By Bill O’Donnell
More Trouble for Irish Church – Boston’s archbishop, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, has not completed his report to the Vatican on the Dublin abuse investigation, but the situation in Irish Catholic Ireland at the moment can only be described as toxic, tawdry, and seemingly endless. The latest chapter in the Murphy Report just released describes a "breathtaking coverup" of a serial priest-abuser, Father Tony Walsh, by church officials for 17 long, painful years.
An Irish Times analysis clearly shows church leaders in Ireland knew and did nothing to corral Walsh’s predatory actions. As the Times notes, "Archbishops, bishops, chancellors, vicars general, parish priests –the list of senior clerics who knew of Walsh’s serial sexual abuse of children is virtually endless."

The Walsh abuse charges first came to the church’s attention in 1978, just two days after his ordination, but were not reported to the Irish police until 17 years later. During those years Walsh, while being shielded from prosecution by the church, abused hundreds of children.
The policies of the Vatican during the second half of the 20th century could be described at best, as muddled and contradictory. A decision, for instance, in 1993 by an Irish church tribunal to remove Walsh from the priesthood was overturned by the Vatican. More recently, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was placed in Dublin by the Vatican to clean up the mess there, but two of the Irish bishops implicated as enablers by inquiries offered their resignations; both were rejected by the Vatican. Further complicating the lengthy inquiry into the clerical abuse scandal is the fact that the Irish police were, to say the least, not particularly vigorous in prosecuting Catholic priests accused of clerical abuse of children.
One thing continues to stand out in the most recent 60-year history of the Catholic Church in Ireland: The church’s special position of authority and respect within the State, coupled with a reluctance by church hierarchy to publicly identify and charge offending priests, produced a climate that did little if anything to stop priest abuse while exposing hundreds of innocent young people to abuse that might never had occurred if firm, zero-tolerance action had been taken from the beginning.
Irish Echo Publisher Returns To Politics – Belfast media guru and Irish Echo publisher Mairtin O Muilleoir, who spent a long hitch as a Belfast city councillor, is looking to return to Belfast City Hall and the council there. He is being welcomed as the Sinn Fein successor to former mayor and councillor Alex Maskey, who recently stepped down after 27 years of service.
It is uncertain how O Muilleoir will work out the logistics as he has been a US resident since shortly after his purchase of the Irish Echo in 2007. Maybe he might look to emulate the late Sonny McDonough who, as a governor’s councillor in Boston, regularly voted by phone from his Florida winter home.
No Surprises on Nixon Tapes – Recently released tape recordings of Richard Nixon in the White House Oval Office some 16 months before his resignation as president reflect a low-brow prejudice towards certain ethnic and religious groups, including the Irish. The recordings depict Nixon protesting any personal prejudice but then going on to talk about "certain traits" that people had.
With regard to the Irish, Nixon is heard saying in early 1973: "The Irish have certain —for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish." More profound reasoning from America’s premier political misfit.
I am sure that the Irish on Nixon’s enemies list – folks like Marty Nolan and Bob Healy of the Globe, Mary McGrory and others outside the media like Bing Crosby, Jim Bishop, and Gregory Peck, were shattered by the late president’s designated opponents list. In actuality, everyone on the Nixon enemies list was absolutely delighted and dined off the designation for years.
Irish Bailout And the Granite State – The $100 billion bailout of Ireland and its mortally wounded banking system is the result of plans put in place years ago that were utilized by the European Union late last year to buy time and hold off Ireland’s debtors. The genesis of the recent EU rescue mission for Greece and Ireland had its beginnings at something called the Bretton Woods Conference that met for three weeks in July 1944 at the spacious and splendid Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
The elegant hotel, host in years past to wealthy vacationers and their servants, is just 160 miles from Boston, a easy two-and-a -half-hour ride.
The purpose of the conference in 1944 was to ensure the future stability of currency internationally, to encourage open markets, and to set an acceptable exchange rate. The main terms of the agreement created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These and other provisions went into effect officially in 1959. The smallish conference room where the agreement was signed is located on the hotel’s first floor and can be viewed by the public.
Ireland’s Quiet Role in WWII Resistance – Most of us who read Irish history are well aware that Ireland sent many adventurous sons off to war in South America .The names are etched in history: Bernardo O’Higgins in Chile, Leopoldo O’Donnell and Alexander O’Reilly in Spain, et al., but few of us know anything of the dangerous but vital role played by Irish men and women in the French Resistance during World War II.
I was in touch with Dr. David Murphy, of the history department at the National University in Maynooth, who has been researching the Irish in the Resistance, and he agrees that it is a fascinating wartime chapter and one most likely deserving of a book.
Among the agents or spies sent into France to work with the Resistance were a modest contingent of 30 Irishmen and women who risked torture and death if captured by the Gestapo but wanted to be part of the fight against Nazi Germany. The courageous group included Dublin-born Patricia O’Sullivan; future Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett; Katherine Ann McCarthy, an Irish nursing sister from Cork; and William O’Connor, William Cunningham, and Sam Murphy. They traveled across enemy lines carrying essential codes, shortwave radios and other contraband; if they had been searched, they would have met with almost certain death.
Most of the Irish Resistance fighters returned quietly to civilian life but it is known that ten were arrested and sent to camps. Several simply disappeared. I recall that in 2000 we visited a large, white stucco memorial in Caen, France, devoted to the French Resistance. If memory serves there was not a single Irish name among the photographs on display. Maybe Professor Murphy can change that.
NOTABLE QUOTES
"For 14 years I have placed my confidence in the citizens of Massachusetts—and they have generously responded by placing their confidence in me. Now, on the Friday after next, I am to assume new and broader responsibilities. But I am not here to bid farewell to Massachusetts. For 43 years —whether I was in London, Washington, the South Pacific, or elsewhere —this has been my home; and God willing, wherever I serve, this shall remain my home."
– President Elect John F. Kennedy in a speech to the Massachusetts Legislature, Jan. 9, 1961.
"I wish to inform you that the provision of further state funding to AIB will be conditional, inter alia, on the non-payment of any bonuses, no matter when they have been earned."
– Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, saying “no” to the Allied Irish Bank bonus plan.
"The sooner a general election is called the better. Public approval of the way the State is being run has shrunk to 8 per cent while the level of dissatisfaction with the government has ballooned to a staggering 90 per cent. Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s approval rating has shrunk to an all-time low of 14 per cent...Such a comprehensive rejection of policies, personalities, and parties should not be ignored."
– Irish Times Editorial, Dec. 16, 2010.
"We should all support Sinn Fein. If Gerry Adams can afford three houses on one industrial wage —without worrying about negative equity or mortgages, etc. — then surely the whole financial crisis is just a government con trick. Forget the IMF and the EU; just ask the Sinn Fein president how it is done. Good advice costs nothing and Gerry always gives an honest answer."
– John Brennan, Slugger O’Toole Blog.
"The budget is going to increase my taxes, reduce my income, and cut my standards of living, and these guys are the culprits."
– Stephen Henry, a Dublin working man, pausing to glower at the Anglo Irish Bank building."
"We are not going to apologize for any small role we may have played in helping to remove a dictator who made his people suffer for 20 years, carried out horrific acts, and didn’t care about democracy. He is gone now and thank God for that."
– The first of dueling quotes from former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern about the Iraq war, May 2003
"We were always dead against the war."
– Bertie Ahern on the same subject 7 months later in December 2003 discussing the Iraq war
"Contrast [today’s] lavish ministerial lifestyle with the Nobel peace laureate’s continued use of trains and taxis. Hume gave his Nobel Prize money to the St. Vincent de Paul Society. His confidante was not the media but his wife, Pat."
– John Cooney, Irish Independent, on why John Hume of Derry is Ireland’s greatest man

The Honeypot, Alas, Still Open For Business – A quick spin around the rarified ambiance of the corridors of power in the old sod would suggest that while the currently grim isle has hardships previously unknown to the home-bred Irish punter, the High & Mighty (ranking government employees to you and me), have overdosed on the fruits of the Tiger!
An example at hand: Ireland’s esteemed Minister of Transport, Noel Dempsey, who turns a youthful 58 on the sixth of this New Year, has read the tea leaves and deserted Fianna Fail for luxurious retirement. Gold watches are out this season, but as a sign of good faith for services rendered Noel will be leaving with a one-time, tax-free $413,000 parachute. And he can begin soon after collecting his annual pension of close to $15,000 each and every month.
A colleague of Noel’s, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, is leaving, also sans the gold watch, but with slightly in excess of $400,000 tax-free and an annual pension of $170,000. As the late Jerry Williams of Boston radio might have said: "Neither will need a dinner." A deputy in the Irish Dail (or parliament) who can keep a low profile, stay out of jail, and give lip service to the Whip can retire in ten years at age 50 with full retirement of $150,000 a year. The Taoiseach defended recent payouts to civil servants as "not a bonus." We know, Brian, it’s never the money.
Later Cowen defended ministerial Mercs (that’s Mercedes Benz to we folk) for his cabinet while protestors picketed Leinster House. And despite a cut in social welfare and other barebones essentials, new luxury cars have been ordered for the cabinet: Cost: $1.3 million, and don’t forget the Director of Public Prosecutions, James Hamilton, who complained recently that his office is "overstretched." He has managed to look like a well-heeled advance man for Lonely Planet by jetting across the globe on taxpayer-paid junkets Cost: 35 foreign trips. Total $50,000. Ain’t it grand.
The end of the pile is near – Staff of the Irish Health Service have racked up over a third of a billion dollars (that's correct) in expenses in a brief but glorious four years. I forgot to mention that the Health Service is indisputably the most inefficient and unresponsive Irish government agency in Ireland. Before Brian Lenihan stepped in and said a loud “no,” senior Allied Irish Bank executives were all set to each receive a bonus of $235,000. Shades of Goldman Sachs!
There’s more to come, sad to say, but that’s enough to help you frame an answer when next asked about Ireland’s financial crisis.
Welcome to the New Year — A look at some January history over the years:
On the first of January 1973, Ireland joined the European Economic Community together with the United Kingdom and Denmark … The actor Barry Fitzgerald died 50 years ago this month (1/4) … Forty-two years ago Nationalist marchers were attacked at Burntollet Bridge and the N.I. civil rights campaign began (1/4) … In 1839, the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, Dublin, opened (1/6) … Ratification by Dail Eireann of the disputed Anglo- Irish Treaty by a vote of 64 to 57 (1/7) … Brian Friel, Ireland most honored playwright, was born in 1929 in Omagh, Co. Tyrone (1/9) … Edmund Burke, orator and politician, was born in Dublin in 1729 (1/12) … On Jan. 13, 1941, James Joyce died in exile in Zurich … Sean MacBride, son of Maud Gonne and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, died in 1988 (1/15) … Nobel Peace Laureate and political leader John Hume was born in Derry in 1937 (1/18) … Patriot Kevin Barry was the first IRA volunteer to be executed during the Anglo-Irish war, Jan. 20, 1902 … Finally, on Jan. 30, 1972, thirteen unarmed men, seven under age 19, were shot and killed by British Paras on Bloody Sunday in Derry.
RANDOM CLIPPINGS
Isn’t it more than ironic that former Anglo-Irish Bank CEO, David Drumm, who presided over the multi-billion dollar meltdown of his bank, is now living in Massachusetts, has filed for bankruptcy here, and is running a consulting firm in Boston that "advises businesses on financial matters, including debt issues." … The Vatican doesn’t have enough troubles in Ireland and elsewhere with investigators now looking at money laundering at the Vatican bank. … I don't know what to think when the Vatican felt "offended" that Ireland had the nerve to disrespect the Vatican’s sovereignty by asking the Holy See to answer some questions about decades of clerical abuse. … Gerry Adams was initially turned down when he went to Louth to register and vote. Seems he and Chicago’s Rahm Emmanuel have some residency problems. … Bertie Ahern may be out as Taoiseach but he’s not out of the fundraising business. Yet his recent whip-around/hold-up had a lot of empty, unpaid tables. … Killing earmarks in the federal budget also killed the $8 million tabbed for Ted Kennedy’s Senate center, but they’ll find the money.
For the first time since Ian Paisley, Sr. founded the Democratic Unionist Party there are no Paisleys in the DUP party executive. … and if I were in a trench in some Afghan backwater, I’d want Mr. Lucky, Peter Robinson, at my side, Wow! … Nice to see a major Irish paper choosing the Cooley Peninsula as one of Ireland’s most scenic drives, and the same goes for the briny beauty of the Causeway Coast up north. … Paddy Moloney, leader and spiritual counselor of the Chieftains, is set to receive a lifetime achievement award from NY’s National Arts Club; the Boston Eire Society honored Paddy and the entire Chieftains’ contingent eons ago. … Galway’s famed Druid Theatre Company and the National University in Galway have teamed up in a three-year partnership. … The Anna Livia sculpture (Floozie in the Jacuzzi) is long gone from O’Connell Street, but it has been resurrected and is due to decorate the front of Dublin’s Ashling Hotel.
Dublin theater buffs have a keen treat in store when John B. Keane’s play, "The Field," opens on Jan. 13 for a month’s run in Temple Bar starring Brian Dennehy as Bull McCabe. … Nice to see old friend Maureen Toal, the brilliant Irish-speaking stage actress (and of TV’s Glenroe), being honored with an honorary doctorate at University College Dublin. … One of Ireland’s classiest hotels and golf courses is the historic Ballymascanlon House Hotel run by the Quinn Family near Dundalk on the border. Brian and Oliver Quinn, and their late mother, Irene Quinn, operate my all-time favorite hotel in all Ireland. It’s a grand gateway going north or coming back. … After a long wait, the Irish law reform commission is strongly recommending abolishing the outmoded practice of jailing debtors. … In case you missed it, it seems that the Soldiers of Fortune , (cum/ Fianna Fail) are bottoming out in public poll disregard at a minuscule 17 percent. That’s about the same as the US Congress. That's scary.
A Final Thought: Be nice to Ireland and visit it in the New Year. The Green Isle can use all the friends it can get. And never forget it wasn’t the people of Ireland who helped lead their country into insolvency. It was the banks, a distracted and careless government, and those who stayed too long at the fair.