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:

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)

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: