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Sidewalks with Tom Deignan

The More Things Change …

July 26, 2007

By Tom deignan

AS the world knows by now, The Simpsons Movie hits theaters on Friday. You could actually do an interesting study about the fun the show has had with the Irish. Standout moments include a raucous working class St. Patrick’s Day parade featuring a brawl, drunkenness and even the explosion of a British pub.

Then there was Liam Neeson’s classic appearance as a modern-day Father Flanagan-type priest who prompts Homer and Bart to convert to Catholicism.

The Simpsons Movie, however, offers a very 21st century Irish character. The film’s plot has been closely guarded, but word has leaked out that the film revolves around an environmental disaster.

Little Lisa Simpson apparently falls under the spell of a dashing young environmental activist from Ireland.

The evolution of Irish characters on The Simpsons got me thinking about the winds of change currently blowing through Irish America. Individually, they seem like small developments, random occurrences even.

But together they remind us that the more Irish America changes, the more it stays the same.

For example, the recent spate of books and movies about Irish mobsters from The Departed to the failed NBC show The Black Donnellys seems interesting because the Irish have not been in the mob game for decades, right?

Well, take a look at a trial unfolding as we speak in Chicago. A mobster and a lawyer had a showdown that seems like it was taken right out of Goodfellas, the movie about notorious Irish-Italian mobster Henry Hill.

Reputed Windy City killer Nicholas Calabrese has struck a deal with federal authorities to help put his own brother Frank, as well as alleged crime boss “Little Jimmy” Marcello behind bars.

But Little Jimmy’s lawyer wondered allowed how Marcello could be a crime boss if (as anyone who has seen Goodfellas knows) only 100% Italians can be “made.”

Marcello’s mother is named Irene Flynn.

“Have you met his lovely mother, Mrs. Flynn?” Marcello’s lawyer said in court. “And Mrs. Flynn is as Irish as Paddy’s pig, isn’t she?”

Not exactly an eloquent turn of phrase, but you get the point.

To this day, Irish mobsters are not merely Hollywood creations.

Speaking of eloquence, it was unfortunate to hear that Rocky Sullivan’s on Lexington Avenue will be closing in two weeks. For the past decade, this has been a quintessential haunt, combining traditional elements of the New York Irish pub with an unparalleled reverence for the written word.

So, is this the end of an era? A change for the worse? The end of the intellectual Irish pub?

Not quite. As with so many others these days including Irish Americans as well as immigrants Rocky’s will be relocating to Brooklyn, setting up shop in the former Liberty Heights Tap Room on Van Dyke Street in Red Hook.

Talk all you want about old neighborhoods, but one thing the New York Irish have always done is move.

Finally, there is one more looming change. The big news these days when it comes to Irish Catholics was the announcement that the Los Angeles diocese will have to pay over $600 million to victims of abuse.

(Incidentally, in reporting this story in Irish circles, some have noted that Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony was actually adopted into an Irish family when he was a boy. But in 2002, The New York Times ran a correction noting that Mahoney was not, in fact, adopted. His biological parents were named Victor and Loretta Mahoney.)

Either way, as tragic and outrageous as the LA abuse story is, another development in Catholic circles may very well have a serious impact on New York Irish history.

Bronx native Edwin O’Brien was named to lead Baltimore’s archdiocese last week. O’Brien was on the short list of likely replacements for New York’s leader Edward Cardinal Egan, who is eligible to retire whenever Pope Benedict agrees.

With O’Brien out of the running, it is more likely that the next spiritual leader of New York’s Catholics will be the first non-Irish Archbishop in over 150 years.

Then again, maybe New York’s next Archbishop will be as Irish as Paddy’s pig. When it comes to the Irish, only one thing is certain - Nothing is certain.

(Contact at Tom tomdeignan@verizon.net)

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