Prediction for the New Year - what the world can expect from the Republicans, Catholic Church and more in 2013

Rick Santorum

It's that time of year again.  Assuming all those folks were actually wrong about that Mayan end-of-the-world thing, a new year is upon us.

Let’s gaze into our crystal ball and see what 2013 might have in store for the Irish in America.

First off, we can expect the Republican Party to make some changes. We’ve already seen them make some overtures towards immigrants, in the hopes that their party won’t soon become - you know - extinct. So why not expect more in that direction? 

Next year, the Republican Party will move to banish the constitutional requirement that the president actually be born in the U.S.  (In their minds that was already broken by Barack Obama, right?)  The GOP will then look to nominate an undocumented immigrant for the White House in 2016.

If that seems far-fetched, keep in mind that some people right now actually believe that Republicans will give in when it comes to the gun nuts in this country.

Speaking of institutions facing extinction, what’s in store for the American Catholic Church in 2013? 

First, we can expect the hierarchy to get it over with and excommunicate every pesky nun currently serving in the U.S.  Those ladies have already caused far too much trouble with their yapping about following the example set by Jesus when it comes to love and tolerance. 

Odd how the nuns have also managed to avoid becoming embroiled in, like, even one single sex abuse case.

Rick Santorum, meanwhile, having failed to ride his impeccable Catholic cred to the White House, will announce his candidacy for Pope.  When Santorum hears papal policy regarding the impoverished and oppressed of the world, however, he will announce he is instead running for Pope of America.

No one opposes - or cares.

Finally, the church will stop announcing which Catholic schools are closing.  For simplicity’s sake, they will simply announce which schools will actually remain open.

In the world of showbiz, expect big things from legendary Boston Irish criminal Whitey Bulger in 2013.  Sure he’s disgraced and imprisoned now. 

But with movie stars like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck angling to make a movie about Bulger’s rise and fall, expect authorities to give the old guy a break so that he can serve as a “consultant” on the upcoming film.  (“What’s the guy ever done to prove we can’t trust him?” one FBI official will ask.)
Shockingly, after one day on the set, Bulger will disappear.  In the months that follow there will be
Whitey Bulger sightings from Denver to Dublin.

Ben Affleck, feeling guilty, will then attempt to shoot a fake movie, in the hopes of luring Bulger out of hiding.  It will be called Where Did Whitey Argo?

We couldn’t possibly go a whole column without mentioning Irish boy toy Niall Horan and the rest of the boys in One Direction.  Horan will shock the world in 2013 by calling a press conference and declaring: “Having just spent the last three months counting all of my money, I have decided to retire.  I don’t know what world these British twits are looking at, but in the world I come from these boy bands don’t last very long."

“Boyzone anybody?  Exactly!  I’m getting out of this now, before I start looking like a real weirdo.  I’ll be back when my fans all have children of their own and they have some real money to spend.”

Ex boy-bander Mark Wahlberg will then call up Horan to see if he is interested in playing a child role in the latest installment of the “Irish” Mickey Ward series of boxing films. The title? The Fighter 4: The Son Also Rises.

Also in 2013, Liam Neeson may actually pass on a movie role.  And Daniel Day-Lewis, having wowed audiences as Lincoln, grows pork-chop sideburns to play seventh President Andrew Jackson, whose parents were born Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim.

The expletive-laden script (written by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh) explores Jackson’s bloody rise to power. However, violence breaks out on the set when the notoriously-intense Day-Lewis refuses to break character.  McDonagh becomes frustrated when Day-Lewis requests a particularly ornate horse and buggy carriage to carry him to and from the set.

“It’s f***ing 2013 you weirdo!” McDonagh howls before socking Day-Lewis.

Happy New Year!

Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net.

The PJ Clarke’s Irish connection - ‘Tales from New York City’s Famous Saloon’

Helen Marie Clarke

From McSorley’s to the Lion’s Head, there is no shortage of classic New York bars with intimate Irish connections.

P.J. Clarke’s, at 3rd Avenue and 55th Street, is right up there with the best of them.

For well over a century, the squat brick pub and restaurant has welcomed both celebrities and the working class.  Legendary Irish actor Richard Harris loved to quip that when he went to P.J. Clarke’s, he asked for “the usual.” Vinny the barman promptly lined up six double vodkas.

Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy and countless other bold-faced names all had a soft spot for P.J. Clarke’s.  Given the celebrity pedigree of the joint, it may come as a surprise that P.J. Clarke’s was purchased exactly 100 years ago this year by a humble immigrant from Cloonlaughil, Co. Leitrim named Patrick Joseph Clarke.

The history of this acclaimed pub - from its famous patrons to the lesser-known but no-less-fascinating family behind the bar - is the subject of a new book entitled Over P.J. Clarke’s Bar: Tales from New York City’s Famous Saloon by Helen Marie Clarke, whose grandfather was Patrick Joseph Clarke’s brother.

How intimately did Helen’s family know P.J. Clarke’s?  Her father - and his five brothers - grew up in the flat over the bar.

P.J. Clarkes

“Going there as a kid really made an impression on me,” Helen told the Irish Voice this week. 
The bar, meanwhile, has been making an impression on New Yorkers for generations.  Aside from its glitzy clientele, P.J. Clarke’s has been the bar to turn to for famous filmmakers. 

P.J. Clarke’s is one of the stars of Billy Wilder’s classic tale of alcoholism, The Lost Weekend. Popeye Doyle, in French Connection II, orders one of the bar’s famous burgers, and iconic New York Irish journalist Pete Hamill sits down with Al Pacino in P.J.’s in the whistleblower flick The Insider.

But for Helen Marie Clarke, the story of P.J.’s is decidedly more personal.

She recalls a moment as a young girl, walking through the bar with her granduncle Paddy, and looking at the portraits on the wall.  Hanging near the Irish Tricolor, Uncle Paddy noted, were portraits of Irish revolutionaries Robert Emmet and Michael Collins.

Young Helen knew the bearded fellow, Abraham Lincoln, though she did have some questions about the document which blared the headline “Poblacht Na H Eireann.”

Indeed, part of telling the story of her family’s famous bar was exploring the darker side of her family’s deep Irish roots.

“My grandfather wouldn’t talk about Ireland,” Clarke says. 

She came to see that the immigrant generation in her family was reluctant to talk about the past.
Helen chalks this up to the economic hardships they endured in the late 19th century, as well as anger over what the British had done to her family’s ancestral home.

“I wish he would have talked about the bar more,” Helen says, when asked about her Uncle Paddy. 

To write her book, Helen relied heavily on the recollections of her father and her Uncle Joe.

Despite the portraits of Irish revolutionaries and the Irish Republic Proclamation, Clarke didn’t grow up with a particularly strong sense of her Irish roots.  This even though her family lived a very typical New York Irish  life. 

Her own father, John, was a New York City Police officer who, after living above the bar, lived with his family in the Irish stronghold of Woodside, Queens.

Still, not until Helen visited Ireland in 1970 with her husband did she begin to appreciate the importance of her family’s Irish roots.

She met Irish relatives members while visiting in 1970 and returned in 1989, and to this day stays in touch with cousins from Dublin.  In fact, an Irish book editor named Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin helped make Clarke’s book a reality.

“She’s like a sister to me,” says Clarke, whose agent, Paul Feldstein, is based in Belfast.

Clarke, who now lives and teaches in New Mexico, is also working on a novel about the life of famed Irish revolutionary Constance Markiewicz, and is also hoping to publish a second memoir.

For now, she is enjoying the feeling of holding her book about P.J. Clarke’s which, for many readers, is a chronicle of a legendary New York watering hole.

For Helen, however, it is a prized family record of a distinguished Irish American clan.

“I can’t believe it,” she says.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

Immigration advice for Republicans - post election talk of reform seems superficial and desperate

Senator Linsdey Graham

Well, Republicans, here’s the bad news. Your attempts to suddenly seem immigrant-friendly are awkward at best, and - to put it more bluntly - seem hypocritical, superficial and desperate.
 
On the other hand, there is good news. There is no reason to believe Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama truly represents some kind of final nail in the coffin of the Republican Party. Republicans might actually look at immigration someday as something that benefits them.
 
All you have to do is look at Irish American history.
 
Last week, Republican lawmakers were suddenly busy working to reform America’s immigration policies. That’s not to suggest Republicans have been ignoring immigration.
 
Quite the contrary, as prominent members of the Republican Party have made names for themselves by suggesting that America would be better off sealing up its borders, building walls, or otherwise parroting anti-immigrant nativists from the 19th century.
 
Well, now, Republicans in the House of Representatives have gone and passed a bill which would lure highly educated immigrants to the U.S. GOP members of the Senate, meanwhile, have come up with their own version of the so-called Dream Act, which would help younger immigrants work legally in the U.S.
 
There’s no secret to why Republicans are suddenly embracing immigrants. They see their party going in one direction, and America going in the other direction.
 
Speaking on the TV news show Face the Nation, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said, 
“[Hispanics are] the fastest-growing demographic in the country, and we're losing votes every election cycle. And it has to stop. It's one thing to shoot yourself in the foot. Just don't reload the gun.”
 
He added, “I intend to tear this wall down and pass an immigration reform bill that's an American solution to an American problem.”

Read more news on Irish immigration issues here
 
Here’s the problem. This is not exactly the way to sway large numbers of Hispanic Americans to vote Republican. That’s because Hispanic voters - like all voters - walk into the voting booth caring about many issues, rather than just one.
 
The biggest problem the Republican Party is facing is not Hispanic voters, but instead where they live.
 
The Republicans continue to get absolutely trounced in urban areas. You know why? Because their policies are profoundly anti-urban.
 
Like it or not, government services - funded by dreaded taxes - play a very important role in the lives of city residents. They understand that without taxes there are no schools for their children, no cops for their streets and no buses or subways to move them around. The Republican obsession with anti-tax, anti-government rhetoric is profoundly out of touch with urban voters.
 
Given his infamous comments about the freeloading 47 percent, the amazing thing about Romney is that he did as well as he actually did in the election.
 
But now there is a feeling among Republicans that if they simply don’t seem quite so hostile on immigration, Hispanics may start voting for them.
 
It is understandable why some Republicans believe Hispanics should be voting for the GOP in greater numbers. They have deep religious and entrepreneurial traditions in America.
 
And yet, shockingly, the GOP’s obsession with abortion and lower taxes for the wealthy has yet to resonate with Mexicans and Dominicans and Puerto Ricans living in and around America’s great cities.
 
Indeed, other than moderating its overall message, if the GOP wants to succeed with these voters, there best tactic may well be to do nothing at all.
 
After all, ethnic Americans living in and around American cities from the 1930s to the 1960 rarely voted for Republicans. Few ever thought they would see the day when large numbers of Irish Catholics voted for Republicans.
 
But once they assimilated more deeply into the American mainstream middle class, they were willing to vote for the likes of Richard Nixon, and, of course, Ronald Reagan. It didn’t hurt that the latter was one of their own.
 
As the saying goes, some Irish Americans turned conservative once they had something to conserve.
 
So, Republicans, the good news is you do have a shot at the Hispanic vote.
 
The bad news? You may have to wait another 30 years or so.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com or tomdeignan@earthlink.net)