Monthly Archives: October 2016

Belfast boyhood and beyond

Shaun Kelly, global chief operating officer for KPMG International, was born in 1959 and grew up in the Catholic Falls Road section of Belfast during the worst of the Troubles. One of his uncles was shot and killed by the British Army, which mistakenly believed he was holding a gun. Kelly said he didn’t meet a Protestant until he was 19.

“You didn’t realize what you were going through,” he said during a 25 October Irish Network-DC event. “It’s really only when you look back” that the turmoil of the period can be put in perspective.

Shaun Kelly, left, interviewed by journalist Fionnuala Sweeney at Irish Network-DC event 25 October.

Shaun Kelly, left, interviewed by Irish journalist Fionnuala Sweeney.

Kelly attended University College Dublin with the help of a British government scholarship Ironically, it allowed him to continue playing Gaelic football, though he acknowledged being much smaller than the lads from Cork and Kerry. 

“Dublin in the late 1970s was not quite third world, but it was still developing,” Kelly said. “The cars and roads were not as good as in Northern Ireland.”

Kelly qualified as an accountant in Ireland and joined KPMG in 1980, soon relocating to the firm’s San Francisco office. His tenure included a return to Belfast during an upsurge of violence in the 1990s. At the time, KPMG managed the Europa Hotel, known as the most bombed hotel in Europe.  

After one of those bombings, Kelly said he discussed the possibility of shuttering the operation with hotel staff. They would hear none of it. “The IRA didn’t close this hotel, some short accountant is not going to close it,” Kelly quoted one of the workers saying to him.

His global travels and experiences with his native city have convinced him that economic development helps reduce violence by creating opportunities on both side of the sectarian divide. He acknowledged that Brexit will challenges both sides of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

“That border makes no sense from a business perspective,” he said. “There is much more to be gained from an open economy.”

Here’s a more lengthy profile of Kelly from the October/November 2015 issue of Irish America.   

John Kerry receives Tipperary International Peace Award

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has received the 2015 Tipperary International Peace Award in recognition of his efforts to end conflicts in several global hot spots.

The south central Republic of Ireland town and county was internationally associated with war because of the song “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” according to a history of the organization. In 1983, the founding committee of the Tipperary Peace Convention felt it was time that Tipperary should be known for peace.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan address reporters at the Aherlow House Hotel in Tipperary.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan address reporters at the Aherlow House Hotel in Tipperary.

Kerry, who lost a 2004 bid for the U.S. presidency, joins past recipients such as former Irish President Mary McAleese; U.S. diplomat to Northern Ireland Richard Haas; Good Friday Agreement broker and former U.S. Senator George Mitchell; the late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy; and Irish musician Bob Geldof.

In remarks, Kerry said Brexit must not impact the push for peace in Northern Ireland, and also announced the expansion of a one-year internship program for Irish J1 students in America, RTÉ reported.

High Court rejects Brexit challenges

The High Court in Belfast on 28 October dismissed two challenges to the outcome of the Brexit referendum. The cases are likely to be appealed to the U.K. Supreme Court.

A human rights activist and group of nationalist politicians challenged the referendum on Britain leaving the European Union on grounds that the June outcome jeopardizes the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Nearly 56 percent of voters in Northern Ireland rejected Brexit.

The judge said it “remains to be seen” what precisely Brexit will produce. “While the wind of change may be about to blow, the precise direction in which it will blow cannot yet be determined.”

Full coverage from the BBC and The Irish Times.

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The revolution will be colorized

A 90-minute documentary tells the story of Ireland’s struggle for independence from Home Rule to Civil War through beautifully colorized newsreel and photos.

British Pathé is offering online subscription access to “Revolution in Color” for $8 a month. It is narrated by Allen Leech, who played Branson, the Irish nationalist chauffeur on television’s “Downtown Abbey.”

“When you watch black and white, you are detached from the personalities and the history,” said director Martin Dwan. “There is something about color that triggers empathy with people.”

British Pathé, one of the world’s largest newsreel archives, attempted to make a similar film in 1935. It was blocked by Éamon De Valera’s Irish government at the time, in part because of the violence of the Civil War period, according to The Irish Times.

Watch the trailer:

Irish-Americans who haven’t visited Ireland

The Irish Times has published extended interviews with eight Boston residents of Irish ancestry who have never been to Ireland. Reporter Rosita Boland notes that probably most of the tens of millions of Irish-Americans are not “economically privileged” enough to cross the Atlantic. Or maybe the state of mind is more important than the physical journey.

“I discovered that when Irish-Americans talk about identifying with the Irish they mean the Irish who came to settle in the United States and their descendants, not those of us living in Ireland,” she writes. “Ireland itself, the country, is the abstract, romanticized receptacle of dreams and green fields, and the place that will soothe a lifelong ache.”

I’ve been fortunate enough to make six trips to Ireland and Northern Ireland over the past 16 years. Reading the Times‘ piece sent me back to my first story about Ireland after my initial visit in May 2000. It began:

COBH, Ireland — I traveled here for Nora and William, as much as for myself.

Like millions of Irish, my mother’s parents emigrated from this harborside village near Cork, in southern Ireland, to a new life in America, never returning to the family or country they left behind. Like many Irish-Americans, I arrived here years later with a desire to walk the same waterfront, returning to where I never set out, exploring the first half of my hyphenated heritage.

The North Kerry coast, July 2016.

The North Kerry coast, July 2016.

 

Guest post: Outrage over inclusion of IRA in new video game

Timothy Plum has been traveling to Ireland for more than 20 years on business, academic and personal reasons. His last guest post for this blog was about Brexit. MH

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The latest iteration of the “Mafia” video game series, which references IRA violence, is drawing criticism in Northern Ireland for trivializing the Troubles.

“Mafia III” is set in 1968 in a recreation of New Orleans. The player is on a quest to build a new crime organization to confront the Italian mob over the killings of his friends. Players game through the third-person perspective of fictional orphan and Vietnam War vet Lincoln Clay.

In a segment titled “The IRA Don’t Ask,” Clay’s mission includes stealing cars for an Irish underboss named Thomas Burke. The cars are destined for use as car bombs meant to “keep the Belfast law guessing.” The game also includes a Northern Ireland flag defaced with the word “traitor.”

Screen grab from "Mafia III" by 2K Games.

Screen grab from “Mafia III” by 2K Games.

The game uses stereotypes to glorify the IRA, including drunkenness, rowdiness and extreme violence. Using a time period as fresh and raw as 1960’s Northern Ireland, in my opinion, is a disservice to gamers–most of whom will have no idea of the actual events–and the public at large.

Unionist politicians have condemned the game. DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson told The Irish News that he is “very concerned” about the impact the game could have on “impressionable” minds. “The IRA were a terrorist organisation that murdered very many innocent men, women and children in Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK.”

As of 15 October, news coverage from the North has not included any reaction to the game from Sinn Féin or other nationalists.

So far, “Mafia III” has been poorly received by the gaming community, so perhaps the damage of misunderstanding and myth perpetuation will be tamped down by poor sales. But it is sad to have the past dredged up in such a poor fashion that only perpetuates stereotypes and does not further discussion.

The Irish in America: racists, or not?

Shortly after my last post about the vice presidential debate, Irish Times columnist Brian Boyd complained that Democrat Tim Kaine “invoked the historical discrimination towards the Irish in the U.S. to highlight the Republican Mike Pence’s support for Donald Trump’s inflammatory views on immigrants.”

But “the Irish in America were inglorious bastards,” he wrote, citing examples of Irish hostility toward African-Americans from the Civil War period to the busing crisis in Boston.

Now, the Times has published a counter column by Niall O’Dowd, founder of Irish Voice, Irish America Magazine and IrishCentral.com.

“There are actually no absolute judgements which makes us as a race in Ireland and America both saints and sinners. That is what objective history teaches, not single issue demonization.”

 

Irish immigrants cited in veep debate

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) made two Irish references in his 4 October vice presidential debate against Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R). Kaine is Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Pence is paired with Donald Trump.

Kaine’s quotes, from the Vox debate transcript:

…we are a nation of immigrants. Mike Pence and I are both descendants from immigrant families. Some things, you know, maybe said weren’t so great about the Irish when we came in, but we [were] absorbed, and made our nation stronger. When Donald Trump said Mexicans are rapists and criminals, he said the judge was unqualified to hear a case because his parents were Mexican. I cannot imagine how you could defend that.

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I grew up with a great Irish Catholic council. I was educated by Jesuits. I worked with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras now nearly 35 years ago and they were the heroes of my life.

Pence also grew up in an Irish Catholic family. As I reported earlier this year in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he has family ties to Doonbeg, County Clare, where Trump owns a golf course. Kaine’s ancestors were from counties Longford and Kilkenny.

Astute readers will remember that Irishness was raised at the vice presidential debate four years ago between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

TimKaine.JPG (1400×933)

Irish American museums, libraries and cultural centers

UPDATE: Readers have helped add several names to the list below. Thanks! I’ll soon create a permanent home for this information on the menu at the top of the blog. Keep those contributions coming. MH

The Irish American Museum of Washington, D.C. has not responded to my email asking for an update on the proposed project, which I raised in a recent post pegged to the opening of the National Museum of African American History & Culture. Someone at the @DCIRISHMUSEUM Twitter account offered links to the virtual museum’s online posts about President Barack Obama and the late boxing great Muhammad Ali, suggesting it “shares profound history” with the NMAAHC.

On Facebook, one of my former Mobile Press-Register colleagues asked: “Do Boston or NYC have such museums? It would seem they would considering how important they were to the formation of both those cities.”

That’s a great question, one that reaches beyond those two cities and the DC Irish American Museum effort. The information below is the beginning of an answer. It is not a complete list. I’m hoping readers will let me know about other U.S. museums, libraries, cultural centers and programs devoted to Irish ancestry and contemporary connections. (List is in alphabetical order by location.)

Irish American Heritage Museum, Albany, N.Y.

Irish Railroad Workers Museum, Baltimore, Md.

Center for Irish Programs, Boston College, Boston

Irish Cultural Center of New England, Canton, Mass.

Irish American Heritage Center, Chicago

Irish Collections, The Newsberry Independent Research Library, Chicago

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, Hamden, Conn.

Irish Cultural Museum of New Orleans, New Orleans

Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, New York City

Irish American Historical Society, New York City

Irish Arts Center, New York City

Omaha Irish Cultural Center, Omaha, Neb.

Irish Heritage Theatre, Philadelphia

Philadelphia Irish Center, Philadelphia

Irish Cultural Center & McClelland Library, Phoenix

Irish Centre of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh

Irish Nationality Room, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh

Irish Cultural Center of California, San Francisco

Embassy of Ireland, Washington, D.C., plus Consul General offices in six cities and honorary consulates in 11 cities.

Fenian Brotherhood Records and O’Donovan Rossa Personal Papers, and Connolly Irish Collection, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.

Washington Ireland Program, Washington, D.C.

The American Ireland Fund has chapters in 12 U.S. cities. The global network of friends of Ireland is “dedicated to supporting programs of peace and reconciliation, arts and culture, education and community development throughout the island of Ireland.”

Irish Network USA has 19 chapters. Its mission is “to bolster business opportunities and economic development between the United States and Ireland; to support and encourage Irish Arts and Culture through film, literature, theater, dance and language; to encourage and promote the mission and expansion of Irish sports, throughout the United States; to support the efforts of local Irish organizations and associations; to serve as a conduit between newly arrived Irish immigrants and their communities in member cities and states.”

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