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Letters
Sardonic Joe
Congratulations on a very good (Feb./Mar.) issue and a great editorial,
but I have to tell you that Joe Queenan (“Sardonic Joe”) is a jerk. I’ve
never found him clever or insightful. I think he’s a self-loathing jerk
who just wants to be famous. Why else would he put that ugly mug on the
cover of all those bad books?
His comments about Frank McCourt just drip envy. What a bore! I hope
he gets mugged by a bunch of Notre Dame grads who spot him at a Blarney
Stone bragging about how much he hates being Irish. Hypocrite.
Tom O’Neill
Santa Monica, California
I read your magazine to keep up on my heritage. What I learned from the
Joe Queenan interview is, as my father used to say, that “he doesn’t know
his ass from a hole in the ground.”
R.M. Smith
Xehia, Ohio
Bush’s Bad Choice
In naming Jim Kenny as Ambassador to Ireland, President Bush has made
a disappointing and inappropriate choice. Kenny, a Chicago construction
company owner, is an unknown to the Irish-American community of his own
hometown. What he is known for is making financial donations to the Bush
campaign. When asked by Irish America’s writer if he can ”help build that
bridge from Dublin to Belfast that successive U.S. administrations have
tried for years to build,” Kenny’s answer is chilling. He said, “That will
mostly be the responsibility of the U.S. Ambassador to Britain and the special
envoy to Northern Ireland.”
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in referring to the red hair of Ambassador
Kenny and his children, said the new Ambassador to Ireland was “straight
out of central casting.” Actually, the central casting choice for the position
of U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, particularly at this time of crisis for the
Good Friday Agreement, would be someone who has demonstrated an interest
in, and understanding of, the complexities of the current situation. To
award this position to someone as a political payback is insulting to the
citizens of both the United States and Ireland.
Liz Kerr
Jenkintown, Pennsylvania
Argentina’s Irish
Michael Connaughton’s article on his visit to Argentina brought to mind
my visit to that country 20 years ago. I knew vaguely of the Irish connection
but was amazed to find pages of Doyles, all named Antonio and Jose, in the
Buenos Aires telephone directory. There were far more Doyles than you would
find in my native Bronx phone book nowadays!
During my visit, I attended a gaucho festival and met one of the organizers,
Patricio O’Farrell, a third-generation Argentinian with a visage right out
of a Mayo town and an unmistakable Irish lilt to his English which he said
he had acquired from the nuns who taught him.
My visit made me appreciate the vitality of the Irish people even when
they are a small minority as in Argentina. It should be remembered, however,
that many Irish soldiers in the British forces fought unsuccessfully against
Argentina’s fight for freedom. Of course, on visiting the grave of Admiral
William Browne I was disappointed to read that this Argentine patriot was
“English born” in Foxford, County Mayo!
Albert Doyle
Sanibel, Florida
The Irish and Alcohol
Your recent article on alcohol and the Irish forthrightly presented some
of the realities of alcoholism in our Celtic culture. Most research agrees
with the genetic component, 40 to 60 percent, which you cite as causative.
Your analysis of binge drinking patterns also contributes to understanding
the disease.
This reader, however, believes that you grossly understated the destruction
that alcohol inflicts on the Irish family. With over 30 years experience
in the field of alcoholism treatment and as a first generation Irish-American,
I have rarely met a fellow ethnic who has not had a close relative seriously
affected with devastating effects on both the individual and the family.
Alcoholism is often called the Iceberg Disease, because 97 percent of
its negative effects are hidden from public view. Try looking into the window
of any gin mill in our Irish communities, ask a fellow Irishman how alcohol
affected his extended family, or listen for a sermon on the social impact
of the pub culture. You’ll wait a long time for truth.
Social scholars characterize alcoholism as the poor man’s disease. Why?
No skills needed to practice, generally a long incubation period for serious
aftereffects, and social acceptance for drunkenness. Who hasn’t heard the
uniquely Irish expressions: “He’s feeling no pain,” or “It’s a good man’s
weakness.” It’s a cultural myth that many of the article’s comments perpetuate.
You are to be commended for breaking the ice. President Mary McAleese,
an outstanding leader and woman of Ireland, knows what it’s all about.
Edward J. FitzPatrick
Blauvelt, New York
Mean Streets
Last November, at a Friendly Sons of St. Patrick dinner, I had the good
fortune to be seated directly across from our highly esteemed Police Commissioner,
Ray Kelly (cover story by Tom Kelly – Feb./Mar. issue). I broke the ice
by relating a couple of my favorite cop stories and told him how wonderful
his son was as a war reporter. I didn’t know that Commissioner Kelly had
grown up on “the then mean streets of Columbus Avenue when Irish-American
gangsters like Poochie Walsh ruled the neighborhood.” If I had, I’d still
be talking to him.
I am 12 years older than Ray Kelly, and I would never describe that neighborhood
in the 1940’s and early 1950’s as mean. Compared to what working and poorer
class neighborhoods are now, “the mean streets of Columbus Avenue” were
a paradise to poor and rich alike. From 110th Street to Columbus Circle,
there were all-night delis, restaurants, bakeries, saloons, groceries, and
all manner of shops. We even had the Museum of Natural History!
It was a time before air conditioning; most of the poor did not have
refrigerators or central heating. Some of the Irish poor had to share one
hallway toilet with two or three other families. When it was torrid at night,
everyone left their hall doors open to catch a breeze. Even the rich on
Central Park West left their beautiful buildings and slept sitting up on
a bench in Central Park. There was no fear of crime or criminals.
There were tough, honest cops who walked the ’hood day and night. They
used their nightsticks to teach wise-guys that crime didn’t pay. For most
poverty stricken Irish, Italian and a few Jewish kids, it was a lesson learned.
But, some cops were psychos.
One was Scarface Slim. When he came on the beat, kids in relays ran through
the neighborhood letting everyone know that Slim was on duty. Everyone then
headed home. Mario Biaggi had the worst reputation of all. The rule was
never to run from Mario, because if you did, he would shoot at you. He beat
me twice with his nightstick; both times because it was after midnight and
he didn’t know me.
I lived diagonally across Columbus Avenue from where the Walsh family
lived. My brother Kyran and I were partners in a flourishing Pigeon Coop
with three other partners named John the Super, Billy Walsh and Eddie “Poochie”
Walsh, at 703 Columbus Avenue.
Poochie Walsh was an incorrigible kid, who had some form of learning
disability. He was also unfortunate in that he grew up around 101st Street
and Columbus where an Irish burglary gang called the Arsenal Gang met. They
started recruiting new members when a boy reached five years of age and
was small enough to be lowered down air vents to get inside stores and warehouses
and unlock the doors from the inside. I can’t remember what year Eddie Walsh
was murdered by Elmer Burke, his partner in petty crimes, but while I was
there he didn’t rule that neighborhood, the cops did or the priests did.
Poochie was kicked out of public school when he let about five wild pigeons
loose in the middle of English class. He was always in trouble. He and Elmer
Burke and Tucker Devaney would hire a horse and wagon, pick up fruit and
vegetables, and sell them at the corner of 97th and Central Park West. One
brutally hot day Pooch’s horse fell asleep. Pooch got mad because he reasoned
that if he had to stay awake to make a sale, the horse had better well stay
awake too. His prize veggies for sale that day were cucumbers. Pooch decided
the best way to keep the horse alert was for Pooch to see how many cucumbers
he could shove up the horse’s ass. During his exerting insertions into the
now totally wide awake (if not very jittery) horse, a passer-by called the
cops. You guessed it; Poochie was so dopey he even got himself arrested
by the ASPCA!
One Saturday morning, Mrs. Walsh made bacon and eggs for Billy Walsh,
my brother Kyran and me. I guess I was about 15; Poochie was 17 or 18. Soon
Poochie and his older brother John came in. Pooch was bandaged on his arms
and head and looked pretty distraught. It seems that about 2 a.m. that same
morning, Poochie was stealing a car parked next to Joan of Arc JHS, a half-block
from his house. He got the car started, turned on the head-lights, and saw
Officer Mario Biaggi standing two feet in front of the car with a pistol
pointed straight at Poochie’s head.
Pooch ducked his head down below the level of the dashboard, stuck both
his hands higher than the steering wheel and shouted, “Don’t Shoot Mario!
Don’t Shoot!”
Officer Biaggi emptied his revolver where Walsh’s head had just been.
Walsh was shot in at least one arm. After Pooch had sat down at the kitchen
table across from me, he took the bandage off one arm. One of the bullets
had gone clear through his forearm without touching bone. There where two
clean holes the size and red-color of a pencil eraser; one entering, one
exiting. Mario went on to fame, fortune and congress as one of the most
decorated officers on the NYPD.
New York’s Irish neighborhoods did turn out some people like Trigger
Burke, Tucker Devaney, Eddie “Poochie” Walsh and the Arsenal Mobsters, but
for every bad apple, there were 10,000 Irish Americans who, like Ray Kelly,
become fine, honest American citizens, through study and hard work.
America has been damned good for the Irish; and the Irish have been damned
good for America, like no other group before or since. Please remember that
in the Columbus Avenue neighborhood that I grew up in, Jews, Wasps and Catholics
slept all night on Park benches to avoid their oven-like apartments in peace
and quiet without fear. Also that there were no iron fences on storefronts,
or gates on windows in my time. I never heard of a mugging until the late
1950’s. People, rich and poor were safe in my time. Is that what “mean”
means?
Jack Brennan
Pearl River, New York
Tom Kelly Replies: Dear Mr. Brennan: Thank you for your informative and
colorful letter regarding my article on the PC. Although I must say you
backed up my description as the place being mean streets more than you contradicted
it. They were certainly mean streets for horses! Or for anyone who ran into
Biaggi. Non-mean streets certainly do not produce the likes of Trigger Burke.
Believe me I was not trying to describe the neighborhood as some crime-ridden
hell hole. I was just trying for a contrast with the Columbus Avenue of
today where yuppies pay a half a million dollars for a tenement flat and
might argue over the last non-fat blueberry muffin in the newest brunch
joint. By mean streets I meant the kind of tough, working-class neighborhood
that has produced the best and brightest like Ray Kelly. Maybe tough would
have been a better word.
Thank you for the history lesson. I wish I had gotten it before I wrote
the piece.
Ancestral Research
I am trying to find American relatives who originally emigrated from
Wexford, Ireland pre-1870. My great-grandfather Mathew Cardiff emigrated
around this time leaving a son John and daughter Bridget behind. I know
he had a second family in New York, but can find no trace of this family,
or any relatives. My granddad died in 1962 aged 96 having not seen his father
since he was 12 years old, and having lost his mother very soon after his
father left Wexford to join his own brothers and sisters in America – I
think, New York.
Granddad was a Boer War veteran and a tailor all his life. I would love
some information about my great-grandfather. Anybody who can help please
e-mail me at sheilaferris@msn.com
Sheila Ferris
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