US Envoy Seeks Solution In North – America’s diplomat of the newest Troubles, Richard Haass, has been in Belfast these days seeing if his presence can have a salutary effect on the troubled relationship between the nationalist and unionist communities in the North. The original, if unrealistic, timetable, called for some type of agreement by December but there is little to no chance of that happening.
It seems entirely possible that after the New Year some type of accommodation can be hammered out on major grievances such as flags, parades, protests, etc. but the simmering and sticky quest for parity of esteem is attitudinal and dangerously tied to the past. History is clearly the most difficult stumbling block of all, and remains the poison pill of genuine reconciliation among the tribes.

Ambassador Haass, in one of those calming statements associated with his calling, said in September that he was “more confident of reaching a resolution” after recent talks, and added that there was “a real chance to succeed.”
It is uncertain if recent polls showing the people of the North telling the Orange Order that “you can’t walk where you want” will be helpful in shaping an agreement or will have the effect of hardening the unionists’ position on parades and protests. Morale is extremely low in the unionist/loyalist camp and defiance and intransigence by that community could wreck the talks.
An unusual but encouraging sidebar to the Haass talks is a plea from the Orange Order to its members to “pray for the talks.” One item of the ten-point plea urged the Orangemen to pray for themselves and “other Christians involved. ...” and that they may be granted courage, vigilance, wisdom, and clarity of thought.” Amen.
Super Surfing In Ireland’s West – The popular and well-read travel guide published by Lonely Planet lists a west of Ireland surfing spot that is considered to be world class in every way. Mullaghmore Headland in County Sligo has been gaining international recognition as one of the best surfing spots anywhere with waves up to 30 feet high or more. The best time of year for surfers to be on the Sligo water is late winter and early spring. The byword for surfers at Mullaghmore is “lucky to ride and grateful to survive.”
In addition to the travelers’ guide to near perfect riding of the waves, Lonely Planet has also selected other Irish landmarks, including Croagh Patrick (the ultimate pilgrimage), and the Castle Leslie estate among its top ten for horse-riding fans. Also noted by Lonely Planet are the reported 10,000 pubs across Ireland, which are hailed as welcome shelters famous for their hospitality and the craic.
Irish Education Takes A Hit – A veteran Minister in Enda Kenny’s coalition government, Ruairi Quinn, who holds the Education portfolio, has lambasted Ireland’s educational system, calling it a long way from world class and far from one of the best systems in the world. Quinn, a senior Labour politician, said Ireland’s educational network, long regarded as first rate, was based on nothing but a “feel good factor.” He cited class sizes, lower teacher and staffing levels, and budget restraints as contributing to the national problem.
Also the target of criticism is Ireland’s universities, which have failed to get a mention in the listings of the world’s top 100 institutions that are graduating global company executives. The United States leads the top 100 in graduating CEOs and other corporate leaders with 34. China has 15, Japan 9, France 8, Germany 5, and the UK four.
Some observers believe that the current Irish government’s austerity programs have worsened the problem and consider the situation temporary while others point to the Celtic Tiger era when funds were more than enough to underwrite a first class system across the board and yet little educational upgrade took place.
Warren Lives Up To Her Reputation – US Sen. Elizabeth Warren has accumulated a diverse and well-financed array of political enemies, from fat cat lobbyists to bankers and shoddy corporate types who want it both ways. However, both before and after her Senate election, Warren has been able to attract a passionate following that appreciates her brains, street savvy, and expertise on matters running the gamut from mortgages and high finance to consumer protection.
Warren’s elevation to the Senate, and especially her key membership on the Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee, means that the Bay State and the American people have an informed, outspoken in-house expert on the ways and wiles of too-big-to-fail financial institutions and big business, whose holy grail has been a combination of little or no regulation, low taxes on the 1 percent, and untrammeled profits.
Early last month Warren, speaking at the AFL-CIO’s national convention, assailed the current Supreme Court as an instrument of the wealthy that regularly sides with the US Chamber of Commerce. She cited a recent study that called the Court’s five conservative-leaning justices among the “top 10 most pro-corporate justices in half a century.”
In recent days, the senior senator from Massachusetts has been focusing on the importance of the Dodd-Frank banking regulation law and bringing back into law the Glass-Steagall statute.
The High Cost Of Football – Whether it’s the All-Ireland Final – won by Dublin over Mayo on Sept. 22 – or the American Super Bowl, scheduled for Feb. 2014 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, it seems that ticket prices for prime seats are becoming less and less of a punter’s game. It’s all about the money. It was reported that in the lead-up to the Croke Park match, tickets were going for as much as $2,000, and were being purchased as soon as advertised.
For the upcoming Super Bowl, mezzanine seats at MetLife Stadium are selling for $2,600, but that includes access to indoor restaurants. That’s a 100 percent increase over the Super Bowl played earlier this year in New Orleans.
Jacoby Loses Respect of Globe Readers – In a glaringly dishonest example of convenient memory and partisan omission, Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe’s senior conservative columnist, has once again proven that having your own set of facts suffocate one paragraph renders the total product untruthful. In the fifth paragraph of a lengthy piece on Sept. 15 (“The World Has Lost respect for the US”), Jacoby wrote: “George W. Bush made plenty of mistakes, but he understood the difference between leading and ‘leading from behind.’ ’’ Jacoby then went on to write that when Bush went to Congress for authorization to remove Saddam Hussein from power, he got it. Well, whoop-de-do!
The entire presentation to Congress was built upon a grossly fraudulent foundation. The books on the fantasy of Saddam’s WMD were cooked and Dick Cheney knew it and his nominal boss, George W. Bush, should have known it or impeachment(s) should have been in order.
We may never know where Dick Cheney’s “undisclosed locations” were during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, but we do know that he was a regular visitor to Langley and the CIA to look over that agency’s intelligence on the absentee weapons, to cherry-pick through gossip, unproven raw data, and suppositions based on totally unreliable sources. Out of this pathetic melange of misinformation, unsupported scenarios, and the super shaky provenance of a partisan eager to find something, anything, to hang an invasion on – voila! – we invaded on the say-so of the vice president of the United States, Shameless Dick Cheney.
It would have served the truth and preserved the frayed journalistic integrity of Mr. Jacoby if he had simply nodded in the direction of the missing weapons of mass destruction. Instead he resolutely bypassed the history of the era and the facts to draw a destructive portrait of President Obama.
History will have much more to say of the tenure of President George W. Bush and his team, and of the White House years of President Obama.
Month’s Mind Memories – It has been a month since I heard the shattering news of the death of Seamus Heaney. I guess I thought he would be around forever. Don’t count your blessings.
I was always touched by his kindness, his gentled concern for those he was with, and his bow to your sense of awe at what he could produce on a scrap of paper. Balance was huge: time to work, to play, and to be with family. And always a kind word if you mentioned another Irish poet, with any Heaney ego safely tucked away. Comfortable in his skin.
I first met Seamus in the late 70s, early 80s, at a party, I think, over drinks, idle chat, and music. And later at Symphony Hall, at the Pops, sitting amidst Seamus, Marie, and joyous Catherine and her brother. And I would see him at one of his readings, flattered that he remembered my name. Later he agreed to be the guest of honor at a fund-raiser in Bob and Claudina Quinn’s home in Milton, staying the evening through. He posed for photos, did a couple of readings, and was the ideal celebrity host. That was 1993, and pushing my luck, I asked him again to adorn our fund-raiser in 1994, but he graciously declined, saying he was hosting Alice Munro at Harvard. And he warmly wrapped up his soft reply, with a written but rousing “And more power to you.”
I will miss knowing that Seamus is out there somewhere, at home in Dublin, or in Cambridge, or in County Derry, or someplace where thoughts and memories collide and refresh. He was a great man and somehow I will continue to remember this special gift to us and, through his written words, I will continue to know that Seamus is with us still, in a slim volume just a few feet away from my finger tips. And if that doesn’t do it, a glance on the wall near my working space: Seamus and yours truly captured in a quick photo. He looking wise and a bit bemused, myself a youthful stranger. Great man, grand memories. Thanks for letting it be.
Pope Francis Charts a Christian Course –When I first read the extraordinary and lengthy interview with the new Jesuit Pope, I thought instantly of John XXIII, and the fresh breezes he unloosed in Vatican II. It struck me as almost revolutionary, the head of my church actually urging the leaders of the Catholic Church he presides over to consider a new approach, one of God’s mercy and compassion. Francis changed no doctrines nor altered any church policies. All he said was: Let’s follow Christ and keep the noise down and our disagreements and anger to a decent level that allows us to be respectful of one another. In so many ways, to be better Christians and that should include the graying prelates in purple. For those of us who have had rough going with Pope Benedict and shotgun-riding circuit bishops who decide on the spot if you are Catholic enough to receive communion, it was heartening to have him say to them: Back off until we can discuss it and maybe take a fresh look at attitudes and behavior. It shouldn’t be a case of them and us and let’s downplay personal animus. As I have said for many years, stress will kill you. Let’s be friends.
It is interesting that soon after “the interview” a large church reform group made up of some 100 Catholic organizations around the globe came together to circulate a petition asking Pope Francis to give Catholic lay faithful an “effective voice” in church decision-making. Sounds about right to me.
Of a more immediate nature, the reform coalition is asking that church governance be discussed at a long-planned meeting between the pope and eight cardinals who have been chosen by Francis as a form of “kitchen cabinet” to interact with him and offer ideas and suggestions. I believe that Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston is one of the eight.
That letter to the pope was mailed around September 20. The Vatican meeting is Oct. 3.
RANDOM CLIPPINGS
The UK Competition followed up on the earlier EU ruling that will force Ryanair to reduce its holding in Aer Lingus to 5 percent. Ryanair and Michael O’Leary, the CEO, will appeal and likely be shot down again. … I guess that I have to laud the benevolent CEO of Starbucks, who is discouraging gun carriers in his coffee shops, saying “I don’t want to put our people in a position of having to enforce a policy or confront someone who is holding a gun” Yes! … A poignant reminder that Seamus Heaney was an enormous presence on both sides of the water. He was to speak in in Dublin at an award dinner for Malala, who was shot in the head by the Taliban. Seamus was to read his poem, “In the Republic of Conscience,” in the girl’s honor. … The Harry Truman Society will hold an old fashioned political rally on Monday evening, Nov. 4, in West Roxbury with most of the mayoral candidates there. … Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Ireland’s candidate for president, did a number on that Texas suit, Gov. Rick Perry, sending him packing after the Texan tried to poach Maryland’s businesses to come to Texas. … Donald Rumsfeld called President Obama’s plans for Syria “mindless.” This is the same guy who greeted Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 1983 while the dictator was unleashing germ warfare. This “patriot” should be tried as another GOP war criminal.
New York City has never had a female or gay mayor, and they won’t this election cycle. The recent primary saw Christine Quinn finish out of the money, a dismal third. Bill de Blasio will likely be the next NY city Mayor. … A town council close to Newport, RI, is trying to build support for bringing the decommissioned carrier John F. Kennedy to Rhode Island as a tourist attraction. … Absolutely delighted to see that the state of New York is suing Big Mouth Donald Trump on behalf of all the so-called students he has defrauded at his phony baloney Trump University. … Happy to see that Pope Francis has cut loose Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarciso Bertone, who was a Pope Benedict consiglieri. … The word in Ireland is that “The Gathering,” an effort to boost tourism, especially across the North American market, is working. Projections for Gathering numbers as winter sets in are extremely good. For me it will be a year late, maybe May or August, 2014.
Happy news: The Derry city council is promoting free courses to encourage people of all faiths to come together and get along better. … In case you missed it, there will be American college football at Croke Park on Aug. 30 next year: the University of Central Florida vs. Penn State. The first US football game was BC against Army a few years back; the last one was in 1996 when Notre Dame played Navy. … A touch of the scally cap to old friend Mike Quinlin and his beautiful wife Colette, who do such a spectacular job with Irish Massachusetts and other tourism sites for the Irish and others year-round. … Boston’s newest Consul General and Deputy Consul are Breándan O Caollaí and Jillian O’Keefe. Welcome to your new postings. … Seamus Connolly has a house full of trophies and medals as Ireland’s premier fiddler and he is due more honors from the National Endowment for the Arts. Connolly, our adopted son from Killaloe, Co. Clare, has been a winner extraordinary on both sides of the Atlantic. Congratulations, Seamus.