BY BILL O’DONNELL
Unfair Attack On Boston Immigration Center – I don’t know what Niall O’Dowd had in mind when he pulled out all the stops to write a malicious and sensationalist diatribe against the Boston-based Irish International Immigration Center. I can’t imagine how O’Dowd, who hired the young woman at the center of the dispute and encouraged her to write a confessional article for his Irish Voice newspaper, found the nerve to savage the IIIC for discontinuing her relationship with the Boston non-profit, when in actuality it was her admission in the pages of the Irish Voice that she was breaking the terms of her visa that forced the IIIC to report her. Nice play Niall.

If the IIIC had failed to report on the matter and then end its ties with the woman, the State Department could have taken harsh measures with the agency, jeopardizing hundreds of Irish interns here on temporary visas and damaging more than two decades of success and the hard-won reputation of the IIIC.
The Center, despite being victimized by O’Dowd’s actions while doing nothing wrong, issued an apology and went back to doing what it has been doing superbly for nearly 25 years: assisting in every way possible the employment, housing, and citizenship needs of thousands of Irish who regularly come to Boston seeking new opportunities.
In truth, any apologies in this matter should be coming from O’Dowd and the Irish Voice for encouraging and printing the young woman’s flaunting of her illegality that triggered her departure from the program. I am not alone in criticizing the self-styled media mogul. Many readers of O’Dowd’s follow-up article skewered the publisher for attacking the IIIC and for his failure to own up to his selfish role in this matter. As one reader of the Irish Voice succinctly put it in a rebuttal: “Niall O’Dowd should hang his head in shame.” Amen.
President Obama Excites the Irish – While Wexford was hosting members of the Kennedy family and remembering President Kennedy’s visit there 50 Junes ago, another young American president and his family were stage center in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall at a gathering had all the trademark trappings of a campaign rally, reminiscent (for this attendee) of that now famous rally by candidate John Kennedy in November of 1960 at the Boston Garden.
I couldn’t be in Belfast last month but Frank Costello and his wife Anne were on hand to hear Barack Obama – and Michelle in introducing the president – reach out to Ireland’s young people in echoing hope and a peaceful, productive future for Ireland and its newest generation. As Frank, a business consultant and, in an earlier incarnation, top aide to both Boston Mayor Ray Flynn and Congressman Joe Kennedy, wrote in an e-mail: “The President and first lady came with the best gift of all – not to announce a new aid package or with any material currency, but rather the value of good example of what hard work and refusing to be put down can achieve. And why no one else can do it for you.”
June was a special month for the American presidency in Ireland, one to be long remembered by the Irish and a source of justifiable pride for the Irish here in the next parish to Galway.
Guildhall TV Angers Bloody Sunday Families – After decades of inquiry and some $300 million in costs, it would seem that the truths of history have been confirmed by now of that fateful day in Derry 40 years ago. But bad history has a way of rearing its ugly and painful head to skew the most elemental verities.
A case in point: A video inside Guildhall has a brief snippet from 2010 showing General Sir Michael Jackson, head of the army in Derry in January 1972, saying that the vast majority of soldiers “behaved admirably, often in the face of severe provocation.” What utter rubbish!
The Saville Inquiry found just the opposite from the general’s late-inning lies. The results of the lengthy investigation found there were no weapons, no Semtex explosives, and no forensic evidence found on or near the 13 dead nationalists or others participating in the peaceful protest to justify the Paras’ lethal bullet barrage. The victims, according to Saville, were “innocent.”
The families of the Bloody Sunday dead and wounded are outraged and demanding an apology. They deserve no less.
NOTABLE QUOTE
“Fifty years after Ireland’s love affair with US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the country is now in thrall to yet another Irish-American president, Barack Obama, and today’s first family of the US — wife Michelle and their daughters, 14-year-old Malia and 12-year-old Sasha.
From Belfast to Dublin and beyond, the Obamas have won the hearts and minds of the Irish people, north and south of the border. From the 6th century monastic site of Glendalough to Finnegan’s pub in Dalkey, their visit has been warmly appreciated by the Island. ... -An editorial, Irish Examiner, June 19, 2013
Yanks, Brits In Irish Buying Spree – From Galway to Dublin the choicest real estate – from hotels and castles to golf courses, to Charlie Haughey’s Abbeville estate – have been bargain-priced targets of buyers from America and Britain. In recent months several well-known hotels, including the Corrib Great Southern, have been snapped up by buyers, many at heavily reduced prices. Three properties in the Galway area, originally priced at $80 million total were sold in separate deals for $13 million.
Castles and estates with large acreage have been a hot item for overseas investors. US billionaire cable operator John Malone, 72 and described as the largest private landowner in America, just spent $10.5 million for Humewood Castle in Co. Wicklow. Malone is one of numerous Irish Americans returning to their roots with expensive purchases of prime Irish properties. Another expatriate has bought Ardbraccan, an 18th century Dublin mansion with 120 acres for $6.5 million. Many Irish mansions with considerable acreage are selling for about a third of 2007 levels. The selling prices reflect the effects of the Irish development bust, and wealthy Americans are buying prime Irish estates at discount prices. In earlier times, those high end properties were essentially being sold to the domestic Irish market.
Cardinal May Be Famous All Over Again – It’s only a showbiz rumor but there is money talking, as they say, about Matt Damon of Cambridge and Hollywood starring in a film about the Boston Globe reporters who hunted down and unearthed the story that ended Cardinal Bernard Law’s tenure as Boston archbishop. The series of stories was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003 for what the award committee called “courageous, comprehensive coverage.”
Damon would play a Globe reporter. The probable director of a film on Cardinal Law’s undoing, Tom McCarthy, a well- respected director, actor and writer, is looking toward making a movie that would be something along the stylistic lines of the hugely successful “All The President’s Men.” And wouldn’t I pay to see that. Matt Damon reportedly likes being involved in films that focus on major social issues, which would certainly qualify the Cardinal Law film, given its international impact and exposure of church abuse. The popular actor, incidentally, recently declined to star in any more Jason Bourne-type dramas.
“Danny Boy” – The Story Behind The Story – Ireland’s most celebrated song, “Danny Boy,” was written in 1910 by Fred Weatherly, an upper-class British lawyer who had suffered the loss within two months that year of his father and his only son. Weatherly, who had penned some words and completed the lyrics, was on the lookout for a melody on which to hitch his words.
In 1912, he later confided in his memoirs, Margaret Enright, an Irish American who was married to Weatherly’s brother Eddie and lived in America, visited Fred and suggested the Londonderry Air as a possible tune to accompany Weatherly’s lyrics, which had lain dormant since their original creation. The Air’s author was unknown or anonymous and in the public domain. Weatherly worked with the tune from the Air and finally put it together.
Soon after, in 1913, he published “Danny Boy,” with his lyrics and the reworked melody suggested by Margaret Enright. It quickly became one of the world’s most popular songs, earning renown for Weatherly and hefty royalties over the years.
One unsettling aspect of the issuing of “Danny Boy” was that the sister-in-law who first saw the possibility of joining the Air’s melody to Weatherly’s lyrics never received the recognition for her contribution nor did she get any payment from Weatherly. The failure by Weatherly to recognize Margaret Enright’s role in the finished song created a major division in the family. Weatherly went on to become famous and increasingly wealthy, while Margaret and husband Eddie lived in near poverty.
Marking the centennial of the publishing of “Danny Boy” is a new book by Fred Weatherly’s great grandson Anthony Mann, that provides an account of the origins of the famed ballad. The book title, “In Sunshine and in Shadow,” is available for the moment only at Amazon in the UK, in pocket book or Kindle.
Donegal’s Hidden Beach – What could possibly be the best hidden beach in northwest Ireland sits close by Clonmany, a village in Inishowen. The strand is Binion Bay Beach and day after day during the warm summer months there it sits, under the sun and amidst the sand just a few yards from the water. One would think it would be populated by more than the handful of people, but the Inishowen News reports that without any signs or directions on the narrow road leading to the waterside spot, the beach most often goes unnoticed, with only a handful of bathers enjoying the refuge. Binion Bay Beach, described as a “treasure,” is roughly one kilometer from Clonmany. Good luck!
Michael Flatley Says “No Brit Passport” – Lord of the Dance Michael Flatley, the fabulously wealthy dancer and businessman, has been busy lately denying that he has applied for a British passport or that he is a permanent British resident. Flatley, the Chicago native and original star of “Riverdance,” is irate at a newspaper report that he is soon to acquire a British passport.
Flatley, who spends time in France, the Caribbean, and the US, has scattered homes worldwide including in Cork and in London, where he conducts much of his business. He has angrily dismissed reports that he will become a British citizen, saying, “I have not applied for a British passport nor for British citizenship. He adds that he is “proud” to be Irish and has no idea where these reports are coming from.
Rubber Bullets Confirmed As “Lethal” – SDLP’s Mark Durkan, the Member of Parliament for the Foyle, Derry, constituency, is outraged by British government papers recently declassified that confirm what many have long believed: British officials knew that the rubber bullets used for crowd control by British security forces could be lethal.
The official UK papers from the 1970s also confirm that the testing of the possible deadly effects of the rubber bullets was “shorter than was ideal,” or, in other words, not adequately tested before use against Irish citizens.
The number of deaths by rubber bullets is hard to pin down, but I clearly recall running stories by respected sources in a newspaper I edited late in the 1980s showing that as far back as 25 years ago, the death toll on the streets of Northern Ireland was no less than 13.
Is It Begrudgery or Stupidity ? – A Northern Irish government agency called in hundreds of disabled welfare claimants to a fourth-floor assessment center in Belfast. Soon after the disabled clients arrived on the upper floor the assessment officials (the agency will remain charitably anonymous) turned them away because, they said, there were fears those with severe disabilities could not evacuate the building safely in an emergency. Instead, the clients were told they had to travel some distance to other agency offices in Portadown and Ballymena. Thanks to the Belfast Telegraph for running the story accompanied by some barbed comment
RANDOM CLIPPINGS
Disappointing news from Northern Ireland re house prices: Surveys recently taken reveal that the average price of a home in the North has declined over the last decade to 2003 price levels. … There may be a new good pope coexisting with Benedict Emeritus, but the leader of the nation’s Catholic nuns says there are still a “serious misunderstanding” with the Vatican. … Galway city councillors are demanding that the statue of the writer and poet Padraic O Conair be returned to public view in Eyre Square after being stored away for safety. … The ship known as “Titanic’s Little Sister,” the SS Nomadic, which ferried people from shore to the Titanic, has been refurbished and is welcoming passengers aboard once again. … Mairtin O Muilleor, publisher of New York’s Irish Echo newspaper and longtime Belfast councilor, has been named the new Lord Mayor of Belfast. … A new threat to Ireland’s rural post offices is the possibility that going forward social welfare payments may not be made through the post office. Already pubs and Garda stations have suffered rural closings. … There is scant disappointment in the Aer Lingus offices in the wake of the EU competition ruling against Ryanair gaining control of the former national airline. … The recent Irish census shows that Ireland’s border counties have some of the country’s highest rates of empty homes, medical card holders, pensioners, fewer jobs and higher voter apathy. … For possibly the first time ever, Ireland had two US presidents on Irish soil on the same day (Clinton and Obama on June 17). … Nuala O’Loan, former NI police ombudsman, has made a fresh appeal for information on the “Disappeared” who remain undiscovered. Ten have been recovered, seven are still missing. … Dromoland Castle in Newmarket on Fergus in Clare, still one of Ireland’s showcase castles is celebrating its 50th anniversary. My bride and I honeymooned there many years ago, and love going back for the odd breakfast or afternoon tea. … Bill Clinton was in Northern Ireland a month ago but not just to have a Guinness. Queens University has named its leadership institute after him. … Good News out of Louth: Sammy Wilson, Stormont finance minister, is not as disagreeable as I feared. He has given the green light and the funding for the new bridge over the narrow water link between counties Louth and Down. Good news for all. … The GAA clubs in the west, especially in the Galway area, have been hard hit once again with the coming of summer and with clubs in Boston and New York recruiting players with free flights and their sunny Northeast beaches.
The parade season is upon us and the Stormont leadership, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, are urging interface communities not to let sectarian tension spill over into violence. … On the same subject, the Orange Order has announced that they have taken measures to ensure the marches will pass off peacefully. We’ll see. … President Obama has named a veteran leader of Catholic charities as our new envoy to the Vatican. Ken Hackett served for 18 years as president of Catholic Relief Services. He is seen as helpful to Obama for his strong relationship with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. … It was quite a trip from Arlington National Cemetery to New Ross, Wexford, for JFK’s Eternal Flame. The journey marked the first time the flame has been taken from the late president’s gravesite to light a continuous flame elsewhere.