Tag Archives: Northern Ireland

Brayden on the Irish Boundary Commission, Part 1

Irish-born journalist William H. Brayden in the summer of 1925 wrote a series of articles for US newspapers about the newly partitioned Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. This summer I am revisiting various aspects of his reporting. Brayden’s coverage of the Irish Boundary Commission is divided into two posts. Part 1 begins below the map. Part 2 is linked at the bottom. MH

Map of partitioned Ireland from a 1920s US newspaper. Note the use of “Londonderry” for the county and town in Northern Ireland. Nationalists use the term “Derry.” In the Free State, vestiges of British rule remain in the names Kings County, not yet changed to County Offaly; and Queenstown, not yet renamed Cobh.

The partition of Ireland was less than five years old when Brayden’s series unfolded in US newspapers. The Irish Boundary Commission was considering whether to adjust the border separating the six-county Northern Ireland and the 26-county Irish Free State. The line emerged from the British government’s effort to mollify predominantly Protestant unionists, who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom, and majority Catholic nationalists who wanted independence.

“Now all sections of Ireland have obtained self-government in one form or another,” Brayden informed American readers.[1]William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 3. He used the term “home rule,” meaning each side of the border had more domestic autonomy than under the form of government in place since 1800. Northern Ireland had some control over local issues but remained subordinate to the Parliament in London. The Free State had obtained dominion status, like Canada; it was largely independent of London but remained within the British Empire. 

Whenever decision the boundary commission reached about the border line, Brayden continued, “every Irishman, no matter in which of the thirty-two counties he dwells will have an effective voice in shaping his own destiny.” He emphasized, “Ireland has hardly yet realized the magnitude of the change” brought by the implementation of the two home rule governments. Because of US immigration and trade laws, these changes also impacted Americans with family in Ireland, on either side of the border, or who traveled there as tourists or to conduct business.

Brayden could not have foreseen the surprise conclusion of the boundary commission’s work just a few months after his series appeared in the US press and then was republished as a booklet. But the correspondent did put his finger on a key element of the unexpected outcome.

Commission delayed

The Government of Ireland Act of December 1920 separated Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland; with each to have its own home rule parliament. Irish republicans in the south refused to accept the arrangement and continued to fight for independence. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 ended the war and created the Free State. The treaty contained a provision for the boundary commission to review and potentially change the border at a future date.

Michael Collins

The inclusion of the commission was a ploy to help smooth over other negotiating difficulties between Irish nationalists and the British government. Nationalist leaders such as Michael Collins believed the commission could be used to claw back significant territory from Northern Ireland, leaving it too small to remain viable and then have to join the Free State. Irish unionists, led by Sir James Craig, insisted the border remain fixed, neither losing territory to the Free State nor adding nationalist areas that threatened their domination.

The formation of the boundary commission was delayed by the Irish Civil War, June 1922-May 1923. It made no sense to convene the commission while Irish republicans waged a guerrilla war against supporters of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which had won the support of Irish lawmakers and Irish voters. Yet even after the republican “irregulars” laid down their arms against the Free State forces, the boundary commission remained in limbo.

By early 1924 the US State Department “considered the boundary question to be the most serious issue affecting Ireland as a whole,” the historian Bernadette Whelan has written.[2]Bernadette Whelan, United States Foreign Policy and Ireland: From Empire to Independence, 1913-1929. [Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006], 460. The commission remained unconstituted more than two years after the 1921 treaty and over six months after the end of the civil war. Faction fighting riddled the Free State cabinet, inflamed by the mutiny of army officers demobilized after the civil war. US officials worried about the outbreak of cross-border violence, which could also jeopardize their relations with Great Britain.[3]Ibid., 528.

Earlier reporting

Brayden referenced the boundary commission in his work prior to writing the 1925 series. In a March 1922 dispatch from the border region between counties Donegal and Londonderry, he reported on Irish republican threats within Northern Ireland. Majorities in the northern towns of Derry and Newry were “hostile to rule from Belfast” on religious and political grounds.[4]Londonderry is the proper name of the town and county. Derry is the formation favored by Irish nationalists. Brayden used Derry in his reports. Business interests in the two towns also expected less interference from Dublin in trade matters.

“If the boundary commission provided in the treaty ever sits, both towns will make a strong case for inclusion in southern Ireland, and as the arbiters are bound to regard the wishes and economic advantage of localities, Dublin feels certain of gaining these two towns and Belfast is nervous of the prospect of losing them,” Brayden reported.[5]”Ulster Is Confronted By Real Difficulties”, Wilkes-Berra (Pa.) Record via Chicago Daily News, March 30, 1922.

A few months later he wrote nationalist areas “are expected to be handed over to the south as the result of the work of the boundary commission,” despite Craig’s “determination to resist” such recommendations. But the erupting civil war in the Free State “played into the hands of the Belfast government” and “afforded an excuse” for British intervention. “They [southern nationalists] should have stood pat on the treaty,” Brayden concluded. (“Ulster Opens War On The Sinn Fein”, May 25, 1922; “Ulster Faces Ugly Situation”, May 27, 1922; and “Dublin Confident Of Agreement At London”, June 12, 1922, all in Wilkes-Berra (Pa.) Record via Chicago Daily News.)

Sir James Craig

Prior to Free State elections in August 1923, Brayden reported on Irish President William T Cosgrave’s renewed calls to form the boundary commission as “an electoral maneuver to placate the electors who hate the division of Ireland.” But Craig still refused to nominate a Northern Ireland representative to the commission. Brayden speculated, incorrectly as it turned out, that Britain and the Free State “would settle the boundaries in Ulster’s voluntary absence.” [6]“Irish To Hold Elections For 153 Seats”, Buffalo Evening News via Chicago Daily News, July 27, 1923.

US government concerns

Charles Hathaway, US consul general in Dublin, described the situation as “in the nature of high explosive” for the Free State. He worried further hesitation on the part of the British government to establish the boundary commission could destabilize the Free State to the point of collapse. Other US officials believed that forcing Craig and the Belfast government to participate in the commission could spark warfare between Northern Ireland and the Free State. At the least, the ongoing stalemate threatened to further undermine the poor economic conditions on both sides of the border.[7]Whelan, Foreign Policy, 528-29.

Hathaway had been “perhaps the only regular attender” of the Free State’s legislature, the Dáil, Brayden reported. The US diplomat “almost from day to day follows the proceedings with intent interest.”[8]Brayden, Survey, 5.

US officials also pondered how their consular offices served the Irish public. The six counties of Northern Ireland excluded three counties that historically belonged to the Irish province of Ulster. Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan now were part of the Free State. A fourth county, Leitrim, also was part of the Free State. All four had been served by the US consular office in Belfast before partition. Now, citizens from these four counties complained about the inconvenience of having to cross the border for passport visas and other business with the US government. US officials fretted that any adjustments to their consular districts would be viewed as favoring one side or the other of the Irish partition.[9]Whelan, Foreign Policy, 460.

Commission begins

Brayden reported on opposition to the boundary commission by Craig and Irish republican leader Éamon de Valera through early October 1924.[10] “De Valera Won’t Give Up Inch Of Territory”, Buffalo Evening News via Chicago Daily News, Oct. 9, 1924. At the end of that month, however, the British government finally appointed unionist newspaper editor and lawyer Joseph R. Fisher as the Northern Ireland representative, since Craig refused to make a selection. The commission at last got to work in November 1924.

By the early spring 1925, Brayden reported that Belfast officials were “willing to consider slight rectifications of the border line,” but maintained strong opposition to relinquishing Derry or Newry, a nod back to his 1922 reporting. [11]“Craig To Be Returned As Prime Minister”, Buffalo Evening News via Chicago Daily News, March 27, 1925. He also described the “vagaries of the Ulster boundary,” such as being unable to take a train from Belfast to Derry without crossing into the Free State in a dozen places. He told the story, perhaps apocryphal, of a farmer whose land was in the north but whose home straddled the border.

“He sleeps with this head in the south and his feet in the north,” Brayden explained. “The south has no jurisdictions over his lands, and the north cannot serve him with a process because his head is over the border. … The result is the famer cannot be brought within the jurisdiction of any court.”[12]“ ’Round the World With News Correspondents”, Birmingham (Ala.) News, May 30, 1925, and other papers.

The farmer story appeared on both the news pages and the humor columns of many US newspapers over several months. Brayden’s series about partitioned Ireland debuted in June 1925 as the boundary commission continued its deliberations.

PART 2: Brayden’s 1925 descriptions of the two Irish states and the surprise conclusion of the boundary commission.

References

References
1 William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 3.
2 Bernadette Whelan, United States Foreign Policy and Ireland: From Empire to Independence, 1913-1929. [Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006], 460.
3 Ibid., 528.
4 Londonderry is the proper name of the town and county. Derry is the formation favored by Irish nationalists. Brayden used Derry in his reports.
5 ”Ulster Is Confronted By Real Difficulties”, Wilkes-Berra (Pa.) Record via Chicago Daily News, March 30, 1922.
6 “Irish To Hold Elections For 153 Seats”, Buffalo Evening News via Chicago Daily News, July 27, 1923.
7 Whelan, Foreign Policy, 528-29.
8 Brayden, Survey, 5.
9 Whelan, Foreign Policy, 460.
10 “De Valera Won’t Give Up Inch Of Territory”, Buffalo Evening News via Chicago Daily News, Oct. 9, 1924.
11 “Craig To Be Returned As Prime Minister”, Buffalo Evening News via Chicago Daily News, March 27, 1925.
12 “ ’Round the World With News Correspondents”, Birmingham (Ala.) News, May 30, 1925, and other papers.

BULLETIN: McIlroy masters the Masters

Rory McIlroy, of Holywood, Northern Ireland, has become only the sixth golfer to will all four of the sport’s major tournaments and the first from Europe to join the elite Grand Slam club. His playoff victory at the Augusta National course in Georgia was has first major tourney win in 11 years. The Journal.ie reports reactions from political leaders on both side of the Irish border.

McIlroy, 35, earns $4.2 million of the $21 million purse … plus the famous green jacket, said to be “priceless.” … The British Open, another major, returns to the Royal Portrush course in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, in July.

Remembering Jimmy Carter’s words on Northern Ireland

Happy New Year. This first post of 2025 was going to focus on how Donald Trump’s return to the White House later this month threatens the Irish economy. The risk comes from whether Trump keeps his promises to cut corporate taxes and impose tariffs, either of which could incentivize US tech and pharmaceutical multinationals in Ireland to return production, jobs, and future investment to America. This could be a big blow to the incoming Irish government, which, like Trump’s administration, is still in formation.

Jimmy Carter discusses his cancer prognosis at the Carter Center, 2015. The Carter Center/M. Schwarz

But the Dec. 29, 2024, death of former US President Jimmy Carter, 100, deserves attention. Carter “had no Irish roots and never visited Ireland before or during his presidency,” Seán Donlon, Irish ambassador to the United States during the Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations, wrote in the Irish Times. “Nevertheless, his intervention in Irish matters in 1977 was hugely significant and opened the door for the constructive involvement of subsequent presidents in working for peace and stability on the island of Ireland.”

Carter broke the mold of US deference to the UK on Northern Ireland as a domestic matter. He incurred opposition not only from London, but also from Foggy Bottom, headquarters of the US State Department. Even John F. Kennedy, famously the first Irish American Catholic president, toed this line, established at the time of partition by David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson.

Former Irish diplomat to Washington Ted Smyth told the Times there were two key factors at play in 1977: Carter’s natural inclination to see the North as a human rights issue, and the relationships that SDLP leader John Hume forged with US House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill and US Sen. Ted Kennedy, the late president’s brother. These two Irish Americans leveraged their roles in helping Carter achieve his legislative goals in Congress to push him into taking a position on Northern Ireland after nearly a decade of the Troubles.

Carter’s statement emerged on Aug. 30, 1977. In part, it said:

The United States wholeheartedly supports peaceful means for finding a just solution that involves both parts of the community of Northern Ireland and protects human rights and guarantees freedom from discrimination – a solution that the people in Northern Ireland, as well as the governments of Great Britain and Ireland can support. …  In the event of such a settlement, the U.S. Government would be prepared to join with others to see how additional job creating investment could be encouraged, to the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland. (FULL STATEMENT)

While insisting the US would maintain its policy of “impartiality” on Northern Ireland, the statement opened the door to future involvement by saying the people there “should know that they have our complete support in their quest for a peaceful and just society.” The statement meant the Irish government for the first time was considered an equal partner with the UK. It promised economic aid if there was a solution.

Partial clip of an Associated Press story from page 6 of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 31, 1977.

It took another 21 years of diplomacy by three more American presidents (Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton) and numerous leaders on both sides of the Irish Sea to reach the Good Friday Agreement. The promised US economic aid “has been, and is being, delivered,” Michael Lillis, a former senior Irish diplomat noted in his Oct. 14, 2024, letter to the Times, shortly after Carter’s 100th birthday.

Carter made a private visit to Ireland in 1995, meeting with Irish President Mary Robinson at Áras an Uachtaráin. He extended his Habitat for Humanity work by building a house in the Dublin suburb of Ballyfermotin. He also found time for some fishing near Kilkenny.

As of publishing this post it is unclear what officials from Ireland, Northern Ireland, and/or the UK will attend Carter’s Jan. 9 state funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Outgoing President Joe Biden, the nation’s second Irish American Catholic leader, will eulogize Carter, the longtime Sunday school teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga.

Trump, meanwhile, has nominated Edward Walsh, president of the Walsh Company in New Jersey, as the next US ambassador to Ireland. One of Walsh’s key qualifications appears to be his membership in the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. His views on Ireland are unknown. Walsh’s US Senate confirmation is likely to lag others nominated for more critical positions in the administration.

Regardless of what happens with future transatlantic relations, Ireland and Northern Ireland have lost a key American ally of the past in Jimmy Carter.

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.

When British troops left Southern Ireland

On Dec. 17, 1922, the last British troops departed what had become the 26-county Irish Free State, today’s Republic of Ireland, in ceremonies at Dublin. British military and police remained in the partitioned, six-county Northern Ireland. Here is a sample of U.S. newspaper reporting:

“British military rule in Ireland came to an end yesterday, after 600 years. The final spectacle in the historical drama was enacted on the quays of the Liffey as, one after another, four transports disappeared into the mists, bound for England. The last British troops that had occupied Southern Ireland sailed in those transports, sped by a tremendous demonstration of Irish affection, bitterness fostered for generations forgotten. In their ears, as the troopships swung out into the tide-way was the blare of a Free State army and playing Auld Lange Syne; the cheers and God-speed-ye’s of a great throng on the quays; the riverbank of a mass of fluttering handkerchiefs and Irish colleens throwing kisses.” — George McDonough, United Press

This image was widely used in U.S. newspapers through late December 1922. I have not seen a photo credit.

“Before they left, the British troops hauled in the Union Jack and the incoming Free State troops immediately hoisted the Irish tricolor, which now floats from all the barracks and government buildings in Dublin. … The (British) troops everywhere were loudly cheered. … The ‘Tommies’ were astonished at the display of good will. … A siren farewell by all the ships in the harbor sped the departing British troops on their way as transports moved out to sea. … The whistle chorus began the minute the first transport turned its nose homeward, and continued until the last British had got underway.” — Associated Press

“By nightfall not a single English soldier remained in Southern Ireland. Never has the city watched such a spectacle, and the people of Dublin gave free rein to their emotions as the columns swung by, each regiment preceded by its band and colors.” — New York Times

“The London office of the United News Sunday received from its Dublin correspondent a story concerning the departure of the last of British troops from Ireland. The telegram was dated “Bail Eatha, Oliath,” (sic) which indicates the movement to resuscitate Gaelic has started in southern Ireland. — United News, via Chicago Tribune (The correct spelling of Dublin in Gaelic is Baile Átha Cliath. The 1922 version was probably mangled in the telegraph transmission.)

Irish-American press on partition parliament, June 1921

I’m researching a few projects this summer and posting less frequently. Please check back for updates. Visit my American Reporting of Irish Independence centenary series and other site content. MH

Partitioned Ireland

The Northern Ireland parliament sat for the first time on June 7, 1921. Two weeks earlier, the Ulster Unionist Party won a two-thirds majority of votes cast and 40 of the 52 seats in the new assembly. Two weeks later, King George V traveled to Belfast for the parliament’s ceremonial opening. 

The partition of six northeastern counties began with passage of Government of Ireland Act in December 1920. A  treaty creating the Irish Free State from the remaining 26 counties would be reached in December 1921.

The three editorials below are from June 1921 issues of the Irish-American press. All three publications were strongly pro-independence and against the island’s political division. David Lloyd George was the British prime minister from 1916-1922. Publication dates are linked to digital scans of the original editorial and the remaining pages of each issue.

Partition vs. Commonsense

The performances in connection with the attempted enforcement of Lloyd George’s farcical partition act in Northeast Ulster have served little other purpose than to expose, more clearly perhaps than ever before, the simple fact that partition is not an Irish but an English-made issue—a patent device to keep in existence an artificially engendered feud. But the logic of events and of the present situation is moving swiftly to convince the most sceptical that commonsense and common interests point clearly to the fact that independence of foreign rule and intrigue is the only solution of this so-called difficulty. 

The Belfast area is in reality the spearhead of English intrigue in Ireland. But the Belfast area cannot live and thrive cut off from the rest of the island. Its new partition parliament will be a parliament without an opposition party to serve as a mask for the true nature of the English intrigue at its heart. It will be a parliament staggering from the outset under an over burden of taxation for tribute. Thus it is clear that partition can no longer be mistaken for anything but the betrayal of Irish rights. It is clearly the Irish Republicans who are the defenders of the inalienable rights of the whole Irish people, in Antrim as well as in Cork, in Down as well as in Kerry.

–News Letter of the Friends of Irish Freedom, June 4, 1921

Lloyd George’s Game In Ulster

What Lloyd George is aiming at is an artificial “Ulster” controlled by the British Government of the day. If he include the whole Northern Province there would be a majority, including Protestant Nationalists, against England, so he grouped the six Northeastern Counties together, called them “Ulster,” gerrymandered the electoral districts and placed the election machinery in the hands of the Carsonites so that a safe majority for England’s purposes might be secured. It was secured in the last election by gross fraud and intimidation. 

The next move in the game will be a “settlement” based on “an agreement between North and South,” in which the fraudulently created Ulster of six counties will have an equal vote with the other twenty-six counties of Ireland–which means a Veto on the decisions of the majority. 

–The Gaelic American, June 11, 1921

The “Six County” Parliament

The Loyalists elected to the “six-county” parliament held their first meeting last week. In the coming into existence under British law, of this body, some in the press on this side of the water pretends to see a factor tending to make what it calls a confusing situation still more confusing. “Southern” Ireland, the papers tell us, would have accepted “Home Rule” in 1914; today, the same part of Ireland will not accept it under any conditions. And, say those who seek to puzzle by their explanations, these same six counties seven years ago were ready to take up arms before they would allow “Home Rule” to be forced upon them, but today they are the only part of Ireland willing to have that same “Home Rule.” 

–The Irish Press, June 18, 1921

King George V opens the Northern Ireland Parliament in Belfast in June 1921.

When ‘northern’ Ireland became ‘Northern’ Ireland

On Jan. 5, 1921, The New York Times published an Associated Press dispatch from London, which began:

Ulstermen are preparing to make the opening of the Parliament for Northern Ireland as picturesque and imposing as possible, endeavoring to obtain the consent of the King to open the first session in person, or to have the Prince of Wales do so if the King is unable to be present, says the London Times.

Daily papers in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in America and Canada printed the same report, with two small but significant differences to the sentence: a lowercase k in king and n in northern. These papers followed AP style rules, which only capitalize “king” or “queen” when used before a proper name: King George V.1

Using a capital K to refer to the monarch without his name was a New York Times’ style preference, a sign of deference to the title, one that probably reinforced the opinions of the paper’s Irish-American critics. The Times, many said, was anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, and a “proponent of dead and gone imperialism.”2

The copy editing decisions about Northern Ireland or northern Ireland were trickier. In January 1921, it became simultaneously a new political place in addition to an ancient geographic location.

Names & Places

Northern Ireland in bright orange, rest of Ireland uncolored. United Kingdom, including England, Scotland, and Wales, at right in light orange. (Alpha History map.)

King George gave “royal assent” to the Government of Ireland Act 1920 less than two weeks earlier, just days before Christmas. The legislation had slogged through Parliament since before the Great War began in 1914. What started as a “home rule” bill to provide domestic autonomy for all of Ireland now engineered the island’s post-war partition.

Under the new law, “Northern Ireland” consisted of the parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, and the parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry. The rest of the island became “Southern Ireland”, including the remaining three counties in the province of Ulster: Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan.

The law allowed northern Protestants to manage their domestic affairs without having to share home rule with southern Catholics. The new names had begun to appear in 1920 U.S. press reports. Both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland would remain part of what was then called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Republican Opposition

Since December 1918, however, Irish separatists had won elections and fought a guerrilla war to secure a republican government independent of London. They were not about to accept a home rule parliament still tied to the crown. In April 1921, the National Catholic Welfare Council (predecessor of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) News Service reported:

Election under the partition act are, according to arrangements made by the British government, to take place on May 3rd next in “Southern Ireland” and “Northern Ireland.” So detested is partition by the majority that the refusal of the people of four-fifths of the country to work the act is a certainty.3

The Southern Ireland parliament was never formed. The war of independence continued through December 1921, when a treaty resulted in the creation of the Irish Free State. It was not yet a republic, but it was more independent than Northern Ireland. In 1930, Irish immigrants in America for more than a decade would answer the U.S. Census “Place of Birth” question with political names they had never used before leaving.

King George V did attend the June 1921 opening of the Northern Ireland Parliament at the Belfast City Hall, a “picturesque and imposing” Baroque Revival building opened 15 years earlier. In his speech, the king hoped the arrangement would be temporary and appealed for eventual reconciliation, “a day in which the Irish people, North and South, under one parliament or two, as those parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundations of mutual justice and respect.”4

King George V opens the Northern Ireland Parliament in Belfast in June 1921.

Centenary & Brexit

Ireland has remained divided for 100 years. Tensions between Northern Ireland’s Catholics and Protestants in the late 1960s erupted into the three decades of sectarian violence known as The Troubles. This year’s Northern Ireland centenary and simultaneous departure of the United Kingdom (which includes Northern Ireland, but not the southern Republic) from the European Union has put fresh attention on the Irish border.

By placing a new customs border in the Irish Sea rather than the 300 mile land line with the Republic, Brexit has turned Northern Ireland into “a place apart.” In essence, Northern Ireland has been partitioned from the rest of the U.K. Staunch unionists say they are “much better off in the United Kingdom than they are within the Republic of Ireland or within a European superstate,” Reuters reports.

Some Irish nationalist politicians and other Irish island proponents, refusing to acknowledge the century-old political state of Northern Ireland, refer to the place as “The North,” “The north of Ireland,” or the “Six Counties.” They sense an opportunity to press the case for reunification, though a referendum to undo partition appears a few years away, at the soonest. And there is no guarantee it would pass on both sides of the border, as required by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement … or imagined by King George V during his 1921 speech in the new Northern Ireland.

I’ll have more posts on these historic and contemporary topics throughout the year.

‘Shadow Dancer’ joins roster of films about The Troubles

The New York Times and other media outlets are out with reviews of “Shadow Dancer,” a new film set in The Troubles of 1970s Northern Ireland. Here’s a link to the trailer. The Times writes:

The last 30 years has seen the rise of ambitious stories made before and after the historic Good Friday peace accords of 1998. Many share an urgent desire to set the historical record straight and even undertake a kind of cathartic re-creation.

The piece does a good job of listing other movies in the genre, including “Patriot Games,” “Blown Away,” “Elephant,” “Hunger” and “In the Name of the Father.” My brother Matt correctly points out the Times review neglects to mention “The Devil’s Own,” staring Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford.

Let’s us know of any other films to add to the list.

Shadow-Dancer-DVD

Omagh remembered

The Omagh Community Youth Choir was playing a series of concerts in New Orleans this weekend.

The group includes Catholic and Protestant teens from the town rocked in 1998 by the deadliest day of violence during “The Troubles.” It was formed in “a defiant act of peacemaking,” NOLA.com reports here. “Glee” with a mission.

I visited Omagh and other parts of Northern Ireland in 2001, three years after the blast and just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America. I was traveling on a journalism fellowship from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, which promotes better relations between Europe and America. Here’s the story I published in the Mobile Register, where I was working at the time.

It was heartening then to see how much progress had been made to reduce violence in the north of Ireland. Re-reading the piece today is a reminder of how much more progress has been made over the past 11 years.

I’m still shaking my head about Martin McGuinness and the Queen shaking hands. Count me among those who are glad they were able to do so.