Yes, the sky is definitely about to come crashing down on Ireland and the US corporations that operate on the isle if President Obama's proposed tax changes go into effect. At least that's the entrenched belief of the Wall Street Journal, that bastion of unfettered capitalism and loosely regulated financial transactions and accountability.

The Journal's view of a whittling down of the ability of American companies doing business in low-tax Ireland to retain more of their earnings is being called "Obama's Global Tax Raid, or, in simpler bottom-line terms any beleaguered CEO can understand, "a revenue grab." Few surprises there.

The negative impact on low-tax countries (Ireland has the lowest tax rate of any EU member at 12.5 percent while the US corporate tax rate is 35 percent) of Obama's crackdown on US companies allegedly using foreign tax havens to shelter multinational profits is expected by many to hit Ireland particularly hard. The concern there is that US tax policy under Obama will cause American firms to flee Ireland, costing jobs and revenue for the Irish exchequer. The threat to the future of Irish economic health is such that top executives of the Irish government's Industrial Development Authority were quickly dispatched to Washington in early May to make the case for Ireland ahead of any sweeping changes.

However, when all is said and done and US tax deferral policies impacting US firm's foreign operations go into effect, there is a widening belief by Irish economists that Ireland will come out slightly bruised but fairly close to revenue neutral. Professor Ronald Davies of University College Dublin suggests that what matters for firms with multiple foreign locations is their average overseas tax, which would have high- tax countries like Germany used to offset liability on Irish earned income. Davies's final word on attracting overseas investment is simple: Ireland should continue to focus on those policies that have proven successful over the past 20 years in bringing and keeping investment to Ireland.

Rose Kennedy Greenway & Mothers Walk -- On Mother's Day weekend, members of the O'Donnell-Flaherty family were on Boston's waterfront to catch the opening ceremonies of the Mothers Walk Wall on Atlantic Avenue. The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, a splendid swath of greenery and history cut from the land ceded back to Boston by the Big Dig, is also where you find the Mothers Walk. The Greenway Conservancy (rosekennedy greenway.org) has a novel way to remember mothers. My brothers Phil and Jim and I lost our mother to cancer over half a century ago and were delighted to find a way to memorialize a life cut short.

She was first-generation Irish, daughter of immigrants Tadgh and Annie Flaherty. Anne Flaherty O'Donnell first lived in Kerry Village and later with her family until her marriage in Dorchester's St. Mark's Parish. She died young, never seeing the Boston of today, but the conservancy offers inscribed pavers with name, birthdate, and a brief salute. To cut to the chase, we signed on and easily found our paver as promised on the Mothers Walk between State & Milk Streets. There it was!

It is comforting for her three surviving sons to know that Anne from Fields Corner will be a permanent part of the city of Boston, very close to the original harbor water mark, and in the shadow of the Custom House and the Grain Exchange.

Children Used In Dissident Hate Campaign -- Some may call them dissidents but in reality they are breakaway Irish republicans, brutally trying to reinvigorate a deadly campaign to rid the island of its British presence by murder and other means. One of the most insidious tactics is the attempt at recruiting children as young as 13 on websites urging middle-schoolers to "join the struggle."

These web sites glorifying violence and luring impressionable youth into a culture of death are the combined brainchild of the Continuity IRA, the so-called Real IRA, and the INLA. No friends of peace or justice.

One internet page promises to "protect the republican communities from the PSNI, hoods and most of all loyalists." Other sites feature young men with weapons and balaclavas, adroitly marketing death and destruction for yet another generation of lost young people.

Did You Know … that Northern Ireland is the most successful region in Europe over the past eight years for software development centers? The North's success is attributed to its high caliber talent, links between industry and academia, and a healthy investment climate. One of the earliest companies involved in the software centers was Boston's Liberty Mutual, quickly followed by Allstate.

Ireland's Improbable Gender Gap -- Despite the two Marys -- Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, who have served the Republic of Ireland as President with distinction continuously for 18 years -- there exists today in Ireland a formidable gap, a veritable chasm between the genders when it comes to elective office. Given the scarcity of female office holders today compared to other countries in Europe and beyond, Ireland had ranked No. 63 in the number of elected women. Following recent elections, Ireland has fallen further behind and now ranks 88th, behind Sudan, Bolivia, Cambodia, and Kazakhstan. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, which keeps track of such things, estimates that at the current rate it will take 370 years for the percentage of women in Dail Eireann to reach 50 percent.

Due Process Run Amok -- One thing that distinguishes most Irish is the soft spot we have for those immigrants, documented or not, who yearn to come to the United States. However, there are exceptions and one of those is clearly the case of the Ukraine-born John Demjanjuk, the Nazi extermination camp guard who, US authorities allege, was responsible for helping to kill 29,000 men, women and children during the Holocaust in the second world war.

The US has had the goods on this guy for over 30 years but a series of court challenges and similar legal maneuverings involving at least five countries has kept this war criminal from deportation since 1977, a 30-year legal wrangle that makes a mockery of border control. Added to the documentation was the false personal data he used on his application to fraudulently enter the United States.

Not to put too fine an edge on a complicated situation, but one is forced to ask why young Irish men and women by the hundreds in the worst days and beyond were stopped, turned around, and sent back to Ireland on the next flight for the flimsiest of reasons while this accessory to mass murder was allowed the hospitality of this country for all those years ?

RANDOM JOTTINGS

In a golfing spectacular that rivals the Francis Ouimet victory over two of England's finest in the US Open in 1913, Shane Lowry, 22, a County Offaly golf amateur, ran away from the professionals at Beltray to win the Irish Open. As an amateur he was not eligible for the $650,000 first prize but he has turned pro and will undoubtedly prosper off and on the course. … The Kerry County Museum in Tralee has been named the top museum in Ireland for 2009. … On May 17, Ireland marked the first national Famine Memorial Day . This year's ceremonies were held in Skibbereen, Co. Cork, with plans for next year set for Co. Mayo. … Ryanair may dazzle some travelers with its now famous low fares, but charging passengers more than $50 for airport-issued boarding passes is larcenous by any measure.

What will Belfast Unionist Reg Empey of the shrunken Ulster Unionists, comprised now of a single MP, do if she decides not to run again? Will the Tories skip out of their new partnership? … Urban politics comes to Dublin: Beginning next year the Mayor of Dublin (previously a council member chosen by his peers) will be elected directly by the citizens of Dublin. …Belfast created its Ombudsman watchdog role in 1969 but the post has been unoccupied since 2004. Sounds like the Mass. Senate's ethics legislation. … Starting in July, Irish taxi drivers will have to pass tough testing if they want to work in Dublin and other cities. Can Boston be far behind? … It's been a tough patch for Tony O'Reilly. Although a major contributor along with the Ireland Fund to the new library at Queen's University, he has requested that it not be named for him, as had been planned. … The other shoe drops: Former US Ambassador to Ireland Thomas Foley, who announced his engagement as he headed home in January, returned to Ireland and he and Leslie Ann Fahrenkopf were married in a County Kildare churchyard. … New York Governor David Paterson reportedly leaked some false, damaging information to the press about Caroline Kennedy after she quit her troubled US Senate candidacy. The governor was upset, it seems, that Caroline's departure would brand his senate selection as his second choice. His poll numbers reflect his smear tactics.

A third bridge over the Foyle in Derry will likely be named for the town's favorite son, John Hume. Construction should be complete by October, 2010. … Finally, after months of shoppers in the Republic flocking to Newry, Derry, and Belfast, supermarkets in the 26 counties have at last begun to cut their prices. Slow learners, it seems. … Waiting for a solution to the great $50 million bank robbery in Belfast? Forget about it. The best police can do is convict a father-and-son team of laundering purloined bank notes, but no convictions for the heist itself. …It's May and you're Bewley's Hotel in Dublin's Ballsbridge where it's never too early. The hotel, just entering summer, is advertising for, of course, Christmas parties. And why not!

Travel For Dollars -- One of the emerging growth industries is what is generically called "Medical Tourism." This entails people who need, or in the case of cosmetic surgery, want to find a cost effective (read cheaper) way to access medical treatment and get a chance to visit an exotic overseas location at the same time. In 2007, some 750,000 Americans traveled out of country to get medical treatment. That number is expected to increase dramatically to 6 million by 2010.

Major target countries who are aggressively marketing healthcare to Americans include at the top of the list places like Mexico, Costa Rica, Philippines, India, and Thailand. However, Ireland is seriously looking at that potential injection of cash and has begun spirited marketing, primarily on the Internet. A quick click into your favorite search engine will get you some 12 million "hits" online. And Ireland has some memorable spots to rehab before going home

The reason for this emerging public interest in alternative sources of medical care is easy to see. If you have no medical coverage you will be able (caveat emptor, as always) to find a surgeon for any procedure from rhinoplasty to heart bypass to a knee replacement. And the price is right. Most surgical procedures performed in overseas countries cost one-fifth or one-sixth what they would cost in the US. Open heart bypass surgery in the US, for instance, now costs around $100,000 or more.That same procedure, one of the most performed major surgeries every years in the US, will cost substantially less overseas, averaging $26,000 in Costa Rica, Korea, and Thailand. The price in India for that surgery is around $10,000.

A Family Business -- The North's First Minister, Peter Robinson, who triples as a Member of the British Parliament, local assembly member, and successor to Ian Paisley as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, is a busy man keeping track of expenses for himself, his wife Iris (also an elected MP) and the four members of their family who all work in government for Robinson Pere. The Robinson family's total annual take (salaries and expenses) is $850,000. No wonder it took so long to move Big Ian out of politics and into retirement. God Bless the mark!

Three Terms Could Be Enough -- I'm hanging in there with the political agenda. I have been a watchful student of the city of Boston, my birthplace, and its politics for most of my adult life save the 16 uneventful months I was resident in the Land of the Morning Calm. I have genuinely liked most of the men who have inhabited the mayor's office, some a bit more or less than others. But good men all. It's not going to happen again with this election, but how my fingers itch to alter that last sentence to read "most of the men and women."

I believe that Boston's modern mayors, two of whom I have worked for, are decent people sincerely interested in improving the city, its service, its infrastructure, and the lives of its citizenry. But there is one nagging thing I have noticed and that is that most of the mayors start to lose a little something off the fast ball around the middle of the third term. After a decade in charge the freshness is gone, the challenges are a bit past their "sell-by" date and senior staff are beginning to cast tired eyes outward to a life beyond City Hall. The average tenure of the last three mayors is 14 years; arguably that's longer than most American corporate CEOs.

In my recall, and I am sure there will be ample rebuttal available, not a great deal of substantive, imaginative, or innovative things happened to brighten those long sunset days. Maybe it's too much to expect that innovation or a burst of energy will be found high on the agenda in the darkening innings of a mayoral term. Maybe key staffers will be invigorated by a burst of creative, out-of-the-box thinking by the boss, but if that happens it's a bonus, and the unintended exception to life as it is lived in City Hall.

Thirty Years on, Time To Forgive -- It was late August of 1979 and the Troubles were entering their second decade when 50 pounds of gelignite exploded under the engine of a boat in the harbor in Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo, killing Lord Louis Mountbatten, Lady Braybourne, 82, Mountbatten's grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, 14, and boat boy Paul Maxwell, 15.

Also on the boat that day was the twin brother of Nicholas Knatchbull, Timothy. He was seriously injured by the blast but he was plucked from the water, survived, and now lives in America and works as a documentary filmmaker for the Discovery Channel. He has written a book, "From A Clear Blue Sky," in which he forgives the IRA assault on his family and speaks of reconciliation and about healing and moving on. His book will be coming out in August at the time of the anniversary.

Lord Mountbatten had been a regular summer visitor for 30 years to Sligo and although there was some minimal security he was considered a low risk from paramilitary attack. It was a senseless attack, I thought at the time. As a close relative of the royal family he had some doomsday marquee value, but today, as was the case almost 30 years ago, it still doesn't make any sense to me, even wartime sense.