Make us proud Denis Leary - 10 years after 9/11 the finale of "Rescue Me" - VIDEO

Ten years ago this week Legally Blonde, starring Reese Witherspoon, was about to hit movie theaters, as was Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake. Another remake, “Lady Marmalade,” by Christina Aguilera, L’il Kim and Pink, was one of the top hits on the radio.

It is also believed that 10 years ago this week, 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta flew off to Spain to meet with fellow terrorist Ramzi bin al-Shibh, where they were finalizing plans for an attack that would change the course of world history, and to this day weighs upon thousands and thousand of families from Washington, D.C. to Rockaway Beach.

It is a question that cannot be asked too many times -- has it really been nearly 10 years?

Alas, it has. And as the weeks build up to that awful anniversary two months from now, wounds that had never closed will be aggravated again, scars that never healed will ache once more.

Perhaps that is why I’m pulling for Denis Leary’s FX cable show Rescue Me to do something magical, as its final season on the air opens this week, Wednesday night, July 13 at 10 p.m.

Mind you, Leary and the show’s creators are the ones who put tons of pressure on themselves. They timed the show’s final season so that the final episode would air just as the nation was grappling with the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

But Leary and Peter Tolan and all the other guys who created this memorable show were never short of nerves.

Imagine believing that just three years after the 9/11 attacks tore a hole into the heart of New York’s cop-and-firefighter country -- Bay Ridge, Throgs Neck, Woodside, almost all of Staten Island -- that you could put a show on the air that would not only wrestle with this tragedy, but also make people laugh.
In a recent interview with the New York Daily News, Leary said, “I hope what they remember is the laughter and tears.”

Now, it must be said that there is another reason I’m pulling for Rescue Me to finish up strong. Because over the course of its seven-year run on TV, the show has had its fair share of weak moments.

That can pretty much be said of any show on TV. But, like a family member, it feels worse when something close to you doesn’t rise to the highest level.

Forgettable moments include a rather preposterous plot line a few years back about a sexually abusive priest Tommy and his cop brother get involved with.

Then there was the heart-wrenching death of Tommy’s son, a profound event in anyone’s life, which in subsequent seasons…has kind of been forgotten.

But at its best, there has rarely been anything as powerful as Rescue Me, which makes it not only a great TV show but a very important contribution to Irish American culture.

Even when the humor leans too hard on fart jokes, and the hopping from bed to bed among the sex-crazed characters becomes forgettable and the plot lines spin into the realm of absurdity, Leary and Tolan always had something important to say about blue collar men and women, a group sorely misunderstood on television and across the media landscape.

In particular, this was a balanced look at Irish Americans and their stereotypes and their place in the world’s greatest city in the 21st century, having absorbed the most brutal blow that city has ever seen.

At its best -- a guilt-ridden Tommy Gavin dousing himself in alcohol, Tommy at a ball game with his difficult father who’s just died -- Rescue Me veered into Eugene O’Neill territory, with its unflinching look at family and Catholicism and the particular ways Irish folks tend to heal, as well as hurt, one another.

So, how do you end a show like this?

"We're not talking too much about specifics," Tolan told the News. "There are some large things that happen. We are, in the tradition of all great shows, killing off a major character very near the end of the series. We're not giving any hints."

Great art need not be realistic. Great art takes reality and bends it and manipulates it until something shocking and brilliant emerges.

Rescue Me hasn’t always been pretty. But it has been great. And decades from now when people want to understand post-9/11 New York – and Irish America – they will have to take a long, hard look at Rescue Me.

Here’s hoping Leary and Co. can pull this off one more time.


(Contact tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

David McCullough: An artist, an Irishman and a patriot

David McCullough

It was an odd Fourth of July weekend.

First, you had the interesting news out of Rhode Island that Governor Lincoln Chafee had officially pardoned an Irish immigrant who was hanged for murder in 1845, after a highly questionable trial took place in an atmosphere charged with anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiment.

For a history buff such as myself, there is value in this.  We should do our best to acknowledge and correct the mistakes of the past. That was certainly done in this case.We should also, however, use the past to guide us in the present.

And while anti-immigrant sentiment today is not the kind we saw in Rhode Island in 1845, I would say we are still in a rush to imprison certain kinds of people, and in no rush whatsoever to ask tough questions about how they ended up there.

But okay, that’s nitpicking.  More depressing is the story that refuses to go away, that of Fox Business channel commentator Eric Bolling, who has been accused of making racist comments, in part because he said President Obama was “chugging 40s in Ireland,” rather than returning to America to help tornado-ravaged regions of the Midwest.

Much attention has been paid to the possible racism in this statement, but what about the automatic link to the Irish and drinking!  Then again, what can you do when the most common photo of Obama in Ireland is one of him hoisting a pint?

If you’re like me and want to momentarily forget about some of this surreal stuff, you may want to pick up a copy of historian David McCullough’s new book. In The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, McCullough (best-selling author of Truman) tells a forgotten story about an inspiring Irish American whose name not many people remember, yet whose work we see all the time.

His name was George P.A. Healy.  His father was an Irish-born captain in the merchant marine. The oldest of five children, Healy grew up poor in 1820s Boston.  He aspired to be an artist, however, and he is one of many Americans McCullough explores who went to Paris in the 1830s to soak up the culture of that city.

“For a much younger, still struggling and little-known artist like George P.A. Healy of Boston, Paris was even more the promised land.  He was the oldest of the five children of a Catholic father and Protestant mother.  Because his father, a sea captain, had difficulty making ends meet, he had been his mother’s ‘right hand man’ through boyhood, helping any way he could.”

Healy, though, emerged from boyhood with a passion for art.  In 1834, he went to Paris to see sites that most Americans – mush less a poor Irish kid from Boston – would never have seen.  Centuries-old buildings, classical works of art, even museums were unheard of in the United States.

Healy would go on to become best known for his portraits of American statesmen, including a famous portrait of the peacemakers settling the terms of the U.S. Civil War, and of Abraham Lincoln himself.  One of Healey’s portraits of Lincoln became a famous stamp in the 1950s.

Healy was joined by at least two other artists of note with links to Irish America.  First there was Augustus Saint Gaudens.  Though his name is decidedly non-Irish, Augustus was born in Dublin in 1848 to a French father and Irish mother.

He moved as a youngster to New York City and would go on to become one of the premier sculptors of his day.  He is perhaps best known for his works commemorating famous figures from the American Civil War as well as the statue of Parnell on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

Given the state of stories floating around the world these days, about chugging forties and things of that nature, I found the Healy story in McCullough’s book particularly inspiring on Independence Day. But even this book has its depressing side.

One other painter of note who went to Paris around this time was Samuel Morse.  Most people, these days, remember Morse for the telegraph he invented and the code that was used to convey messages on this miracle machine of its day.

Morse was also a great painter.  But guess what?  Morse was a rabid anti-Catholic and opponent of immigration.

Presumably, he shed no tears when that Irishman was hanged in Rhode Island way back in 1845.

James 'Whitey' Bulger and Archbishop Timothy Dolan - how the mighty have fallen

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan

This past week, two high-profile Irish American institutions were taken down. First and most famously, there was the elusive South Boston mobster Whitey Bulger.  Coming just weeks after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the capture of the 81 year-old Bulger wipes two of the top criminals off of the FBI’s Top 10 most wanted list.

With the FBI finally closing the Bulger saga -- even confirming that the
criminal was still alive and had been difficult -- Irish mobsters might as well be placed on the endangered species list.

In New York, ex-Westies leader Jimmy McElroy died last month, while former Gotti associate Joseph O’Kane died last year. Soldiers such as Eddie Boyle rot away in prison, while another former Gotti underling, Michael Finnerty, has gone legit.

Bulger’s own stomping ground, South Boston, has been similarly cleaned up. It remains an Irish stronghold, but gentrification and recent waves of immigration have changed both the look of the city and the face of its criminal underclass.

But the arrest of Whitey was not the most far-reaching development in Irish
America this past week.  The passage, and subsequent celebration, of legislation paving the way for gay marriage in New York State illustrated the decline of the influence of the Catholic Church in politics, particularly when it comes to high profile Irish American clergymen such as New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

"I think society and culture is at its peril if we presume to tamper with what has been given and already cherished through the history of civilization," Dolan said after Sunday services at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
It certainly doesn’t help that the marriage equality movement was spearheaded by a Catholic governor, Andrew Cuomo.

But the shocking thing about the run-up to the gay marriage vote was how small a role Catholic leaders such as Dolan played.

True, some lawmakers worked to ensure that a “religious exemption” clause was worked into the legislation, so that religious groups would not have to endorse marriages which are inconsistent with their beliefs.
Critics of gay marriage, for example, note that once it became legal in Massachusetts, Catholic Charities took itself out of the adoptions business so that they would not be forced to place children in homes headed by gay couples.

But let’s face it, that was simply working around the edges.  Not too long ago, there would have been an undeniable sense of war in the air, with Catholic leaders vowing to drive out the Catholic vote at election time, if lawmakers chose to stand against church teaching.

Can you imagine what would have happened if a gay marriage bill was being debated during John Cardinal O’Connor’s reign as New York’s Catholic leader?

And it’s not to say O’Connor is somehow better than Dolan.  They are simply different.
But more importantly, the times have a’changed.

Dolan and others did seek to influence lawmakers.  The trouble is, Governor Cuomo never felt any true political pressure.

Yes, now there are calls for church leaders to deny Cuomo communion, and to have nothing to do with any lawmakers who support gay marriage, but who also may want to participate in church functions or events down the road.

The problem, of course, is that vast numbers of Irish Catholics across New York -- and America -- are not exactly passionate in their opposition to gay marriage.

Sure, some are not enthusiastic supporters.  But what we do know is that they do not simply follow the church’s clear opposition to it.

This loss for Catholic leaders comes as the church struggles to emerge from the sex abuse scandals, and as Catholics across the country try to get their financial houses in order.

Just last week, Archbishop Dolan received a letter from a host of educators condemning the planned closure of schools which serve historically poor communities.

This is also an important reminder, for those who revel in the declining influence of the church, that it is not solely in the business of meddling in the lives of gay folks.

The church has improved the lives of the ethnic underclass enormously, whether it was the Irish 100 years ago or the new urban immigrants of the 21st Century.

But in this brave new world, it turns out it’s easier to nab a phantom mobster than keep an ancient religious tradition relevant and vital.

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

From Belfast to Inwood - Jon Michaud and Northern Ireland

Jon Michaud

Jon Michaud has watched the Northern Ireland peace process unfold from a particularly unique perspective.
“I happened to be in Belfast when the Good Friday accords were signed,” Michaud said in an interview this week.  “You could feel the atmosphere shifting in the city.”

It’s not that Michaud is an immigrant who’d longed to escape the war-torn streets of 1980s Belfast.  But he did know the war-torn streets of 1980s Belfast intimately.

This is surprising because, in many ways, Michaud is a quintessential New Yorker.  In fact he works at The New Yorker magazine, where he serves as head librarian at the archives of the August weekly. He has also just published a New York novel which has earned strong reviews from The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly.
Entitled When Tito Loved Clara (Algonquin Books), the book is set in Manhattan and follows two Dominican American kids who were once high school sweethearts.

And yet, Michaud’s book is set in one of New York City’s most traditionally Irish neighborhoods – Inwood. For decades, the northernmost blocks in Manhattan were among the most Irish in the city.

In his famous book The Basketball Diaries, Jim Carroll moves in with Irish relatives in Inwood.  The community also suffered a terrible blow on September 11 when Gaelic football player Damien Meehan, the son of Irish immigrants, was killed.

“There are still places where the Irish community manifests itself in Inwood,” Michaud notes.  “The Irish bars along Broadway and also in the churches. Plus the nameplates outside many of the apartment buildings.”
Michaud came to know Inwood because it is where his Dominican-born wife had lived for some time. “Even before I moved in with her, I was immediately smitten (by Inwood).  Even I cannot fully understand why. There’s lots of interesting stuff that feels undiscovered.”

When Tito Loved Clara is ultimately a touching story of love and loss, of wondering whether or not to stay in the old neighborhood or head out for the broader world.

This should be very familiar to anyone who grew up in Inwood or any other Irish enclave for that matter. But Michaud’s experiences with the Irish and Ireland extend much further than Inwood. His father, Michael, was a diplomat who served in numerous international hot spots.
_____________
Read more:
Photographer shot on second night of Belfast riots- VIDEO

Northern Ireland churchgoers protest Eminem’s planned concert in Bangor

Belfast City's peaceful protest murder of Northern Irish police officer - the past is another country
______________

“In 1980,” Michaud explains, “my father was appointed consul general in Belfast.” Michaud was just entering his teenaged years when his entire family moved into a Belfast which, at the time, was still wracked by The Troubles. “It was really transformative,” he says. Of course, it was also quite dangerous. “The troubles were in full swing. The hunger strikes happened when we were there,” he noted. Michaud’s father even received a death threat, for which he received round-the-clock guards and a bullet-proof car. And yet, for a young Jon Michaud, it was an eye-opening time. “It’s not unlike the way I felt up in Inwood. I just fell in love with the city of Belfast…I felt at home there.  For a long time I could have seen myself moving to live there.”

Michaud’s school, Methodist College, was technically non-denominational, though it was majority Protestant. There was not much religious tension at the school, according to Michaud, though he saw plenty of problems during visits to the Shankill or Falls Road.

After Michaud’s father was done serving in Belfast the family returned to the U.S.  Michaud, however, ached to return to Belfast.

Eventually Michaud talked his parents into letting him return for two more years.  Michaud continued attending school and lived with friends. He still visits Belfast every three years or so, and he is planning an ambitious new book spanning Belfast’s recent decades.

Michaud says, “I think what my time in Ireland did was made me very sensitive to the ways that tension and hostilities between different ethnic and religious groups can manifest themselves.”
He’s planning to return to Belfast once again in the near future.  Of the newly peaceful North he says, “I know it’s not perfect, but it has come a very long way.”

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

The Republicans' loyalty problem

Herman Cain at the GOP debate in New Hampshire on Monday night

Eboo Patel is not Irish, which is not surprising given his decidedly non-Hibernian name.  Patel is a Rhodes Scholar who is fascinated by American diversity -- in particular, the increasing amount of religious diversity in the U.S.

Patel, who also runs a group called Interfaith Youth Corps, is concerned that as more and more Americans celebrate different religions, more and more will experience conflict.

Patel has worked with the White House and countless other local organizations to minimize this conflict.  He likes to point out, as The New York Times noted this week, that a diverse range of immigrants have always come to America, experienced conflict but then “built a new pattern of relationships.”

Patel regularly points out that “English Protestants and Irish Catholics eventually overcame their enmity on these
shores.” True enough, though it is very important to recall just how difficult it was to bridge those gaps.

We forget that Irish Catholics and Protestants literally brawled on the streets of New York up until the early 20th Century, leaving scores dead and maimed, particularly around the summer months we refer to as the “marching season,” which many of believe is confined to modern times in Northern Ireland.

As the 20th century progressed, those attempting to uphold the Protestant ideal long questioned the notion that Roman Catholics of any ethnicity could by loyal Americans.

That’s what Woodrow Wilson suggested when he blasted “hyphenated Americans” in the 1910s. That is what the resurgent Ku Klux Klan of the 192os believed.

That’s what Paul Blanshard said in his best-selling 1949 book American Freedom and Catholic Power.  And that’s what many of John F. Kennedy’s most vociferous critics said on the campaign trail in 1960.
And it is with this in mind that we should consider fringe Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s recent comments about Muslims and loyalty.

He told CNN’s John King that he would only appoint a Muslim American to his administration if they took some kind of loyalty oath to prove allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

"That's not discrimination. It's called trying to protect the American people," Cain said.
"This nation is under attack constantly by people who want to kill all of us, so I'm going to take extra precaution."

The former CEO of Godfather’s pizza clarified this position Monday evening in New Hampshire.
"You have peaceful Muslims, then you have militant Muslims, those that are trying to kill us," Cain said. "I was thinking about the ones that were trying to kill us."

How serious should we take all of this?  Cain is, again, a fringe candidate.

And he is not wrong that some Muslims are out to destroy America, as are a handful of isolated white psychopathic gun nuts, such as the various self-styled revolutionaries who have launched crusades against the American power structure, from the Unabomber to Timothy McVeigh.

Here, though, is why Cain’s comments are important.  Cain may be a fringe candidate, but he is apparently in this race for the long run. Therefore, his comments put pressure on more serious candidates to balance a commitment to American diversity and a commitment to American security.

Given the weak field and unstable nature of the Republican presidential primary, Cain’s comments could have been seen as an opportunity to make even more dumb comments about “disloyal” Muslims.

The early reports, however, are more encouraging.

At Monday evening’s Republican debate, Mitt Romney reacted to Cain’s comments by saying, “I think we recognize that the people of all faiths are welcome in this country.

Our nation was founded on a principle of religious tolerance.”

Then again, you would expect such namby-pamby comments from a sneaky Mormon, now wouldn’t you?

On a more serious note, targeting “disloyal” Americans has been code language for much more ugly tactics for far too long.

Irish Americans were targeted or jailed, their newspapers shut down and their mail intercepted, for alleged anti-American acts a century ago.  Let’s hope we don’t reach that point again.

If Cain -- or anyone else -- has questions about a potential cabinet member, he can interview them as an individual and make decisions based on that interview.

Let’s just hope he never gets a chance to assemble a presidential cabinet.

Sarah Palin’s real blunder

Sarah Palin.

Reality star and Donald Trump lunch partner Sarah Palin paid a visit to Ellis Island last week, but most of the headlines you read were about Palin flubbing the story of Paul Revere at a previous (campaign?) stop in Boston.

Palin said that during the build-up to the American Revolutionary War against England, Revere’s famous midnight ride "warned ... the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells."

Historians subsequently noted that Revere actually had to remain as quiet as possible, as opposed to making all sorts of noise to warn the Brits that Americans were -- among other things -- armed to the teeth.

But Revere-gate actually obscured a much more obvious problem with Palin bringing her “One Nation” tour to Ellis Island. Does she -- or the Tea Party, or the Republican Party, for that matter -- have anything interesting to say about immigration?

Ever since Annie Moore sailed from Cork into Ellis Island in 1892, Americans have been positively schizophrenic when it comes to immigration.

So, naturally, Palin had plenty of warm and fuzzy things to say about America’s legacy of immigration.

"I was struck by the many visitors from overseas who were drawn to this place, not merely for its aesthetic beauty but also as a symbol for freedom and liberty, " Palin wrote on her website, regarding her visit to Ellis Island.

At Ellis Island itself she acknowledged the "work ethic" and "love of country and freedom" previous generations of immigrants brought to the U.S.

But as Catalina Camia pointed out in USA Today, Palin “drew the line at supporting the DREAM Act, which would create a path to citizenship for some children who were illegally brought to the U.S. if they get an education or serve in the military.”

Palin later said (according to the web site Politico), "The immigrants of the past, they had to literally and figuratively stand in line to become U.S. citizens. I'd like to see that continue.  And unfortunately, the DREAM Act kind of usurps that."
------------
READ MORE:
What does not kill you will make you stronger - Sarah Palin emerges stronger


George Will's savage attack on Sarah Palin shows GOP establishment is desperate

Ellis Island footage of Irish arriving reminds us of where we all came from
-----------
This is at least as large a distortion of the past as Palin’s flubbing of the Paul Revere story.

What? Immigrants these days never stand in line? Or they’re willing to stand in figurative lines but not literal ones?

It should go without saying that while many past immigrants from Ireland and Italy and Germany and all those other places certainly had all of their paperwork in order, not all of them did.

Plenty of Irish folks -- who came into Castle Garden or Ellis Island or Texas or San Francisco, for that matter -- got very creative when it came to bypassing the authorities.

Some went up to Canada first, before sneaking over the border.  Others simply lied.

As hard as it may seem to fathom, yes, there was illegal immigration in the past.

For people like Palin, it also seems hard to fathom that today’s immigrants can, in fact, hold the same hopes and dreams as past immigrants.

Yes, we must be vigilant in our battle against terrorism.  Yes, we must enforce all existing immigration laws.

But if Palin is interested in running for higher office, she should have a better plan than simply opposing the DREAM Act.

It might have been interesting if someone had asked Palin, while she was at Ellis Island, her thoughts about the so-called Secure Communities proposal.

This week, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick followed in the footsteps of Illinois Governor (and Irish American) Pat Quinn, as well as Andrew Cuomo of New York, and pulled out of the Secure Communities program, which is overseen by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

As a former governor, it might have been interesting to hear what Palin had to say about this program.  Does she support it?

Or, as critics have charged, does it lead to immigrants (undocumented or otherwise) clamming up when they are witnesses to serious crimes?

Massachusetts secretary of public safety and security, Mary Elizabeth Heffernan, said as much in her letter informing ICE that Massachusetts would not be participating in Secure Communities.

“We are reluctant to participate if the program is mandatory and unwilling to participate if it is voluntary,” she
wrote.

If Palin really wants to talk about immigration in America, than she’ll need more than nostalgia about a past that never was.

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

Is Barack Obama really Irish?

President Obama received a hurley from Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny in Dublin last week

President Obama’s whirlwind trip to Ireland last week created all sorts of goodwill, with commentators believing that positive ripples will be felt in politics, tourism, the cultural industry and more.
Then, all of a sudden, people weren’t feeling so happy and peppy.

“We were just useful props in president's whirlwind electioneering roadshow,” an online headline in the Irish Independent read. 

According to the paper’s writer, Carol Hunt, “Obama desperately needs the white working class to believe that he's one of them to regain their support.”

In the U.K.’s Catholic Herald, columnist William Oddie dubbed Obama’s performance in Ireland “fraudulent,” adding, “So Obama was treading on potentially dangerous ground when he seemed to appropriate an Irishness of a kind that would actually induce (Catholic) Irish Americans to vote for him in large numbers.”

What?  Say it ain’t so! 

You don’t think Barack Obama -- in the end, a Chicago -- – would have certain political realities in mind when he takes a trip halfway around the world, do you?

The basic argument of Obama’s critics -- or critics of the people who loved the positive vibe of the trip -- is that he played to certain stage Irish stereotypes in order to line up Irish American/Catholic votes in 2012.

That line of thinking made it over to the U.S., where righter than-right Rush Limbaugh also questioned Obama’s motives.
_______________________________________
Read More:
US blogger’s mixed comments on Obama’s Irish homecoming

African Americans inspired by Obama tracing their Irish roots in greater numbers

Michelle Obama's Irish roots traced to Irish slave owner
_______________________________________


“We ought to start calling him Paddy Obama -- p-a-d-d-y, Paddy Obama, the Obama of Moneygall,” Limbaugh said.

“But even the U.K. Telegraph today has a fabulous story about how ridiculous it is Obama is trying to pass himself off as an Irish guy. And when he goes to Africa, he tries to pass himself off as a Kenyan.

“And if he goes to the Middle East he tries to pass himself off as Barack ‘al-Obama.’ And if he goes down to Selma he tries to pass himself off as a guy from down the street — totally disingenuous guy.”

Limbaugh then said, “It is a campaign stop for the Irish vote. The Irish vote in this country, particularly in New York City, is plentiful. And he’s got problems. His reelect numbers are down. This is nothing more than a campaign stop for the Irish vote.”

Except that, as Trina Vargo, head of the U.S.-Ireland Alliance argued in a Huffington Post column, “There is no 'Irish vote.' Irish-Americans are Democrats and Republicans, Catholics and Protestants, and there are no galvanizing issues around which a significant number of them rally.”

All of this just makes you shake your head.  Probably the most disturbing aspect of this is the suggestion by the likes of Limbaugh, but also Oddie and Hunt, is that Obama isn’t a “real” Irish American, or that he exploited his meager Irish American roots for maximum political gain.

Obama can’t catch a break. He’s not a real American, he’s not a real Irishman, he, apparently, is not a real anything!  

Let’s be honest here. It’s as if a guy with roots in Africa also can’t have “real” roots in Ireland.

But don’t forget, it’s not as if JFK’s dad was right off of the boat.  If the diaspora has taught us anything it’s that -- like it or not -- our definition of what it means to be Irish American is ever-changing.

Indeed, at the heart of all of this is the deep question -- what does it mean to be Irish?

Consider what Oddie had to say, “No descendant of Irish Protestants in America joins in those overblown St Patrick’s Day parades, or describes themselves as Irish-American.”

I slightly understand what Oddie is saying, in the sense that when most people talk about the Irish in America, they refer to Catholics in Boston or Brooklyn. 
That said, Oddie’s statement is patently false.

As for there being no Irish vote in the U.S., again, it is true the days of Tammany Hall are gone. 

And yet, there’s no denying that the Catholic vote is at least significant.  And, this being America, of course the number of 100% Irish fourth generation Americans is small. 

But being Irish -- just as it is for Obama -- is an important part of their heritage.  To deny that is to play a really tricky game about who is “allowed” to be Irish and who is not.

In the end, I can almost guarantee Obama is at least as Irish as a good chuck of the folks who, “overblown” as it may be, line Fifth Avenue every March 17. 

Can Obama call himself Irish?  Yes he can!

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