By Bill O’Donnell

Lenihan Family Passes On Politics – For the first time in a third of a century no member of the Lenihan family will stand for election in Dublin West. The death three months ago of Fianna Fail TD and former Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has brought to a close the active participation of the family members in Irish national politics. Mary O’Rourke, an aunt of Brian, and a longtime Fianna Fail TD and minister, was defeated for reelection earlier this year.

One brother, former junior minister Conor Lenihan, who also lost his seat in the February election, is now living and working in Moscow; Tom Lenihan, 20, a son of the late Brian, has announced he will not be a candidate.

It has been a long and successful political reign for the Lenihans, decades of service going back to the late Brian’s father, Brian Senior, who was a veteran Dail member and appointed Tanaiste by Charles Haughey, and before Brian Sr. to his father, Patrick, and a sister in Dail Eireann. The elder Brian Lenihan served as minister in four posts including Justice and Foreign Affairs, was a candidate for the Irish presidency in 1990, and died in 1995.

The Fianna Fail Party, already staggered by its February electoral rout, will, going forward, be less a party of the people with no Lenihans answering the quorum bell.

Students Warned On Fake Passports – The Union of Students in Ireland has sent out an alert to Irish holders of J-1 working visas and US travel visas urging them not to travel on modified passports. It seems that traveling students, many interested in improperly adding a year or two to the age to conform to alcohol licensing rules in the states, have been using laminates to alter birth dates.

The attachments used by some traveling students "compromises the travel document" and its removal will cause permanent damage, all of which are easily detectible by border control officials. There have been several instances where travelers with false or altered passports have been arrested.

Students are further warned that altering a passport is a criminal offense in Ireland but a federal offense in the US and subject to serious penalties. The Union of Students in Ireland is advising anyone with altered passports to take action to obtain a replacement passport before attempting to return to Ireland. The USI stresses that while holders of these altered passports may believe that they will pass border inspection and arrive home unchallenged, that is not the case.

The USI urges students with improper passports to contact the nearest Irish embassy or consulate before attempting to travel.
We Remember 9/11 – It has been a fast-moving, fraught decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America. The recent Seals raid that removed Bin Laden from our midst did not solve America’s political, financial, or social problems but it told a world too often doubtful of America’s spine and resilience that we can still take care of business.

I clearly remember that September day when the planes crashed into the two towers and the Pentagon and into that Pennsylvania field because we were in Ireland, outside Dundalk to be precise, following an overnight flight into Dublin. It was great fun to be back and along with favorite in-laws. The four of us, Jean and myself and my sister-in-law Pat and husband Will had left Logan the evening of Sept. 10 and arrived at the airport after a fast flight from Boston very early in the Irish morning of the 11th.
The five-hour time difference meant we were with our hosts at the Trainor family home well before the planes crashed in Manhattan. We saw the second plane, United Airline Flight 175, on live television crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time; American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower of the Center 17 minutes earlier, which we did not see.

We spent the next two weeks traveling through northeastern Ireland, to places like Waterford, Cork, Mayo, Galway, Clare, and Kerry. It was, after our scores of Irish visits over the years, the most unsettling and surreal but memorable of our trips there. The Kindness of the Irish, the reaching out, the understanding and, yes, the tears from strangers once they knew we were Yanks, was profound in its communion, the benchmark Irish oneness with America. The warmth of the Irish people in those wary, uncertain days is a fresh and recurring memory.

After several frantic days trying to reach our daughter by phone we finally talked, uncertain if our return flight date or time could or would be honored. We learned that our daughter Erin, 28, had lost a friend from years earlier, a Girl Scout pal she hadn’t seen in years. The news that Amy Jarret, the former scouting friend, had been a crew member among the 65 people on United Flight 175 brought the substance and sadness of the 9/11 loss into even more painful focus For her, for us … and so it has remained.

The Generous Irish – The film footage of Somalia and the surrounding Horn of Africa as it suffers its worst siege of famine in decades is nothing less than heartbreaking. The suffering has stunned the world and generated food and related aid from many quarters. Yet none has done more as a people, or contributed more generously in money and organizational resources than has Ireland. Once again, be it Haiti or Chernobyl, Ireland is among the global leaders in charitable giving and response to desperate need.

The fund-raising figures for Horn of Africa famine relief among the Irish people, the Dublin government, and an array of humanitarian private non government agencies who call Ireland home, has been stunning. In terms of fund-raising the Irish people have donated more than $17 million while the Irish state has sent some $10 million to ease conditions in Somalia. Dochas, the umbrella organization for Ireland’s overseas NGOs, estimates that there are at least eight member organizations working on the ground in the famine-ridden Horn. They include Goal, Concern, Trocaire, Oxfam Ireland, Unicef, World Vision, and Plan Ireland.
This typical outpouring from Ireland comes as the Irish nation and her people struggle with high unemployment and cutbacks in everything from education to social welfare, hospital care and pensions following a bare-bones austerity program that has seriously impacted working and middle class Irish.

Irish Mortgage Relief A Possibility – The state of the Irish homeowner contending with the broad-based collapse in housing prices is, in a word, desperate. One leading Irish economist who was quoted in the Irish Independent newspaper described the situation faced by thousands of homeowners as "the biggest crisis the Irish economy is facing." Less than two weeks ago, a gaggle of respected economic academics, including UCD Economics Professor Morgan Kelly and others, along with former Barclay senior bond trader Peter Brown, came out in support of a proposal calling for the mortgage debt of thousands of struggling families to be either written down or, in the most extreme cases, written off completely.

The latest figures from the Central Bank estimate that almost 50,000 Irish mortgages were in arrears over three months, the majority over six months behind in their payments. A major economist said at a mid-August conference that spending a relatively modest $7 -$8 billion to underwrite those unable to meet mortgage payments now or in the future would probably solve most of the national problem.

The Irish government is as yet unenthusiastic, while banks say they would consider such a plan but only if other Irish banks joined in the proposal. Stay tuned.

Did You Know … that John Morrissey, born in Templemore, Co. Tipperary, in 1831, created the celebrated Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York, host to thousands and the grassy heartland of elegant horse racing during its hugely popular seven-week summer racing meet held yearly?

Morrissey was a youthful roustabout and later a champion bare-knuckle boxer who taught himself to read and write in a brothel, became a renowned gambler and wealthy casino operator, and, with William Travers and others, founded the Saratoga Race Course. In 1996, Morrissey was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Each summer meet at Saratoga features a stakes race dedicated to the memory of John Morrissey.

Bertie: Lessons To Sell, Will Travel – When your name is Bertie Ahern, a man with a short memory but a long pension, you can get away with giving speeches to foreigners who don’t read the Irish papers or know any better. Bertie, the wrap-around king you’d like to have a pint with, is supplementing his government pension by giving lectures at $40,000 plus to American companies about how he transformed the moribund Irish economy into the Celtic Tiger glory. Yes, the same good-natured chap with a flair for dinnertime fund-raising, who is considered by many of his former constituents to be the architect of the disastrous recession, is offering tips to the American CEOs on how to be competitive. Isn’t that beyond precious? Imagine, verbal gold at around $700 a minute, and worth every sou.

Included in Bertie’s Strut & Spout stemwinders are topics taken directly from his career in the Dail and as Taoiseach:
His approach to executing a successful long-term vision. How to persuade stakeholders to embrace change. How to bring people with you by building consensus. What every leader must do to achieve large-scale success.

Labor TD Ciaran Lynch says he is astonished that companies want to employ Ahern to give them advice. It’s absolutely bewildering, says Lynch, given the broad coverage of Ireland’s economic collapse, that Ahern is being promoted as a strategic thinker. I share Deputy Lynch’s disbelief.

Finally, in case you’re in the Leinster House neighborhood this month, you may want to stop by to see Bertie’s portrait (government issue at $14,000) freshly hung near the entrance of the Dail chambers. When the hell is the Mahon Tribunal Report due?

New Philly Church Leader Flays Media – The about-to-be-installed archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, presumably parachuted in to clean up the monstrous clerical abuse residue there, decided to try a bit of distraction by calling TV’s CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times "untrustworthy" when it comes to religion. Maybe he means they don’t take dictation.

He may have the odd point occasionally well taken, but I generally find CNN and the Wolfman pretty harmless and reasonably fair, although the Times and the evening segments of MSNBC have certainly shown "attitude" and as their biggest “failing” they occasionally cast a cold eye on the disjointed, contradictory, and oft- times baffling monologues that come out of the Vatican, from principals and spokesmen alike. Slow learners we all, apparently, on VaticanSpeak.

Unsurprisingly, the hard-nosed archbishop is silent on the “fair & balanced” Fox News regime. Devotional enough, I guess. What would be surprising if we were to hear Archbishop Chaput castigate some of his colleagues in the Catholic hierarchy (bishops to cardinals) who have been consistent enablers and clerical re-assignment specialists (CRS).

Stop Whining – Do Your Homework – I am so weary the past August weeks of hearing everyone from Peggy Noonan to some of the scraggy wanna-be Republican candidates for President carping about Barack Obama and his annual vacation, all 9 or 10 days of it.

I don’t know how much down time the estimable Fred Thompson took as senator or presidential candidate, but it was probably more than enough. However, I did look at the vacation schedules of two of our earlier GOP leaders, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

The Facts: President Obama, after 31 months in office, has taken 61 vacation days. At the 31-month point in their presidencies, Bush had taken 180 vacation days and Reagan 112 days.. All in all, President Bush (II) spent more than 1,000 days on vacation during his two terms.

RANDOM CLIPPINGS
Ireland has lost one of its premier sculptors and artists with the death of Eamon O’Doherty. Among his public art works are Galway’s Eyre Square signature sculpture, Dublin’s James Connolly Memorial near Liberty Square, and the Anna Livia fountain (floozie in the Jacuzzi). … Mary McAleese reminds the flock to observe a minute’s silence on September 10 in memory of those who died in the Great Famine. … Gerry Adams, he of the short memory, is inveighing against the IMF, and the European Union. The questions: Did he take and use EU funds for pet projects? And isn’t it a bit late to seek fiscal virginity? … A top tax expert in the North predicts that the Republic will never give up its 12.5 percent tax rate, and urged NI to lower its 26 percent rate. … Eogan O’Dea, a pro poker player from Dalkey, Co. Dublin, is in a good position to grab the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas when the tables reopen for the final on November 5. … The senior Muslim cleric in Ireland says there is nothing in his religion that forces a woman to have her face fully covered. A Cork councillor is trying to ban burkas. Can we talk? … Sad news out of London: The weekly Irish Post has closed its doors. A sign of the times. … I love the story of the Limerick man and his American bride. They were married after only two weeks. The bride from North Carolina is a smooth talker. She says she is loving living in West Limerick because "I love overcast weather and rain." … The rumor mills in SDLP circles are suggesting that Margaret Ritchie, the SDLP leader, is "ready to quit as leader." The hardest worker in that party is the MP for South Belfast, Dr. Alasdair McDonnell, who would like (and deserves) the top job to get the party moving again. … Mike Quinlin of the Boston Irish Tourist group is seeking input from Boston area Irish in an attempt to keep the Aer Lingus flights active through the winter months, which was not the case last winter. … Rick Perry is all hot air and hat but little substance and less cattle. The Texas state debt is staggering, the jobs created in Texas are low paying and minimum wage like Mississippi’s, the education system is one of the worst in America, ranking 46th to 49th in literacy and SAT scores, and Texas employment is largely state and federal jobs. We already had one Texas governor fool us. Not a second time. … Haven’t seen it yet, but the reviews for the Irish-made "The Guard" are putting it on everyone’s top-film list. Made in Connemara. See it, they say.

Congratulations to the venerable Black Rose on lower State Street. An honest pub marking its 35th anniversary this year. … Pawtucket’s Friendly Sons of St. Patrick will honor pardoned Irishman John Gordon on Oct. 8 at St. Mary’s Cemetery. … It’s disappointing news to hear that Jay Severin is returning to the world of radio with low signal WXKS. He joins other frothing right wingers like Rush, Glen Beck and Sean Hannity with their one-note destructive garbage. … Cancel the tickets for Michael Flatley’s "Lord of the Dance" spectacular planned for the Cliffs of Moher. It has been postponed indefinitely due to the recession or whatever. … Weather forecasters are predicting a severe winter in Ireland. It would be the third harsh winter in a row. … Belfast is the best city value for tourists in the UK. Closest are Liverpool, Cardiff, Glasgow, and Manchester. … Good Luck to the members and leadership of the Irish Social Club for a resurgence. … Hopefully it will have a different ending. The 100th anniversary cruise retracing the voyage of the Titanic will sail from Southampton on April 8, 2012 bound for Cobh. … The Vatican is planning some dramatics for the Irish Church that could mean dioceses reduced in number and a new lineup of Irish bishops replacing the current crop. Hope this doesn’t mean that Dublin’s irreplaceable Archbishop Martin will be jettisoned.