February 1, 2014– Despite seven good-faith drafts proposing remedies for the three fundamental areas of discontent – flags, parades, and the legacy of the Troubles – the five Northern Ireland parties were unable in the end to come to an agreement. There was a short leash on Dr. Richard Haass’s negotiations, a window so relatively short that it helped preclude the Northern Ireland political parties from working through to a solution. In brief, Sinn Fein and the SDLP were open to accepting many of the individual proposals, but the unionist political parties in the Executive were hesitant to agree, seemingly waiting for a vote of confidence from their constituents that never came.

Once Dr. Haass and his co-chair, Professor Meghan O’Sullivan, took their leave after a series of marathon sessions that failed to find common ground, it became widely acknowledged that the physical departure of the US negotiator team was the de facto end of the talks in the North.
Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister and former IRA commander, urged unionist leaders to confront loyalists and stop allowing “extreme elements within their community” to set the agenda on the Haass proposals. The SDLP leader, Alasdair McDonnell, following the breakdown of the talks, predicted that the Stormont Assembly might soon move to implement and legislate some of the Haass proposals. A month after the collapse of the talks, that prediction is more a hope than a plan, but it deserves serious consideration.
The US and British governments exerted increasing pressure on the NI parties to compromise on a way forward. Prime Minister David Cameron said there was “a lot of merit” in the Haass proposals, and US Vice President Joe Biden phoned first Minister Peter Robinson on his birthday urging him to help reach an agreement. When all was said and done, however, inertia and timidity held the day.
Philomena Campaigns to Open Adoption Files – Philomena Lee, whose life inspired the Oscar-nominated movie “Philomena,” is heading up a campaign aimed at shaming the Irish state into publicly releasing the secret records of some 60,000 forced adoptions. Sixty years after thousands of unwed mothers were forced by the Irish government and its institutions to give up their babies and never be allowed to see them again, the Irish files remain stubbornly closed.
The real Philomena nurtured her son for over three years before they were forcibly separated. After fleeing Ireland, she became a psychiatric nurse in Britain and worked there for 30 years before she began her search for her adult son. The film is mostly an account of that search.
The Irish government refuses to open the adoption files, citing the Constitution and a court ruling that there is no automatic right to information on an adoptee’s birth parents.
Life Imitating Art: The Vito Corleone and Gerry Adams Shows – In 1972 the movie “The Godfather,” with Marlon Brando as the Don, Vito Corleone, and Al Pacino as his son Michael, was released and since that much-heralded launch it has won praise as one of the best films ever in world cinema. One of the most taut and telling moments in the Oscar-winning film is when the Don is gunned down on the street by rival gang gunmen and severely wounded. He is rushed to a New York hospital where his eldest son, Sonny, takes command and throws a cordon around the hospital to protect his father from additional assassins and crooked cops. One of the cops, a commander, orders Corleone family guards out of the hospital, leaving the Don unprotected. But Michael arrives on the scene, moves his father to another room, then thwarts the would-be assassins by standing guard on the hospital steps beside a man who owes the Don a favor. Help arrives soon after and the family guards are restored, but not before Michael has his nose broken by the corrupt commander. The Don recovers and returns home.
Shift to March 1984, and to the Royal Victoria Hospital in central Belfast. Gerry Adams, an IRA member and Sinn Fein leader, is shot and seriously wounded. He arrives at the hospital surrounded by Sinn Fein/IRA volunteers and placed in a secure ward that is protected by Royal Ulster Constabulary police. Meanwhile, his Sinn Fein comrades take control of security, patrolling the halls and perimeters outside Adams’s room. The security detail is wary not only of another assassination attempt but also of the NI police, who are widely distrusted by the republicans. Several complaints were filed by unionist politicians about the protection of Adams at the hospital, but the Northern Ireland Office dismissed the claims, saying that it was a silly matter with which to bother the Secretary of State.
We will never know, but I can’t help wondering if the “Godfather” movie’s hospital scene a dozen years before inspired Gerry’s allies to go that extra mile for their leader ?
Scrolling through the Statistics – Most of the indicators for Ireland that are tracked by those think tanks and economists who measure shifts in fortune and social activity are fairly healthy by European Union standards. With regard to population, Ireland has one of the highest percentage increases in the EU in the last decade, just behind Cyprus and Luxembourg. In 2002, Ireland’s population was 3,899,702; by 2012, the population had grown to 4,582,769, an increase of almost 700,000.
Last year, through November, Ireland recorded the highest growth in industrial production of any country in the EU. In comparison, Malta and Greece had the largest declines. From November 2012 to November 2013, Irish industrial production increased a robust 13.2 percent.
Life expectancy in Ireland for people born today is 83 years for females (above the EU average), and 78.6 for males, nearly two years above the EU average. Ireland has the largest proportion of young people (0-14) in the EU and the second lowest proportion of old people (65 and over). Ireland has the highest fertility rate in the EU at 2.4 children. A strong indicator of an improving financial climate is the fact that Ireland was the only EU country between 2008 and 2012 to have a decrease in inflation. Ireland’s prices remain 15 percent higher than the EU average, but have decreased over a four-year span from a high of 30 percent.
In Death, He Keeps On Giving –Tom Flatley, a Mayo man who came to the United States from Ireland as a plumber’s helper in the 1950s, enjoyed one of the most spectacular business success stories of the 20th Century. He owned hotels, nursing homes, apartment buildings, retail and business malls, office buildings, and as a private corporation sole, he had no bosses, no stockholders, and no one to answer to when he invested in companies and enterprises he believed in. And he did a lot of that wise investing and lived a life without frills or fanfare – and without trips to Las Vegas or the world’s hot spots. He was tough but fair in his business dealings and, above all, he did it on his own. Financial gurus who knew how to maximize revenue in a thriving company like Flatley’s urged him, the sole owner of the privately held company, to go public by opting for an IPO to create and issue stock that would have meant enormous personal gain. Tom Flatley said “no.” He chose to run his business affairs far from the artifice of galloping stock prices and end-of-the-rainbow mergers and, God forbid, other people’s ideas of how to run his business empire. He kept his own counsel, set his own azimuth, and it was right for him.
And the same can be said about his giving, the wide-ranging but personal charities that he cared about and cherished and nurtured during his life and on after his death in 2008. He sought no plaudits or honors for his generosity to the myriad causes he considered socially and morally deserving. Many a self-exiled Irish emigrant ended his days back home, under an Irish sky when there was no money for a funeral and that final flight home, thanks to Tom Flatley. He never mentioned those somber slivers of help. Nor other initiatives such as the Irish Famine Memorial, which, I believe, may never have seen the light of day in Boston but for Tom Flatley. And there were many other missions of mercy that were neither recorded nor publicized, in keeping with the giver’s wishes.
But as the headline above notes, Tom keeps on giving. His Flatley Foundation is a prominent, big-time Massachusetts charity. Almost six years after his passing, it is thriving, with assets of half-a-billion dollars and growing. The causes it aids and supports to the tune of multiple millions a year make it a major player and a direct, living link to Flatley’s concerns and compassion.
Among those causes are Catholic agencies and churches, civil liberties and right to life, elementary and secondary and higher education, human services, and international affairs. An extraordinary legacy by any measure.
PASSAGES
The Boston Irish community lost three distinguished and hugely respected personalities in a one week period following the New Year. On Jan. 5, Lenahan O’Connell, Esq., died at 100 years of age. The next day, Dr. Bill O’Connell, a mainstay of the Boston Irish community’s volunteer brigade passed away. And on Jan. 12, Robert Quinn, one-time Massachusetts House speaker and state attorney general, suddenly left us.
• Lenahan O’Connell was a longtime associate from my years in Boston’s Eire Society. We served together on the society’s board of directors and he was a valued friend, an honored member of the bar, and a true gentleman. He practiced law at the 108-year-old Milk Street family firm, O’Connell & O’Connell, and was descended from a long line of prominent attorneys, members of Congress, and public servants. His Irish roots were deep and he served for many years in behalf of such causes as the American Ireland Fund, the Charitable Irish, the Eire Society, as a trustee for several venerable Boston cultural institutions, and as an active member in numerous Irish organizations.
• Robert H. Quinn, public servant, proud son of Dorchester and one of the beloved veterans of the Bay State’s political wars, was a man I admired enormously. He had a generous heart, had never succumbed to the cynicism of the campaign trail, and led a life that was a testament to his ideals and integrity. And he never, ever forgot where he came from! Bob’s spirit of generosity, on behalf of many causes, extended to helping – by donating his Milton home for annual fund-raisers – Boston Ireland Ventures, a nonprofit that linked Boston, Derry, and Galway in promoting three-way development and commerce. When asked, he always said yes when it could help Ireland. He was a special friend to me and a man who cared deeply to his core about the Irish in the community he loved. Along with his legion of friends saddened by his passing, I will miss him as I remember a good man and his good works.
• William O’Connell of Duxbury, known to most in the Irish village called Boston as “Dr. Bill,” was the quintessential volunteer for countless Irish causes. He championed the Deer Island Famine Memorial, where many Irish emigrants are buried in unmarked graves. He was an ever-reliable early volunteer for fund- raising festivals benefitting the Irish Cultural Centre and its annual festival. Dr. Bill and his wife Rita hosted Irish children from the North in their home, and as a expert historian on Ireland, he helped educate and entertain the greater Boston Irish community.
His interests and devotion to helping the Irish here and abroad are legendary. Dr. Bill, with Rita at his side (she predeceased him), remains in my experience a singular example of a genuinely unselfish, purpose-driven life well-lived.
Vote of Confidence for Irish Economy – The good news, of course, is that the Irish have exited from the EU/IMF support program. Much of the stabilization has been accomplished, predictably, on the backs of the Irish working class but kudos, too, for the government’s iron discipline on domestic finances.
And there is more good news. Moody’s Investors Service has upgraded Ireland from its former junk bond rating to a respectable investment grade rating. No small victory for the Irish economy.
A second, less dramatic, turn in Irish fortunes is the announcement that the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, is once again buying Irish bonds. Gates is recognized as a canny investor; his wealth increased by over 25 percent in the past year. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation owns some $20 million of Irish bonds and the signal that sends investors is that investing in Ireland is a smart idea.
RANDOM CLIPPINGS- Be assured that the hiring of John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter by the Boston Globe is a certified Big Deal. The best-sourced and respected senior correspondent for the NCR is a legend at the Vatican and he could lead a new Globe launch of a free-standing publication devoted to Catholicism. … Robert Gates, former Defense Secretary and author of a new book on his years in Washington, is a good man, but finding fault with President Obama for not buying into every idea and plan advanced by the US military badly misses the mark. … Margaret Brennan, the 30-something correspondent covering the State Department for CBS News is a rising star. She has a great education, is a tenacious interviewer, a term member of the Foreign Affairs Council, and has strong connections with University College Dublin. … The unprecedented poll of Catholics worldwide on some controversial social issues announced last October by the Catholic Synod sounds like a great idea but when is the questionnaire going to be circulated to American parishes? … He’s Back! Chris Lydon, who had a bumpy ride with PBS in Boston, has joined WBUR radio with a weekly program (Thursday nights at 9) that he calls “a Boston conversation with global attitude.”
Isn’t it long past time for the two parts of Ireland’s police, the PSNI and the Garda, to get their act tightened & together and show a strong, unified front to the so-called dissident republicans engaged in a terror campaign? … New poll numbers (Jan. 10) show Enda Kenny and his Fine Gael holding their own at 28 percent, Fianna Fail at a resurgent 22 percent, Sinn Fein with a gain to 18 percent, and Labour, the weak coalition partner, at 10 percengt. … Time marches on. The 80 men who made up the Doolittle Raiders (look it up) in their 1942 bombing mission to Japan were sadly down to four airmen at their last reunion. … It’s early but to date there are few contenders beyond Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination. One possible is Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, a favorite of many Irish voters. … The mystery of this still young New Year is who is stealing expensive beer kegs in Ireland? Some 400,000 kegs worth over $50 million are missing. Whereabouts unknown. … Knock Airport, the brainchild of the late Monsignor Horgan, is predicting that this year will be its busiest ever. And Shannon Airport (whose demise was predicted but is fairly healthy) recorded an increase in passenger numbers in 2013. … Real estate experts across Europe have tapped Dublin as the top property investment for this new year. … On Sun., Feb 16 at 2 p.m. at the Milton Public Library, the author Mary C. Kelly will talk about and sign her new book, “Ireland’s Great Famine in Irish-American History.” Helping Professor Kelly launch her book is Catherine Shannon.
Everyone’s Irish. Meryl Streep, America’s most acclaimed actor, has had her roots traced to Co. Donegal. … For golfers who might look to travel, The Irish Open will be held at the Fota Park Resort in Cork June 9-12. … Bill Clinton will travel to Belfast and likely also to Dublin in early March in conjunction with an event at Clinton’s institution at Queens. … It’s still being sorted out but the harsh turf-cutting ban has been partially lifted, but the issue remains to be resolved. … If you’re interested, Whitey Bulger’s gold and diamond claddagh ring will be the most valuable item ($48,000) for sale at an upcoming auction of his belongings. The sale is to benefit his victims.