Irish Firm Key Rescue Player -- There were many companies and countries that assisted in the near- miraculous rescue operation in the tiny desert mining outpost in Chile, but none played a more significant role than a small Shannon-based Irish engineering firm. Mincon Ltd. employs 52 workers at Shannon, 130 world wide, and specializes in precision mining equipment. The Irish company supplied the drill that first broke through the underground cavity that held the 33 miners. The drill, called a Mincon MX 5053, made the initial breakthrough to the miners and provided the first solid evidence that they were trapped but alive when the instrument was withdrawn with a hand-lettered message from the trapped miners below saying, "We are fine in the shelter."
The Mincon drill was used a second time to provide a critical 5.5-inch opening down through the rock to the miners that was used to get food, medicine, and a communication kit a half-mile underground. That lifeline lasted for 70 days until all were rescued.
Joe Purcell, 44, a co-owner of Mincon, told the world media following the rescue, "We are very proud that a tool designed and made by us in Shannon made the crucial breakthrough in locating the men which led to the rescue. When I get home to Ennis tonight, I’ll definitely pop a bottle of champagne." A happy ending with an Irish tag.
Irish Diaspora, No Voting Allowed -- Throughout the free world, more than a hundred countries have some sort of arrangement for its citizens abroad to participate in elections at home. Sadly that roster of nations does not include the Republic of Ireland. With a presidential election set to be held in Ireland this coming year, the interest and intensity of Irish people living abroad holding Irish citizenship has been steadily growing. The voting rights ban also is in effect for other Irish elections -- for the Dail, direct-election Senate seats, and national referenda.
A Sinn Fein representative speaking in London said, "Successive presidents such as Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese have been great ambassadors, regularly visiting the Irish community here in Britain. It is a scandal that those same citizens have no say in who the next president will be."
The cautious Irish political establishment has been traditionally hesitant to open up voting to an overseas wild- card electorate that would consist of young, liberal, and harder-to-control voters than the conventional party constituents at home. However, with modern communications and media access it would seem the right thing to do. It is clearly long overdue for the political leaders and the major parties in Ireland to show some spine and move forward on this issue.
Teddy Bear Speaks Your Language -- Adrian Devane and his wife Karen in Galway have come up with a simple idea that has been gaining marketing traction and could end up being a toy store favorite with infants and toddlers (and also as an adult novelty) this Christmas season and beyond. The couple have come up with the world’s first Irish-speaking Teddy bear, which its creators hope will promote the Irish language. The Gaelic-speaking doll, nicknamed BB, has a child’s voice and a 33-word vocabulary that focuses on the Irish words for colors, numbers, and shapes.
Devane, disappointed in the negative attitude towards the Irish language in Ireland, felt that introducing the teddy bear to younger children was a good place to encourage support of a wider use of Irish. "I wanted to get back to basics," he says.
As someone who spent time working with young Irish would-be entrepreneurs, I think the Devanes have a winner on their hands if they can tie up with a reputable marketing and distributing agent. And it is a product that can appeal not solely to children but, if it is priced right, also year-round to Irish families abroad as a tangible, novel taste of home.
McAleese Says ‘No’ to NY Parade -- Like Tom Menino in Boston and a number of others in other venues have done, Irish President Mary McAleese has let the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee know that she won’t be parading nor serving as Grand Marshall this coming March. The presidential staff issued the conventional "scheduling conflict" excuse but it is well known that the Irish President has been a longtime supporter of gay rights and would not be involved in a parade that excluded their participation.
Following the gruesome rash of murders, assaults ,and suicides involving gay and lesbian young people in recent weeks, this is a moment in time, it seems to me, to take an unequivocal stand against discrimination of fellow human beings based on their sexuality.
National Front On Budget Not On -- It’s hard to pin down now who actually scuttled the idea suggested by the Green Party of having the major Irish political parties come together on the national budget. It was a good idea for about 36 hours, with Taoiseach Brian Cowen apparently signing on only to do a U-turn and then denying he had ever agreed to any such thing. The leaders of Fine Gael and Labour were at least briefly on board but with both parties looking for a political edge in the 2011 election, they quickly shuffled off following the Fianna Fail minuet.
What clearly was missing in the scenario was the courage displayed back in 1987 when Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes agreed to form a united political front with Charles Haughey’s Fianna Fail government in an effort to resolve the serious financial problems facing Ireland at that time.
Looking over the current political landscape, it is clear, certainly in hindsight, that the Green’s John Gormley and his move to find some all-party unity on a budget in today’s parlous times was destined to be a non-starter. After all, careers and political futures were at stake and there wasn’t an Alan Dukes in sight.
NOTABLE QUOTES

"Ireland was an oligarchy full of one-man banks, while absentee board members looked on. It was a situation particular to Ireland; something that couldn’t happen in the UK."
-- Shane Ross, Irish senator, journalist & author

　
"The [Republican Party] has got to take a hard look at some of the positions they’ve been taking. We can’t be anti-immigration, for example. Because immigrants are fueling this country. Without immigrants we would be like Europe or Japan, with an aging population and no young people coming in to take care of it."
-- Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State & National Security Adviser

　
"I realize that to many people it is not as emotionally satisfying to discuss this as to talk about the peace in 1995. This is what peace is about —about giving the people the chance to live responsible, normal lives. ... This is also part of living a peaceful life, facing the crisis and facing it together."
-- President Bill Clinton, speaking on the Irish economic woes at Derry’s University of Ulster

Northwest Under Invasion -- There were no longboats, or fierce warriors in armor with maces, but no matter how you cut it, the Northwest had been invaded. The invaders were some 5,000 farm minks that were released into the Donegal wild by animal rights activists. The activists had broken into a mink farm in southwest Donegal with wire cutters and "liberated" thousands of the coats-in-waiting as a protest against keeping the critters in captivity.
The result was a mad scramble to try to recapture the mink before they could imperil salmon spawning in the nearby Owenea and Glen Rivers. There was also concern for the escaped mink and for poultry and livestock in the countryside. "It is an act of terrorism," said mink farmer Connie Anderson, "It was pure sabotage and totally uncalled for, especially cutting the wire and opening the gates. That was just wrong."
There are currently only five mink farms operating in Ireland but these are expected to be gradually closed by 2012 under an Irish government program.
Henhouses, Foxes, And Irish Banks -- The Anglo-Irish Bank was one of the Big Three in Irish banking along with Bank of Ireland and the Allied Irish Bank. It loaned out hundreds of millions of euros in mortgages and development speculation loans virtually free of any real government regulatory control. Today the Anglo Irish Bank is the biggest debtor in Irish history, to the tune of at least $50 billion; the Irish government has taken it over and nationalized it; and the rate payers, the tax-paying punters of Ireland, are on the hook for losses that will cost -- in interest alone !!! – more than $1.4 billion each and every year through 2025.
How does a bank or any business accumulate in a few tigerish years debts that today threaten in very real terms the stability and future financial well being of the Republic of Ireland ? We can scroll for a partial answer by looking at the executive actions of the former youthful wunderkind of Anglo, the bank’s former chief executive, David Drumm. He and Anglo Chairman Sean Fitzpatrick and a board of compliant stooges used Anglo as a piggy bank to fund get-rich-quick schemes, grandiose development plans, and speculative ventures that they hoped would catapult a handful of well-connected banking colleagues into billionaire status. All of this was accomplished under the noses of lazy, unconcerned, and incompetent state inspectors.
One of the more brazen schemes involved some $100 million borrowed by the chairman with Drumm’s knowledge and assent that remains unpaid. Each year Drumm and his board of directors agreed to erase Fitzpatrick’s $100 million in borrowed debt and transfer it to a friendly bank that would hide it until Anglo’s annual audit was finished and then put it back on Anglo’s books. Other Anglo directors enjoyed similar, ongoing access to the bank’s assets
Other millions are owed by the former CEO, but that’s a dry hole as Mr. Drumm now lives in Massachusetts, in a house in Wellesley after moving from his Chatham home on the Cape (purchased in 2008 for $4.6 million). He has refused to return to Ireland to aid in the investigation of how Anglo got cleaned out and has filed for bankruptcy in a Bay State court.
Embarrassed by press reports, Drumm’s wife has finally stopped trying to get their Malahide home near Dublin transferred and out of the reach of the bankruptcy court. Drumm has a pension from the Anglo Irish bank worth $7 million that he has been allowed to retain and he is using that to bargain with Anglo to pay down his debt. Anglo has refused the deal.
Neither Fitzpatrick nor Drumm have been indicted nor, of course, jailed, but Fitzpatrick, unlike Drumm, at least has remained in Ireland to face the music.
Meanwhile Ireland has pledged to fully guarantee all Irish bank losses, fulfilling a Fianna Fail-led government promise that the people of Ireland will have to ultimately make good on. Also, Ireland is more or less mandated to keep its repayment pledge lest it be forced to avoid financial collapse by seeking a European Union bailout, which would then most likely trigger an EU demand (which the EU is salivating to do) that Ireland increase its lowest-in-the-EU corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent, putting it more in line with other EU countries. Not a pretty picture!
Chinese Butts Top Belfast Counterfeits -- Cigarette smuggling is big business on the island of Ireland. Most smuggling operations are controlled by former and present paramilitary gang members who have eschewed patriotism for street crime riches. The hot import today in Belfast and areas in the North are Chinese cigarettes. The packaging, carefully made to exactly duplicate popular legal brands, is turned out in huge Chinese factories but the product itself, the cigarettes, are unmistakably "Made in China"; they are bad smelling, foul, and instantly identified as inferior, but they are cheap and plentiful
The Dalai Lama, the classic bete noir of the Chinese government, is due to visit Ireland next year. Maybe Robinson & McGuinness could cut a deal: Promise to keep the Dalai Lama out of the North if the Chinese stop flooding Belfast with their bad butts. It can’t hurt to ask.
Reminder -- The memorial and celebration of the life of the late artist & musician David O’Docherty is being held at the Black Rose in Boston on Sun., Nov. 14, upstairs at the Rose from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
RANDOM CLIPPINGS

More than nine million people have logged on to the internet to seek out ancestors from the 1901 and 1911 census archives announced recently. … John Hume, in what should be a popular choice even in unionist circles, has been voted by the listeners/viewers of RTE as "the greatest person in the history of Ireland," beating out Michael Collins, Mary Robinson, et al. … The photogenic Kylemore Abbey in Galway county has closed the girls school there but the good nuns are now making and selling chocolate products. … Three Democratic members of the Mass. Legislature, Charles Murphy, Eugene O’Flaherty and Martin Walsh, have petitioned Hillary Clinton to include Donegal along with the six Northern counties in economic plans for the northern part of Ireland.
Follow the money: Irish construction companies are in Saudi Arabia hoping to grab some of the action there on infrastructure and public building development worth $35 billion. … Irish nurses are emigrating in large numbers with most of this year’s 1,600 grad RN’s heading to the UK, Australia, US, and Canada hunting for jobs. … The hottest fashion accessory and trendsetter coming out of the North these days, they say, is the bowler hat. And we thought it was only on display at Triumphant Orange Order walk-abouts. … The number of ordinations in Ireland has dropped below those in England and Wales for the first time in memory. The good news is that the website CountMeOut.ie, which helps disaffected Catholics, has suspended its services. … In the small change department, Irish banks are repaying $140 million to customers they overcharged –and it won’t be the first bank repayments. … Unmarked graves of Irish soldiers who died after serving in the British Army in the first two world wars will have headstones newly erected at Glasnevin for Nov. 11.
The Belfast Telegraph, in a first, has hired an onbudsman or in Tel-speak a "Readers’ Editor" to handle complaints, comments, etc. … The newest novel by the literature Nobelist Mario Vargas Liosa of Peru is based on the life of Roger Casement. … I don’t care what kind of a shine Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis puts on it; the BPD’s immigration checks are counter productive and a repudiation of the policy in place for over a quarter century with the Flynn and Menino administrations. … As the father of a daughter, I would rather see some Tea-Bagger get elected to Congress than former Bad Cop Jeff Perry, who is running in the 10th against former Norfolk DA and Bill Bulger nemesis Bill Keating. … I’m glad someone said it: There’s no money out of Boston or New York or anywhere going to the misguided ex-patriot dissident/breakaways who are killing security forces and bombing cities in Ireland trying to convince a peace-seeking constituency that no price is too high to pay for Irish unity. … The former watchtower at Foxhill in South Armagh’s so-called "Bandit country" was long a symbol of the Troubles with its roving overhead helicopters and nearby army barracks. It has been dismantled and is being readied for regeneration as a tangible peace dividend. … The nationalist Northern town of Newry, a favorite market town of mine just up from Warrenpoint and the canal, has now emulated Derry with some of its own "no-go areas."
Maybe I haven’t got into the spirit of things, but I think it’s beyond silly to pay big money, usually extra, to buy a shirt or jacket with Guinness beer or a Harp logo or some other boozy advertisement imprinted on it. I always thought it was the advertiser that paid the medium to spread the word, not the other way around. Well, maybe there could be one exception -- the Red Sox.