The recent decision by the Irish government to shut down its embassy in Rome is meeting with widespread public disapproval. Although the closing was characterized as an economy move at the time, there is a feeling among many of the country’s punters that it was a retaliatory back-of-the-hand to Rome.

The current reading of the public discontent is a resounding 93 percent opposed to the closing, while Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s denunciation of the Vatican over its passive stance on clerical child abuse was broadly hailed by the same public last July. Critics of the embassy closing have targeted Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore as a principal architect behind the move to shut the embassy, alleging Gilmore with a “raw hatred” of the Catholic Church.
However, there have been indications that both the government and the Vatican would like to reduce the heat generated by the Dublin-Rome imbroglio. The rhetoric on both sides has been toned down and relations have gradually improved. A new papal nuncio has been named, an Irish American with a solid Vatican pedigree, Monsignor Charles Brown. Early last month the new envoy, in a positive Vatican move, was made an archbishop by Pope Benedict.
Yet all the news is not serene between the Rome and Dublin. The pope recently named 22 new cardinals but seemed to snub Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, head of the Dublin archdiocese, who was not included. Also two Irish bishops whom Archbishop Martin wanted resignations from, remain at their posts in Ireland with Vatican support. Martin was sent by the Vatican to stem the growing church crisis in Dublin but many in Rome now believe that he was too outspoken, becoming more a man of the people and less a creature of the Vatican.
West Of Ireland Hit by Emigration – The so-called Live Register, which tracks the unemployed in Ireland, has been going down in recent months but officials there point to what they call mass emigration in recent years as the driving force, not new job creation. “We have just gone back to the 1950s. We are exporting our young people all over the world,” said county official Michael Kilcoyne. The newly elected chairman of the Kerry Gaelic Athletic Association, Patrick O’Sullivan, sees emigration as the greatest challenges facing the GAA now. “It’s a serious problem in the west of Ireland,” O’Sullivan said. “I don’t think our people realize that the west of Ireland is being cleaned out, with all the young people leaving. The clubs are the face of the parish; if they disappear, then the parish loses its identity.”
Voting Machines Looking For A Home – The cost of the machines when purchased was $75 million but in a bureaucratic nightmare —one of many authored during the lengthy Fianna Fail tenure —they are now virtually worthless for anything but scrap metal. Bertie Ahern’s brainchild, meant to modernize electronic voting in the Republic, fell somewhat short of expectations. The machines were ordered, paid for, then soon after the purchase it was discovered that they “didn’t do the job.” Plain and simple. The voting machines were initially tried on a pilot basis in the 2002 general election, but the plug was pulled before the 2004 election as the flawed jump into the new millennium came to a grinding halt. Most of the machines are stored in the Gormanstown army camp (the annual storage fee is around $200,000) available for sale with few if any takers on the horizon.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan, with a curious bent for unearthing silver linings and a sense of humor to match, suggested that the voting machines might find new homes in Irish pubs around the world where emigrants would have a chance to vent their electoral anger on the useless units. Good one, Michael!
History Made On Aran Isle – History of a sort was made recently when an Inish Mor driver received the first ever traffic ticket on the Aran Isles. The ticket written for parking in a restricted area at Kilronan Harbor was the first since the new legislation went into effect in the new year. The number of motor vehicles on Inish Mor is estimated today at 400, a far cry from the tiny number of cars forty years earlier. But then, there have been other changes as well on the isles.
Back in the summer of 1972 my wife Jean (seven months pregnant) and I spent several days on Inish Mor, quietly exploring the island while we luxuriated in the twin flow of music —the playful musical pub sessions and the pervasive lilt of Gaelic that happily surrounded us. One morning at the Kilronan pier, a young man and his older friend invited the two O’Donnells for a short sail, but Jean’s stomach said no, so off I went and boarded with my new companions. I enjoyed the sail in the choppy harbor and later that night we went to the nearby dance hall for a traditional ceili, the scene of the action, so to speak.
Our young host, who introduced himself as Bobby, warned us that the lights went off at ten o’clock but following the ceili he would guide us back to the B&B where we all were staying. We walked through the darkness, guided only be Bobby’s flashlight and once “home” we all, (except the mother-to-be) had a bracing nightcap. In the morning over breakfast, Bobby and I had a lengthy political discussion, and it was only then that I learned that the bright, articulate young man was the former mayor of Galway, a Dail deputy, and a cabinet minister in the Fianna Fail government.
It seemed that when Galway got too hectic, Robert “Bobby” Molloy had a habit of jumping into his small boat with his friend and rowing from the Galway pier to Kilronan Harbor in the Arans. Bobby has long since retired from active politics, but I always remember that interlude forty years ago and the boyish, likable Irishman who made our first Aran Isle visit one to remember.
Northern ‘Peace Walls’ Targeted, Update – A while back in this space I noted that a solution to the contentious so-called Peace Walls had gathered some momentum and a growing citizen consensus seemed to support that goal. Well, a fresh dynamic is coming into view and it is being shaped by the International Fund for Ireland. Its purpose is to hear proposals relative to dismantling the walls and how that can be accomplished using cross-community relationships to centralize the effort. The IFI believes that there is growing support for tearing down the walls, but it needs to be “bolstered and intensified.” by a concerned citizenry.
Across the six counties there are today some 60 walls, gates, or fences that separate the nationalist/Catholic community from its unionist/Protestant neighbors. Since the 1994 ceasefire, the number of barriers has grown. They remain despite the fact that the Good Friday agreement is 14 years old. Yet, the removal of the walls, many at critical interfaces, is a sensitive subject where there is “still fear in many communities about them coming down too quickly.”
A count in 2012 shows that in Belfast there are 42 walls or barriers. There are 11 in Derry, 5 in Portadown, one in Lurgan, and two others that are open periodically.
The IFI has launched a $3 million fund that can be used to dismantle the walls, and also consider funding projects such as shared community space where walls have come down.
Vatican Envoys Agree On Romney, Traditional Marriage – It’s a small club with sumptuous offices and homes, and, of course, the fabled ambience of the Eternal City itself. The role of America’s ambassador to the Holy See is a grand presidential appointment, a key listening post amidst the legion of diplomats who call Rome home and reside there in regal splendor for four years or so.
Former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn can talk eloquently about his days in Rome during the papacy of John Paul II. And so can a host of former Republican party bigwigs, save for Lindy Boggs (1997-2001) and the aforementioned Flynn (1993-1997), who are both Democrats. (I probably should note that Jean and I enjoyed a delightful dinner and the hospitality of the former Boston mayor at his US embassy residence in Rome one night during his tenure).
In any event that is all prelude to the announcement early last month from five of the US Ambassadors to the Vatican over a recent 20-year period that as a group they are endorsing Republican candidate Mitt Romney for president. No, nothing doing for Barack Obama, nor from Lindy Boggs who succeeded Ray Flynn in Rome and is not among the envoy endorsees signing on.
The common thread for the ambassadorial endorsers, it seems, is their commitment to “traditional values” shared by the Mittser aka/Willard, and “his outstanding record in defense of marriage and the family.” There’s more, but you get the idea. No same-sex marriages! Got it?
When the group trumpets marriage and the family they don’t mean newlyweds Jack and Sid, or Brianna and Alice.
Bertie Brings Down Old Colleagues – The Irish Times reports that the entitlement of former Irish PMs to a range of perks has come to a crashing halt —a austerity move that will hardly be noticed (except in anger) by other former Taoiseachs, yet will constitute a body blow to that royalish retiree, Bertie Ahern. His Bertieship racked up nearly $500,000 in the 36 months between 2008 and 2011 just for “secretarial services.” You don’t want to ask about the car and driver (gone, blessedly) nor the royal ransom, oops, pension. And still a free man! Isn’t Ireland grand?
No matter how you slice the salami, $14,000 a month for, ahem, secretarial services, is several large salon rooms full of appointment books, shorthand notes and correspondence files, and maybe even a secretary or two.
Giving Has Many Definitions – What does one get for a grandson who seems to have most all that he needs? How many soccer balls or Gap shirts or new age electronic gadgets does an eight-year-old boy need? I didn’t have a good answer to that question but I thought about it, remembered the 1960s heritage surge, the Roots phenomenon that followed on the heels of the Gaels’ strong seanachie tradition. I decided that I would try to leave something that a grown grandson might just enjoy (or tolerate) when he’s an adult and I’m long gone, gone from Saturday morning breakfasts, and dopey jokes, and chilling out at soccer matches. In so many words, I guess, I look for something that I can leave, something tangible, perhaps, that will tell him about his now slow-moving “Papa” and what his life was like before he was here. A bit of me, maybe.
Enough already with the musings. I have begun writing, slowly, page by page (oral histories: tensing and talking to a recorder’s click doesn’t work for me) my “Letters to Aidan,” a simple, straightforward narrative that lays aside the lectures and lessons and bromides to hopefully remember a life well-lived and (even better) well-remembered: The frustrations, the exciting events, the triumphs, the trials, the good people, the rogues, and the generous hearts I have blissfully encountered on this journey. And, of course, the mistakes (without sorrow or explanation). Let him figure out if I am recounting anything that is worth saving or thinking about. He’s a bright boy. He’ll get it.
I do my “Letter to Aidan” on the computer’s word processing and I do a hard copy and save one in my PC documents, and it’s not for Aidan until he is a young adult. It will not be read by anyone while I’m here and it will not be novelistic nor anything anyone can label “literature.” Thank God.
But it will be from me and for Aidan when he’s ready. I believe it’s one of my better decisions. And so far, I would recommend the process for anyone who might not be around when a grandchild approaches adulthood and might want to (painlessly) leave something of themselves. You could do a lot worse in the gift-giving department.
Irish On Top As Givers – I have bought this up on several occasions, maybe even too often, but I think it’s important because it goes directly to character. The World Giving Index recently came out and verified what many of us have known for donkey years: Ireland is at the top of the ratings when it comes to giving. While Ireland has struggled from the halcyon era of the Celtic Tiger into the recession and soldiered on, it has never as a people and a country backed off from looking outward with a keen charitable eye and giving to worthwhile causes around the world. It’s in the DNA.
The latest ratings by the Charitable Aid Foundation on giving for 2011 show that the Irish people are the most charitable nation in Europe. Among some 153 nations vetted for their giving (volunteered time, helping strangers, and donations to charity) Ireland comes in second to only one country, the United States, and that just by a single percentage point.
As I said earlier, it goes to character.
The News Isn’t All Bumpy – Two firsts for Ireland in two widely divergent areas. To begin, the IDA, the Irish Development Authority, secured a record number of investments last year. The IDA reported that (even in difficult times like now) 148 new investments, new companies’ operations were now open and operating in Ireland. Of those there was a 30 percent increase in the number of companies investing for the first time. The new investments accounted for 13,000 new jobs in 2011, up 20 percent from the previous year. The number of people employed by IDA client companies is nearly 146,000.
Far from the executive suite, but intriguing for those folks who look towards the sea, is the report from one of the world’s top big wave surfers claiming that in Ireland he has discovered two areas, in the west coast of Donegal and off County Antrim, that are superb and ready for championship surfing. Al Mennie, who is on an international search for the largest wave areas for surfers, believes that Ireland is the equal of Hawaii, considered among the best surfing terrain anywhere.
RANDOM CLIPPINGS
Watching Luke Russert of NBC, son of late newsman Tim Russert, reporting from the halls of Congress provides a warm feeling and gives nepotism a good name. … Bruins goalie Tim Whatshisname had a perfect right to go viral on Obama, but it all made sense when I read he was part of the Glen Beck looney mob. …Good for the Charitable Irish for honoring three good men of accomplishment and character, the Brett Brothers, Jim, Harry, and Bill. … Shame on Galway for blocking home sales there because of petty, in-house rules, although things are looking up nationally for over-mortgaged Irish homeowners. … A gaggle of Dublin transport officials drove across country to Galway to discuss public transport options when they should have used the trains or buses they are paid to promote. … About time: Following link successes by the North’s Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke, it has been announced that Royal Portrush on the Causeway Coast will host the Irish Open.
Is there anyone out there pining away for former Massachusetts state treasurer Tim Cahill to make a comeback? … Boston will have a big role in the International Great Famine commemoration later this year. … Daniel O’Donnell (no relation) has taken some time off but will soon be singing at a venue near you. … The new TV series “Titanic, Blood & Steel” in production now will be on BBC television this year after filming in Belfast and the Dublin area. … Did you know that Sinn Fein is the second most popular political party in the Republic behind coalition leader Fine Gael. … They love Padre Pio in Ireland (canonized in 2002 by John Paul II) but an Italian historian is claiming that he used carbolic acid to fake his stigmata.