BY BILL O’DONNELL
Irish President In UN Rebuke – The ninth president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, is a 75-year-old veteran politician from the west of Ireland who has rarely been hesitant to air his opinions and ideas. This was evident in a speech he made recently to the Immigrant Council of Ireland that severely criticized members of the United Nations Security Council for not doing enough to aid migrants and help provide funding for refugees during the current crisis.
Higgins reminded his audience of the horrific numbers that include 60 million displaced, the highest such accounting since the Second World War, and the estimated 2,500 people who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean.

The Irish president reminded these countries of their pledges of aid and warned there is an obligation on developed nations to do more.
He added: “We are at a critical moment in our history. The migration crisis is great in scale and is likely to be at the center of the EU and international agenda for several decades to come.
“The opportunity we have to make a real difference to the future of our human family, to shape a future built on solidarity, compassion and common humanity is one we cannot afford to refuse.”
Higgins’s remarks to an international audience, I strongly believe, is a principled role that an Irish president can and should play. When one recalls the decades of charitable giving and in-kind aid, and the diplomatic and humane values espoused by Ireland, it makes sense that this country of our ancestors speaks loud and clear to a troubled world.
Job Openings for Irish Speakers – There is a search on now to locate and hire some 180 Irish speakers. The qualified new positions are needed by the European Union to fill translator jobs in Brussels and Luxembourg. Oftentimes there are scant openings for Irish speakers, but as Gaeltacht Minister Sean Kyne noted, “This is a wonderful opportunity to pursue a rewarding international career and to raise the profile of our national language across Europe.”
The job openings are committed and funded. Applications are available at the recruitment website, jobs.eu-careers.eu. The competition is open to university graduates, including those getting out this summer, with an excellent command of Irish and a thorough knowledge of at least two other official EU languages, including English and French or German. The starting salary for the positions is 4,384 euro (or roughly $52,000 per annum) with possible additional allowances
“Opposition” In Stormont. Still A Way To Go – In case you missed it, there have been crucial rule changes that now allow the executive to have two of its original, smaller parties — SDLP and the Ulster Unionists — be formally recognized as the Opposition, not unlike the Irish Dail and the House of Commons currently do. In theory this should mean a spirited and even vigorous debate over legislation under consideration, but so far it has meant crude assembly game-playing with the existing Opposition parties charging Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party with putting up roadblocks to the newly installed Opposition.
In a joint statement the two Opposition parties are alleging that the DUP and Sinn Fein (a strange but self-serving political alliance for each) are limiting the Opposition partners “to bringing debates to the floor only once every two weeks, and to have Opposition Days just every so often.”
The chief whip of the SDLP, Alex Attwood, and his UUP counterpart, Robin Swain, said “ ...the DUP and Sinn Fein have shown both their arrogance and their fear, with a slap in the face for our democracy.”
If nothing else, the realignment in progress could create a new political life, one not necessarily dictated by the longstanding unionist versus republican blocs. We shall see, and the same for the vexing leadership questions in the North.
Doubling Down On Muhammad Ali – Back some 44 years ago this month, in 1972, Ali came to Dublin’s Croke Park for an exhibition match between “The Greatest,” and Al “Blue” Lewis. We were visiting friends in Dublin when I found I could get tickets; promoters were having a hard time moving the 25,000 people they hoped the former Cassius Clay and Lewis would entice into Croke Park in mid-summer.
The bout wasn’t much. Ali won with an 11th-round TKO, but the real show was the week that Ali spent in the Dublin area. He was everywhere, chatting with a new friend, or a road sweeper in Centre City, waving to everyone he saw, and talking ragtime with anyone who would listen. Not since JFK’s 1963 time in Ireland had a visitor from abroad found a bigger welcome in Leinster House.
Before the Dublin match, my wife Jean and I came upon Ali and his entourage out in Wicklow, I believe, where a club full of adoring fans cheered him on until he had to return to his training camp. He was a sensation, the Irish loved him, and as an old political junkie, I thought he might have given someone a tough race for a Dail seat that summer.
Fast forward: It was in the 1990s, date uncertain, when I was in Boston at my office and saw that Ali would be in a downtown bookstore, likely it was Barnes & Noble, then on Washington Street. I wanted to see how Ali had dealt with age and infirmity so off I went to stand in line to see him and shake his hand maybe, or who knows, mention our time (not together!) in Dublin.
After about 20 minutes, it was my turn to say hello to the Champ. The only thing we had in common was Dublin, 1972. I shook his hand, firm, still an athlete’s paw. I had little time but I wanted to mention Ireland and that long-gone day 20 odd years earlier.
I blurted out as I still held his hand, “They loved you in Ireland!” And I mentioned the smiles and the cheers and I repeated that he was a big hit, and to my astonishment a big smile, I mean a smile big enough to warm a rogue’s heart, creased his face. It lasted a few moments. Then it was time to move on. And I wanted to believe that the big Ali grin was his recall of his days in Ireland, and, maybe, if God gave day passes, how he remembered that day just how much the people of Ireland loved him.
Respite For Bertie Ends On Up Note – Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern hasn’t spent too much time recently on the front pages of the Indo or the Times, but he has a good memory and has been working diligently to elevate his status with the Dubs, some of it successful, some maybe less so. There he was, the retired PM, at Queen’s University Belfast talking to the issues of the day: “Reflections on Peace in a Changed Ireland.”
Bertie had good words to say about fellow politicians, albeit a bit surreal that his good words were mostly directed to Northern politicians, some dead, most, like Bertie, safely retired. He had praise for Ian Paisley and Tony Blair, and, surprisingly, more panegyrics for the first prime minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig. With Paisley, Bertie recalled, “It took longer ... with Paisley, but by the end it had blossomed into genuine friendship.”
Ahern reminded listeners in Belfast that for many years Northern Ireland hovered on the brink of “all-out civil war.” He noted that while politicians are often criticized ... “Northern Ireland had been served well by a generation of political leaders.” Who could Bertie possibly be thinking of?
The former Fianna Fail Leader also observed that cross-border accommodations ... and a growing tourism industry were “evidence of a new era in all-Ireland strategic cooperation.” There was more, but you get the idea.
Donald’s “Doonbeg Wall” Underwhelming – In the not-too-distant past Donald Trump saw a troubled golf course and decided to buy it. What else do you do when you’re a presumptive GOP nominee and presumptive billionaire. Well, sure enough, you buy things and Doonbeg in Clare was under-priced and needed some rehab. Donald described it in paraphrase as a steal. He grabbed a good deal in wee Ireland and he was not hiding his triumph under his cloak when there were tales to tell future constituents of his prowess with a deal. (Read the book and you, too, can become...)
In any event, the Donald managed to insult a regiment of local environmental activists, the Irish in general and his Clare purchase itself in humbling terms. That’s at least one major reason that the cute Dublin pols were meeting last month in the backroom of Lily’s Bordello to plan how not to be seen greeting Donald at the Dublin Airport when he arrived there late last month en route to Clare. Their dilemma was resolved when Trump cancelled his planned stop-over in Ireland – no love lost there – on the way home from Scotland where he touted yet another of his historic golf club purchases, Turnberry in Ayrshire.
Still, maybe Donald can collect (but not publish) meaty quotes from the abutters to Doonbeg. The most recent description of the Doonbeg High Seat is that it is “monstrous and unsustainable.” The neighbors termed the golf course area the result of “poor planning and research by the golf club.” A golfer from Newbridge said the wall will ultimately kill the dunes and leave Doonbeg a flat piece of land.
But the Donald is neither amused nor daunted. He wants to build a four-mile seawall barrier that he hopes will help to hold back the erosion-hit dunes beside his golf links. The last word from his neighbors is that the fantasy-driven seawall is “naive and unprecedented...and the “very thing that is being protected will be damaged.”

Loretto Sisters Report To Rome. What’s Up? – The National Catholic Reporter carried a story last month that the superior of a major order of Catholic nuns, the Loretto Sisters, has been summoned to the Vatican to explain her order’s stands on some “areas of concern.” This summons from the Vatican’s congregation for religious life comes months after the closing in 2014 of the visitations that began in 2008.
In a statement in the Global Sisters Report by Loretto President Sr. Pearl McGivney, she announced her summons to Rome for this October. In the statement she said her community “engaged wholeheartedly in the Apostolic Visitation process, and through it, affirmed our Loretto charism and our lives together.” The visitation was one of 90 nationwide that were personally visited in 2010. “The visitors seemed warm and genuinely interested in our lives,” McGivney said, “and we had no expectation that six years later we would find ourselves being asked to come to Rome to address any outstanding issues.”
After the six-year delay without any feedback or additional information requests for the Loretto sisters, the summons raises new and unexpected issues as to what could have surfaced to necessitate answering a call to appear at the Vatican. A major question might also be what was the goal or the purpose of the visitations and why did the call to Rome take so long to resurface under Pope Francis’s papacy?
Dublin’s Venerable Gresham Hotel For Sale – A handful of potential bidders for the famed city-center hotel are waiting to learn who will be the new owner. Depending on how determined the next proprietor might be, the selling price is reported to be around $95 million. Among the short list of bidders for the famed hotel is commercial banking giant Goldman Sachs and Boston-linked Cerberus.
Berkeley Balcony Collapse: Owners Blame Students – The families of the victims and survivors of the June 2015 balcony collapse that killed six students and badly injured seven others in California have a new heartache to contend with. The several companies that are being sued in civil court for negligence and defective material use have blamed the students who were in California working on J-1 visas, suggesting that the group was at least “partly responsible” for the tragedy.
The civil litigation will be lengthy and expensive for both plaintiffs and defendants; possible appeals could mean several years before a decision is finally reached.
RANDOM CLIPPINGS
A sad 20th anniversary as we remember Dublin investigative reporter Veronica Guerin, 37, who was cowardly shot to death on the Naas Road in June 1996 by organized crime leaders. … Early reviews of the Boston-based documentary “The Peacemaker” have good things to say about the focus of the film, Professor Padraig O’Malley and producer/director James Demo. … Projections for the financial health of the EU are mixed but the acid test will be how it reacts to Great Britain’s drawn-out exit from the Union after the June 23 referendum. … Barring something dramatic, the elite on Nantucket can claim victory after Bay State legislators killed the Cape project dream plan of Cape Wind. … Maybe robo-calls will never stop annoying consumers, but the US House is trying to force Telecom to offer us free blocking, Time will tell. … After the Whitewater fiasco that haunted the Clintons for years, there’s scant sympathy out there for Baylor’s former president, Ken Starr. … The new leader of the Irish Labour Party, Brendan Howlin, joined the parade in saying that Enda Kenny’s patchwork government will not last 12 months. … A surprise call from Archbishop Eamon Martin, who is supporting a united Ireland. In no surprise, the Ulster Unionist Party is not convinced that Martin is right. … Alasdair McDonnell, former leader of the SDLP, said that going into Opposition at Stormont was the “right decision.”
Kerry’s beaches – Inch, Banna and Rossbeigh – are the most popular as summer heats up in Ireland. … Ashford Castle sits among the top hotels on the Isle, with Adare and Dromoland following. … New York’s self-described billionaire couldn’t even play it straight with the veterans, stiffing them until called on it by a newsman – just like he did with his four military exemptions. … The big shots at the Anglo Irish bank are starting to fall like dominoes. About time. … How important is the Irish Senate? Not that important since the Taoiseach appointed Billy Lawless as the first Irish citizen “living in the US” to be named to that body. A tough commute – and those phone bills! … It is sad to see nativist and part-time patriot Pat Buchanan spilling his colonial garbage and reduced to small-town newspapers and 17th century ideas. Retire, Pat, please retire. … Having spent some of my best days ever in the Omeath and Dundalk area, count me as a solid advocate for the building of the Narrow Water Bridge linking north and south and for a fresh spirit of cross-border cooperation.