Ireland - A Kinder Country?

Is it just me or has Ireland become a nicer place since the Celtic Tiger developed a toothache? I hadn’t been back in eighteen months and the change was both startling and pleasant.
Like many I was delighted with the country’s economic boom and its newfound confidence. However, Ireland’s many masters of the universe are no different than our New York breed: arrogant, self-serving bantam cocks who, as my mother used to say, have “lost the run of themselves.” Thankfully, they were far less in evidence this trip.
But let me diverge from my own prejudices and predispositions. I recently took a group over to Ireland with the purpose of showing them the “literary, historical, political and musical” side of the country, God help us - a tall order in six weeks, let along 6 days. They were a mix of Celtic Crush listeners - a show I host for SiriusXM Satellite Radio - and Black 47 fans.
Almost all were visiting for the first time so let me give some of their observations.
First and foremost, Guinness made a huge impression. There’s nothing quite like putting back a lunchtime pint of plain for building a solid foundation, thereby setting a contented course for the rest of the day.
My fellow-travelers – all of them hard-working, intellectually driven people – used such glowing terms as “mother’s milk,” and “liquid Quaaludes,” to describe Arthur’s porter, now in its two hundred and fiftieth year of brewing. They were, however, aghast that young Irish people seem to have forsworn black magic for American alcoholic beverages “with all the body of an anorexic flea” as one lady from California put it while ordering a third when we had just stopped for “the wan.”
You have to wonder about the future of this “nectar of the gods” in the Emerald Isle since I never saw a person unthreatened by mid-life crisis raise a pint of plain. Ah well, I hear business is booming in Nigeria and we have a host of new converts recently arrived back in the US eager as Mormons to spread the word.
Putting aside the booze for a moment, I think we should petition Bono to espouse a new cause – the addition of a sunroof over Ireland, for there are few countries with such marvelous scenery when the rain stays in Spain. Apart from a few blustery showers, we were favored with warm and breezy weather. Perhaps, the black stuff was working its magic but the Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, Connemara, the South Wexford coast, West Cork and the Kingdom of Kerry never looked better.
My group was beyond impressed by the ever-present sense of history. Some months prior to departure, I had given them a list of books, movies and poetry to digest so most had some sense of Ireland’s literature and past. But whether it was Yeats in Sligo, Sarsfield in Limerick, Joyce in Dublin, Cromwell in Wexford or Mick Collins in West Cork, we seemed to have ghosts peering over our shoulders everywhere.
But let’s not forget the living. The Irish people we encountered were invariably warm, witty, welcoming, humorous, and unfailingly kind and polite. There have been times over the last decade when I felt that I’d better book a month ahead to make sure that old friends might fit me into their harried schedule. Perhaps it’s the general economic downturn but everyone seemed to have time for a chat – and a pint.
The Irish have always been noted for their love of words and conversation. Having forfeited our own tongue, we took the English language, twisted and turned it into something unique and malleable, rinsed it out with good cheer and humor, and infused it with spirit, soul and a delight in the hearing and telling a good yarn.
Much of that seemed to have vanished in the boom years when one was more likely to be regaled with bulletins on rising house values, the latest holiday in Thailand, and a host of vapid consumerist exploits.
Booms may be good for the bank balance but busts seem to gain more traction for the soul. In our own tough economic times maybe that’s something worth remembering – and when all else fails, how about a pint of black magic to put all manner of things in perspective.

No Times at all, Just the New York Times

Why don’t we stop foolin’ ourselves?
The game is over…
No good times, no bad times,
There`s no times at all,
Just The New York Times…

So said Simon and Garfunkel back in 1968 when the New York Times seemed as impregnable as Fort Knox.
What times we live in! Recently, the mighty Times had to put its spanking new office building in hock; not to mention that the Boston Globe is holding on by its fingernails, while the Philadelphia Inquirer and the LA Times can barely afford the paper to print on.
The only good news of late for the newspaper business is that its demographic of “more mature” readers is living longer. Make sure you’re taking your vitamins – we need every one of you!
Personally, I find it very hard to face the day without a newspaper. And yes, you’ve got it right. I do have a subscription to the New York Times, that commie-leaning, hater of Rush Limbaugh. But, fear not! I’m far from being an elitist, for I also cast a jaundiced eye over the News, Post, various freebies, and of course, our own dear Irish Echo.
There are two fail-safe ways of measuring the ever-changing nature of New York City – the nationality of cabdrivers and what people are reading on the subways.
Leaving cabs for another day, it’s not what people are reading on the subways any more - it’s that they’re not. Now I’ve nothing against iPods except that if the city takes a turn towards turbulence again, there’ll be a lot of stunned looks, sore heads and ripped eardrums.
There are those who say, “the hell with them auld rags, with one click of a finger I can find out what the ayatollahs are up to in Iran and at the same time get the inside scoop on the color of Britney’s nail polish.”
I can’t vouch for goings on in Tehran but when it comes to cosmetics the Internet is only in the ha’penny place compared to the Echo where Eileen Murphy can give you the lowdown on the eyeliner employed by every boy-band that ever winked a virginal come-on at a camera.
Not that I haven’t had my own problems with the Times. Back in the day, it often favored British Government hacks over nationalist sources in the North of Ireland. But, in general, it does provide a fairly insightful background to world affairs, though on the home front it’s shamelessly more partial to the Yankees than the Mets.
My problem with the Internet, TV and Talk Radio is that we tend to gravitate towards views that we already agree with. Take for instance my brief infatuation with Rachel Maddow. What was I thinking? Now she drives me mental for I know exactly what’s on her mind before she says it
. C’mon, Rach, put some spice back in our relationship – surprise me for once! It’s not that I’ve deserted you for Bill O’Reilly. Far from it, but Maureen Dowd of the Times knows how to keep a guy’s attention – she’s not only unpredictable, she’s got a head of thick Irish red hair to die for.
I have little doubt but that there’s a big shakeout coming in the newspaper world and that opinionated blogs, tweets, toodle-dos and yet to be invented digitized forms of communication will become the main source of information.
Still, that’s nothing we haven’t witnessed before – take a skim back through the myriad pugnacious periodicals of the early Republic when editors were regularly called out to duel - (note to Editor O’Hanlon, keep your pistols oiled, I’m contemplating a column on the Post-Marxist political, sexual and social ramifications of Daniel O’Donnell’s lyrics!)
All joking aside, we live in dangerous time and there is a need for the sensible, well-thought-out, down-to-earth voices of the Hamill-Breslin era. We didn’t always agree with them, but they made us think and consider other ways of looking at things.
Perhaps, I just haven’t sufficiently trolled the Internet but such voices seem to find more fertile ground in established newspapers. Besides, Maureen Dowd knows how to keep her men interested, and, to the best of my knowledge, the color of her hair doesn’t come off a pharmacy shelf.

I Worry About Barack

I worry about Barack Obama. It’s not that I don’t think his stimulus will eventually have some effect, but by the time it kicks in we may have already weathered this particular recession. And what then will we have to show for the huge outlay and subsequent deficit?
It seems that our major thinkers are always a day late, but rarely a dollar short – rush into war in Iraq because of mushroom cloud delusions, bail out AIG because they insured every bank and bookie without proper collateral, and now pump money across a multitude of schemes instead of building, for instance, a national rail and subway system. But that’s democracy for you: it moves slowly, doesn’t come cheaply, guarantees disagreement and, hopefully, eventual compromise.
That’s why I fear for the man himself – his coolness, competence and logic are an obvious target in a country awash with guns and demagogues who preach intolerance and paranoia.
Although our president displays little of his turbulent passion, Bobby Kennedy keeps springing to mind. Odd in itself, since Bobby was a real agent of change who might have sent the country in a whole different direction.
Barack has no such illusions. As far as I can see, his main goals are to avoid picking new fights halfway around the world while guaranteeing decent, affordable health insurance at home. Oh, and of course, he has set himself the small task of cleaning up the economic, military and social shambles bequeathed him by the previous administration.
Yet all I hear from his critics are old stock phrases such as “socialization” and “Europeanization.” Obama is no more a socialist than Alexander Hamilton. Like the financial brain of the founding fathers he believes in free trade and free markets, albeit with a strong federal government ready to take action whenever market forces lead the country to the brink of economic destruction.
Still, despite his pragmatism, he faces the same demons that put paid to Bobby - guns, ignorance and a shadowy array of hate-filled nuts just dying to leave their mark on history.
I hesitate even voicing this opinion, but the fact is, that despite the US possessing an overwhelming majority of citizens with good will, there beats within the country an unruly heart ever wary of change.
The hatred and sheer illogic that I hear spewed out on talk radio would be comic, if it weren’t so threatening. Of course, the reason that these buffoons exult in distorting any kind of rational argument is that the more extreme their views, the more we listen, which in turn ups their ratings, allowing their corporate bosses to sell more advertising. Talk about ultimate bang for your buck!
Unfortunately, reason and logic fly out the window when vitriol and sensationalism enter. Night after night on stage, for the first three years of the War in Iraq, I listened to robotic slogans about patriotism delivered with the same glassy eyed glare by the same strident hate-filled voices.
You might as well have been talking to Mrs. Murphy’s cow as countering that the US was founded on dissent, that it is indeed patriotic to question the motives of your leaders instead of following them like lemmings, and that not one of the founding fathers advised getting involved in overseas wars.
Likewise it’s hardly worth mentioning that the Second Amendment guaranteeing a “right to keep and bear arms” was initiated by a citizenry that did not wish to maintain an expensive, and possibly seditious, European style standing army. Far better to summon up a well-armed militia should there be a foreign or internal threat.
No one wishes to prevent hunters from knocking off deer to their hearts content, but has Bambi become so ferocious that he needs to be taken out by an AK-47? And, even more consequentially, do we need to make available such a legal array of deadly weapons - more suitable to the Khyber Pass - to any nut with proof of identity?
Then again, President Obama appears to be treading warily on this issue, for despite a blitz of proposed legislation he has made little move to control the ever-increasing scepter of guns within our community. Perhaps, like Michael Collins with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, he has a fair idea what it might mean for him.
And, still, I worry about the man.

Ryan Commission

The interesting thing about the Ryan Commission’s disclosures on child abuse is not the outrage - well merited – but the shock proclaimed by so many people from President McAleese to the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Martin.
Were they truly living in the same country that I grew up in? My surprise is that only 1700 people testified about their mistreatment in the various institutions. I can only surmise that many chose not to reopen old wounds.
How can anyone who attended Irish primary schools up to the mid 1970’s ever forget the rampant debilitating corporal punishment? To believe that such abuse was not taken to a higher level behind the cloistered walls of industrial schools, reformatories and orphanages is surely disingenuous.
Perhaps one should exempt President McAleese, raised in the North of Ireland where Stormont, for all its faults, apparently did not tolerate this level of physical and sexual abuse. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for the Republic where successive governments ceded control of most schools to the Catholic Church.
That being said the current brush of retribution is too heavily tarred, what with everyone and their mother now scurrying for the higher ground of inflated shock and moral indignation. I was educated by the Christian Brothers for ten years and though I did encounter the occasional termagant, for the most part they were decent, humane men who did their best to impart a sound education under difficult circumstances.
Most of the sadistic beatings that I personally witnessed were meted out by young lay primary teachers, trained and certified by the Department of Education whose roving inspectors, at the least, tolerated extreme corporal punishment. Almost every teacher possessed a “leather” – a thick supple strap designed to raise blisters on juvenile hands; yet even that instrument of torture was preferable to the ubiquitous 36” wooden ruler, with which I once saw a boy’s head “split.”
Of course, there were many fine lay teachers too, compassionate men who gave their all to the students. The brutalization I speak of, incidentally, was not in general doled out for disciplinary problems but for failure to memorize facts and figures. Children with dyslexia, or what we now call attention deficit disorder, were particular targets.
The fact is we are all responsible for what went on in the few perverted reformatories and industrial schools, for as a society we chose to tolerate extreme and unwarranted corporate punishment while ignoring the rumors of abuse that periodically circulated regarding certain institutions.
But could you blame us? These industrial schools and orphanages were under the domain of the all powerful Church and we had been brought up to unequivocally obey its dictates, as had politicians, teachers, officials of the Department of Education and the clergy themselves.
The bishops issued edicts from their “palaces,” and for the most part individual priests like my uncle, a Columban Father, were foot soldiers who danced to their tune.
The bishop set the tone for his dioceses. Some were good and wise men, but their cardinal dictate was that Holy Mother Church be proved infallible and spared any scandal. Predators were discreetly transferred, rarely disciplined and never exposed.
In the end modernity caught up with Ireland, courageous people finally spoke out, and the clerical sex abuse scandals of the last twenty years were uncovered. People may have been shocked at the sheer extent of cover-up and criminal Episcopal negligence, but the truth is that this conduct was an open sore that could have been viewed at any time, if the blinkers had been lifted.
The damage is horrendous, beyond all rationale, and unfortunately it can never be undone. Yet, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’ve known many priests, nuns and brothers, who have sacrificed much and done wonders for the world. In this rush to “shocked” judgment, it would be the cruelest blow if these outstanding people were to be tarred by the same brush as the small minority of termagants and perverts.
I, for one, received a sound education from the Christian Brothers, and good counsel in tough times from many the priest, brother and sister. In their time of trouble we should take care to look out for them, for they were there for us when we had sore need of them.

The Five Points

“Do you remember back in the Five Points
When the fire was in the air
The streets were hot as the hob of hell
The bodies was everywhere
Old Johnny jumped up on a burnin’ plank
And roared out to the sky
I didn’t come here to America to give up the ghost and die…”

The Five Points was the original melting pot – the first claw grip on the new world for many Irish immigrants. Already a force in downtown Manhattan by the 1830’s, they poured into its dismal streets during the years of the Great Hunger.
Set in the heart of the “Ould Sixth Ward,” the Five Points got its name from a confluence of three streets and five corners. You can even stand on the exact site at the intersection of Worth and Baxter but it would be hard to summon up the old throbbing vitality of life, for most of its seedy lanes and alleys are now covered by the courthouses of Foley Square and Chinatown’s Columbus Park.
But the spirit and influence of the Five Points live on. One could argue that the area spawned the election of our first black president, for it was in the Five Points that the newly arrived Irish cohabited with the entrenched African-American population - the first voluntary large-scale racial integration in American history.
Common law marriages between Africans and Irish were far from a rarity in the Points. This, allied with the general squalor, alcoholism and poverty greatly appalled Charles Dickens on his visit to the “world’s most dangerous slum.”
The great novelist and reformer, however, was enchanted by the music and dancing that he encountered in Pete William’s saloon where he witnessed the precursor of tap dancing as Irish jiggers competed with African shufflers. In fact, Master Juba, the first internationally recognized tap-dancer honed his chops in the Points during “challenge dances” with Irish John Diamond. Eventually, each man would receive the astronomical fee of $500 for their contests at the nearby Bowery and Chatham Theatres.
The music created by African and Irish players who performed for integrated audiences in Five Points’ saloons has been cited as a root of Jazz and Rock & Roll. That doesn’t surprise me for while forming Black 47 we were aware of Dickens’ account of Irish/African music collaboration – one of the reasons we set jigs and reels to hip-hop rhythms. Songs like Funky Ceili and Rockin’ The Bronx were echoes of those dancing days and carousing Five Points’ nights.
Dickens made much of the area’s poverty and turmoil, yet he overlooked the industriousness of its inhabitants. From child match-sellers and corn-on-the-cob hawkers, to mothers taking in washing and sowing, and fathers day jobbing, the Irish dragged themselves up from near destitution. One only has to check the records of The Emigrant Savings Bank to find that recently arrived Five Pointers saved diligently for eventual escape and a better life for their children.
As in every group there were good and bad, and the rioting that spread from the Points during the anti-Draft Riots of 1863 will always be a stain on our heritage. History however, is rarely black and white, and one should always factor in the prevailing conditions that led to such outbursts.
Within a generation, the Irish had organized and taken political control of the Sixth Ward and in 1880 they helped elect the first Irish Catholic Mayor of New York, William R. Grace.
There is no particular monument to the Five Points or its inhabitants, but on this coming Friday, June 12th in a night that will be “more Paddy than Patrick,” Shilelagh Law and Black 47 will celebrate these forgotten people during the Five Points Féile at the Knitting Factory on nearby Leonard Street (www.knittingfactory.com). Amidst a raucous hooley, if you listen closely enough you may hear this echo from across the years:

“I didn’t come here to America across the raging foam
To die like a slave in a pigsty, I came here to find a home
Where I could live in dignity, hold me head up high
So don’t go messin’ with me or me family
Or I’ll blow these Five Points to the sky.”

Remember The Alamo

“A hundred and eighty were challenged by Travis to die
By a line that he drew with his sword as the battle drew nigh
A man that crossed over the line was for freedom
And he that was left better fly
Then over the line crossed a hundred and seventy nine
Hey up Santa Anna, they’re killing your soldiers below
So the rest of Texas may know
And remember the Alamo.”

I was singing that song the night we blazed down Route 66 past the exit to Shamrock, Texas; I still wonder how my life would have turned out if we’d pulled off.
That was back in a more fluid time when solid citizens trusted agencies to deliver their cars to the far reaches of the country. Just go to a bustling little office in Times Square, brandish a driver’s license, and they’d toss you the keys of a Caddy, or in this case, a brand new Audi.
And so, along with a friend, who for discretion’s sake we’ll call the Taxi driver, I set off for San Francisco one frigid December evening. So what, you might inquire, were we doing way down on Route 66? Suffice it to say that the motoring skills of NYC taxi drivers do not translate well to interstate highways.
We hadn’t even made it past the Poconos before we skidded on black ice and jack-knifed into a tractor-trailer. The Audi, as you might imagine, fared badly in this encounter, and to add insult to injury, we were detained for reckless driving. After our release, we hit a blizzard in Indiana and, upon consideration of our luck thus far, thought better of crossing the Rockies in a battered jalopy that was losing more oil than an Iraqi pipeline.
And so we headed south on an alternate route through the Lone Star State, although, to be honest, I needed little excuse to visit Texas - mythical country for a kid who haunted Wexford’s Abbey Cinema. In short, I wanted to see the Alamo; not to mention that a spin down Route 66 was as important to a rock & roller as a visit to the Vatican by a country curate.
Besides, my seafaring father had shipped out of Texas City to work the oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico and intimated in no uncertain terms that Texans were the friendliest and most generous people in the world. He slyly winked at me when my mother wasn’t looking, leading me to believe that Texan ladies were not without their charms either.
Well, we never made it to the Alamo though we were greeted with open arms everywhere, particularly when the taxi driver let it be known that I was a long lost kinsman of Hugo O’Connor, the first governor of Texas. A little exaggeration, perhaps, but this discreetly dropped nugget literally and figurative raised spirits in the grandest of saloons and the humblest of cantinas.
Now maybe Shamrock is no great shakes but on that wintry night as the taxi driver was putting pedal to metal, the very name summoned up visions of big flowing pints and plates of corn-beef and cabbage. Who knows, if we had stopped I might still be ensconced there - the proprietor of my own saloon. The taxi driver, no doubt, would be operating his own car service, we’d both have accents the like of JR, and be living in bliss with a couple of beautiful cowgirls.
Fantasy or not, it would have been far preferable to our immediate fate. For some miles down the pike, the taxi driver flipped a lit cigarette out into the frigid night. Unbeknownst to us, it reentered our opened back window. Soon thereafter the back seat went up in flames, putting the final nail in the Audi’s coffin.
Let’s just say that I did not grace Texas with my presence for some time after this fiasco. Nonetheless, I never lost my fascination for the Lone Star State and someday I hope to hit the stage at the North Texas Irish Festival where I’m told over 60,000 Celts whoop it up every March.
I’m sure there’ll be some Shamrockers amongst them, maybe even a cowgirl or two denied me by fate and a New York City taxi driver on a frigid December night. Until then…Remember the Alamo!

The Night I Almost Whacked Pete Seeger

I have something of a grave nature to confess. Many years ago I came within a hair of whackin’ Pete Seeger. Well, I shouldn’t take full responsibility; Pierce Turner was equally involved in this dastardly deed.
Those who braved the watering holes of the Bronx and Greenwich Village when Ed Koch ruled the roost will remember Turner and Kirwan of Wexford fondly – or otherwise!
Whatever, as they say. One evening we found ourselves in the company of Pete Seeger and Malachy McCourt playing a benefit in Manhattan’s Town Hall. I can’t remember for whom but, given the nature of the bill, it probably wasn’t the National Rifle Association or the British Conservative Party.
The plan was as follows: Malachy would MC, we would “get the crowd going,” and Pete would headline. However, upon our arrival, Town Hall was in a state of pandemonium for no one had thought to hire a PA. To add insult to injury, the crowd was already filing in.
“No bother,” says Turner, “sure haven’t we the auld Shure system outside in the back of the van.”
And so we hauled in speakers and amp – the smell of last night’s spilled pints from Durty Nellies still fresh upon them. Since we had some fears that this utilitarian sound system might not be heard in the far recesses of the towering balcony, we humped the pristine grand piano to the front of the stage and hoisted one of the speakers atop.
Though gasping from the exertion we finished setting up on the stroke of 8 and, with the sweat pouring off us, lashed straight into a 15-minute deconstruction of Ewan McColl’s “Traveling People,” replete with a 12-minute moog synthesizer solo.
Pete Seeger - who had threatened to cut the cables on Bob Dylan’s first electric performance - was astounded that we could coax the sound of bagpipes from this box of knobs and wires, and enthused to all and sundry that he’d never heard the beatings of these sweating boys from Wexford.
So all was hunky-dory until after the intermission, when out strode Pete strumming away on his banjo to rapturous applause from the packed house. Unfortunately, however, the stage curtain had got stuck on the Shure speaker propped atop the piano. Unaware of this impediment, the stage manager kept tugging for dear life until the speaker began to wobble and then sway in an alarming manner.
Turner and I watched from the wings, paralyzed with fright. Casting his eyes neither left nor right, up stepped up Pete to the microphone and exhorted the crowd to join him in “This Land Is Your Land.” Rising to their feet, 1500 left-wingers, tree-huggers and other ne’er-do-wells did so with gusto.
Then, proving my theory that the good god in heaven has definite subversive leanings, Pete suddenly was moved to stride forward onto the lip of the stage just as the Shure speaker gave one last wobble and came crashing down on the very spot where he had been standing only milliseconds before.
Suspecting a capitalist plot, the crowd gasped, but so focused was Pete that he didn’t even hear the crash behind him. Red-faced and trembling, Turner and I scurried out onstage and righted the offending speaker, and the star continued the show unaware that he had just been within a hair of meeting Jesus.
I recalled that night on Pete’s 90th birthday and celebrated the 30 extra years that the good god in heaven had granted one of the greatest living Americans. I also muttered a prayer of thanks that Turner and I had not joined the despised ranks of Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark Chapman and other well-known assassins.
Pete Seeger has always stood by his convictions even when they were unfashionable and deemed treasonous. Like such diverse figures as Tom Paine and Alexander Hamilton, he is convinced that Americans should have the right to express their own political beliefs, without having to tip their cap to those who would define patriotism in a narrow and factional manner.
Here’s to you, Pete, may you have another thirty birthdays. Just keep a weather eye open, J. Edgar Hoover might not have been able to lay a finger on you, but Turner & Kirwan of Wexford could be lurking in the wings.