A long journey into “night” - the Irish American author Jennings Michael Burch that still strikes a chord today

Jennings Michael Burch

Sometimes, the students are the ones who teach the teachers.

High school students all across New York City spent last week taking their all-important Regents exams is subjects like algebra, global history and English language arts.

As readers of this column may know, I’m a high school teacher in Brooklyn.  And  so my job last week was to grade literally hundreds of those English language  arts Regents exams.

One part of the exam asks students to read a quotation by a famous person and write an essay about two works of literature related to that quote. And so, not surprisingly, I read essay after essay in which students discussed The Catcher in the Rye, The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible and many other staples of American literature.

But, this year, one title came up on numerous student essays that I’d never heard of.  The book was called They Cage the Animals at Night and, as the students were describing it, the book was about a boy with a series of family problems who ended up in numerous foster homes, some of which were run by the Catholic Church. 

Some of the nuns the boy came across were nice.  Others were not.

A little bit of research introduced me Jennings Michael Burch, the author of They Cage the Animals at Night.  Burch’s childhood, in many ways, was very typical for Irish Americans at the time. 

He was born in New York City in the late 1940s.  His father was named Francis and his mother was named Rita (nee Hogan).  The family moved around, from Queens to Manhattan to the Bronx. 

Burch himself would go on to become a police officer and raise four daughters of his own. But there were things about his youth that were far from typical.  Overall there were five Burch children, and at some point Rita simply became overwhelmed. Jennings entered the foster care system, eventually staying in over 30 different foster homes. 

Thus began an odyssey that very few children could endure.  Burch faced mental and physical abuse. He was temporarily placed with families that were, at best, uncaring and, at worst, criminal. 

Burch’s book manages to vividly convey not only the ordinary traumas of childhood, but the extraordinary challenges he had to overcome to survive. 

They Cage the Animals at Night has drawn comparisons to the trilogy of books (which students devour) about abuse by Dave Pelzer, as well as Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes.

It was satisfying to learn about Burch, his life and his book. There is something to be said here that is possibly corny, but still noble about the power of reading. 

Jennings Michael Burch created a harrowing story about a time and place that many high school students in the year 2013 might not otherwise care about.  And for all of the difficulties he faced, it was another Irish American family, the Dailys, who were finally able to show Jennings the love and guidance he needed.

Then I learned -- you can’t make this stuff up -- Michael Jackson, of all people, had been planning to make a movie based on They Cage the Animals at Night when the famed singer died in 2009. Jackson said he related to Burch’s story. "Michael told me often he felt like he grew up as an orphan, like a foster kid, because he never was in one home," producer, writer and director Bryan Michael Stoller told Reuters a few years back.

"To him every hotel was like a different foster home. He said he used to sit in the window and see kids playing outside and cry because he couldn't be part of that."

Not many 70-somethings can say they managed to emotionally move Brooklyn 17 year-olds as well as the King of Pop. Then I learned one more important thing.

Jennings Michael Burch died earlier this month at the age of 71. He had been battling cancer for some time. 

There was no obituary in The New York Times.  Just a notice in the Putnam County Courier, published in upstate New York, where Burch called home for the final 20 years of his life.

They Cage the Animals at Night may never come out as a movie.  Burch had been working on a sequel, but it’s not clear if he ever finished it.

One thing is clear.  Many of us worry if we leave a legacy on this planet.  Jennings Michael Burch had no such worries. 

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

The conspiracy theory that won’t go away - Robert F Kennedy and the secrets behind the assassination of JFK

Robert F. Kennedy Jr

Early in Oliver Stone’s hyper-paranoid film JFK, Guy Bannister (played by Ed Asner) grumbles that he hates the fact that, by 1963, African Americans could  more or less vote safely.  He adds, “[Blacks] get together with the Jews and the  Catholics and elect an Irish bleeding heart.”

According to the film, Bannister -- and a whole bunch of other people -- did  something to stop that “Irish bleeding heart.” 

Bannister and the mob and the CIA and Lyndon Johnson and perhaps even Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

The Warren Commission later argued that Oswald, in fact, acted alone. But most Americans remain skeptical of the Warren Report.

Bobby Kennedy Jr., it turns out, is one of them.  Earlier this month, JFK’s nephew, as well as his niece, Rory, sat down for an interview in Dallas.

Eventually, Bobby Kennedy’s two children were asked about the conspiracy theories swirling around JFK’s murder. “The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman,” RFK Jr. said, though he didn’t elaborate much beyond that. 

He did add that his father, who himself was assassinated in June of 1968, also believed their was another killer aside from Oswald. According to RFK Jr., his father considered the Warren Commission report “shoddy.”

RFK Jr. added, “He publicly supported the Warren Commission report but  privately he was dismissive of it."

RFK Jr. also suggested that the most likely co-conspirators were mafia leaders who were targeted by JFK’s attorney general -- who was none other than Bobby Kennedy Sr.

To quote another famous mafia figure, “Every time I think I’m out...they pull me  back in!”

Things have been quiet on the JFK conspiracy front.  And then, RFK Jr. went and made his comments. 

And then, a few days later, an apartment in Dallas which Oswald called home in 1962 and 1963 was torn down, briefly resurrecting interest in Oswald’s bizarre life prior to being thrust onto the world stage.

And so we have, arguably, the most compelling defender yet of a conspiracy  theory to kill JFK -- his own martyred brother and his crusading son. 

It means nothing to me.  For years I waded into the muck and mire of the JFK conspiracy underworld and emerged unconvinced. 

Yes, there is a lot of evidence to suggest others were involved in the Kennedy killing.  Yes, the Warren report is flawed. 

But I also discovered that most people who buy into the JFK conspiracy do so not only based on facts, but also on something that can only be described as vaguely  religious.

You also see this from those who buy into conspiracies surrounding another  tragedy which hit Irish America hard -- the 9/11 attacks.  Part of the allure of  conspiracy theories surrounding both 9/11 and JFK is that they explain the seemingly unexplainable.  

How could one Marxist loser end Camelot?  How could 20 fanatics with a few hours of flying lessons murder 3,000 people? No, it must have been something larger.

But have you ever noticed that people don’t talk much about conspiracy theories when it comes to plots that more or less failed?

In December of 1960, a man named Richard Pavlick packed his car with dynamite and was going to ram the vehicle into a Kennedy home in Florida.  He chickened out and was arrested. 

Had he succeeded, perhaps great energy would have gone into uncovering a broader conspiracy. Instead, the truth was fairly easy to swallow.  The guy was an anti-Catholic nut who hated JFK.

And why so few conspiracy theories about the 1993 effort to topple the World Trade Center?  Why do theories about rogue government elements, and, yes, even Israel and the Jews, flourish only around the 2001 attack that actually brought the towers down?

It is generally futile to go detail for detail with conspiracy theorists.  They are dogged in their shaping of facts which support their view, and, like the  religiously faithful, defend their organization of those facts. 

As for me, once I read Gerald Posner’s book Case Closed, I was able to accept the fact that Oswald acted alone.

The odd thing in all of this is why RFK Jr. was not asked if he believes Sirhan Sirhan acted alone when he killed Bobby Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968?  Why not ask that question?

Must be a conspiracy.

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

'Gangster Squad', Whitey Bulger, the Westies and more - It’s prime time for Irish crime - VIDEO

Josh Brolin stars as John O'Mara in 'Gangster Squad'

Gangster Squad is currently filling movie theaters across the nation with the rat-tat-tat sound of Tommy guns firing off endless rounds.  The film stars Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, as well as Josh Brolin, who plays an Irish American cop named John O’Mara.

But as several recent crime cases indicate, Irish Americans are still very much  on the wrong side of the law as well.

The case against Irish Godfather Whitey Bulger, for example, drags on.  The  senior citizen mobster, this week, argued that he could not get a fair trial with the current judge presiding over the case. 

Bulger -- who himself is  expected to be the subject of a forthcoming Hollywood flick directed by newly minted Golden Globe winner Ben Affleck -- is arguing that the judge’s prior experience  prosecuting Boston criminals creates the appearance of a conflict.

God knows how you could find anyone in Boston law enforcement who did not, at one point, have some sort of involvement in the massive, decades-long hunt to nab Bulger.  One gets the feeling that Bulger will be sentenced to a  hole six-feet in the ground well before he is ever officially sentenced to a  prison cell.

Meanwhile, late last year, federal law enforcement officials announced the arrest of an Irish American member of the Westies street gang, accused of extortion in a case that also involved a shootout. 

Read more: Irish American mob lawyer Gerald McMahon targets “rats” as he calls informers

New Jersey resident Daniel Hanley -- identified by the feds as a member of the long-standing West Side Irish  gang the Westies -- has been accused of teaming up with members of the Gambino crime family and an offshoot of the Hell’s Angel motorcycle gang to run a violent loan sharking operation.

“With alleged involvement of the Gambinos, Westies and Hell’s Angels, this case hit the trifecta of loan sharking and extortion,” New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly commented.

But by the far the most intriguing Irish American criminal in the news these  days is Anthony “Tony O” O’Donnell. 

O’Donnell has been identified as a long-time associate of the Gambino crime family and has faced a slew of charges  related to various shakedowns in the construction industry.

Back in 2000, O’Donnell, as well as Finbar O’Neill and other Irish Americans, were named in an indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau following a three year investigation.

Meanwhile, at a January 2011 press conference, Justice Department officials  outlined O’Donnell’s long career in the New York-New Jersey underworld.

O’Donnell “served as the right hand man to Edward Garafola, a Gambino soldier  who was a member of the Gambino family’s ‘construction panel,’” a Justice  Department report noted, before outlining a host of complex shakedown schemes the Gambino expert “panel” oversaw.

In 1993, O’Donnell was arrested and charged with participating in the armed robbery of a UPS truck moving goods from New York to New Jersey.  In 2008, he also plead guilty to what the Justice Department termed “extortion conspiracy.”

Read more: Like Big Tobacco, the Big Guns of the NRA are about to fade

In his latest round of legal woes, O’Donnell has been accused of shaking down a Midtown Manhattan real estate investment firm.  In an effort to polish his image before sentencing, O’Donnell submitted chummy letters from political heavyweights including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, former president Bill Clinton and even current one Barack Obama.

Trouble is, the correspondence between these bold-faced politicos and O’Donnell was hardly personal.  Many of the documents were form letters sent out in mass mailings to constituents, supporters, donors or others.

Either way, O’Donnell’s shakedown shenanigans, Whitey Bulger’s stall tactics and the return of the old-school Westies goes to show that America’s real-life “Gangster Squad” still had a decidedly green tint -- for better or worse. 

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

What now for the Catholic Church? Obama’s reelection and schools among questions that need to be answered

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

When the Academy Award nominations are announced on January 10, Mea Maxima Culpa may or may not be one of the five films up for Best Documentary.

The film, about the sexual abuse horrors Wisconsin’s Reverend Lawrence Murphy is accused of, was on a shortlist of 15 top documentaries back in December.

Either way, the film directed by Alex Gibney has already made a troubling case not only against Murphy, but the Vatican as well.

With the New Year upon us, and a grueling election which grappled with tough religious questions behind us, it is probably time to ask -- what is the future of the Catholic Church in America?

Given the revelations in Mea Maxima Culpa, given the election results and the ongoing restructuring of Catholic schools across the U.S., it is surprising fewer people have not raised this question.

After President Obama’s reelection, for example, most commentators argued that it was time for the Republican Party to take a long look in the mirror.

But what about the church and the election? New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan was on the offensive much of the electoral season, denouncing the Obama administration on several fronts.

Read more: New York Times surprised over Cardinal Dolan's support for beatification of Dorothy Day

Irish Catholic pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, meanwhile, suggested the election was nothing short of a referendum on religious freedom.  A vote for Obama, many argued, was a vote against the Catholic Church.

Yet according to most polling data, Catholics supported Obama by a slim majority. (Though it appears that Irish and other white Catholics supported Mitt Romney.)

Either way, given the lengths vocal church leaders went to steer Catholics away from Obama -- Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria likened the Obama administration to those who mocked Jesus -- these numbers do not bode well.

And while it is tempting to say the church is engaged in spiritual rather than political matters, to pretend the church is an apolitical institution is to simply ignore reality.

But politics is only part of what church leaders need to be thinking about.

The true cost of the damage inflicted by the sex abuse scandal.  The purpose -- and  price -- of Catholic education. The dwindling number of priests.

The future of the church hinges on these and other messy, weighty questions.

Irish American scholar Patrick J. McCloskey offered some interesting thoughts this Monday in The New York Times. “Catholic parochial education is in crisis,” McCloskey, and his co-author Joseph Claude Harris, declared in an op-ed piece entitled “Catholic Education, In Need of Salvation.”

They note that Catholic schools have long played a key role for the Irish and other immigrants in America, but are no longer playing that role.

One reason?  Tuition has risen sharply, though not because church revenues have fallen off.

“Despite the sex-abuse scandals and two recessions, church revenue...grew to $11.9 billion in 2010, an inflation-adjusted increase of $2.2 billion from a  decade earlier,” they write.

“Yet educational subsidies have fallen; the church now pays at least 12.6 percent of parochial elementary school costs, down from  63 percent in 1965.”

One possible solution?  Given the falling numbers of priests, McCloskey suggests deacons be given more power.  This, however, would in all likelihood eventually  lead to a “married priesthood.”

“Celibacy should be a sacrifice offered freely, not an excuse for institutional  suicide,” McCloskey writes.

Good luck convincing Pope Benedict -- or, for that matter, Sean Hannity -- of that. But it’s pretty clear something has got to give.

Read more: Cardinal Dolan congratulates Bishop Dennis Sullivan on appointment as bishop of Camden

Something spiritual, yes, but also financial, educational and cultural.  It’s tempting to say it’s time for another Vatican Council, like those meetings held between 1962 and 1965, to take up these profound questions.

Rather than sit and wait for that, perhaps the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops need to confront this moment head on and hold some sort of council of their own. 

If for no other reason, then to shed light on the many good things the church still does. For all of its flaws, we would be a poorer nation without a vibrant, relevant Catholic Church. 

Right now, that does not seem to be what the future holds.

(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)

Irish strongest lead Hurricane Sandy efforts - NYC’s Sanitation Department on the front line

This Irish flag was recovered by the Sanitation Department in Belle Harbor.
Pictured are supervisor Matt Ryan, sanitation worker Ed Shevlin and supervisor Joe O'Keefe.

Frank O’Keefe has seen a lot in his 20-plus years as a member of New York City’s Sanitation Department -- massive blizzards, hurricanes, even 9/11.

Nothing prepared him for what he saw when he reported for work in the Rockaways after Hurricane Sandy.

“Any pictures you’ve seen do not do it justice,” said O’Keefe, whose parents were born in Kerry.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

O’Keefe, a Sanitation Department superintendent, was dispatched to the Rockaways after the storm. He, along with countless other members of the department, immediately began cleaning up ravaged, heavily-Irish communities such as the Rockaways, Breezy Point and Broad Channel.

The Sanitation Department, known as “New York’s Strongest,” has transformed Jacob Riis Park into a massive trash storage facility. Many of the workers and supervisors cleaning up Queens have not had a day off since the storm hit.

Not long after the clean up got underway, O’Keefe noticed something.  Many key leaders of the department’s Queens clean-up effort are Irish Americans, active in the department’s Emerald Society and Pipe and Drums Band.

The top supervisor on the operation, for example, is Deputy Chief Jim McGovern.  Deputy chiefs Danny O’Leary (an Emerald Society vice president) Roger Leahy (a pipe major) and Keith Woods, as well as Assistant Chief Joe Hickey (a piper with the band) are also key players. 

Sanitation workers on the streets in the Rockaways include Jimmy McGoorty as well as Ed Shevlin, who is well known in Irish circles for his fluency with the Irish language. 

Shevlin has studied Irish in Galway, after wining a grant from the Fulbright Commission, and is working toward a bachelor’s degree in Irish studies. He has said he plans to earn a master’s degree and eventually teach college.

Read more on Hurricane Sandy and the clean up efforts here

Does having all of these Irish Americans help the clean up operation?

“Absolutely,” says O’Keefe. “You have everybody’s cell phone numbers.  It’s easy to get in touch with people.  You know where everybody is.  And maybe there’s even a bit more camaraderie.”

Other key Irish Americans on the clean-up effort include superintendents Timothy Fox, an Emerald Society vice president, and Dennis Cleary, an Emerald Society member, as well as supervisor Joey O’Keefe, a pipe sergeant in the band.

Given all the pain and suffering caused by Sandy, it’s been easy to forget the tremendous job done by all of New York’s Sanitation workers, and what they’ve done to help bring some kind of sense of normalcy back to New York. 

Sandy, in short, gave New Yorkers a chance to sing the praises of New York’s unsung heroes.  (Full disclosure -- my own father retired from “The Strongest” back in the late 1980s.)

Among those working to clean up the Rockaways were many sanitation workers who themselves suffered property damage, lost homes or had family members displaced.

“Coming to work was almost therapeutic for them,” said O’Keefe.  “It took the focus temporarily off of their personal issues.”

Whatever their background, sanitation workers tasked with cleaning up what Sandy left behind faced unprecedented challenges.

“Never ever in the history of the department have we had a clean up like this,” noted O’Keefe, who grew up in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx.

“People had to get together and use their experience and the knowledge they acquired over the years.”

O’Keefe added, “There’s still a lot of work to do, but given what it looked like two weeks ago it’s almost a miracle.”

And while residents have been hit hard by power outages, homelessness and looting, O’Keefe has been blown away by the strength of Queens residents.

“The people here are incredibly resilient.  They have loved us and they’ve really responded to our contribution here,” he said.

The Irish American sanitation workers and residents have actually started looking ahead to the first Saturday in March.  That is the traditional date of the Rockaways annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“They want to have it,” O’Keefe said of local Irish residents.  “I think that’s going to be their big comeback.”

And will the Sanitation’s Pipe and Drums band be there?

“Absolutely,” O’Keefe vowed.  “We march in it every year.”

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

Childhood Staten Island memories shattered by Hurricane Sandy -- Superstorm dubbed the Katrina of New York by locals

Homes and lives destroyed in Staten Island after Hurricane Sandy

When I was younger, if I had a Sunday morning baseball or soccer game, I attended Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Cedar Grove Avenue in the New Dorp Beach section of Staten Island.  The church was conveniently located right next to Miller Field, where thousands of kids and parents congregate on weekends for sports, picnics, sunbathing and more.

Right now, if you ascend the steps of Our Lady of Lourdes, a landscape of breathtaking devastation unfolds before you. 

Muddy water.  Wind-battered bus stop signs.  Waterlogged couches.  Discarded appliances.  Pulled-up rugs. Sand.  

And, of course, people.  

People like Lou Cummiskey.  I attended Our Lady Queen of Peace grammar school  with Lou’s son, Danny.  A 40 year-resident of New Dorp Beach, Cummiskey has  served as an Ancient Order of Hibernians treasurer as well as an organizer for  the Staten Island Irish fair. 

In 2007, he helped a man from Derry return a Purple Heart medal to the family of an Irish immigrant New Yorker who believed the precious military memento had been lost forever. Cummiskey has also worked with the Irish Political Prisoner’s Children’s Holiday program which brings kids from Northern Ireland to America.

Now, Lou Cummiskey has no home.  

“They got a red tag,” Danny Cummiskey told me this week, referring to the seal left by city officials deeming his parents’ house unsafe.

“It’s been hard,” Danny added.  “This is Katrina in New York.” (To help the Cummiskey family visit this website). 

Danny says his  parents don’t “handle taking charity well.  They’re proud, Irish folk.” 

However, since Lou Cummiskey has spent his entire life helping others, Danny simply sees this as “karma.”

New Dorp Beach - a five minute drive from the home in which I grew up, and where my mother and sister still live – was decimated by Hurricane Sandy.  For days,  officials were looking for - and finding - dead residents after the superstorm hit.

In neighboring Oakwood Beach, one of my cousins was forced to evacuate after Sandy’s merciless tide flooded the home.

Last week, there were no picnics, no baseball games at Miller Field.  It was strewn with ocean debris and served as a staging area for volunteers and rescue workers who unloaded trucks full of food, clothes and other necessities for New Dorp Beach residents.

They had spent the bleak days after Sandy desperately, angrily demanding much-needed help. And now there’s cold weather, and another nasty storm to contend with.

The entire Northeast will be sorting through the debris left in Sandy’s wake for months.  But Staten Island will never be the same after Sandy. 

A small part of the world which had already been immeasurably scarred by 9/11 - a memorial with an angel and American flag was erected a few years back in New Dorp Beach - must now dig out from an unprecedented natural disaster. A landscape that I literally grew up with has been changed forever. 

My parents used to live down there.  I used to go fishing on a long, rocky jetty located in New Dorp Beach.  I played baseball at Miller Field and softball at the Bob Illig Memorial Field on Cedar Grove Avenue.

For three years, my wife lived in an apartment in nearby Oakwood Beach – this after being flooded out of another apartment on Father Capodanno Boulevard during a 1992 Nor’easter.

That boulevard, located just a stroll from New Dorp Beach, through Miller Field, will forever be linked to the most enduring tragedy of Hurricane Sandy -- a mother, Glenda Moore, whose car stalled on Father Capodanno Boulevard.  She attempted to carry her two and four year old sons to safety, but a massive wave knocked the boys out of her hands. 

They were discovered dead days later. Their father is a native of Co. Donegal.

Until last week, Father Capodanno Boulevard, running along Staten Island’s Midland and South beach areas, was a place of fond memories.  There were softball games with friends.  Trips to the adjacent playgrounds, boardwalk and beach with my own children.

Back in the eighties, thousands of teens would congregate along “Father Capodanno”  - as the locals call it - to do things the brave Vietnam vet priest for whom the  road is named might not approve. We did what teenagers do -- drink, fight, laugh, fall in and out of love and listen to music really loudly. 

There were no cell phones.  No Facebook. Somehow we managed.

Driving along Father Capodanno Boulevard this week brought only sadness.  Vast swaths of sand and mud still on the streets.  Traffic lights that still don’t work.  Piles of trash pulled from waterlogged homes.

And we haven’t even mentioned the place my parents took me - just as I now take my own kids - when we needed a break from Staten Island. Point Pleasant.  Seaside Heights.  The Jersey Shore.

Of course, people will recover from Sandy. Streets will be cleaned.  New homes will replace old ones. 

The Cummiskey family, like so many others in New Dorp Beach, is rallying around those in need.

The response from volunteers “has been phenomenal,” Danny Cummiskey says.  “The outpouring of support is a testament to humanity.”

But Staten Island’s waterfront communities will never be the same.  Fond  memories of the past will grow fonder, if only to help cope with the grim reality of the present. 

As for the future, it may be uncertain, but one thing is clear -- New Dorp Beach residents should not be forgotten.  

Go to www.gofundme.com/1gemg4 to help the Cummiskey family.  Otherwise, donate blankets, food and clothing, especially for young children.  

Help ensure that communities such as this are not lost forever. 

When Northern Irish civil rights activist Bernadette Devlin came to America - VIDEO

Bernadette Devlin

Earlier this month, the Irish Film New York festival showcased a series of provocative films from Ireland, including Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey. 

The 90-minute documentary explores the rise and evolution of Northern Ireland firebrand Bernadette Devlin, who famously rose to prominence in 1969 after the Battle of the Bogside in August which brought The Troubles to the attention of the international community.

Devlin is best known for being elected to Parliament at the ripe old age of 21 and for her ceaseless commitment to justice in the North. 

What is often forgotten is that Devlin made an eventful trip to America back in 1969.  She was hoping to drum up support for the cause of civil rights in Northern Ireland, just as Eamon de Valera and John Devoy had done on earlier trips to the U.S. 

Instead, Devlin exposed deep rifts between Irish Catholics in America and in Ireland.

It seemed a match made in heaven.  Devlin was passionate and articulate.  She was a telegenic lass from the “old country” with an accent that surely charmed every third generation Irish American who heard it.

But this was 1969, arguably one of the craziest years in American history.  It was a time for choosing sides. 

And it turned out that Devlin and Irish Americans, more often than not, found themselves on opposite sides of the issues of the day.

Irish Americans wanted to hear about the dirty Brits and how the Protestants in the North were oppressing Irish Catholics in Belfast and Derry.  Devlin, of course, was more than willing to talk about this as she visited pubs, AOH centers and Knights of Columbus halls from New York to San Francisco.

But things got complicated when Devlin broadened her definition of injustice. When she began talking about how the struggle for civil rights for African Americans in the U.S. was just as important as the fight for Catholic civil rights in the North … well, Devlin found herself on the receiving end of some cold, hard stares.

Devlin ended up criticizing Irish American kingmaker Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Those who had initially raised money for Devlin, once they heard her controversial views, gave the money to American charities instead.

By 1969, many Irish Americans had begun questioning their centuries-old alliance with the Democratic Party.  Many viewed late sixties developments from hippie culture to skyrocketing crime rates as signs of American decline. 

Many Irish Americans grew increasingly conservative.  They blasted liberals such as New York City Mayor John Lindsay, and some even supported segregationist George Wallace for president.

This, even as they supported radicals like Devlin in Northern Ireland.

The result?

“People who were wearing ‘Dump Lindsay’ buttons and who...had supported George Wallace for president” came out to support the radical socialist Devlin.

This description (of a Devlin fundraiser in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn) comes from one of the more fascinating reports on Devlin’s U.S. trip - a 12-page article which appeared in the January 1970 issue of Harper’s, written by Sara Davidson.

Davidson followed Devlin across America and along the way offers interesting insights, even as she unintentionally manages to offend all involved.  (Was it really necessary to highlight the speech of Brooklyn Irish Americans watching Devlin’s car pass by, who comment, “Why you gotta pick dis street to come down?”)

The article culminates with a Los Angeles rally before a “schizophrenic crowd” consisting of demure white-haired Irish Americans and hippies and radicals who’d come to see the revolutionary from Ireland.

Hey, it was 1969.

Facing questions about whether or not the money she was raising would be used to fund the armed struggle, Devlin cut her American trip short in early September.

Exhausted and frustrated, Devlin apparently found that war-torn Northern Ireland was easier to handle than 1960s America.

CORRECTION: As I noted in last week’s column, Democratic Party officials initially did not accept Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s offer to say a prayer at their convention back in August.  However, as numerous readers noted, Dolan eventually did visit the convention and offer a prayer. My apologies for not mentioning this.

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

Here, listen to 'Barricade' from Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey:

Religion and politics go perfectly together, but is the church closing their doors to possible parishioners?

Archbishop John J. Myers (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Tom Moran was “born into a devout Catholic family, the fifth of nine children,” as the Irish American columnist wrote in a column this past Sunday for the Star Ledger newspaper in New Jersey.

Moran, however, now declares himself “a spiritual refugee,” who has “fled a million miles from the church.”

He, of course, is not the only one.

“One in three American adults was raised in a Catholic family, but fewer than one in four identify as Catholic today. No other church has shed so many followers, according to surveys by the Pew Charitable Trusts,” Moran writes.

This bit of soul-searching was prompted by a controversial letter written by Archbishop John J. Myers, the spiritual leader of the Newark Archdiocese.

Myers lengthy pastoral letter on marriage and family encouraged Catholics to vote a certain way in the upcoming presidential election. 

“Catholic citizens must exercise their right to be heard in the public square by defending marriage,” Myers writes. 

In short, Myers is placing gay marriage, as well as abortion, at the center of the 2012 election.  He adds that Catholics who don’t share his views should probably not receive Holy Communion.

Moran and many like him are wondering why such a prominent religious figure would release such a highly-charged document on the eve of the closely-watched presidential debates, and just a month before this hard-fought election, in which religious values have played a central, often contentious, role.

It’s easy to say religion and politics don’t mix, and that Myers shouldn’t go about endorsing candidates, even though Myers never technically mentioned that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan (who is Catholic) are members of a political party whose views match the Catholic Church’s.  Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden (also Catholic) support abortion and gay marriage.

Trouble is, religion and politics have always mixed, like it or not. 

“Dagger” John Hughes, the Irish immigrant who more or less built the New York Archdiocese, openly supported political candidates who joined him in his fight to rid New York’s schools of their deeply Protestant influences. 

John Drina of Massachusetts was a Catholic priest who joined the anti-war movement and actually won a seat in congress in 1970.  He was followed a few years later by Robert John Cornell of Wisconsin, a priest who served in Congress until 1978.

So, if you don’t like mixing religion and politics, that is your right, but it’s been happening for about as long as people have been mixing scotch and soda.

Perhaps the real interesting place to get some thoughts on the archbishop’s priorities is St. Anne’s school in Jersey City.  Or Queen of Angels in Newark itself. 

Those are two of eight schools in the Newark Archdiocese that were slated for closure in an announcement earlier this year.  Yes, Catholic school closures are generally about budgets and finances. 

But across the country, budgets and finances are in bad shape because so many Catholics are indeed
voting.  But not at the ballot box. 

Catholics, instead, are voting with their feet, by attending church fewer and fewer times.  They are voting with their pocketbook, simply unable to pay the high cost of (an admittedly very fine)
Catholic education.

Are people fleeing the church solely because of abortion and gay rights?  No, but most polls show the vast majority of American Catholics disagree with their leaders on these issues. 

And while it is easy to say an institution such as the Catholic Church has little use for polls, it’s going way too far to suggest that the church is some timeless institution that never changes or responds to the political tone of the day.

Myers, for example, is a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a body which would probably not exist but for pressure created by victims.

Ultimately, it is perplexing why so many church leaders choose to make abortion and gay marriage the most pressing issue of the day, going so far as to suggest support for these issues precludes Catholics from participating in the sacraments.

Is this an institution that really wants to be closing its doors to anyone at this point?

Doing so may go over well with some on Election Day. But it only creates more and more spiritual refugees.

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

The high price of free speech - Muslim and Irish protests against hate

Anti-U.S. protests in Ankara, Turkey last week (AP)

In 1849, Irish immigrants were a key participant in what came to be known as the Astor Place Riots. At least two dozen people were killed. 

Why?  The participants were battling over which Shakespearean actor was the era’s best -- England-born William Charles Macready (despised by the Irish) or American-born Edwin Forrest. 

Twenty five years later, Irish American anger at newspaper cartoonist (and anti-Irish bigot) Thomas Nast was so high police officers had to be posted outside of Nast’s home.

So as we watch predominately-Muslim countries explode into violence over an idiotic film, perhaps we should not be surprised.  At one time or another, people of divergent background have reacted violently to books or art or plays or movies.

But it’s not the 1800s anymore.  And just because people have always done this does not make it right. 

The fact that four people had to die because some nincompoop named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula chose to make a bad movie about the prophet Mohammed is a tragedy.  The fact that large numbers of people in countries from Tunisia to Afghanistan believe this violence is justifiable -- and that artists
can be bullied into silence -- is a long-term problem for America.

And here’s another unfortunate thing. European nations, including Ireland, also believe that controversial religious material is best not discussed.  The implied message here seems to be that saying naughty things about another person’s religion is simply too much trouble.  It can, obviously, lead to violence. 

But rather than focus on the fact that a very small but very vocal minority of religious people seem to want to live as if it is still the seventh century, activists and lawmakers from Dublin to Cairo feel it is best to simply not talk about certain subjects.

“We don’t think that depictions of the prophets are freedom of expression. We think it is an offense against our rights,” Ismail Mohamed, a religious scholar, told The New York Times. 

“We want these countries to understand that they need to take into consideration the people … the West has to understand the ideology of the people.”

Mohamed was basically attempting to explain why anger in the Islamic world has boiled over.  He was also arguing that freedom of expression - so cherished and prized in the United States - is an inadequate defense of a movie which depicts the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer and buffoon.

But here’s the thing -- much of “The West” already agrees with this.  America is pretty much the only country left where freedom of speech generally covers controversial religious material. 

Lest we forget, Ireland itself passed a controversial blasphemy law in 2009.  You may not agree with famed atheist

Richard Dawkins, who said that Ireland’s law would send the nation spiraling back into the Middle Ages.

However, this law - like similar laws passed by other European nations - does send a message to devoutly religious people that their rights are more important than the rights of anyone who might want to criticize certain aspects of any given religion.

From there, it’s not a great leap to simply taking the law into your own hands -- launch a rocket, storm an embassy.  Why not?  It’s my duty to my God.

I have long argued that people should be reverent and respectful about religion.  But part of living in a big, modern world is understanding that people inevitably disagree with you. 

Ultimately, as ugly as those disagreements can get, people must have a protected right to express those disagreements. 

The trouble is, those rights are fading.  Books such as Jeremy Waldron’s The Harm in Hate Speech argue that more - not fewer - restrictions on expression must be passed.  And many countries are doing just that.

Even U.S. authorities, for some reason, felt they had to detain Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a sight nearly as chilling as the angry protests inspired by his dumb movie.

The proper response to anything that can be called “hate speech” is more speech.  Passionate debate.  The organization of peaceful protests. 

Yes, this forces us to condone the speech of bigots and idiots.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, this is the worst system - except for every other one.

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

The day that never ends - everyone was affected by 9/11

Navy Commander Patrick Dunn was among those
 killed at the Pentagon on 9/11

Eleven years ago, I lived on Staten Island.  You could not avoid or escape the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. 

Everyone knew someone who perished in the terror attacks that day -- a relative, a former classmate, a neighbor.

For months, wakes and memorial services were held in churches across the borough.  In the years that followed, you could drive for 15 minutes and pass as many as two dozen streets named in honor of fallen cops, firefighters or Wall Street secretaries.

Three years ago I moved to New Jersey.  It goes without saying that New Jersey residents of neighborhoods such as Middletown paid a horrendous toll that day. 

On the other hand, my neighborhood in Woodbridge didn’t seem to have as close a connection to the attacks.  It didn’t seem, for example, that quite as many people on my block worked in Manhattan.

Furthermore, a decade after 9/11, you pretty much thought you had heard of all the people connected in some way to the attacks.

Dunn Memorial

Then, a few weeks ago, I was out for a walk.  I happened past Our Lady of Peace Catholic middle school, located on Amboy Avenue.

A small plaque and memorial caught my attention.  It was dedicated in memory of Patrick Dunn, who was killed on September 11.

Dunn grew up in Woodbridge and attended Bishop Ahr Catholic High School in Edison.  Dunn’s father served in the Navy, as did his brother. 

Dunn eventually graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and went on to serve on the USS LaSalle and the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

In December 2000, Dunn was transferred to the Pentagon, where he would serve as surface warfare officer in the U.S. Naval Command Center.

On September 11, according to the Star Ledger, he called his brother, who worked in Manhattan, when he’d heard planes had crashed into the Twin Towers.  Dunn and so many others had no idea that another plane was headed to the Pentagon.

"He was extremely attached to his family and he was there when you needed him," one of Dunn’s sisters told the Star Ledger.

Dunn’s wife was pregnant with their first child when the attacks occurred.

Many people have already commented that the anniversary of the attacks will probably pass by with less and less fanfare, now that the 10th anniversary has come and gone.  That is terrible, especially since it seems that day has not even ended yet. 

Whether it is another first responder dying of cancer, or learning about someone such as Commander Patrick Dunn, we are still struggling to emerge from the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

True, when I lived on Staten Island, it seemed you couldn’t go a few blocks without a reminder.  But I was naive to think that moving to a different place would prove any different. 

Whether it was a street corner or a volunteer firehouse or a humble memorial at a Catholic middle school, it was inevitable that I would confront a poignant reminder of all that was lost that day.

Which is why it is so disheartening to read about the ongoing struggles to open a museum and memorial at Ground Zero.

“Aides to (Mayor) Bloomberg and (Governor) Cuomo have so far been unable to resolve their differences over which government agencies will pay the operating costs of the museum, which is intended to document the terrorist attacks of 2001 and honor the nearly 3,000 victims,” The New York Times reported on Saturday.

“The two sides also remain at odds over who will have oversight of the museum and the surrounding memorial.”

About this, I am not naive.  These things cost money, and it is fine that the mayor and governor do some work to figure out how to pay the bills for this. 

But they had better figure it out. Memories of that day will inevitably fade. 

But that does not mean future generations must inevitably forget.  They will, in fact, crave to learn about and remember that awful day, and all memorials, big or small, play a role in that.

As Americans, we deserve - we need – a grand museum and memorial in lower Manhattan.  It’s also the least we can do for the widow, for the daughter, of people such as Commander Patrick Dunn.

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

BBC America’s “Copper” - in search of New York’s Five Points

A still from BBC America's 'Copper'

Irish Americans shouldn’t need Hollywood or the BBC to tell them where one of the most famous Irish neighborhoods in New York used to be.

I was thinking about this last month, when I paid a visit to the great Old Town bar on East 18th Street, owned for the longest time by the Meagher family.  It is a stalwart bar in an ever-changing city, and one of the few places you can still find an Al Smith campaign poster.

I was joined by writer and historian Kevin Baker, author of several excellent novels, including Paradise Alley, set among Irish immigrants in the old Five Points section of downtown Manhattan. Inevitably we began talking about the new BBC America series Copper, about an Irish immigrant cop, set in the Five Points.

There was also an angry, hand-written sign in the window of the Old Town that made this topic impossible to ignore.

“The Brits are at it again,” the sign read.  “BBC has produced a series on New York during the Civil War when half the metropolis was peopled by Irish driven from their homes by Victoria, a dowager so homely they could only marry her off to a first cousin, Albert, a German midget who couldn’t speak English.  It is indeed ironic that the Irish starved as Victoria, a fat slob, stuffed her mouth with groceries.”

The sign continued, “As usual, BBC depicts the New York Irish as a collection of tramps, idlers and thieves.  They even have the main character, an Irish copper, portrayed by a Welshman.  (Irish actors need not apply.)  As part of a New York Irish family since the 1820s that established successful businesses before the Civil War, we reject the Brits’ cartoon. 

“Ya gotta give it to the Brits.  They are consistent.”

I will respectfully disagree with the Old Town’s house TV critic, at least about the quality of the show Copper, if not necessarily about the rotundity of Queen Victoria. 

However, the airing of Copper does represent an important opportunity to address another matter of interest to Irish New Yorkers.

Just where were the Five Points located?

The Five Points have got to be the hottest piece of real estate no one can find on a map.  They are a notorious slice of hell that have been the subject of fascination going all the way back to 1842 when none other than Charles Dickens toured the area and declared, “Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays.”

History books will tell you that the Five Points name derives from the intersection of today’s Baxter and Worth Streets.  But that’s not what the streets were named in the 1860s. 

The real problem is that if you stand today at the intersection of Baxter and Worth Streets, northeast of City Hall, there is nothing to tell you that this, in fact, is where the notorious Five Points once stood.

Perhaps there is no point in erecting something like a memorial to the Five Points.  Life there was harsh, and it’s probably best for all involved that the slum is so more. 

Nevertheless, there is much to be learned from the Five Points about the Irish, immigration, poverty and perseverance.  So there should be something to let tourists as well as native New Yorkers know where the Points once stood.

I recommend the Collect Pond Park, a block north and west from the original Five Points, on Leonard Street, between Centre and Lafayette.  Collect Pond was a body of water actually used for drinking until the early 1800s, when the area was solidly middle class. 

Bungled municipal efforts to fill the pond created a festering swamp which bred disease - hence, middle class New Yorkers fled, leaving the Five Points to become an impoverished immigrant enclave.

The New York City Parks Department, which is currently renovating Collect Pond Park, should include efforts to explain what and where the Five Points were before the park reopens this fall. 

I think even the Old Town bar TV critic would agree that New Yorkers should know at least as much about the Five Points as Hollywood and the BBC.

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

Mitt Romney’s secret Irish Catholic Weapon - Senior Adviser Peter Flaherty

Peter Flaherty

Mitt Romney has a secret, Irish Catholic weapon in Tampa this week, one that  experts say is key to him stealing away the Catholic vote from Barack Obama.  

Timothy Cardinal Dolan?  Nope.  Paul Ryan?  Nope.

His name is Peter Flaherty and he is a senior adviser to Romney, and prefers to  keep himself out of the spotlight. Which is a little odd given that Flaherty has worked in both national politics  as well as Hollywood. 

Nevertheless, Flaherty is described as one of Romney’s closest aides.  His main job?  Persuading Irish Americans and other Roman Catholics that Romney is the man they should vote for.

Much attention was paid when it was announced that Dolan would say the closing prayer at this week’s Republican Convention. “The move is perhaps the clearest sign of a more aggressive push by Republicans to win over Roman Catholic voters this election cycle,” according to The New  York Times.

But Romney’s close relationship to Flaherty is arguably more important. 

When Romney served as Massachusetts governor Flaherty was his liaison to Catholics, including Boston’s Sean Cardinal O’Malley.

While much has been made about Romney’s “invitation” (as the Times put it) to  Dolan, the New York Catholic leader also made it clear he would do the same  thing for the Democrats. Rather stupidly, the Democrats have apparently declined Dolan’s offer. 

Yes, there are major differences between the church and the Democratic Party - on gays and abortion among other things.

However, it would seem that President Obama would want to stress common ground, especially when every Catholic vote counts in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Romney’s Catholic running mate Ryan has been lauded for his  budget-cutting proposals, but guess what organization slammed Ryan for slashing social services and even misunderstanding the Catholic doctrine of “subsidiarity”? 

None other than the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops.  And who leads that organization?  You guessed it, Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

No, if you really want to get a sense of how the Republicans are going to try  and sway Catholics away from Obama you’ve got to listen to Flaherty, who told the Times, “We’re going to have outreach to Catholics in a coordinated, organized effort — state by state, diocese by diocese, parish by parish and pew by pew.”

Flaherty grew up in Arlington, Massachusetts and graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, majoring in economics.  An Irish American aunt named Eileen Gill was murdered in Boston when Flaherty was young, and he has long said that terrible crime spurred him to fight the bad guys.

Flaherty became an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County before going to work for his brother, Michael, who runs Walden Media in Hollywood.

Flaherty returned east and began volunteering for Romney, and has been with the GOP candidate ever since. 

Inevitably, the question arises of whether or not there really is a “Catholic vote” in America. 

Obviously, the days of Roman Catholics voting largely for the party of JFK are over.  Irish and other white ethnic Catholics are much more willing to vote Republican these days, while Hispanic Catholics are generally Democratic. 

Nevertheless, it would be silly for either Romney or Obama to dismiss 25 percent of the voting population who - for all of their differences - share important key factors.

First and foremost, they are clustered in key battleground states.  Also, while polls show that a majority of American Catholics are generally not opposed to birth control and abortion, they are also reverent and respectful towards religion in a way that Republicans can take advantage of.  That’s why it seems such a blunder for the Democrats to not accept Cardinal Dolan’s offer to pray at their convention.  It is the type of small thing someone like Peter Flaherty could make a big deal out of. 

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