LETTERS

We’re All Over

WHAT part of me isn’t Irish enough for Niall O’Dowd (“I Have a Dream,” February 4-10)? Is it my name? My religion? My total rejection of twin-sets as an element of fashion? 

Am I too hard on Hillary Clinton? Have I not spent enough time across the water? Do I not have enough Irish friends?

What part of other Irish queers isn’t Irish enough for you? Are Irish queers not recent enough immigrants? Do Irish queers not do enough work on other Irish issues, trying to keep up the fight for self-determination while so much of our community dozes to the lulling, soothing sound of “Gerry Adams MP”? 

Is it that we don’t darken the doors of $250 a plate Irish American fundraisers? Do we not play in enough pipe bands? Is it that we don’t spend every waking hour demanding that our community include us, in venues besides the parade, because we actually have a few other things to do as well?

If you don’t see us in the Irish community, either you’re not looking or the queers around you face so much hostility that they stay hidden. So here’s the inside line – Irish queers are pulling your pints, performing at the plays and concerts you attend, writing the books you read, and standing up for your sorry Irish (rhymes with “mass”) from New York to Derry. 

Some of us also spend time and energy doing battle with the anachronistic bigots who organize the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Others can’t afford to. Maybe Niall O’Dowd would like to pitch in instead of uselessly sniping.

Emmaia Gelman
New York, New York

Colorful Irish

IRISH and Irish American lesbians and gay men and their allies have been protesting homophobia and hate on St. Patrick’s Day since 1990.

In last week’s issue Niall O’Dowd used the headline “I Have a Dream,” a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., over a photo of a person of color supporting an inclusive parade, to question our “Irishness.” That is problematic in many ways. 

Is O’Dowd suggesting that there are no people of color in Ireland? Or has he submitted some Irishness quiz or test? I haven’t come across it in the past 13 years. Please disclose the faulty research and not just the right wing conclusion. 

Or is he suggesting that Irish issues take place only in our little fishbowl, that there’s nothing universal about Irish battles for self-determination, that if anyone else supports us the issue is no longer an Irish one?

Bigotry shouldn’t be paraded – it comes from hate, and it breeds violence. Any Irish person with eyes and ears knows that. 

Surely the queer community and others show solidarity by supporting inclusion on March 17. Interestingly absent from O’Dowd’s analysis is the lack of Irish/Irish American support of their own sons, aunts, neighbors, cousins, etc.

John Francis Mulligan
New York, New York

Tribute to Hume

I WAS saddened when I read the story in last week’s issue about John Hume leaving

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hume on one of his trips to the U.S. He is so genuinely dedicated to the cause of peace in Northern Ireland, and he was an inspiration to meet.

I wish him nothing but the best. He has sacrificed his life for a greater cause, and not many people can say that. It’s just a pity that he has to share his Nobel Peace Prize with Unionist David Trimble, who could learn a thing or two from the way Mr. Hume conducts himself.

Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Hume. 

Mary McCaffrey
Glens Falls, New York

Irish Always Treated Fair

THANK you to Gene Durkin for his letter “A Cry for Help” in the January 21-27 issue, in reply to an earlier letter I wrote. In that letter he proves that the study by Prof. Richard J. Jensen, “No Irish Need Apply – A Myth of Victimization,” is valid.

After several weeks of research Durkin could not give us even one documented incident of discrimination against Irish immigrants. Several misleading anecdotes, but not one fact.

To begin with, I belong to no “ethnic group,” and have no need to do so. That sort of nonsense is divisive, and the sooner Americans like Durkin stop doing so the better our nation will be. 

When do some become Americans without hyphens or regard to where a grandparent or great-grandparent came from? Do the Irish hyphenate themselves as Norman-Irish, British-Irish or 

Anglo-Irish? When it is mentioned that G.B. Shaw, Oscar Wilde and a host of other authors are Anglo-Irish, a roar goes up. 

When a Unionist in Ireland refers to himself as British, Sinn Fein/IRA wants him dead.

Now to Mr. Durkin’s anecdotes and the facts. Irish immigrants in the period of the 1860s lived in “squalor.” Yes and so did the vast majority of urban dwellers; that was some 150 years ago. 

The cities of New York and Boston were flooded with millions of poor, starving and destitute immigrants from Europe. That was the cause of the “squalor.” 

Whatever conditions existed when those immigrants arrived here were a welcomed improvement from the overpopulated and starving conditions they fled. To suggest the “squalor” or urban crowding was a result of discrimination, or that Irish immigrants were treated worse than others, is madness.

Mr. Durkin mentions the burning of an Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Boston in 1734, by a mob of “anti-Catholics.” Fact – the Ursulines are a French order who had recently arrived from France. According to the Boston Evening Transcript of August 12, 1834, there is not one mention of anyone Irish being in that convent.

Mr. Durkin claims that Thomas Nash “depicted the Irish as grotesque apes.” Fact – Thomas Nash was a German-born Catholic who was a political cartoonist for Harpers Weekly in the 1860-1870s. He was probably the best political cartoonist in history. He gave us the symbols of the donkey for Democrats, the elephant for Republicans, Santa Claus, Uncle Sam and a host of others.

He was a staunch Republican and his main target was the corrupt political machine, Tammany Hall and its leader Boss Tweed. All of his cartoon characters had what some might call “grotesque” features. It was satire, and there is no indication that those cartoons resulted in any discrimination or harm to anyone.

Last but not least, Mr. Durkin repeats the “Israel receives billions, while Ireland receives peanuts.” Myth. Nothing could be further from the truth, and anti-Semite Mr. Durkin does not deserve a reply. 

So let us have the true facts – the U.S. rightly gives several billion dollars a year to Israel in the form of credits, for the purchase of much needed and deserved defensive military equipment. Those credits are spent in the U.S., and every penny comes back to us and our defense industry. 

Israel is a friend and ally, and the Jewish people more than any deserve a place where they can live in peace and security so long denied them. There is no need to repeat the horrors they have suffered and would suffer today if the United States did not support them. 

Few realize that Ireland does get massive aid in many forms. In the last 30 years since joining the European Union, Ireland has been given some E60 billion. There are signs on every road and industrial estate in Ireland telling all they were built by EU development aid, so we had the so-called “Celtic Tiger.” 

There are numerous aid programs from the U.S. – the International Funds for Ireland (mostly U.S. money), the Ireland Fund, special visa programs and a host of children’s programs.

Most important, Ireland has been given the benefit of having its defense provided free for the last 50+ years by the U.S. and NATO. The savings to the Irish taxpayer is untold billions, a gift from Uncle Sam. 

Israel would gladly exchange with Ireland and have its defense provided free by the U.S. We should be reminded that Ireland is not a U.S. ally and never was.

Patrick McVeigh
Floral Park, New York