Save the Chef

IN 2002 Long Island resident Larry Zaitschek returned to New York after living for approximately seven years in Northern Ireland.

Immediately prior to his return home he had been questioned twice by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) about a break-in at the infamous Castlereagh Interrogation Center where he had worked as a chef. Three men with British security passes and British accents had gained access and had stolen top secret files in what then PSNI chief Ronnie Flanagan had called “an inside job.”

Upon his homecoming Zaitschek found that all of his possessions, shipped home on a British freighter, had been seized, and worse, that his estranged wife and three year old son, Pearse, had been placed in a nefarious “witness protection program” and Zaitschek was denied contact with them. With a return to Belfast sure to land him before a Diplock court, the best he could do was to retain lawyers in Ireland and try to restore his parental rights.

Recently, in a case of suspicious timing, the PSNI announced its intention to seek Zaitschek’s extradition to Belfast to face charges of kidnapping and terrorism.

Requiring attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic, he is unable to pay for the caliber of defense needed to retain his freedom and reunite his family. He has received no assistance and his financial obligations are reaching the crushing point.

Recently friends and supporters have formed the Larry Zaitschek Defense Committee to support his efforts for justice and freedom. To further these aims, their will be a fundraising event on Friday, October 6 at 7 p.m. at O’Reilly’s Pub at 31st Street and Broadway in Manhattan. I encourage all to come and lend support to this worthy cause, meet Larry the Chef and help thwart another British attempt to pervert justice.

We need your help and support. Come out to O’Reilly’s and hear our preliminary plans to block this extradition and add your voice to this fledgling movement for justice.

We in Irish America cannot let the hands of British securocrats reach into our community and pluck out one of us to cover their self-serving interests.

Free the Castlereagh One!

Richard A. Butler

Sunnyside, New York

British Didn’t Steal

WHAT letter writer Tom McTigue of Bronx New York needs is a history lesson. In his letter “Get Out of Ireland” in the September 6-12 issue, he is right that the English should get out of Ireland, but his tirade about them stealing Irish land through wars, murder and starvation is a more fiction than fact.

With Ireland sitting on their porch it was only a case of a colonizer doing what came naturally — dominating the weak. If the truth were known Ireland would have been better off to join with England as opposed to spending hundreds of years fighting them and still being oppressed to one degree or another to this day.

As for the IRA, the off spring of the original is just a bunch of thugs with a lot in common with the Mafia. The romanticism of Mick Collins and his war is long gone. His war would have been with the Paisleys, not with the innocents on the streets of Belfast.

Jerry Hoosier

Orange, California

U2 Fan Finally Bolts

I AM amazed again on the constant editorial coverage of U2. I had written a previous letter and was corrected on some levels by Senior Editor Debbie McGoldrick.

However, a point I made by the continuing coverage of U2 and your obvious stance of “Best Band in the World,” or “Greatest Band Alive” is now very strange. It was put forth again in the U2 by U2 review written by April Drew in last week’s issue.

Does she share this opinion? To qualify to write for the Irish Voice, do you have to be a mega U2 fan?

Does everything U2 do deserve a page and a half of coverage? I am sure there are plenty of Irish authors who would kill for a mere mention of their book, but U2 again dominates every aspect of your paper.

I was glad to read Mike Farragher’s review the Snow Patrol concert. But in the review was a constant referral to Bono and U2.

In my opinion, at times Gary Lightbody sounds like Gavin Rossdale and something similar to Keane’s Tom Chaplin. Are Irish Voice readers so naïve where Mr. Farragher has permission to only compare U2 and Snow Patrol? We cannot get through one piece without the constant mention of the “U2, Biggest Band” charade, in this case concerning Snow Patrol.

Rock and roll is not a sport. Not all bands are striving to receive this award/title.

U2 have this power because they make radio-friendly songs that appeal to the masses. Many bands would prefer to make music that appeals only to their fans.

And why are they the biggest band in the world? In my opinion, once a band reaches the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that honor is no longer bestowed on them. That title should be given to modern bands, say Coldplay and Green Day.

How could a band compete with a 25-year catalogue of music? And if not U2, why not the Who, Springsteen and the Rolling Stones?

The Irish Voice also always questions when U2 will come out with a new album. My cousin John, a huge U2 fan, told me they always come out in November/October to gather two years of Grammy coverage. If this is true, why would your paper question it more than once?

U2 is a great band, a huge business, and should be covered intensely but not every week. Meanwhile, other Irish acts get if they’re lucky two nods a year.

I don’t blame Mr. Farragher. He has written some interesting stuff, for one, his piece in the Valentine’s Day issue about male dilemmas was funny and quite interesting.

This has to be something at the top, a policy of Irish Voice publisher Niall O’Dowd perhaps. Excuse me, Mr. O’Dowd, while you have written on Bono’s worthy Nobel Peace Prize hopes in the past, you come across as a mega-fan. It would only make sense why a paper would put the same rock band on the cover every other week.

I would like to thank Ms. McGoldrick for responding to my first letter. She was correct in her rebuttal that I needed to catch up on earlier Irish Voice issues.

But now, after eight-plus years, our family has made a decision not to read the Irish Voice anymore. I don’t understand how editorial content is decided, nor I ever will. But I not blind not to see name-dropping and fandom.

And the Irish Echo is not much better. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t even review the Snow Patrol concert.

I strongly question Irish American media and their ethics. For future reference, I will find my Irish American news via the Internet.

John W. Holland

Scarsdale, New York

Mike Farragher responds

While I was sad to see you go from our subscription base, John, I had to laugh at how upset you were about seeing the word Bono in print. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?

Are you so busy being the “Bono police” that issues citations each time you see his name in print that you overlook the fact that the entertainment section of the Irish Voice is chock full of the latest news on books, plays, movies, traditional music, rock, and celebrity gossip each week?

If you were paying attention instead of looking for U2 references, you would have been all up to date on Roisin Murphy, Guggenheim Grotto, Seanchai, the Frames, Damien Dempsey, Blackthorn and all the other artists who graced my “Off the Record” page in the last few weeks.

Of course we’re covering U2’s every move, dude. We’re huge fans of the band! How could you be an Irish paper and not cover the biggest Irish band on the planet?

When I look back at the last few weeks of U2 articles, I see that we not only tripped all over ourselves about the new U2 book, John Spain and others also took Bono and the boys to task on their decision to become Irish tax exiles as well. To borrow a line from Fox News, we are “fair and balanced.”

Mixing old friends (Van Morrison) with new ones (Damien Rice) is a philosophy that seems to work for most folks, but there’s always a John Holland in the bunch who’s never happy. Sorry to see you go.