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.

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)

When the Irish fought the Irish in the Mexican American war -VIDEO

A scene from BBC America's 'Copper'

Next month, the new TV show Copper will premiere on BBC America.  The show will explore the lives of cops and criminals in Manhattan during the time of the U.S. Civil War, so you know there will be plenty of Irish saints and sinners written into the show.

Irish actor Kevin Ryan is among the stars of Copper, while the producers include Tom Fontana, whose groundbreaking prison show Oz included the memorable character Ryan O’Reilly.

The fact that the British are producing a show about Irish American life is, at the very least, ironic.  But that’s a topic for another day.

Copper is set during a time of war and poverty, of tensions over immigration and patriotism.  That sounds familiar, right?

This very much should remind us of our own day.  Last week, in Brooklyn, however, there was another reminder of a similarly tense time that is not so well-remembered.

The setting was Green-Wood cemetery, an oasis of 19th century life (and death) in Brooklyn.

It was here that cemetery workers were joined by a military color guard for a ceremony honoring war veterans, among them numerous Irish Americans.

Men like James McCabe, Lieutenant Francis Boyle and Lieutenant Charles Gallagher had previously been interred under a marker simply stating “Mexico.”  According to The New York Times, these veterans had been lavishly honored at the time of their burial.  There were plans to erect an elaborate memorial to honor the veterans’ sacrifices.

“Sometime later, however, one of the people they city had charged with building an obelisk over the graves made off with the money for the monument,” the Times noted.

For years, little was known about Boyle, McCabe and Gallagher.  Here’s one thing we do know. These Irish American veterans may very well have been fighting against Irish immigrant soldiers.

The Mexican American war broke out in 1846, 15 years before America would be plunged into civil war.  At the time, America was a young nation anxious to expand. 

Mexico was struggling to maintain the vast lands previously controlled by the Spanish. Tensions between the two nations grew into all out war.

When all was said and done, America had acquired vast new tracts of previously Mexican land, a fact that riles many people to this day.

There is another thing the Mexican American war is famous for, and that is the St. Patricio Brigade. 
The Chieftains recently made an album bearing that name, while Black ’47 and others have sung songs in their honor. 

These were disenchanted, mostly Irish souls who sympathized with the fellow Catholic country of Mexico, and took up arms against the heavily Protestant, expansionist-minded United States.  They were led by Galway native Jon Riley and to this day are honored in Mexico.

It didn’t hurt that the Mexican army often offered higher pay and land grants to soldiers.

In their day, you can imagine how most Americans (even Irish immigrants to America) felt about the St. Patricios.  They were ungrateful traitors in the eyes of many and were treated as such when many of them were executed after the war.

Were the mythical St. Patricios honorably men of principle who understandably had no allegiance to an anti-Catholic nation which despised them? 

Or were they mercenaries bent on killing the many Irish Americans – including lieutenants Boyle and Gallagher – who stuck with America and went on to make it a great nation?

That’s probably too big a question to answer right now.  What is important for us to remember is that (to quote Billy Joel) the good old days weren’t always so good.

In particular, those Irish American super-patriots who run around today questioning peoples’ loyalty ought to ask themselves if they have set the bar for treason a bit too high. 

After all, imagine the scuttlebutt on Fox News if a band of immigrants got together to fight for Al Qaeda in Iraq or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Imagine if there names were Kelly or Ryan or O’Neill or Riley.

Of course, we should remember Jon Riley, love him or hate him.  But Green-Wood Cemetery did the right thing last week so that we also remember the sacrifices of men like Francis Boyle and Charles Gallagher and James McCabe.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Watch the promo video for 'Copper' here: