The Night The Showbands Died

“Silicon suits, ballroom romance

Belfast on fire, would you care to dance?

All mixed up, no rhyme nor reason

Don’t cross the Border in the middle of Marching Season…”

            Songs have a way of shooting you back in time, don’t they? I only have to play the first chords of The Night The Showbands Died and I’m right back in Ireland in the summer of 1975.

            It was a bad time. Sectarian killings had become the norm up North; but being relatively early in the conflict, there was still an inkling of hope that things could get better.

            Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher and Planxty ruled the cool scene, while showbands dominated dancehalls on both sides of the Border. A band had to know two national anthems and be ready to play whichever depending on the community. In the rare “mixed halls,” the lights came up instantly after the last song to forestall any provocative requests for either A Soldier’s Song or God Save The Queen.

            In reality, though, showbands were hurting. Punters no longer wished to attend alcohol-free parochial dances. Large pub lounges featured three or four piece groups while strobe-lit discos were now more to the taste of the dancing populace.

            The Miami Showband was an exception. An institution since the early 60’s this Dublin outfit was surging again in popularity largely because of lead singer, Fran O’Toole. An unlikely mixture of Otis Redding and Georgie Fame, Fran wasn’t a great showman – no it was that voice; it would stop you dead in your tracks at a dance and you’d find yourself standing alone humming along while your friends danced off with the pretty girls.

            Fran was a beautiful guy. My band opened for the Miami a couple of times in Wexford; we weren’t just bad, even our friends considered us god-awful. Still, Fran always made a point of commenting favorably on some song that we’d totally butchered. Later on in Dublin if I ran into him at the Television Club on Monday’s Showband Night Out, he’d favor me with a friendly wink.

            I often wondered what was the vibe like at the Miami’s last gig in the Castle Ballroom in Banbridge, County Down. As ever the six piece signed autographs and chatted with the punters before setting out on their fateful return trip to Dublin.

            Another band heading home

            Down the AI to Newry Town

            “British roadblock up ahead”

            They had reached Bushkill, seven miles north of Newry, when they were flagged down by a group of men dressed in British Army uniforms. Though in disguise, four of these were actually members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) a British Army regiment; all were members of the dreaded Catholic-hating, Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

            “Good night lads, what’s the craic

            Step out of the van, it’s just a wee check.”

            Lined up by the side of the road, the band was not unduly worried, for a British officer had arrived and seemed to be in command. Then bassist, Steve Travers, heard the “soldiers” rummaging in the back of the Volkswagen van and was fearful for his new guitar.

            “Careful with that guitar there, man

            What are you putting in the back of the van?”

            They roughly shoved Steve back in line, luckily for him, for the soldering came loose on the bomb they were planting and it detonated, ripping them to shreds. The remaining “soldiers” opened fire killing three of the band and badly injuring two others. They chased Fran through a field and pumped 22 bullets into his face.

            Awful things had already happened up North, but all innocence evaporated that night. Bands refused to cross the Border and contact between the communities froze.

            It’s almost 40 years ago but the case will soon be reopened, for some of the survivors and families of the deceased have sued the British Ministry of Defence and the Chief Constable of the PSNI over suspicion of collusion between the British Army and the Loyalist gang.

            We’ll never hear Fran O’Toole’s amazing live voice again, but perhaps someday we will get the full story of the night the showbands died.

The Night The Showbands Died is from Last Call, Black 47’s final CD. It can be heard at www.black47.com

Dream Big/Work Hard

            You have to wonder about the vitriolic regard in which President Obama is held by big business.

            After all, the man bailed out Wall Street with the Troubled Asset Relief Program when the financial services sector almost wrecked the whole economic system. Toss in the fact that he went to bat for the now thriving American car industry when many said it should be abandoned and you’d imagine the captains and the kings would be nominating him for capitalist canonization.

            Stock prices are at, or near, an all time high, as are corporate profits and upper management remuneration. Productivity is just humming along now that fewer employees are doing more work for the same paychecks.

            Large companies are sitting on mountains of cash with no requirement, or incentive, to reinvest in job training; besides which, they can park foreign profits outside the country until the cows come home without threat of taxation.

            The Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act has been, at most, a minor irritant and has done little to prevent Wall Street cowboys from once again riding the financial range. With Hillary Clinton waiting in the wings for coronation, a real reformer like Elizabeth Warren will have to wait at least another six years to make a run for the roses.

            So what exactly is the problem with Barack Obama? Could it be race? It’s hard to imagine given that the US boasts a remarkably integrated society. Turn on your TV – look at sports, entertainment, even weather forecasting, African-Americans are well represented – at least on the surface.

            But recently while talking to a middle-aged, well-to-do, white gentleman the subject of the president arose. After suffering through the standard, “He’s out to turn the country into goddamn Cuba” diatribe, the real reason for his distaste emerged: “I hate the way he lectures me.”

            That statement left me perplexed. Does Barack Obama lecture more than his predecessors? If anything he’s quite cautious in his pronouncements, and logical to an extreme. 

Perhaps the gentleman preferred the “bomb ‘em first, talk later” credo of President Bush or “explain to them until they’re blue in the face then they’ll leave you the hell alone” stratagem of President Clinton.

Or could it be that he just doesn’t like a black man running the show?

            I realize that this is not exactly a comfortable suggestion; but cut me some slack I’ve been laboring for a couple of years on a musical about the intricacies of race during the New York City Draft Riots of 1863.

            Race was a tortuous subject back then and it’s lost none of its capacity to engage, embarrass and annoy; and yet it’s safe to say that, for the most part, the US does its best to deal fairly with this extremely complex issue.

            After all, we did elect a black president and we’ve largely gone about our business paying him the normal amount of heed or lack of attention that we devote to any politician. I believe that’s because Barack Obama is no 50 Cent or Mike Tyson; rather he’s a paid up member of the Ivy League clique that perennially rules the country.

            And yet, there’s a resistance to this moderate, cautious man that seems to go far beyond normal ideological differences. Perhaps, it’s an unease with the history of the country – for there’s no denying that some of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, while the first union of states could only be achieved by putting the moral issue of slavery on the long finger.

            Or could it be that the resistance to Barack Obama is merely symptomatic of the discomfort that follows a barrier being broken – as happened with the election of Jack Kennedy, the first Catholic president.

            Despite any beefs I might have with this black president over his caution and pragmatism, I recognize that he’s still a symbol of the greatness of the country; moreover, he’s an inspiration to all races, classes and creeds, that if you dream big and work hard enough you or your children could one day become president too.

Spring Unleashes Memories

            Isn’t it odd how spring unleashes memories?

            The other morning while looking out the window at the concrete fields of Manhattan I was transported back to a farm on the South East tip of Ireland where the South Atlantic crashes headlong into the Irish Sea.

            It was a wild, salt-sprayed place where shipwrecks were often left to rust on gravelly beaches. On summer days, however, there was nothing like it – no people, just seagulls diving against a backdrop of the moody Saltee Islands. The beach was ever treacherous for the gravel moved under the pounding surf; we children were forbidden to swim there.

            My father, a merchant marine, didn’t give a damn. If the mood was on him, he’d hop in and swim outwards, folly in itself, for the currents and eddies could sweep you out to sea.

            We watched fearfully but he never stayed in long. “Just coolin’ off,” as he put it, “nothin’ like the sting of the salt on your skin!”

            Perhaps he needed it, for he was the eldest son and had a tense relationship with my grandfather who owned the big farm, and another of equal size on the outskirts of Wexford Town some 12 miles away. They clashed often for both were strong-willed, with the result that my father would storm off to sea leaving my grandfather to brood in his absence.

            The old man was beginning to lose it but was unwilling to give up the reins - a common enough situation on the farms of Ireland back then, probably still is today.

            But that’s just the background, the memory is of an early summer’s morning when my father, my brother and I drove fifty or more prime bullocks from the windswept farm to the rich pastures outside Wexford, where they would fatten until the fall before being shipped to Birkenhead for slaughter.

            I was probably eleven years of age, my brother, Jimmy, ten. Strange how huge livestock could be afraid of such tiny drovers, but we wielded our sticks with authority and weren’t shy about whacking an errant bullock on the behind.

            We set off at dawn for it was imperative to get as much of the twelve miles covered while traffic was light. My father drove a grey Volkswagen ahead of the herd while Jimmy and I brought up the rear. Bullocks are stupid but they can be curious too and often wished to make the acquaintance of their peers who watched them pass from behind ditch and fence.

            My father knew all the broken gates and loose palings, and lined up the car beside them; then when the herd had passed, he’d rev up that bug and inch forward to lead the way again.

            The morning was glorious - thrush and lark serenaded us as we passed through land that had been fought over by every invader who ever set foot in Ireland. The roads were narrow and we moved uneventfully with many the wave from laborer’s cottage and farmhouse.

            But our trial came at the village of Killinick on the main road from Rosslare Harbor where we hit traffic arriving off the boat from Le Havre. Many the speeding German and French automobile was stopped in its tracks and forced to fall into convoy behind the ambling herd. A number of motorists jumped out to take pictures of the pint-size herders, but Jimmy and I paid them no heed, though secretly we were chuffed.

            We crossed over Killinick railway bridge then up the steep hill, thirty or more cars straggling in our wake, until we made it to the winding back roads that led to the farm outside Wexford.

            I still retain a sense of power of the land that struck me on that dewy morning. Politicians and priests may think they control it, but they’re just transient possessors. The land endures - or does it?

            Some years later, after another row, my father stormed back to sea, my grandfather died soon thereafter, and the beautiful farm outside Wexford Town was swallowed up in a miasma of housing estates.

            The other farm still stands; I occasionally stroll its salty beaches and look for two worried boys watching a father swim out to sea - when spring unleashes memories.

Celtic Crush Interview

            Celtic Crush is the only Celtic rock and traditional radio show broadcast throughout all of North America. It can be heard on Saturday mornings 7pm ET and Tuesday nights 11pm ET on SiriusXM Satellite Radio (The Spectrum - Ch. 28).

            “It really makes a difference,” says its host, Larry Kirwan, “when you know you can be heard from Arizona up to Labrador in the Arctic Circle or from Florida to Alaska. Even with the big New York AM channels you can rarely hear them fifty miles from the city.”

            But then Celtic Crush is a unique show no matter what way you look at it. A mixture of music and talk that sometimes harkens back to the glory days of FM radio of but done in a fast paced and modern manner.

            “I grew up listening to the taste and knowledge of John Peel on BBC but I also loved the excitement of the DJs on pirate radio. Then when I came to New York everyone listened to WNEW-FM and I came under the influence of people like Vin Scelsa, Alison Steele, Jonathan Schwartz and Meg Griffin. Yet when I came to do my own show I knew that the world had changed, if you want to tie a lot of different types of music together in an informed manner, then you must do so with contemporary energy.”

            And Celtic Crush pushes the envelope when it comes to the vast array of music you will hear in the course of a three-hour show. As Kirwan promises at the beginning of each show you will hear “a selection of the old, the very old, the new and the very new in music from the 8 Celtic nations and their related cultures.”

            “Celtic music is now so broad-based that it’s almost dizzying. It has infiltrated its way across the whole rock genre and traditional musicians are now combining with the music and musicians of many other cultures. The trick is – how to combine it all so that a three-hour radio show can seem organic. I’ve found that you need two elements, great songs and a style of delivery that is both conversational, dramatic and always tells a story.”

            “I begin work on Saturday’s show early in the week, plotting out thirteen sets of three songs, taking care to repeat no more than one or two songs from the previous show.  The first set will set a theme as I begin each show with a two to four minute monologue that must capture the attention of the listeners. I rarely use notes, in that way there’s always an element of danger and some of the best pieces come when improvising. There’s nothing quite like the live element to radio.”

            How does he choose the songs? On a recent show I heard music ranging from the revered Sean O’Riada to Irish R&B sensations, The Strypes; from The Furey Brothers to Afro-Celt Sound System; from Shaz Oye, a Nigerian-Irish chanteuse to The Pogues.

            “I choose them by the song – not the singer. People who subscribe to SiriusXM are radio heads and they have a vast array of choices – over 150 channels of every type of music and talk – so you have to be able to hold your audience. Your show is only as strong as your weakest song. So every song has to be great. I don’t care if it’s old or new, in fashion or out of fashion, a great song always shines through. And when you’re playing 40 of them in the course of a show then you had better make sure that they’re all top of the line.

            “A Celtic Crush listener may have their favorite genre, say Celtic Punk of the Dropkick Murphys or the musical lyricism of Sinead O’Connor; or a Damien Dempsey ballad or a trad Irish band like Dervish. I have to make sure that the song I choose will be the best so that someone who doesn’t care as much for that genre will be sampling the cream of the crop.”

            How does he get the Dubliners from the 60’s to mix with a more modern band like Swell Season?

“That’s simple,” Kirwan laughs. “Both Luke Kelly and Glen Hansard have red hair! But seriously, both are telling stories and being a musician I can hear the songs in my head and chose ones that will mix well in some way. The rest is done through the magic of the segue, perhaps cross-fade them. And if you can get a couple of seconds of beautiful dissonance before the new song succeeds the old one, then all the better.”

Where does he come up with the various facts and information that spice his voice breaks?

“Well, I’ve been around. Through Black 47 I know many of the acts I play, or else have seen them. I occasionally check some fact on the internet the night before, but for the most part, once I plan out the sequence of songs early in the week, I’m thinking of them and ways of presenting them come to mind. I don’t take notes but then when I’m doing the show I can improvise around some of the ideas.”

I always enjoy Kirwan’s interview. They seem very relaxed even when dealing with occasionally difficult subjects like Sinead O’Connor.

“Well, I’ve given so many interviews myself with Black 47, I know the last thing some stressed out singer on tour needs is another series of banal and generic questions. You’ve got to make it interesting for the artist. I keep it as much as possible focused on the music. That’s the most important thing to any serious artist. It’s a relief for them to deal with someone who knows what they’ve gone through to get this far. And they love to talk about their songs, and their craft and, frankly, that’s what my very informed audience wants to hear about.”

Who were his favorite interviewees?

“Friends like Dave King and Bridget Reagan of Flogging Molly or Rosanne Cash are always great as we just let our hair down and have a chat that can go really deep at times, dealing with fears and failures along with joys and triumphs. Richard Thompson was my first and, after he relaxed, he spoke very movingly about the late Sandy Denny, one of my favorite artists. But perhaps, Ray Davies of the Kinks was the standout.”

What makes The Kinks Celtic?

“Well, Davies is a Welsh name but Ray considers himself very Celtic. He lives part of the year in Cork. And besides he’s one of the great storytellers in rock – a real seanchai. He was utterly charming but in a sincere manner, had total recall of his experiences. He’s also one of my songwriting heroes. He talked at length about the Kinks’ classic, Waterloo Sunset. He remembered every detail of its writing and recording and was thrilled to talk about it. The response from the listeners by email was stunning.”

Does Kirwan respond to every email? He did within hours to mine when requesting this interview.

“It’s an important part of the show – that interaction between host and audience. I give out my email address a couple of times during each show. People love to make suggestions and even send CDs and mp3s of their favorite songs. I listen to them all and choose the best. It’s great to find a powerful song from an unknown artist and give them an outlet.  

          

So what’s next for Celtic Crush?

“I don’t know, we’ll see who’s coming through town and get them up in the studio. I think Glen Hansard is coming up soon again. I’d like to get Van Morrison in some day and talk about his music.  

But it’s Monday morning and I have Saturday’s show to prepare. I always try to introduce a couple of great new songs every week and then mix them in with selections from a database of what must be around 1500 songs. Then find some interesting subjects to weave in amongst them. I often look at it the way the old bards must have – you’re going into the noble’s house to entertain with a mixture of song and story. You’re singing for your supper – you better get it right.”

The Ballad of Brendan Behan

Born in the glory of Russell Street

You grew up humming Amhrán na Bhfiann

Your auld lad did time in a Free State jail

For Republican activities beyond the pale

You were your Granny’s best boy, your Mammy’s best chap

You loved to butter the old ladies up

But your soul had been scorched with the orange, white and green

You were the one and only Brendan Behan

            I often wonder about biographies. Can you really get to the truth of someone you’ve never met?

            I was an avid reader of biographies until I happened on one about a friend, Lester Bangs, the iconic rock critic. It was well written and researched, and captured the public image of the man to a T but had scarce little to do with the troubled, insecure person that I often encountered late at night in the Bells of Hell.

            Turned out the writer had only met Lester once, and obviously on an occasion when Mr. Bangs was in top myth-making form.

            I was very aware of this when writing The Ballad of Brendan Behan for Last Call, the final Black 47 CD. What was the man really like, and when exactly did he morph from the dynamic, socially conscious writer to the pugnacious, often-inebriated public figure of his later years?

            One thing for sure, Brendan Behan packed a lot of living into a short life before succumbing from drinking and diabetes 50 years ago. Even back then, few had seen his plays or read his books and yet he was the most infamous Irishmen of his time.

            Did the fame kill him or was he always on a one-way track to destruction? One thing I do know, you have to shovel aside a lot of media exaggeration and infatuation to get to the heart of the man. That being done, you come face to face with a force of nature and a very original voice.

            For Brendan Behan was the proud, unfettered spokesman for working class Dublin. True, Sean O’Casey had already paraded vital inner-city characters across the world’s stages; but the abstemious O’Casey wrote about other people, Behan rarely wrote about anyone but himself. And therein, lay the seeds of his downfall. For you need a cool head and a pragmatic disposition to navigate the reefs that separate the private from the public personae.

            Brendan possessed neither. He was all passion and heat, with no little interest in self-promotion and celebrity. It’s interesting to contrast him with his spiritual heir, Shane McGowan, another singular voice of the people.

Shane has never hidden Behan’s influence, and why should he? He’s one of the many who benefited from Brendan’s proletarian trailblazing. And yet the gap-toothed London singer from day one has had a healthy disregard for the media. Perhaps, that’s what has kept him alive.

            “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.”

            Despite the defiance of this quote, Brendan – unlike Shane - was deeply wounded by criticism, especially in his final years when it became obvious that he had wasted his talent in endless pub-crawls.

            But could his fate have been any different given that he spent so much of his youth in prison, sometimes in solitary confinement? Undoubtedly an alcoholic, he rarely drank at home but was always in need of the warmth of a pub, the liberating effect of gargle, and an audience.

            Without fame and publishing advances he would have been just another garrulous drunk who would eventually stagger home and deal with the hangovers and empty pockets. Instead there was always someone who wanted to bask in his glory or a press photographer with an eye for a juicy story.

            In the end though Brendan opened the door for so many who didn’t have the proper accent, background or education, but like him had the burning desire to tell the unalloyed story of their lives. And that’s why the “laughing boy” still matters 50 years after his death at the age of 41.

You left us your poetry, your soul and your dreams

You’ll always be our one and only Brendan Behan

The Price of Privacy

            What do you think of Edward Snowden? 

            I’m talking about the bespectacled gentleman who broke the news that the NSA is keeping tabs all of us. You could reduce his actions to a simple – “Well, he betrayed his country, allowed our enemies access to national security secrets, so send him up the river for 20 years.” You’d definitely have a point.

            On the other hand, most great political and social changes have originated with rebels who decide their government, or its methods of ruling, are detrimental to the welfare of its citizens.

            Those who opposed the Vietnam and Iraq wars are now seen to be on the side of the angels while the “patriots” who sent American kids halfway around the world to be maimed and slaughtered are discredited.

            If nothing else Snowden’s case once more highlights the fact that when governments accrue great powers - allied with breathtaking technical tools - they will use them. Remember the smirking face of Donald Rumsfeld at televised news conferences as he extolled US firepower during the first  “surgical strikes” on Baghdad.

            We watched in fascination as offending targets were pinpointed and summarily destroyed much like in a video game. No mention was made, however, of the many innocent people who died in these assaults.

            The bottom line is – if the NSA has the power to vacuum great quantities of phone and internet data, it will; and, given the right set of circumstances, that information will be used for political purposes. And I’m not talking Republican/Democrat here. President Obama shows every bit as much zeal in maintaining a secretive and burgeoning national security apparatus as his paranoid predecessor.

            Had Snowden not blown the whistle, none of us would have been any the wiser about the sheer extent of government surveillance. No one is saying that a tap shouldn’t be put on potential suicide bombers or the like, but there was a time when you needed a court order to do that - and that system worked well.

            But Snowden has only touched the tip of the intrusion iceberg.  Take Google, and in particular its Gmail service. Ever notice just how the various advertisements that appear on your social media pages are so tuned into your interests?

            Oh man, have they got me down! Ads for Celtic Rock, Manchester United, and pale ales, appear with numbing regularity; of late, however, offers of cures for alcoholism and flagging sexual interest have caused me deep concern. Does Google know something I don’t?

            Recently I’ve been inundated with ads for Gilt? Never heard of it? Well, neither had I, but it’s an online outfit that can garner you large discounts on brand clothing. Now I’ve never bought an article of clothing online, so was wondering if Google had finally hit a wall. But, lo and behold, turns out I had loaned my computer to a friend and, upon inquiry, discovered that like any respectable young metrosexual he visits Gilt.com everyday.

            It’s a crazy ever-morphing world. The very concept of privacy is out the window in most people’s lives. Take the twin phenomena of reality shows and Facebook. In a mad lust for celebrity many are willing to abase themselves before millions on television, while most others share intimacies online that would have appeared shocking a decade ago.

Many people under 30 find this all this quite normal. Few care that if you put something up on Facebook you are granting the company the right to exploit that information for commercial purposes.

            Why get upset? Everyone else is doing it, and besides it doesn’t cost anything. In the end, however, privacy will cost - and a lot. For many of us have already made a pact with the digital devil – if I use your free services I hereby grant you the right to exploit me in return.

            That difficult but perceptive man, George Orwell, must be groaning in his grave. Not only has 1984 come to pass but, hey, we’re all down and dirty with it.

            That’s why I think Edward Snowden is much more saint than sinner; I would even venture to call him a citizen visionary. He has seen the future and is prepared to do something about it.

            

St. Patrick's Day Message

On one day a year, they congregated outside St. Patrick's Cathedral off Prince Street in New York City and marched in celebration. To some of these immigrant Irish and their American born children it was a religious occasion, but to most the gathering was an affirmation of their right, not only to survive but to thrive in their adopted country. That's what I sense on St. Patrick's Day - an echo from a time when the Irish were despised outsiders.  And that's why I go along with the raucous energy, the excitement and even the green beer, the plastic shamrocks and the ubiquitous leprechaun. 

I didn't always feel that way. When I arrived from Ireland, these manifestations of Irish-America were at best embarrassing. Back home, our own celebrations were rigid and religious; we did sport actual sprigs of shamrock but there was no beer, green or otherwise on this gloomy church holiday. The Parade up Fifth Avenue and the ensuing bacchanal seemed downright pagan by comparison.

I had other immigrant battles of my own ahead. Black 47 was formed to create music that would reflect the complexity of immigrant and contemporary Irish-American life and to banish When Irish Eyes Are Smiling off to a well earned rest at the bottom of Galway Bay. This idea met with not a little resistance in the north Bronx and the south sides of Boston and Chicago; but when irate patrons would yell out in the middle of a reggae/reel "Why can't yez sing somethin' Irish?" I would return the compliment with, "I'm from Ireland, I wrote it! That makes it Irish!"

With time and familiarity, Irish-America came to accept and even treasure Black 47, probably more for our insistence that each generation bears responsibility for solving the political problems in the North of Ireland, than for recasting Danny Boy as a formidable gay construction worker. I, in turn, learned to appreciate the traditions of the community I had joined along with the reasons for the ritualized celebration of our patron saint.  And now on St. Patrick's Day, no matter what stage I'm on, mixed in with the swirl of guitars, horns, pipes and drums, I hear an old, but jarring, memory of a people rejoicing as they rose up from their knees.

Our battles, for the most part, have been won; indeed, one has to search an encyclopedia for mention of the Know-Nothing Party or various 19th Century nativist politicians and gangs. Anti-Irish sentiment, not to mention Anti-Catholicism is a thing of the past. Might it not be time then that our New York St. Patrick's Day Parade broadens its parameters to celebrate all Irishness no matter what religion (or lack thereof), sexuality or political conviction? It's a broad step, I know. But with the makings of a just peace finally taking seed in the North of Ireland, might we not some day witness Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and various members of the Irish Gay community walk arm in arm up Fifth Avenue. Impossible? Times change and with them tactics and even treasured principles!

Whatever about Parade pipe dreams, we still must honor the memory of those who paved the way for us. Part of that responsibility is that Irish-Americans should never forget the new immigrants from other lands, legal and otherwise. Many, like our forebears, are fleeing tyranny and are striving to feed and educate their families. It would be the ultimate irony if an Irish-American were to look down upon the least of them; for, in my mind anyway, there is no place in the Irish soul for racism, sectarianism, homophobia or even dumb old Archie Bunker type xenophobia.

I once heard Pete Hamill ask: "What does the Pakistani taxi driver say to his children when he gets home after 12 hours behind the wheel?" I can't answer for certain but I'll bet he echoes many of the sentiments of those Irish who gathered outside St. Patrick's Cathedral so many immigrant tears and years ago.