Tag Archives: Derry

Ireland’s ‘Bloody Sundays’ and The Pittsburgh Catholic, Part 2

This two-part post explores how the weekly Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper reported—or ignored—two of the most violent episodes in twentieth century Irish history. Both events—in November 1920 in Dublin, and in January 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland—came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” Pittsburgh, and the Catholic, had strong ties to Ireland through immigration. These two posts are revised from a paper I wrote for the American Journalism Historians Association. I presented a 10-minute overview of the research at AJHA’s annual conference, Oct. 3-5, 2024, in Pittsburgh. READ PART 1. MH

Bloody Sunday, 1972

The Northern Ireland “Troubles,” 1969-1998, began as a civil rights struggle by the province’s Catholic minority, long denied fair access to housing, jobs, and other services by the majority Protestant-led government and business sectors. Many of the discriminatory practices were abolished before the end of the conflict, which renewed Irish republican calls for reunification with the south. Most of the violence occurred within Northern Ireland, but some episodes spilled into the Republic of Ireland and England. More than 3,500 people—civilians, police, sectarian paramilitaries, and the British Army—were killed over the three decades. The 1998 peace deal, brokered with U.S. help, established a new nationalist-unionist power-sharing government in the province and cross-border institutions; renamed and reorganized the police force to integrate more Catholics; and initiated the withdrawal of British troops as paramilitary groups simultaneously decommissioned their weapons.

On Sunday, January 30, 1972, British troops opened fire on an estimated 15,000 people, predominantly Catholics, protesting internment-without-trial in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. (Irish nationalists call the city “Derry.”) The Northern Ireland government had earlier outlawed such mass marches. In an echo of Croke Park in 1920, military officials claimed there was sniper fire from the crowd. Thirteen civilians were killed that day, a fourteenth victim died later.

Thomas O’Neil became editor of the Pittsburgh Catholic in November 1970, 14 months before Bloody Sunday. While his surname certainly suggests Irish heritage, both he and his parents were natives of Pennsylvania. This author did not pursue deeper genealogy. A graduate of Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, a Catholic institution, O’Neil rose through the ranks of local newspapers, from reporter to religion news and feature editor at the daily Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.[1]Birthplaces from National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Arnold, Westmoreland, Pennsylvania; Roll: 399; … Continue reading

By 1972, the Catholic’s circulation had reached 62,150, nearly quadruple the 1920 figure.[2]Ayer Directory of Publications, 1972. [Philadelphia: Ayer Press, 1972], 992. Six other religious papers were published in Pittsburgh, mostly monthlies, each with circulations of less the 2,000. The reference to Bishop Michael O’Conner under the front-page name plate was now replaced with, “America’s Oldest Catholic Newspaper in Continuous Publication.” There was no editorial page endorsement by the diocesan leader, Bishop Vincent M. Leonard, a Pittsburgh native born to late nineteenth century Irish immigrants.[3]Year: 1920; Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 3, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1519; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 357. He shepherded 921,000 adherents among a population of 2.3 million—40 percent—in a now smaller six-county territory.[4]Official Catholic Directory. [New York, N.Y.: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1972]. 662. In 1951, four counties of the Pittsburgh diocese were removed to form the new Diocese of Greensburg, Pa.

The Catholic began publishing a five-part series of reports about Northern Ireland in its second issue of 1972, three weeks before Bloody Sunday.[5]“Ulster violence: how it all came about”, January 14, 1972; “Day and night difference between Dublin, Belfast”, January 21, 1970; “How Northern Ireland Protestants view the situation”, … Continue reading The series was written by Gerard E. Sherry, managing editor of the Central California Register, the Catholic diocesan paper in Fresno. According to an editor’s note, he had spent most of December 1971 on both sides of the Irish border. What the note didn’t say is that Sherry also was a former British Army major who had emigrated from England in 1949 and become a naturalized U.S. citizen. He had edited four Catholic diocesan newspapers since the mid-1950s, winning nearly four dozen first prizes for editorials, layout, and general excellence.[6]“New Catholic Monitor Editor Revamps Paper”, The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, August 20, 1972. Sherry’s articles were distributed through NC News, a later iteration of the NCWC News Service launched in 1920.

The fourth installment of Sherry’s series appeared inside the February 4, 1972, issue of the Catholic, which featured three front-page stories about Bloody Sunday. There would be no repeat of the paper’s 1920 silence. This time the day-after NC News Service dispatch to its U.S. Catholic newspaper clients contained a 700-word story about the event.[7]“Cardinal Calls For Impartial Inquiry Of Londonderry Slayings” NC New Service, January 31, 1972. This was clearly the foundation of the Catholic’s 40-paragraph lead story, which did not name a news source. The piece quoted a mix of people touched by the event, including Catholic hierarchy, nationalist and unionist politicians, and a British Army major general, who said there was “absolutely no doubt” that his troops were fired upon first. The story noted the march was illegal and it used the official place name of Londonderry.[8]“‘Impartial Inquiry’ Sought In Londonderry Slaying”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 4, 1972.

The Catholic’s first sidebar from the Religion News Service (RNS) noted that the official Vatican Radio expressed “profound grief” about the event. But the story added that Pope Paul VI would need to “tread very gingerly” about any public statements, lest he “rupture relations with Britain and possibly fire up the Catholics in both the North and the South (of Ireland) to new and even more costly bloodshed.”[9]“Strong Papal Statement Expected”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 4, 1972. RNS was founded in 1934 by journalist Louis Minsky (1909-1957) as an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.[10]From “About RNS”.

The second sidebar was written by William McClinton, the Catholic’s associate editor. It featured an interview with Pittsburgh resident Joseph Clark, who was “just back from Ireland.” Clark was identified as head of the Committee for Peace and Justice for Ireland, founded four months earlier at one of the city’s Catholic churches. He also had been interviewed by the Post-Gazette.[11]“Peace Plan For Ireland”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 22, 1971. “U.S. Concern Over Irish Woes Urged”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 1, 1971. McClinton reported Clark as saying that money raised in America, including Pittsburgh, was being funneled to Ireland to pay for guns that perpetuated violence, which otherwise would recede. Clark was not quoted directly in the 12-paragraph story.[12]“American Funds Are Buying Irish Guns”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 4, 1972.

Stories and photo about Northern Ireland at top of the jump page, February 11, 1972, issue of the Pittsburgh Catholic. Note Gerard E. Sherry’s byline at top left.

Secular coverage

Many changes occurred in the U.S. media landscape between the two Bloody Sundays. Commercial radio—led by KDKA in Pittsburgh—was just coming on the air in 1920. By 1972, radio newscasts were regularly heard inside homes, businesses, and automobiles. The black-and-white newsreels once viewed by theater audiences were replaced by the color images of network television, which broadcast Northern Ireland violence directly into private homes. And Pittsburgh lost five daily newspapers.

The Press, still owned by Scripps Howard, was Pittsburgh’s only daily surviving from 1920 and still the city’s largest paper. The Post-Gazette was created from the late 1920s merger of other titles. In 1961, the Press and Post-Gazette entered a joint operating agreement. The Post-Gazette published Monday through Saturday mornings; the Press published Monday through Saturday afternoons, and on Sunday mornings.

Bloody Sunday topped the front pages of both papers on January 31, 1972. The Post-Gazette used Associated Press coverage and the Press relied on United Press International.[13]“13 Slain at Rally in Ulster”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 31, 1972. “Irish Catholics Riot, Strike After British Troops Kill 13”, Pittsburgh Press, January 31, 1972. The Press also used Scripps Howard reporting over the coming days. Like the Catholic, the Press bolstered its coverage of developments with a four-part background series, “Ireland in Torment,” which began the week after Bloody Sunday.[14]“Irish Cheer For British Turns To Curse”, February 6, 1972; “Catholics’ Drive For Civil Rights Detours Into Guerilla Warfare”, February 7. 1972; “Orangemen Vow To Fight If Independence … Continue reading The first three installments were written by UPI’s Donal O’Higgins, a Republic of Ireland native who had been with the wire service since 1946 and reported the earliest clashes of the Troubles.[15]“Donal O’Higgins, for 37 years a correspondent and editor…” Online obituary from UPI. Joseph W. Grigg, UPI’s chief European correspondent, wrote the concluding story.

The series focused on contemporary events leading to Bloody Sunday but also acknowledged key episodes in the long history of animosity between Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists, in Ireland, including the early twentieth century revolutionary period. “Ever since a separate Northern Ireland state was set up in 1920 by an act of the British Parliament, (Catholics) have felt themselves to be arbitrarily cut off from their coreligionists in the south; to be second class citizens in a state where the Protestant majority wielded virtually exclusive power.”[16]“Catholics’ Drive …”, Pittsburgh Press, February 7, 1972. The series did not mention the November 1920 Bloody Sunday. Grigg made the contemporary situation instantly relatable to U.S. readers: “Northern Ireland has become Britain’s Vietnam.”[17]“Internment Without Trial …”, Pittsburgh Press, February 9, 1972.

Catholics and the IRA were framed by modifiers such as “militants” and “terrorists,” respectively, throughout the coverage. Such adjectives were rarely applied to the British Army or Protestant paramilitaries. For example: “The death toll was the worst in more than three years of communal strife pitting Roman Catholic militants against Protestants and the British soldiers sent to restore order in Ulster.”[18]“13 Slain…”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 31, 1972 Bernadette Devlin was introduced in the fourth paragraph of a UPI story as a “Catholic militant” but not identified as a member of the British Parliament until the thirteenth paragraph.[19]“Tense Ulster Fears New Riots”, Pittsburgh Press, February 1, 1972. In the NC News Service/Catholic story, Devlin is identified as an MP on first reference, and never as a militant. O’Higgins described the Ulster Volunteer Force, which participated in illegal and violent actions, like the IRA, as a “well-equipped Protestant fighting force.”[20]“Orangemen Vow…”, Pittsburgh Press, February 8, 1972.

On the other hand, the secular coverage of 1972 was generally less deferential to the British military and government than in 1920. It quoted Irish Catholic nationalists, such as Devlin, in addition to church officials. And it included American sources, such as U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers.

Unlike the first Bloody Sunday, the Press in 1972 quickly weighed in with an editorial about the bloodshed. “Another Irish Tragedy” suggested three possible solutions: give Catholics “full civil and economic rights”; draw new border lines with Catholic areas incorporated into the Republic of Ireland; or end partition entirely, reunite the island, and encourage Protestants “who could not bear living in a Catholic-dominated Ireland” to emigrate to Britain, America, or elsewhere.[21]“Another Irish Tragedy”, Pittsburgh Press, February 1, 1972.

On the same page, an editorial cartoon headlined “Murderer!” showed an IRA gunman and British soldier with weapons pointed at each other as they stood over several dead bodies. In the background, a sign atop a hotel was labeled with the double-entendre, “The Ulster Arms.” The 1972 reports included more news photographs than in 1920, when access to images was still very limited. Efforts to encourage Washington to help end Irish violence also quickly became part of the ongoing coverage.

Pittsburgh Press, Feb. 1, 1972.

Catholic’s next issue

The Catholic continued its Bloody Sunday coverage the following week. A front-page piece by RNS described the New York City press conference of Father Edward Daly[22] RNS used the Irish forename Eamon, but Edward was more common. He became a bishop in 1974., the Catholic priest who “became famous overnight after a BBC television camera pictured him standing over a dying youth waving a blood-stained handkerchief at British troops.” Fifty-two years later, the video and photos of Daly (1933-2016) remain an iconic image of Bloody Sunday. He called the attack by British troops “complete and unprovoked murder.”[23]“‘Unprovoked murder,’ priest charges”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.

Daly’s observations were corroborated by the American journalist Gail Sheehy (1936-2020), then a correspondent for New York Magazine, four years before she became famous with her book, Passages. Sheehy had family ties to Northern Ireland and had gone there to report on the role of women in the Catholic civil rights movement.[24]See Sheehy, Gail, Daring: My Passages. [New York: William Marrow/Harper Collins, 2014]. She told the press conference she witnessed four marchers being killed but did not see any civilian shooters.

A second RNS story inside the Catholic reported that Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York City had called for civil rights reform in Northern Ireland and launched an emergency relief fund for the region.[25]“Card. Cooke launches Irish emergency fund”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972. An op-ed by Monsignor Charles Owen Rice of the Pittsburgh diocese, vice-president of Clark’s Peace and Justice for Ireland committee, suggested the Irish diaspora in American had been “uninvolved” in the Northern Ireland crisis until Bloody Sunday.[26]“Irish Are Aroused”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972. “Now it is changed, changed almost as utterly as it was fifty years ago,” he wrote, a paraphrase of the William Butler Yeats poem about the earlier revolutionary period.[27]“All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.” From “Easter, 1916”.

Rice suggested that the “Derry massacre” (he did not use the full Londonderry name throughout his column) “invites comparison with our Kent State” University, a reference to the May 4, 1970, shooting death of four student protestors by the Ohio National Guard. “In a way Kent State was worse because it was fratricidal. American killing American, but on the other hand, the Kent State killers were unseasoned National Guardsmen not disciplined regular soldiers, whereas, the British paratroopers are the most professional and reliable that England has.” The British Army’s tactics, Rice concluded “make new friends and recruits for the IRA and push peace further and further back.”

The final installment of Sherry’s series reported on the Compton Report, a November 1971 government enquiry that detailed British military brutality against Northern Ireland citizens and prisoners. The story was packaged with a photo from a post-Bloody Sunday protest in Newry, Northern Ireland. “Thousands of Roman Catholics march silently through the street here,” the caption said. Another NC News brief reported that Pope Paul had indeed made a statement about Northern Ireland, delivered from the balcony of the papal apartment to the crowds in St. Peter’s Square. “We desire that any form of violence be avoided by the parties concerned …” he said in Italian, then added, in English, “from any side.”[28]“Internment in Ulster…”, “March Through Newry”, and “Avoid violence from any side, Pope advises”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.

As if to underscore Catholic Pittsburgh’s historical ties to Ireland, this issue of the Catholic also contained a nearly full-page (five of six columns) advertisement promoting the sale of the “First Annual St. Patrick’s Day Medal,” which commemorated the 432 A.D. arrival of Ireland’s patron saint. The medals, “made of pure Irish silver,” were produced in America by the Franklin Mint and sold for $15 each. This appears to have been strictly a commercial venture, as no church or charitable causes are mentioned. Irish leader Jack Lynch endorsed the enterprise as “a worthy memento of the homeland which they can always cherish.”[29]“Orders For The First Annual St. Patrick’s Day Medal Must Be Postmarked By February 17, 1972.” Advertisement in Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.

An iconic image of Dr. Edward Daly, bent over at right, on Bloody Sunday in January 1972.

Conclusions

The Pittsburgh Catholic’s support of Irish nationalism and the Catholic clergy and other coreligionists is hardly surprising, given the paper’s history and readership. Despite the strong affinity, however, the paper’s main editorial mission was not to provide news about Ireland, either in 1920 or in 1972. But the Catholic’s mission to cover the Catholic faith left wide discretion about what did or did not appear on its pages.

The first Bloody Sunday was not cast as a sectarian attack by either the Catholic or secular press. Even Cardinal Logue did not suggest a religious dynamic to the violence of that day. The lack of a clear Catholic element could be why the Pittsburgh Catholic and the NCWC avoided the story, even as other Catholic press reported it. Errors in sectarian and secular press accounts demonstrated the challenges of verifying overseas news, especially an event as chaotic as Bloody Sunday. As an NCWC story published in the Catholic a few weeks later put it, reporting Irish news was “somewhat risky for any journalist” … since “more often than not by the time the words are read in America a new and appalling blunder had been committed …”[30]“Irish Bishops’ Suggestion Finds Favor In England”, Catholic News Service Newsfeed, The N.C.W.C. News Sheet, December 13, 1920. Same headline, Pittsburgh Catholic, December 16, 1920.

But the weeks-long absence of Bloody Sunday news in the Catholic remains troubling for a journalism enterprise that claimed to be “in service to the cause of truth and morality.” Whether editor Smith or Bishop Canevin made the decision, either from caution or another reason, the Catholic’s initial avoidance of the Dublin bloodshed came undone once it reported the cardinal’s letter. By then the paper had missed the opportunity to make its own editorial statement about the event, as it had done many times previously regarding Ireland.[31]The Catholic editorialized about British violence against the Irish in July 1914, April 1916, and September 1920. See my “‘Luminous In Its Presentation’: The Pittsburgh Catholic and … Continue reading It could have criticized the assassinations, as the cardinal did. Or it could have argued that the IRA’s killing of military personnel, compared to the military’s attacks on civilians, was justified by centuries of religious and political persecution. Either way, the Catholic then could have focused attention on the stadium slaughter.

The second Bloody Sunday was more clearly sectarian. And it was easier for the Catholic to report since the military action was not prompted by an initial Irish attack. In 2010, a U.K. government inquiry of the event—the second since 1972—ruled the British Army not only had fired the first shot, but also had fired on fleeing, unarmed civilians. British Prime Minister David Cameron, in a public apology, said the civilian deaths were “unjustified and unjustifiable.”[32]See the Saville Inquiry, issued June 15, 2010. Cameron’s statement made the same day.

The Catholic’s coverage in 1972 was more aligned with the standards of contemporary journalism. It holds up on inspection more than 50 years later. The news stories did not shy from quoting sources that conflicted with the paper’s prevailing pro-Irish Catholic views. Through the Pittsburgh peace activist, it alerted readers that their money might contribute to nationalist violence in Northern Ireland. Yet the coverage leaves no reason for the Catholic’s readers to doubt the paper’s support for its Irish coreligionists.

Sensitivity to nineteenth century anti-Catholic and nativist forces in the United States are prominent in the Catholic’s pages from the time of the first Bloody Sunday. These threats would flare again during the 1920s. That bigotry had receded, but not vanished, by the second Bloody Sunday, as often symbolized by the election of John F. Kennedy as the first Catholic elected U.S. president. But some cohort of the faithful were almost always being oppressed or in danger somewhere in the world, including Ireland, and thus relevant to the Catholic’s readers.

The Catholic avoided sectarian finger pointing during both Bloody Sundays. Protestants were not the enemy as much as the British Army and government. As Sherry explained in the first installment of his 1972 series: “While on the surface the problem appears to be a Catholic-Protestant conflict, its roots are not religious but political and economic. The Catholic minority is not fighting for religious liberty, but for equal political representation, equal opportunity in employment and housing, and an end to military harassment.”[33]“Ulster violence …”, Pittsburgh Catholic, January 14, 1972.

The research discussed in this project could be expanded to include how the Pittsburgh Catholic and other sectarian newspapers, both Catholic and Protestant, covered the entirety of either or both twentieth-century conflicts in Ireland. Exploring how that coverage compared with the secular press provides important context. How media outlets with stated religious or nationalist identities cover violent conflicts remains relevant today, as seen with the Israel-Hamas War. The original paper was submitted to AJHA in late May 2024, not long after Israeli officials ordered the Arab network Al Jazeera to leave the Jewish state.

A final note: the Pittsburgh Catholic weekly ceased publication in March 2020—one hundred and seventy-six years after its first issue—due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed online-only operations later that year. As of 2024, the Catholic existed as a bimonthly print and digital magazine under the auspices of the Pittsburgh diocese.

References

References
1 Birthplaces from National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Arnold, Westmoreland, Pennsylvania; Roll: 399; Page: 7; Enumeration District: 65-17; career from “O’Neil Named Editor Of Pittsburgh Catholic”, Pittsburgh Catholic, October 23, 1970.
2 Ayer Directory of Publications, 1972. [Philadelphia: Ayer Press, 1972], 992. Six other religious papers were published in Pittsburgh, mostly monthlies, each with circulations of less the 2,000.
3 Year: 1920; Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 3, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1519; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 357.
4 Official Catholic Directory. [New York, N.Y.: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1972]. 662. In 1951, four counties of the Pittsburgh diocese were removed to form the new Diocese of Greensburg, Pa.
5 “Ulster violence: how it all came about”, January 14, 1972; “Day and night difference between Dublin, Belfast”, January 21, 1970; “How Northern Ireland Protestants view the situation”, January 28, 1972; “Militant wing of IRA pledges a united republic”, February 4, 1972; “Internment in Ulster—charges and countercharges”, February 11, 1972.
6 “New Catholic Monitor Editor Revamps Paper”, The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, August 20, 1972.
7 “Cardinal Calls For Impartial Inquiry Of Londonderry Slayings” NC New Service, January 31, 1972.
8 “‘Impartial Inquiry’ Sought In Londonderry Slaying”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 4, 1972.
9 “Strong Papal Statement Expected”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 4, 1972.
10 From “About RNS”.
11 “Peace Plan For Ireland”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 22, 1971. “U.S. Concern Over Irish Woes Urged”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 1, 1971.
12 “American Funds Are Buying Irish Guns”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 4, 1972.
13 “13 Slain at Rally in Ulster”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 31, 1972. “Irish Catholics Riot, Strike After British Troops Kill 13”, Pittsburgh Press, January 31, 1972.
14 “Irish Cheer For British Turns To Curse”, February 6, 1972; “Catholics’ Drive For Civil Rights Detours Into Guerilla Warfare”, February 7. 1972; “Orangemen Vow To Fight If Independence Threatened”, February 8, 1972; and “Internment Without Trial Shatters British Commitment To Keep Ulster”, February 9, 1972.
15 “Donal O’Higgins, for 37 years a correspondent and editor…” Online obituary from UPI.
16 “Catholics’ Drive …”, Pittsburgh Press, February 7, 1972.
17 “Internment Without Trial …”, Pittsburgh Press, February 9, 1972.
18 “13 Slain…”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 31, 1972
19 “Tense Ulster Fears New Riots”, Pittsburgh Press, February 1, 1972.
20 “Orangemen Vow…”, Pittsburgh Press, February 8, 1972.
21 “Another Irish Tragedy”, Pittsburgh Press, February 1, 1972.
22 RNS used the Irish forename Eamon, but Edward was more common. He became a bishop in 1974.
23 “‘Unprovoked murder,’ priest charges”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.
24 See Sheehy, Gail, Daring: My Passages. [New York: William Marrow/Harper Collins, 2014].
25 “Card. Cooke launches Irish emergency fund”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.
26 “Irish Are Aroused”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.
27 “All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.” From “Easter, 1916”.
28 “Internment in Ulster…”, “March Through Newry”, and “Avoid violence from any side, Pope advises”, Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.
29 “Orders For The First Annual St. Patrick’s Day Medal Must Be Postmarked By February 17, 1972.” Advertisement in Pittsburgh Catholic, February 11, 1972.
30 “Irish Bishops’ Suggestion Finds Favor In England”, Catholic News Service Newsfeed, The N.C.W.C. News Sheet, December 13, 1920. Same headline, Pittsburgh Catholic, December 16, 1920.
31 The Catholic editorialized about British violence against the Irish in July 1914, April 1916, and September 1920. See my “‘Luminous In Its Presentation’: The Pittsburgh Catholic and Revolutionary Ireland, 1912-1923” in Gathered Fragments, Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Vol. XXXII, Fall 2022, 4-19.
32 See the Saville Inquiry, issued June 15, 2010. Cameron’s statement made the same day.
33 “Ulster violence …”, Pittsburgh Catholic, January 14, 1972.

Catching up with modern Ireland: August

UPDATE: This story broke Aug. 31, a day after the original post, found below the graphic.

The population of the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland has eclipsed 5 million for the first time since 1851, near the end of the Great Famine, according to the Central Statistics Office. Then, about 6.6 million people lived on the island of Ireland, including the six counties of the North. Today about 1.9 million people live in Northern Ireland, for an island-wide total surpassing 170 years ago.

CSO graphic

ORIGINAL POST

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum in Connecticut, closed for over a year due to COVID-19, will not reopen, owner Quinnipiac University says. The museum is said to hold the world’s largest collection of historic and contemporary Irish famine-related art works. The pandemic has further eroded the museum’s poor financial footing, which surfaced in 2019.

“The university is in active conversations with potential partners with the goal of placing the collection on display at an organization that will increase access to national and international audiences,” Associate Vice President for Public Relations John Morgan wrote in an early August statement.

The museum opened in 2012. The 175th anniversary of “Black ’47”, the worst year of the famine, is next year.

Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute, founded and directed by history professor Christine Kinealy, remains open, as does the special collection of famine-related books, journals, and documents at the Arnold Bernhard Library on the Mount Carmel Campus, Morgan said.

I visited the library and museum in March 2013. I hope this impressive collection finds a good home.

More news from August:

  • “With economic crises spiraling out of control and Brexit casting the uneasy post-Troubles peace into doubt, republicans have found their political niche and are capitalizing on it,” Aidan Scully writes in Harvard Political Review. “Across the island, Sinn Féin is pushing up against decades-old traditions and systems and finding little pushing back. Ireland’s two-party system is gone, forever, and Sinn Féin is here to stay.”
  • Fresh polling by the Belfast Telegraph shows support for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has dropped 13 percent, placing it third among unionist parties and fourth overall in Northern Ireland, with Sinn Féin at the top. Elections in the North as scheduled for May 2022.
  • Ryanair announced it is leaving Northern Ireland, blaming air passenger duty and a lack of “incentives” from Belfast International and Belfast City airports. The carrier pulled out of Derry airport earlier this year.
  • Tourism Ireland, the island-wide marketing agency, has drawn criticism for using “Londonderry” instead of “Derry” in some materials. The former is still the official name, the latter in wider usage, especially since the hit television show “Derry Girls.”
  • Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell made headlines with comments about the church’s “underlying crisis of faith” and “current model of the Church is unsustainable.” Further context and perspective from Gladys Ganiel on the Slugger O’Toole Blog.
  • An eight-foot-tall, 1,600-year-old wooden sculpture was recovered a bog in Gortnacrannagh townland, Co. Roscommon during excavations for a road construction project, Smithsonian reported. The Iron Age figure was made from a split oak trunk and has what appears to be a human head and a series of horizontal notches carved along its body.
  • Ireland is missing its chance to protect its dwindling biodiversity with several iconic species of bird, fish and mammals under threat, TheJournal.ie reports in a special investigation.
  • “What I will miss most about the US is the people,” Irish Times Washington correspondent Suzanne Lynch wrote in her farewell column. “Wherever I traveled, I was consistently struck by the generosity and warmth of American people. Their relentless optimism, good humor and willingness to engage make it a pleasure to live in this country.”
  • See previous monthly round ups and our annual “Best of the Blog.”

Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry.                                                  Courtesy Kevin Griffin via Fáilte Ireland.

Catching up with modern Ireland: July

This time last year my wife and I were enjoying a two-week holiday on both sides of the Irish border. Millions of other visitors did the same last summer. Now, tourism to Ireland is experiencing “an extraordinary collapse” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as detailed by the Central Statistics Office.

Visitors have declined by two thirds over the first six months of this year against the same period last year; while June arrivals plummeted 97 percent compared to June 2019.

“Decimated is how I’d describe the business,” Dublin-born Niall Leogue, owner of Caddie Tours near Washington, D.C., told The Irish Times. The 10 tours he had arranged for some 400 people have been cancelled.

“No one wants to travel at this point,” said Leogue, an acquaintance through  Irish Network-DC. “What this will come down to will be the confidence of the consumer. Without the consumer there is no travel.”

Those who do visit are testing Ireland’s famous welcome and creating a new threat: “Tourists, particularly American ones, who flout Ireland’s quarantine rule,” The New York Times reported. “They aren’t the only tourists ignoring the requirement that people arriving in Ireland isolate themselves for 14 days, but most of the public complaints involve Americans.”

The U.S. Embassy in Ireland warns Americans to be prepared for the Irish government to enforce new “travel restrictions with little or no advance notice.” Its July 28 alert continues:

The Irish government continues to advise against all non-essential foreign travel, and requires visitors arriving in Ireland, with limited exceptions, to restrict their movements and fill in a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form indicating where they will self-isolate for 14 days. Failure to complete the form and providing false or misleading information is an offense under Irish law, with a fine of up to €2,500 (nearly $3,000) and/or imprisonment of up to six months.

Other news in July:

  • A Guardian editorial enthused: “Step by step, Ireland’s old nationalist politics, shaped by Britain in so many ways, have moved on. Ireland is prospering by doing things more rationally and in ways that are firmly rooted in the state’s membership of multilateral institutions.”
  • Archaeologists have discovered evidence of extensive activity at Navan Fort—a circular earthwork near Armagh city in Northern Ireland—including a vast Iron Age temple complex and residences perhaps occupied by the kings of Ulster.
  • The Irish government has provided €66,561 in funding to keep open the acclaimed Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), which documents the Troubles. The comprehensive resource at Ulster University’s Magee campus in Derry still needs additional support to avoid future problems.
  • A Hong Kong property tycoon has proposed building a new city, called Nextpolis, between Dublin and Belfast, for up to 50,000 refugees of the troubled Asian financial hub.
  • Loftus Hall in County Wexford, said to the most haunted house in Ireland, is for sale, which has generated a wave of media reports.
  • Amazon announced it would add 1,000 jobs in Ireland, bringing its workforce in the country to 5,000.
  • First the pandemic cancelled St. Patrick’s Day parades, now it’s claiming Irish America summer events including the Pittsburgh Irish Festival, Milwaukee Irish Fest, and Great American Irish Festival (Utica, N.Y.), and businesses such as Fado Irish Pub in Washington, D.C., and the Irish Walk store in Alexandria, Va.
  • The Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha will be hosted July 31 at Dublin’s Croke Park, home of the 136-year-old Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and symbol of an Irish identity that was nationalist and Catholic. The open stadium is being used to meet social distancing requirements. And in this case, the Irish welcome appears to be fully intact.
  • See previous monthly roundups and our annual “Best of the Blog.”

No masks: Galway city, August 2019.

Best of the Blog, 2019

Welcome to my seventh annual Best of the Blog–BOB. As always, I want to thank regular readers and new visitors for their support, including social media shares. Special thanks to my wife, Angie Drobnic Holan: editor, webmaster … my dear companion.

Back to Ireland …  

Inisheer, August 2019.

This year I made my ninth and tenth trips to the island of Ireland, traveling both times to the Republic and Northern Ireland. I’m starting this year’s BOB with a sampling of highlights from these 10 trips in just under 20 years:

May 2000: Pilgrimage to the Lahardane (Ballybunion) and Killelton (Ballylongford) townlands, North Kerry, birthplaces of my maternal grandfather and grandmother, respectively; and walked the Cobh waterfront where they emigrated in the early 20th century.

September/October 2001: Climbed Croagh Patrick … Interviewed surviving family at the Bloody Sunday Trust/Museum and watched testimony in the Bloody Sunday Inquiry at the Guild Hall, Derry. (Journalism fellowship from the German Marshall Fund.)

August 2007: (With Angie) Enchanted by the monastic ruins of Clonmacnoise (Offaly) and Glendalough (Wicklow). … Attended first play at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin: The Big House, by Lennox Robinson.

February 2009: Researched historic newspapers and census records at the National Library of Ireland and The National Archives of Ireland, Dublin, before they were digitized and made available online.

May/June 2012: (With Angie) Attended the Listowel Writers’ Week and heard Paul Durcan recite his poem “On the First Day of June” … on June 1, 2012 … at the Listowel Arms Hotel, the River Feale framed by the window at his back. … Strolled the Kinsale to Charles Fort (Cork) coastal walk, stopping for a lovely outdoor lunch.

July 2016: Toured the Falls/Shankill neighborhoods of Belfast by Black Taxi … Visited Titanic Belfast EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum … and Glasnevin Cemetary (Part 1Part 2), the last two in Dublin.

February 2018: Researched at the Michael Davitt Museum and grave (Straide, County Mayo); and read Davitt’s papers at Trinity College Dublin. (Part 1 & Part 2).

November 2018: Walked a muddy, cow-crowded road to reach Killone Abbey (Clare), following the footsteps of American journalist William Henry Hurlbert, who wrote of visiting the site in 1888.

July/August 2019: (With Angie) Cycled the Great Western Greenway from Achill Island to Westport (Mayo). … Hiked the circumference of Inisheer (Aran Islands, Galway) on my 60th birthday, and viewed the Cliff of Moher, which I had visited on my 2000 trip, from the sea.

November 2019: Presented my research about American journalist Ruth Russell’s 1919 travels to Ireland at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queens University Belfast for the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland annual conference.

Here are 2019 photo essays from both sides of the border:

From an evening walk on Inisheer, August 2019.

A few more photo essays from Irish America:

Before morning Mass at Old St. Patrick’s Church, Chicago, March 2019.

1919, Revisited … 

This year I enjoyed exploring U.S. mainstream and Irish-American newspaper coverage of 1919 events in Irish history. Find all 32 stand-alone posts, plus the five-part monograph, Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland, at my American Reporting of Irish Independence series.

Other history highlights … 

… and guest posts

I am always grateful to the contributions of guest bloggers. This year:

The Antrim coast, July 2019.

Other news of note:

RIP Lyra McKee, journalist killed in Derry on April 19. She was 29, the same age as Ruth Russell when the American reporter arrived in Ireland in 1919. … U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, and U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi–first, second, and third in succession of power in the American government–each visited Ireland in 2019. I’m not sure that’s ever happened before. … Republic of Ireland golfer Shane Lowry won the British Open at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland, the first time since 1951 the Open has been held on the island of Ireland. … American businessman Edward F. Crawford became the new U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. …Abortion and same-sex marriage were decriminalized in Northern Ireland, in part due to the dormant Northern Ireland Assembly. … See more at my monthly roundups from 2019 and previous years of Best of the Blog.

Libraries and Archives

Special thanks for the in-person help I received at these institutions in 2019:

  • Catholic University of America, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, and Mullen Library, Washington, D.C.
  • Georgetown University, Lauinger Library, Washington, D.C.
  • Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
  • Arlington Public Library, Central Library, Arlington, Va., and the numerous libraries that made books available through the Interlibrary Loan program.
  • University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center, Pittsburgh
  • Heinz History Center, Detre Library & Archives, Pittsburgh
  • The Archives of the Sister of Charity of Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pa.
  • The Newberry, Chicago
  • Chicago Public Library, Herald Washington Library Center, Chicago
  • Queens University Belfast, McClay Library Special Collections, Belfast

And digital assistance from these institutions:

  • University College Dublin, Papers of Éamon de Valera (1882–1975), (Thanks again John Dorney of The Irish Story.)
  • National Library of Ireland, Patrick McCartan Papers (1912-1938)
  • University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center
  • Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, (Newspaper Collection), Springfield, Ill.
  • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Main, Pennsylvania Dept. Collections
  • Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library, Joseph McGarrity Collection, Philadelphia
  • University of Kentucky, Margaret King Library, Louisville
  • University of Louisville, Ekstrom Library
  • Louisville Free Public Library
  • The Filson Historical Society, Louisville
  • Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  • Newspapers.com
  • Irish Newspaper Archives

Thanks again to all the librarians, archivists, and readers. Keep visiting this “journalist’s blog dedicated to Irish and Irish-American history and contemporary issues.”

Remembering Bloody Sunday’s uneaten Mars bar

First, the numbers: 45 years after 13 Catholic civil rights marchers were shot dead on Bloody Sunday, 18 members of the British Parachute Regiment that opened fire on them that day in Derry may soon face charges, John Kelly, brother of one of the victims, told The Irish Times.

Kelly also repeated the story he told me in 2001, when we met at the Bloody Sunday Trust, a museum, human rights advocacy and conflict resolution center. His brother Michael, 17, was carrying a Mars candy bar in his pocket at the time he was shot.

The sweet became part of the evidence in several tribunals that explored the events of Bloody Sunday. A 2010 report determined the victims (a 14th person died later) were innocent. British PM David Cameron apologized for the 1972 military action to the surviving families and the community. As yet, however, none of the soldiers has faced charges for the deaths.

More on the background and latest developments in this BBC story.

“We will be here as long as we need to be,” Kelly told me in 2001. “What’s a couple more years, since we have waited nearly 30 [now 45] to hopefully get truth and justice?”

The 1972 civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland, that became Bloody Sunday.

Guest post: questions about Brexit’s impact on Ireland

Less than two months ago, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. Northern Ireland voters wanted to “Remain” in the EU by 56 percent to 44 percent. So far, most questions about the impact of the UK’s decision on the island of Ireland are unanswered.

A Question Lingers on the Irish Border: What’s Next?,” The New York Times reported 6 August:

Four decades of European integration have helped Ireland not only escape the shadow of Britain, but also improve relations with London and work with the British for peace in Northern Ireland. Now the question is whether Britain’s departure from the bloc will drive a wedge between them.

The Washington Post headline two days later: “The Brexit Wildcard? Ireland.

What will happen to the Irish isle, north and south, is one of the biggest wild cards of the Brexit vote. … What will happen to trade and travel is unknown — and there are even bigger questions being asked about unification of the island.

The Irish Times is devoting a special section to its ongoing Brexit coverage.

Timothy Plum has been traveling to both sides of the Irish border for more than 20 years on business, academic and personal reasons. Listen to him talk about “Conflict identity and school achievement in secondary education in Northern Ireland” in this 6 June podcast with Drive 105 radio host Eileen Walsh in Derry. Tim just returned to Washington, D.C. after spending a month in Belfast. He filed the guest post below the map. MH

northern_ireland_map.jpg (1200×961)

By TIM PLUM

Britain’s decision to leave the European Union was announced in the airplane cabin as my wife and I landed in Dublin in June. I was beginning a month of graduate work at Queens University, Belfast.

My first thought: How can this happen? My next thought: We’re on the ground in Ireland at a very historic moment for the island.

Reactions to the referendum ranged from outrage and quiet reservation to acceptance and joy. Perhaps nothing should surprise us in a year that has seen Donald Trump win the U.S. Republican Party nomination.

But the people we met were genuinely stunned by the Brexit vote. They soon grew more bewildered as PM David Cameron resigned and left the mess for someone else to clean up.

The outrage was most pronounced among the students, professors and staff at QUB. They could not believe the “stupidity” (their word, not mine) of the conservatives in London who managed to scare people into voting “Leave,” then quickly exited the political stage themselves. Boris Johnson and Neil Farage were among those who abandoned the ship when the country needed their help.

We also heard quiet reservation from wait staff, hotel workers and bar patrons. Some of the later group insisted to my wife that Brexit might work, and that we should support Trump.

I personally know two people in Derry who voted “Leave” and supported the outcome. Their reasoning was simple: economics in the EU are a mess and perhaps standing alone will bring more prosperity.

I raised the possibility of renewed border controls and stiff tariffs that EU nations promise to put on UK goods. But I could not persuade them to change their views, even as Theresa May became PM and appointed Johnson as Foreign Secretary.

So I guess we will have to see what happens once May files the Article 50 to begin the process of untangling the relationship between the UK and the EU.

As they wait for those details to emerge, Queens students are worried about scholarship funding, and people all over Northern Ireland are concerned about the end of EU support that has helped the peace process.

It seems most people on the island, especially in the Republic, do not want Brexit to result in a united Ireland, even as many people in the north begin filing for Irish passports.

Derry’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ Bishop Dies at 82

Former Bishop of Derry Dr. Edward Daly, photographed in January 1972 waving a blood-stained handkerchief as he tied to help injured civil rights protesters pass through British troops, died 8 August 2016. He was 82.

The Irish Times called the Bloody Sunday photo “one of the defining images of the conflict in the North.” Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin said his brother priest “literally spent himself in the service of others.”

Here’s the IT’s full news obit, and U.S. coverage from The New York Times. Also, my 2001 report from Derry about the conflict.

Dr. Edward Daly at Bloody Sunday in January 1972.

Dr. Edward Daly at Bloody Sunday in January 1972.

 

Too much hate and killing in the past, and the present

Which quote about Margaret Thatcher is from the Irish republican, which from the Ulster loyalist?

“Oh God, in wrath take vengeance upon this wicked, treacherous, lying woman.”

OR

“It’s a pity we didn’t kill her 30-plus years ago.”

The first quote is from Ian Paisley Sr., or Lord Bannside as he’s known in his dotage. He said it 25 years ago, days after Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Norman Hamill writes in the Derry Journal.

The second quote is from Willie Gallagher, an Irish National Liberation Army prisoner during the Troubles. He said it this week during an unseemly Thatcher funeral “celebration“ in Derry’s Bogside.

The Irish Examiner linked events of the past to what happened this week in London, Derry and Boston:

Margaret Thatcher has not been fondly remembered in this country. She was a very British politician who essentially did not like the Irish, and if we are fair, it is hard to blame her.

Irish people killed her advisor, Airey Neave, with a car bomb within the precincts of the British parliament in 1979. He was a British war hero, as was Louis Mountbatten, who was murdered the same year while boating in Sligo with his grandchildren. That was as savage an affront to humanity as the outrage in Boston.

So enough killing for this week. God knows there was too much in the past. And let the dead, no matter who they are, rest in peace.