BY BILL O’DONNELL
O’Malley Pauses Campaign For Mandela Tribute – Padraig O’Malley, the professor of Peace and Reconciliation at the MccCormack Center at UMass Boston, has spent his recent years lecturing but rarely in a university classroom but working feverishly on three continents to bring peace and respect for differences to a range of warring cities and their leaders. With rare exceptions, there is little public funding for O’Malley’s protean efforts, still the whirlwind of planning, travel, and meetings involved in bringing enemies together grinds on for the professor-activist with peace as his goal.

O’Malley has a vehicle he uses to promote reconciliation; he calls them Forums for Cities in Transition. One was held at UMass Boston in 2009, and it drew participants from cities like Kirkuk, Derry, Kosovska, and South Nicosia, among others. Another was held in Derry with participants from Beirut, Belfast, Haifa, Derry/Londonderry, Kaduna, Nicosia, and Ramallah, to name a few. The most recent forum was held in Kaduna, Nigeria, where there was violence in the streets outside.
Deeply involved for years in Northern Ireland, O’Malley has pressed on with his and the McCormack Center’s campaign to bring a new era to a fractious Ireland. One of his earliest allies in the mid-1990s was Nelson Mandela. O’Malley believed that the peace negotiators in the North would hugely benefit from the guidance and participation of those South Africans involved in ending apartheid, especially the lynchpin of that historic agreement, Mandela himself.
The friendship and working relationship between Mandela (or Madiba, as he was known at home) and O’Malley resulted in the South African’s significant role in the Irish talks, a critical point on the road to the Good Friday agreement. When Mandela died at age 95 on Dec. 5, Professor O’Malley was asked to be one of the principal eulogists. In memorializing the deceased, he said:
“In a life during which he endured much personal pain and loss with stoicism, Mandiba drew on reserves of solitude to make a stronghold for the mind; he forged a will outside the makeshifts of human society. He was often alone, but never lonely. He mourned for others, but never for himself. … He faced evil; he tamed and endowed the country he loved so much, for which he sacrificed a lifetime with the gift of empathy. ... He took us down the path of truth and made us face ourselves, a task that was often ugly and loathsome, but a task that was necessary if we were to heal ourselves and move forward”
Boston Hospital Aids All-Ireland Heart Surgery – An international team of doctors led by Dr. John Mayer, a cardiac surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital, is leading a study to look into an All-Ireland plan for an integrated network of pediatric heart surgeons serving children throughout Ireland, north and south. At the present time, because of the limited number of heart patients served in Belfast and in the less-populated North, many patients from the North accompanied by their parents are forced to travel to Dublin or Britain for children’s heart surgery. The hope is that an integrated system will allow several specialized hospitals and cardiac surgeons north and south to maintain their skills through regular work. One of the tenets of major surgery is that the more patients a surgeon sees and operates on, the greater the skill and positive surgical outcome. In recent years the imbalance has been extreme; surgeons in Britain see 300-500 cases a year compared to 60 surgeries last year in Belfast.
The study envisions a health service for pediatric heart surgeons who would work together to provide top quality with more convenient service for families living in the North. Ireland’s health minister, James Reilly, says the aim is “to establish an integrated service for cardiology and congenital cardiac surgery for all the children of this island, based on international best practice.”
Pope Francis is on a Winning Streak – How was your December? Whatever the month brought you, it likely didn’t match the high ratings and global praise that the leader of the Catholic Church was basking in. The soaring papal popularity was highlighted in a poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News showing Pope Francis with a approval rating of 92 percent, and his church at a ten-year high of 95 percent. Soon after announcing his retirement, Pope Benedict had a 76 percent approval rating. Adding to the laurels for the Jesuit pope was his selection as Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” which came with a Time cover. Later in the month, he was on the cover of the New Yorker and the subject of one of that magazine’s prized profiles. Not bad PR for his first year.
Now it hasn’t all been a stroll through the lilies for Francis. The bishop of Providence, Thomas Tobin, said he was “disappointed” at the pope for something or other. But, then, the stern head of the Providence diocese was also critical of Nelson Mandela for his support for Abortion in South Africa. The bishop has every right, and maybe a duty, to call them as he sees them, but calling Mandela’s actions as president “shameful” on the day the people of South Africa were burying their beloved leader was a mean-spirited low blow that could have waited until the man was in the ground.
But then what should we expect from Tobin, the publisher of the Catholic Weekly in Rhode Island who found space on his paper’s editorial page for the thoughts and advice for children authored by the notorious Bishop John McCormack, the now retired bishop in New Hampshire and a well-known enabler from Cardinal Bernard Law’s see-no-evil cadre when the Boston archdiocese was shuttling abusive priests around to parishes in Massachusetts, to Texas, California, and elsewhere. Anywhere except to a grand jury and the courthouse. Casting stones can get to be a complicated process, it seems to me.
‘Twelve Pubs Of Christmas Crawl’ Under Fire – Not to be a spoilsport but it should be said (out loud, high decibel) that the holiday practice in Galway and some other watering holes is a tradition that deserves retiring. The idea of visiting a dozen pubs in a single day and having a shot of hard stuff in each bar, which involves many young tipplers, is a second cousin of the half-price happy hours that once were rampant here in the states. And it could be lethal. Some pubs have already called “time’s up” for the practice and many parents feel a sense of dread shadowing their Christmas holidays. The head of the Psychiatric Nurses Association said it was the young people who were most at risk. On a personal basis from my younger days, I can still recall far too vividly seeing the bars in Somerville late on holidays nights emptying out and sending revelers on shaky legs home to wives and children and maybe an unfinished tree still to be decorated. There was a scant supply of happy times in those homes.
A Word Of Praise for a Decent Man – I met former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds just once briefly, and all these years later I remember a small man with a ready, genuine smile and outreaching hand. Of his official duties I thought he had less guile and more freedom from his own ego than many of his high-placed contemporaries. I knew he was involved with the emerging peace process, but knew little more than that bare-bones notion. So it was comforting in one regard to read several press accounts marking the 20th anniversary of the Downing Street Declaration, which was followed nine months later by the IRA ceasefire, and note the fact that one of the signers of that historic document was Albert Reynolds. He was not there for the recent ceremony at Iveagh House, where he was represented by his wife Kathleen and their four children, because, his son Philip said, he is in the “very late stages” of Alzheimer’s disease.
The success of the Downing Street Declaration, most historians agree, can be attributed to the relationship of trust between the British Prime Minister John Major and the Albert Reynolds. Months of negotiations between the two leaders were successful in the main because the principals respected each other. Bertie Ahern is often described, even by himself, as the architect of the peace process, but it is important to say for the record that much of the success that Ahern enjoyed was a by-product of Reynolds’s hard work and character. And, of course, a result of being in the right place at the right time
Late Conversion By GOP On JFK – One of the abiding characteristics of right wing politicians and their cheerleaders on fact-free radio, conservative news outlets, and during any given minute on Fox, is that they have so little regard for the truth. Deeply involved in calling attention to the almost nightly lies and omissions by Fox’s Sean Hannity, and the self-created “excellence in broadcasting credo of Rush Limbaugh on weekday radio, is the citizen supported Media Matters, which assiduously monitors the media, particularly the right wing and tea partyers.
Willie Sutton robbed banks, he said, “because that’s where the money is.” Media Matters keeps a close eye and tape recorders listening to the nutty right because that’s where lies, misrepresentations, willful omissions, and torrents of race-baiting and homophobia are found – but damn few corrections when they are caught with their zeal-driven fingers in the ideological cookie jar. Can my friends on the right withstand a few case incidences (circa 2013) on their side’s love affair with President John F. Kennedy:
• Glen Beck (Nov. 22, radio): “Kennedy would be a Tea Party radical.” He went on to say that JFK had been “co-opted by the left.” Of course, and white-sheeted Klansmen were holiday revelers.
• Rush Limbaugh (Nov. 21, radio): Kennedy “was not in any way a liberal as you know liberals today” because JFK cut taxes and he was “proud to be an American.” And Rush makes $30 million a year spouting things like that and similar bilge.
• Chris Wallace (Nov. 17, Fox News Sunday): There’s a growing body of thought that in fact President Kennedy was quite conservative.” Wallace noted JFK’s tax cuts. JFK’s niece and Bobby Kennedy’s daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who was in studio with Wallace, laughed while pointing out that the 70 percent marginal tax rate that JFK favored was way above the current tax rate that conservatives claim is too high.
• The Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby: “By any reasonable definition [JFK] was a conservative.”
The record on President Kennedy is that all during his incomplete presidency, he was viciously attacked by conservatives. “Wanted for Treason” flyers were much in evidence in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, offering sentiments similar to those used today by the nutty right in describing President Obama. Kennedy’s support for the United Nations was in sharp contrast to today’s conservatives, who loath that institution and its supporters.
Haass Visit North Not A Smooth Trip – Richard Haass, the special US envoy and head-banger, has had better trips to Northern Ireland than the ragged, up-and-down negotiations he has been trying to score on with this most-recent visit. He has proposed a number of ideas for a new Northern Ireland flag that most unionists/loyalists, in a word, hate! He has also suggested authorizing licenses for flag display on government buildings. That proposal was DOA, as has been the case with most of the flag-related remedies offered.
Another idea the hard-working Haass is to create an “all embracing body” (as the Irish Times puts it) to deal with Troubles-related killings. This body would superimpose itself as a central clearing house whereas at the present time such investigations are tended to by the police (PSNI), the police Ombudsman ,and the Historical Enquiries Team. The Haass team has also proposed a body or board to replace the controversial Parade Commission.
First Minister Peter Robinson of the Stormont government has been testy, but up until mid-December he was listening to, if not delighted with, what he has been hearing and reading. His latest remarks re the Haass proposals have been harsh but hypothetical, with him saying he would be outraged if proposals for dealing with unresolved issues were not finalized or not revised.
A reminder: the purpose of the Haass intervention is three-fold but that can get lost amidst the pages and paragraphs of new, expanded, and edited proposals. The aims are: To resolve the deeply rooted divisions in the North over flags and parades; their protests; and the past. And Haass would like to wrap things up by the end of this year.
RANDOM CLIPPINGS
Not so comforting to see that Black Friday and its relatives shake out the same here or in Dublin. An array of tempting sales in Fair City shops and department stores have Irish women “stampeding’
Through stores, grabbing cut-rate TVs out of each other’s arms. People to hospitals amid sales riots. Just like the old Filene’s Basement. … The Fluties are back. Troy Flutie, Darren’s son and Doug’s nephew and a senior at Natick HS, threw seven touchdown passes in his last high school game, setting all sorts of school and state records. Next stop: Boston College. … Flying today is a horror show, an endless loop of middle seats and luggage fees, but if the airlines approve cell phone use in flight, I might never take a vacation outside of New England. … Why should AARP send me a donation slip for their “Foundation” when they have revenues (membership fees and licensing) of half a billion a year. Who’s kidding whom? … The other shoe for Taoiseach Enda Kenny re a possible European Union presidency has dropped and he says he was flattered but he is staying put. … That overpriced fool and photo-op hound Donald Trump, who escaped his padded cell twice in the past to show interest in presidential campaigns, is talking about challenging NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Attention must be paid, says candidate Trump. … Irish cadets, eleven of whom were graveside in November 1963, came back to Arlington for the 50th. … Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary is mellowing as lower fees and more liberal baggage rules have eased. … A well-deserved shout-out to Roche Brothers and the West Roxbury Business & Professional Association for their free food gift deliveries to the needy and seniors there. … The Police Chief of the World, Bill Bratton, is Mayor Bill deBlasio’s pick to head up the NY police. This is his second time leading the cops there. … A lot of good news out of Ireland amidst the plight of the struggling punters: Forbes Magazine is ranking Ireland “as the best country in the world in which to do business.” Wow! … Between 1906 (Jimmie Collins) and 2013 (John Farrell) the Red Sox have had twenty managers of Irish descent. And Italian Terry Francona may be the best ever. … Good to see Mayor-elect Marty Walsh walking back his early harsh words about the BRA (where I once roosted). Many talented staffers and creative ideas can be found on the ninth floor. … All the attention at the passing of Nelson Mandela reminds some of us that Mandela was an early visitor to Boston because we took a principled stand against apartheid. … Was anyone out there shocked that an auction of Curt Schilling’s property failed to attract interest in the former 38 Studios flagship video game? … President Obama was boxed about the head and shoulders on Benghazi and the “scandal” at the IRS, but the Administration House deserves a hit at the phone-tapping of the AP wire service and the current policy of news photos shot, controlled, and distributed by the White House. Silly and unnecessary! That’s so Nixonian, Barack. … Belt-tightening or something else? The US is consolidating its embassy in Italy and the one in the Vatican in one Roman location. … Lies & more lies: Rush Limbaugh continues saying that Americans don’t support the immigrants’ so-called “Path to Citizenship” despite a major poll showing that 63 percent of us favor it. The Big Lie lives in Roger Ailes’s attic. … Victoria’s Secret has opened a shop in Terminal A of the Dublin Airport, its first store in staid Dublin. … Galway’s Christmas market, opened before the holiday, drew a record 85,000 on the first weekend. … The Catholic League’s caped crusader, Bill Donohue, is standing alongside Rush L. in the latter’s attacks on the pope. Donohue has described the film industry as “controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular” Not my choice to speak for Catholicism. A homophobe and racist. No thanks. Catholics can do better.