That became more true during the ensuing decade of revolutionary violence. The Arthurs arrived as the Figgis’ guests in July 1923. Chester, then 22, described their “cozy little cottage by the broad Atlantic” in a letter to his mother.[2]From the large collection of Arthur family papers at the Library of Congress.

Lightly edited selections of his descriptions begin below the photo:

Achillbeg, Achill Island                                                                                                                                         Fáilte Ireland

“Although there is not a tree within miles, the huge cliffs, the golden beach, the heather purple hills and the turquoise green sea make this place one of the most extraordinarily beautiful I have ever seen. And here of course is the real Gaeltacht, the real Ireland unanglicized and pagan. Each family builds and repairs their own stone whitewashed walls and their own barley thatch. They are self-supporting, their clothes are hand-made from the sheep’s back to their own; they cure their own hams, grind their own oatmeal, brew their own poteen, and catch and dry their own fish.

“Irish of course is the language spoken and sung in plaintive harmony. The men wear short white jackets and big black hats; sometimes the sweater underneath is blue and sometimes burned orange (both dyes are taken from the sea). Their trousers are of the thick homespun which in England is only worn by gentlemen. The women sit behind them sidewise on the horse’s rump when they go to Mass. Their skirts are usually brilliant red, their bodices either green, blue or purple; the shawls over their heads are always black. They have very wide high cheekbones, rather delicately chiseled straight noses, and straight black or red hair. Their long eyes are almost always very beautiful, every color that the sea takes on incites moods. If they do not know you they are very shy, but after the ice is broken, they prove very witty and amusing.

“A cèilidh[3]A social gathering with singing, dancing, and storytelling. was gotten up in our honor. The Figgis’ are very popular here. Almost the whole village crowds into a small cabin and after a few songs the four most enterprising young men get out in the middle and beckon the four belles for the square dance. They clog and whirl themselves a space in the crowd, which packs up against the walls. The room gets very hot, the clean healthy sweat from the dancers fill the air with a primitive very stimulating aroma. Eyes begin to gleam; queer little stifled cries burst from the boys as they stomp and whirl around and around their partners, who turn and turn and command respect with their eyes, yet invite and call with every essence of their bodies. And all the time the fiddle is scraping away music thousands of years old, rhythm inconceivably quick and throbbing, yet in minor key, and with a queer bagpipe drone making almost a syncopation of discord; the very heart of the stranger beats in time to the little lame boy’s fiddling.

“Now as I write, I gaze out of the little deep set window across the boggy headland, where the old women are gathering peat, across the sea, which like a great cruel gray cat lies between the violet mountains, and purrs as its sleep. The wind is keening the drowned fishermen whom the grey cat has struck with his claws. And every now and then the wind dies down, in a flash of sunshine, the cat opens his long green eyes and looks at me; but always dozes off to sleep again.

“The wind is never still here. Sometimes it only moans and cries a drone to the seagulls’ piping; but then at other times it rises with the force of a hundred djinns (In Arabian and Muslim mythology, an intelligent spirit of lower rank than the angels) and carries away the roof of the houses however securely they are tied it to the imp-headed beams sticking out from the walls near the top. And then the people pray, some to God the Father, and some to Manannán,[4]Celtic sea god. and some to both—it is all the same, for they will have in any case to rob the cow of her barley straw, and weave a new thatch, and try some new device to keep it on. But sometimes the winds work under the slates of the new British built houses, and slates go flying over the bog and over the grey cliffs into the sea; then what glee among the natives that the newfangled roofs are really no better than the roof their fathers taught them to make, only when they do fly off  they cost twice as much and take twice as long to repair. …

“A fisherman was drowned the other day. The sea was dragged with grappling hooks, prayers were offered up for the recovery of the body for burial in holy ground. All Christian means having failed, the dead man’s coat was sent for. After it had been blessed by the priest, an incantation was whispered over it preserved from Druid days, and then it was taken out and thrown into the sea. The swift current bore it along until suddenly it seemed to resist the force of the current and rested still. The sea was dragged and just under the coat the man’s body was found, and great thanks were given up to God.

“… The lad[5]Presumably, D. Figgis. and I go on expeditions up the mountains and fishing on the sea. We swim twice a day, so we don’t care that there are no bathtubs. Charlotte and Mrs. Figgis accompany us whenever they can and keep each other company except at mealtime when they marvel at the quantity we eat. No life could be healthier than this, certainly. We are so tired at ten o’clock that we go to bed and right to sleep though it is still very light.

“I am certainly going to have a cottage on this wild west coast of Ireland to which I can go in retreat from the roiling of the great world. Everything here is primitive and oh so restful and refreshing after New York and Dublin. Real communism exists as a matter of course here, for the people love each other. Love and hard work and a close touch with nature, what more ennobling can be found in life?”

Not long after their visit to Achill Island, Chester and Charlotte Arthur witnessed the August 1923 arrest of Éamon de Valera at a campaign event at Ennis, County Clare. Within the next two years Millie and Darryl Figgis each committed suicide. The Arthurs divorced in 1932.

Keem Beach, Achill Island.                                                                                                                                  Fáilte Ireland

References

References
↑1 The couple married in June 1922 in England, then honeymooned and settled in Ireland. The also traveled to other parts of Europe and back to the United States. Chester was bisexual, including affairs with Irish republicans. See Maurice J. Casey’s, “A Queer Migrant in the Irish Civil War.”
↑2 From the large collection of Arthur family papers at the Library of Congress.
↑3 A social gathering with singing, dancing, and storytelling.
↑4 Celtic sea god.
↑5 Presumably, D. Figgis.

On recognition & partition: Ireland, Israel, & Palestine

Ireland’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood has gravely disrupted diplomatic relations between Ireland and Israel. The latter condemned the gesture as “a reward for terrorism” perpetrated by Hamas in October and withdrew its ambassador from Dublin.

On May 22, Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris said:

“On the 21st of January 1919 Ireland asked the world to recognize our right to be an independent State. Our ‘Message to the Free Nations of the World’ was a plea for international recognition of our independence, emphasizing our distinct national identity, our historical struggle, and our right to self-determination and justice. Today we use the same language to support the recognition of Palestine as a State.” Read his full statement, which also condemns the Hamas attack and supports the Israeli state.

The recognition has generated a new round of media stories about why the Irish identify so strongly with the Palestinians. Such reports began long before the civilian death toll in Gaza from Israeli military strikes surpassed the number of victims from the Hamas incursion into Israel.

Palestinian flag

Fourteen months before that attack, Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab wrote a piece headlined “Comparing the Palestinian and Irish-Catholic Struggles.” In each case, he wrote, “a powerful force oppressed local indigenous populations in a clearly racist and paternalistic fashion.” He also details their differences with today’s Northern Ireland.

Kuttab noted that U.S. President Joe Biden, during a July 2022 speech in East Jerusalem, compared the Irish-Catholic struggle against Great Britain to the Palestinians against Israel. But the journalist questioned whether Biden, a strong supporter of Israel, is capable of “real and actionable policies related to Israel and the Palestinians.” The Biden administration has criticized Ireland’s recognition of Palestine, which was joined by Spain and Norway. But Ireland enjoys far more attention and goodwill from the U.S. government than the other two European nations.

In late May, a headline in the Jesuit magazine, America, declared, “Ireland recognizes Palestinian statehood: Why many Irish people resonate with the conflict in Palestine.”

Notice for Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign protest against U.S. weapons to Israel being shipped through Ireland. The bill has been delayed.

The piece quotes an Irish documentary filmmaker who says the Irish have a deep cultural memory of British rule and know what being colonized by a stronger neighbor is like more than most nations. The filmmaker has documented the efforts of peace activists to prevent the U.S. military from using Shannon airport in the west of Ireland as a refueling stopover for its Middle East adventurism, including arms shipments to Israel.

Catherine Connolly, an independent member of the Irish parliament, raised the Shannon issue in a May 23 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Connolly rejected the suggestion that Ireland’s recognition of Palestine is a prize for terrorism. “This is a step for peace,” she said.

Partition plans

The sectarian and territorial conflicts between the Palestinians and the Israelis parallel those between nationalists and unionists, Catholics and Protestants, in the north of Ireland, as detailed by M.C. Rast at History Today.

“Ireland and Palestine: United by Partition?” recounts how British officials in late 1930s planned to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states in much the same way they had divided Ireland along sectarian lines nearly two decades earlier. A British report suggested “the gulf between Arabs and Jews in Palestine is wider than that which separates Northern Ireland from the Irish Free State.”

Rast also quotes Dublin’s Irish Independent newspaper as saying: “Partition is the Englishman’s favorite way out of a difficulty. But it is in itself a confession of failure.”

Economic impact

The economic impact of Ireland’s recognition of Palestine is beginning to take shape. Israel’s national airlines announced it will not renew direct flights to Dublin, which were only launched last year. Irish officials have said its €15 billion sovereign investment fund would divest from six Israeli companies, the Irish Times reported.

Israeli flag

Israel’s trade deficit with Ireland was €4 billion in 2022. Israeli imports totaled €5 billion, seventh largest among trading partners, but less than a quarter of the U.K.-leading €29 billion and U.S. second-place €22 billion.

Just under 600 Israelis lived in Ireland in 2022, according to the Central Statistics Office. The same census return does not indicate the number of Palestinians, while 2016 data showed fewer than 200 Palestinians. There were fewer than 3,000 Jews living in Ireland in 2016 compared to more than 63,000 Muslims. These figures do not include Northern Ireland.

For more on how activists in Ireland are responding to the recognition, visit the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Ireland Israel Alliance.

A guide to celebrated, touristy Killarney in 1865

UPDATE:

The BBC reported on the “incredible reinvention” of Killarney, three months after my post.

ORIGINAL POST:

One of my sisters, an inveterate antique store browser, occasionally sends me 19th and early 20th century books that she discovers during her explorations. Her most recent gift is a copy of Black’s Guide to Killarney and the South of Ireland, from 1865.

The 1865 edition.

Nineteenth century travel guide books developed with a simultaneous expansion of the tourist industry. Victorian era travelers were looking for sublime encounters with nature and ancient history. Comprehensive guides replaced the earlier travel narratives of individuals or groups who described only their specific journeys. The new books had “a more streamlined look, with well-indexed sections that made it easy to flip to a certain area of interest and a more compact shape.”[1]See “Guidebooks and the Tourist Industry” in Villanova University’s “Rambles, Sketches, Tours, Travellers & Tourism in Ireland.“

Black’s Guides were published by the Adam and Charles Black firm of Edinburgh, Scotland  (later London) from 1839 to 1919. They competed in the British Isles with similar series from Baedeker’s, Ward Lock, and Francis Guy’s. These guides are a great resource for historians.

The gifted 1865 edition of Black’s Guide to Killarney circulated 15 years after the devastation of the Great Famine. Work was just beginning to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable from Valentia Island, Kerry, about 45 miles west of Killarney. The U.S. Civil War ended after claiming the lives of many Irish immigrant soldiers. Suppression of the Irish People newspaper began a nationalist agitation that two years later resulted in the failed Fenian Rising.

The guide opens with a 21-page summary of “interesting objects” to view from either side of three Great Southern and Western Railroad routes through the region. Key mile markers are provided on the lines from Dublin to Cork, through Kildare, Queen’s County (renamed Laois in 1922), Tipperary, County Limerick, and County Cork; from Kildare to Waterford, through Carlow and Kilkenny; and from Limerick Junction to Tipperary, Clonmel, Carrick-On-Suir, and Waterford. The next 86 pages contain more detailed descriptions of these natural and built landmarks. The last 32 pages is a “Catalogue of Books,” which sells additional guides, maps, and atlases, as well as the 21-volume Encyclopedia Britannica and a collection of Sir Walter Scott’s works. The Killarney book also features a foldout “Chart of the Lakes of Killarney and Surrounding Country” (below), two-page “Plan of Cork” city, and an illustration of the Killarney lakes (below).

Lakes of Killarney illustration in 1865 Black’s Guide of the region.

Similar view from my March 2023 visit.

Regional map from the 1865 guide. (The right edge has been cropped out due to tears.)

Of Killarney’s natural landmarks, Black’s stated:

From the over-strained laudation, and the multitude of paintings and engravings that have been produced of these justly celebrated lakes, the tourist is apt to form too high an estimate of their beauty. There can be do doubt, however, that the rocks that bound the shores of Muckross and the Lower Lake, with their harmonious tints and luxuriant decoration of foliage, stand unrivaled, both in form and coloring; and the character of the mountains is as grand and varied as the lakes in which they reflect their rugged summits.

A framed photo of my wife standing on the same rocky shores of Muckross graces a corner of my writing desk, herself looking even more lovely than the surrounding scenery. But Black’s was less charitable about Killarney’s built environment and denizens, which it described as “certainly not the cleanest town in the world, and it has the misfortune to be filled with beggars, touters, guides and other annoyances.” German journalist Richard Arnold Bermann made similar observations during his 1913 visit.[2]See my post, “Welcoming American tourists to Ireland, 1913-2021.” As if dirt and mendicants were absent in London and other destinations.

In 1865, Black’s also offered a comprehensive, island-wide guide to Ireland, and three other regional titles:

  • Belfast and Giant’s Causeway
  • Dublin
  • Galway, Connemara, and the Shannon

Several editions of these books from the 1870s to 1912 have been digitized by HathiTrust. Antique book sellers offer Black’s guides in very good condition at prices approaching $100; while print-on-demand copies are available for much less. Other guide series are also available.

Years ago one of my Irish relations spoke a memorable line that my wife and I still quote in our travel-related discussions: “Why would you want to be anywhere in the world but Killarney in May?”

References

References
↑1 See “Guidebooks and the Tourist Industry” in Villanova University’s “Rambles, Sketches, Tours, Travellers & Tourism in Ireland.“
↑2 See my post, “Welcoming American tourists to Ireland, 1913-2021.”

Catching up with modern Ireland

March was a newsy month for Ireland, including the failed constitutional referendum, a sour St. Patrick’s Day visit to the White House, and the shock resignation of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Here’s some coverage and commentary that has caught my attention:

Varadkar resignation, Harris ascension, Donaldson resignation

Varadkar

The messiah complex: Neither Leo Varadkar, nor anyone else, could be a ‘savior’ of Fine Gael, Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times (Ireland)

“He was able, articulate and – in the twin crises of Brexit and the Covid pandemic – reassuringly adept. But his great talent was for riding out contradictions, not for resolving them. He managed to walk the line between politician and anti-politician, conservative instincts and an increasingly progressive society. …”

Update 1: The governing Fine Gael has selected Simon Harris as its new leader. There was no opposition to him within the party. At 37, he is set to become Ireland’s youngest taoiseach on April 9; a year younger than Varadkar when he took the job in June 2017. Some are already calling Harris the “TikTok Taoiseach.”

Harris was first elected to the Dáil in 2011 and managed Ireland’s COVID-19 response as minister for education, research and science. He has dismissed calls for a general election before the scheduled contest in March 2025.

Update 2: Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, abruptly resigned March 29 after being charged with sexual offenses. Leaders of the Northern Ireland say the development will not impact the power-sharing government, but it has rocked Irish and British politics.

Reverse reads on referendum result

“Ireland’s Snakes of Secularization“, National Catholic Register (USA)

There is a very understandable desire among the faithful in Ireland — and elsewhere — to interpret this month’s rejection by Irish voters of a pair of “woke” constitutional amendments as a decisive Catholic inflection point. According to this narrative, the unexpected and overwhelming rejection of these amendments represents a watershed moment in terms of reversing the tide of secularization that has washed over Irish society in recent decades. Unfortunately, that’s probably untrue. … The hostility of voters toward the progressive inanities expressed by both amendments can’t be taken as a sign that secularism is now generally on the wane in Ireland — or that a concomitant rebirth of Catholic faith is broadly underway.

“Ireland and the terrible truth about wokeness“, Spiked (England)

Ireland has become hyper-woke. Its elites are fully converted to the gender cult. They promote the ruthless policing of ‘hate speech’, which really means dissent. They damn as ‘far right’ anyone who raises a peep of criticism about immigration. Their culture war on the past is relentless. Woke is the state religion of Ireland now. And if you thought Catholic Ireland was sexist, irrational and illiberal, just wait until you see what wokeness unleashes. … The irony is too much: in ostentatiously distancing themselves from bad old religious Ireland, the elites have created a system of neo-religious dogmas that makes the Catholic era seem positively progressive in comparison.

Green (and blue) at the White House

Biden

Can the Irish Get Biden to Change His Policies on Gaza?, New York (USA)

Many of the actual Irish — the ones who came over from Éire for this annual celebration of the shamrock diaspora — spent the afternoon trying to talk sense to Biden over his Gaza policies, and his confounding (to them) support of Israel’s relentless military response to Hamas. … The Irish have a long-held kinship with the Palestinians. They see parallels between their struggle against Israel and the Irish struggle against British rule. They see in the famine that is gripping Gaza today a tragic echo of their own. This has been true for decades, but never more so than now. … So just beneath all the stout suds, these were the fault lines on display at Biden’s St. Patrick’s Day party this year: his assumption that the Irish were his friends and that so were the Israelis. But it’s no longer so easy to be both.

Three more stories:

  • Britain is appealing a ruling against its Legacy Act, which gives amnesty to ex-soldiers and militants involved in Northern Ireland’s “Troubles.” Victims’ families have challenged the law, and a Belfast court in February ruled it breached human rights. The Irish government is separately contesting the law before the European Court of Human Rights.
  • Rose Dugdale, who left a life of wealth to become a partisan activist fighting for Irish independence in the 1970s, died in Dublin, aged 82.
  • The Central Statistics Office launched the Women and Men in Ireland Hub, ” which features data from the CSO and other public sources broken down into six main themes: Gender Equality, Work, Education, Health, Safety & Security and Transport.

The Lartigue monorail’s 1888 opening–illustrated

In about the same time that it takes to read this sentence, I could take a photo (or short video) by tapping my smart phone, upload the image and a few words of description to any of several social media platforms, and publish the content for viewing on a similar device or computer nearly anyplace in the world. Just … like … that.

Images and words did not move as quickly on Leap Year Day 1888, when the Listowel & Ballybunion Railway opened between the two County Kerry towns. The 9.5-mile, elevated single-track system–a monorail–came to be known by the surname of its inventor, Charles Lartigue. It would operate through October 1924.

It took a month for illustrations and descriptions of the Lartigue to reach U.S. newspaper readers in 1888. The words and images appeared from late March until June, often edited to say the service opened “a few days ago,” but occasionally citing the unusual Feb. 29 date.

The three-image display above is from the April 7, 1888, issue of The Daily American, Nashville, Tennessee. The images first appeared March 10, 1888, in the The Illustrated London News[1]Image on page 246; story on previous page.

An accompanying story in the Tennessee paper was attributed to the London Standard. A different story, most likely from another British paper, appeared in the Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Indianapolis (Indiana) Journal, Savannah (Georgia) Morning News, Sunday News-Leader of Wilkes-Berra, Pennsylvania, among other U.S. papers. The content in a few cases was attributed the New York Graphic.[2]The New York Graphic most likely was The Daily Graphic: An Illustrated Evening Newspaper, published from 1873 to 1889. It should not to be confused with the New York Evening Graphic, published from … Continue reading

Several U.S. papers published the signalman image (above, bottom right), typically cropped in a single column square. A similar-sized illustration of the Lartigue’s twin-boiler steam locomotive and pannier-style passenger carriages also appears in the displays of several papers. It is enlarged below for easier viewing.

This “railway and train” image was not from The Illustrated London News. Other illustrations of the Lartigue circulated in popular periodicals until black and white photographs of the monorail became widely available before the end of the century. The British Strand magazine featured eight photos with an 1898 story written by William Shortis, the Ballybunion station manager. Robert French of the William Lawrence studios in Dublin photographed the line, though the precise date of his assignment to Kerry is unclear.

Black and white moving images of the Lartigue were captured by the British Pathé newsreel company. Its “Along the Line” film is inexplicably dated to 1931–seven years after the monorail was discontinued and scrapped. I’ll have more on the Lartigue closing in October.

As I’ve written earlier, the quirky Lartigue provides a perfect movie opportunity for the eccentric styles of film directors Wes Anderson or the Coen brothers.

This illustration is taken from the Lartigue Museum in Listowel, Kerry. Date and original source unknown.

References

References
↑1 Image on page 246; story on previous page.
↑2 The New York Graphic most likely was The Daily Graphic: An Illustrated Evening Newspaper, published from 1873 to 1889. It should not to be confused with the New York Evening Graphic, published from 1924 to 1932, or a London weekly published under several variations of the Graphic banner from 1869 until the 1930s.

Photo essay: 50 years of Ireland in the European Union

Ireland this year marks 50 years of membership in the European Union. The short video below explains the history and how Ireland’s membership has helped the country’s development. Below the video are several images from my current visit to Brussels, including a stop at the Parlamentarium, a multi-language, multi-media museum at the E.U. headquarters.

Ireland at the heart of Brussels

Multi-media display of Ireland’s 13 MEPs at the Parlamentarian, the EU museum and visitor center. See them all from this link.

The museum declares James Joyce is “one of Europe’s best-known writers.” He lived in Dublin, Paris, Zurich, Rome, and Trieste, Italy.

Sign outside the Embassy of Ireland in Brussels, unofficial capital of the E.U., is written in Irish, English, French, and Dutch.

Kilkenny Limestone has supplied Irish blue limestone for street and sidewalk projects in central Brussels since 2019. This work site is outside the newly renovated Bourse, the former Brussels Stock Exchange, circa 1873.

Of course, there’s an Irish pub in nearly every major (and minor) city. This is one of several in Brussels.

Catching up with modern Ireland

As we begin the final quarter of 2023, here’s another of my periodic roundups of external stories about contemporary Ireland and Northern Ireland. Enjoy:

  • The DUP is expected to publish its response to new British/E.U. rules intended to smooth the impact of Brexit in Northern Ireland. This is just ahead of the party’s Oct. 13-14 annual conference. That makes October a make-or-break month for reviving the collapsed Northern Ireland Assembly, veteran correspondent Shawn Pogatchnik writes at Politico.eu. The DUP walked out of the North’s power-sharing executive 18 months ago.
  • The British Parliament passed the Legacy and Reconciliation Bill, which will stop most prosecutions for killings by militant groups and British soldiers during the Troubles. The move has united opposition from Northern Ireland’s major political parties, Catholic and Protestant churches, human rights organizations and the United Nations, the Associated Press reports.
  • The Republic of Ireland has a massive budget surplus, thanks to a boom in tax revenue from multinational companies. Whatever Dublin lawmakers decide to do with the money, “someone will be unhappy,” says The New York Times.
  • About 200 right-wing protestors harassed and threatened politicians, government staff, and journalists outside Leinster House, the country’s legislative home. “The crowd was apparently united not so much by a cause – their messages included Covid conspiracy theories, anti-immigration messages and attacks on transgender rights – as by a willingness to use aggression in a bid to shut down the heart of Ireland’s democracy,” The Guardian reported.
  • It remains unclear whether a referendum on general equality in the republic will take place in November, as promised. The government has not released the ballot language and suggested the vote might be delayed. A citizens assembly has recommended replacing existing language in the Irish constitution that states a woman’s “life within the home.”
  • U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs Joseph P. Kennedy, III, will host an Oct. 24-26 business conference. A U.S. delegation will join Northern Irish business leaders who have “started or grown” operations during the 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement.
  • Luke Gibbons, one of Ireland’s most profound if idiosyncratic cultural critics, seeks to bring Ireland’s early 20th century political and cultural revolutions into the same framework in an important new book, James Joyce and the Irish Revolution: The Easter Rising as Modern Event, Adam Coleman writes at Jocobin magazine.
  • The Notre Dame University “Fighting Irish” football team defeated the U.S. Naval Academy team 42-3 in late August at the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. The sold-out game at Aviva Stadium included nearly 40,000 fans who traveled directly from the U.S., according to media reports.
  • A group of 10 American travel professionals visited Ireland in late September to develop new luxury travel itineraries for their clients, according to Irish tourism officials.
  • The Central Statistics Office continues to release detailed data profiles from the republic’s April 2022 census. Here are some of the latest highlights:CSO graphic.