Concannon, Haiti: a 'visceral' connection

By Staff
August 31, 2011

Brian ConcannonBrian ConcannonBy Greg O'Brien
Special to the Reporter

It may be hard to imagine any parallel between Ireland and destitute, still earthquake-ravaged Haiti, and yet there are any number: analogous gripping histories of famine, long stretches of political and economic repression, and the bad geographical luck of being adjacent to a super power or dominant force that presents undesirable attention. It is always difficult fighting a bully in your own backyard.

Human rights attorney Brian Concannon wrote of these dilemmas three years ago in the Boston Irish Reporter and in the Boston Haitian Reporter. “Like the British response to Ireland’s famine, bank programs (in Haiti) do not rise to the need,” he wrote, predicting the inevitable in a column headlined: Eating Dirt in Haiti and Ireland. “They are too late—they will not provide relief for months, perhaps years. They are too little—they stop where the requirements of helping poor people conflict with the requirements of the bureaucrats’ economic theories. In the meantime, just as Ireland exported food during a famine, Haiti will keep exporting money. So more Haitians will die of the diseases of hunger, and more children will grow older without going to school.”

Patrick Cassidy is Captain von Trapp in ‘Sound of Music’ at Reagle Theatre

By Ed Forry
July 29, 2011

By R. J. Donovan
Special to The BIR

Award-winning Broadway star Patrick Cassidy represents one branch of a far-reaching family tree of musical performers.  His Mom is Shirley Jones (he was actually conceived during the filming of “The Music Man”).  His Dad was Jack Cassidy.  His siblings include David Cassidy and Shaun Cassidy.  And his niece is Katie Cassidy of “Gossip Girl” fame.

Irish offer lots of help in choosing accommodations

By Staff
July 29, 2011

Fishing in Co. Galway. Photo by Judy EnrightFishing in Co. Galway. Photo by Judy EnrightBy Judy Enright
Special to the BIR

Some people say that carefully choosing accommodation in Ireland isn’t all that important because, after all, you just sleep in those places.

For a lot of travelers, that seems to be all too true. They just slog from one place to another without experiencing the history or flavor of the places they have visited.

But, fortunately, there are a number of organizations in Ireland that have set out to change all that. There is Ireland’s Blue Book and Manor House Hotels, The Great Fishing Houses of Ireland, Green Book Hotels, and many more. Some of the recommended properties appear in more than one book, too.

Irate PM Kenny scolds Vatican for abuse stance

By Ed Forry
July 29, 2011

Enda Kenny (AP Photo)Enda Kenny (AP Photo)By Shawn Pogatchnik
Associated Press

DUBLIN – From the pews and pulpits, Ireland’s Catholics are demanding that the Vatican finally come clean on its oversight role in child abuse cover-ups.

It’s a revolution of sorts in Ireland, a nation founded on a pillar of devotion to Roman Catholicism, where many now question the church’s role in a rapidly changing society. For decades Irish leaders let archbishops vet proposed laws, declared they were Catholics first and Irishmen second, and saw crossing the church as a surefire way to lose office.
No longer.

Ireland’s population surges to highest level in 150 years

By Joe Leary, Special to the BIR
July 29, 2011
Joe Leary, Special to the BIR

By Joe Leary
Special to the BIR

The population of Ireland before the famine was a little over 8 million people. Many thought this was an over-population that was at least partly responsible for the tragedy.

Now there are predictions that, despite the impact of the recession, an 8-million population number on the island of Ireland is within the foreseeable future.

My big brother is turning 70

By Tom Mulvoy
July 29, 2011
Tom Mulvoy

Mark (left) and Tom MulvoyMark (left) and Tom MulvoyBy Tom Mulvoy
Reporter Staff

My older brother, first in a line of the five children of Tom and Julia (Harrington) Mulvoy, turns 70 next month, the patriarch of an American Irish clan whose gritty founders lived in smoky huts far from any mansion’s candles, working the stubborn land in villages named Moycullen, Rosscahill, and Oughterard, and fishing the nearby waters of Lough Corrib some 20 miles outside Galway City.

From this milieu and over the Atlantic to Somerville, Massachusetts, emerged my father, then 12, only son of a widowed mother and big brother to three sisters. For all four of the immigrant Mulvoys, a strong commitment to the values of family life brooked no exceptions. “When you are older and need a hand, or maybe get in trouble,” my Dad used to preach to his four sons and his daughter from the head of the dinner table,” the only ones who will care will be your family, especially this one. Don’t ever forget that.”

Given that background, I want to take up the relationship of big brother/little brother that has obtained between the one-time Skippy Mulvoy and his brother Tommy since 1943, the year the latter joined the former in the back bedroom on the first floor of 22 Lonsdale Street, a two-decker in the heart of Dorchester.

‘Luck of the Irish’ abounds tee to green: Northern Ireland is now 'world capital of golf'

By Peter Stevens
July 29, 2011
Peter Stevens

By Peter F. Stevens
BIR Staff

“Darren Clarke – the first Northern Irish golfer to win a major in almost four weeks.” The words were those of Graeme McDowell, the gifted Northern Irish golfer who won the 2010 U.S. Open, on Twitter following Clarke’s stunning triumph at the 2011 British Open.

Here and There - August 2011

By Bill O'Donnell
July 29, 2011
Bill O'Donnell

By Bill O’Donnell

Irish Mass Emigration a Myth – Since the onset of Ireland’s economic crisis there have been countless anecdotal accounts of departures from Ireland, a mass exodus supposedly taking the Isle’s best and brightest to Britain, Australia, and America. Not so, says the first readings of Ireland’s 2011 census. The preliminary results show a population of 4,581,269 in the Republic, an increase of just over eight percent in the five years since the last census.

For ABCD head John Drew, all of life is a battle — you have to bounce back up

By Staff
July 29, 2011

By Greg O’Brien
Special to the BIR

There’s a bit of “Irish” Mickey Ward in John Drew, a scrappy, knock-down brawler when his back is against the wall. The inspiration for the Donny Wahlberg movie “The Fighter” reflects Drew in more ways than one can imagine. “There will never be a day when I can be complacent,” says the president and CEO of Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), the Boston anti-poverty agency that serves 100,000 low-income, disadvantaged individuals and families, and is now in the gun-sights of Tea Partiers rallying against federal and state expenditures for the needy. “I have to keep on fighting, always with my hands up to ward off the blows, just to keep things going.”

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