Navy SEALS tragedy in Afghanistan chronicled in new film, “Lone Survivors”

Mark Wahlberg in a scene from Lone Survivor.

Patrick Robinson knows about war.

Though born in England, Robinson’s family has deep roots in Ireland, and a great uncle of his even fought in the Easter Rising in 1916.

Nearly 100 years later, Robinson – who lived for over a decade in Ireland before recently moving –  helped Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell tell the unforgettable story that is at the heart of the film "Lone Survivor," which opens on December 27 and stars Mark Wahlberg.

Luttrell was one of four Navy SEALs on a June 2005 mission in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. The mission was compromised and the team came under heavy Taliban fire.

Luttrell’s team included Long Island native and Irish American Lieutenant Mike Murphy, who sacrificed his own life by exposing himself to enemy fire in an effort to radio for help. Murphy was indeed killed, and became the first serviceman in Afghanistan to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Unfortunately the mission took an even darker turn. A missile struck the helicopter carrying servicemen hoping to save Murphy, Luttrell and the rest of the SEALs, killing all 16 men on board.

The release of "Lone Survivor" is sure to bring renewed attention to Lutrell, Murphy and the bravery and sacrifice of those who fell that day.

Robinson, though, is now out telling a new story of bravery involving Irish Americans. This story’s ending is not as tragic as the one that inspired "Lone Survivor," but the soldiers faced terrible adversity on and off the battlefield.

“It really is a shocking story,” Robinson told me in a phone interview last week.

Robinson explores the saga of Navy SEALs Matthew McCabe and Jonathan Keefe in his new book "Honor and Betrayal," which, according to its sub-title, tells the story “of the Navy SEALs who captured the Butcher of Fallujah – and the shameful ordeal they later endured.”

This story has gotten particularly strong coverage among conservatives, who view it as proof that military brass has become timid during the Obama administration. Maybe, maybe not. But you don’t have to be a Fox-News-loving, Obama-hating right winger to see that what McCabe and Keefe endured is terrible.

This whole saga began, horrifically, on March 31, 2004, in the battle-scarred Iraqi city of Fallujah. On that fateful day, Iraqi insurgents attacked a U.S.-led convoy and eventually killed four private contractors. Video of the attack showed Iraqis triumphantly dragging the victims’ corpses through the streets.

Intelligence suggested the mastermind of the contractors’ murders was Ahmad Hashim Abd al-Isawi, the so-called “Butcher of Fallujah.”

Five years went by before military officials believed they had a chance to apprehend the notorious butcher. Enter Navy SEALs McCabe (who grew up outside of Toledo, Ohio) and Keefe (from Virginia), members of a team charged with conducting a nighttime raid on a house believed to contain al-Isawi.

McCabe led the team into the house and while searching came upon a man matching al-Isawi’s description, who was also reaching for a gun when confronted by McCabe.

Initial reports suggest the apprehension of al-Isawi was “textbook.”  However, al-Isawi later claimed he was beaten and abused, and offered up the blood on his shirt as proof. McCabe and Keefe were eventually courtmartialed.

Robinson and others, however, note that al Qaeda leaders often encourage anyone captured by Americans to claim abuse at the hands of their captors.

A few years back, with the prisoner abuse of Abu Ghraib still fresh in international minds, military officials were apparently nervous about yet another scandal. So Keefe, McCabe and an additional SEAL were encouraged to confess to their own misdeeds.

They refused, arguing they had nothing to confess. Robinson believes the blood was the result of a sore on al-Isawi’s lip.

In the spring of 2010, Keefe and McCabe were found not guilty by a military jury.

As the war on terror drags on, it’s important to remember that the survivor in the Hollywood movie may indeed be “lone.”  However, he is far from alone when it comes to enduring the horrors of war.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.net)

“Philomena’s” story is just one example of the forced adoption of Irish children (VIDEO)

Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in a scene from Philomena.

Critics and audiences are applauding "Philomena," the new film starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. It’s about an Irish mother who becomes pregnant and is more or less forced by local nuns to give up the child for adoption.

In the movie, the two main characters take a trip to America to track down Philomena’s long lost son. Such a trip never happened, though it does raise important questions.

The understandable focus on the pain of an Irish mother who never knew her son makes it easy to forget the pain of a son, in the U.S., who never met his mother.

Philomena’s son was born Anthony Lee. He was raised in the U.S. as Michael Hess. He became a mover and shaker in the national Republican Party, ultimately serving as top legal counsel to President George Bush Sr.

But Hess was hiding a secret from his Republican pals. He was gay.

He also longed to be reunited with his Irish mother. As The New York Times noted this week, “As he was dying of AIDS in 1995, he requested that his ashes be buried at the convent [in Ireland where he was put up for adoption], in case his mother should ever come looking for him.”

For a people so passionate about the past, an Irish American’s longing for roots he never knew might seem unusual. But over the course of Irish American history, there are unfortunately many stories of children separated at young ages from their parents and compelled to grow up in strange, sometimes abusive, new surroundings.

And even if they were relocated to loving homes (as Michael Hess seems to have been, raised by a Catholic family in St. Louis), these Irish children were forced to grow up detached from the faith and culture into which they were born.

Perhaps the most prominent and controversial symbol of this was the Children’s Aid Society, which ran so-called “orphan trains” for Irish and other immigrant children in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Supporters argued that large numbers of Irish kids were wandering big city streets homeless, and that relocating them to loving families in the mid-West was a blessing.

Critics, however, note that the children were often exploited for their ability to labor on farms.

“At its worst it was not much better than slavery,” author Christina Baker Kline said in a recent NPR interview.

Earlier this year, Kline did extensive research for her novel "Orphan Train," which features a young Irish girl named Niamh who loses her family in a tenement fire.

Orphan train children “were all between the ages of mostly two — but sometimes as young as babies, baby trains were called ‘mercy trains’ — and up to the age of 14. Those 14-year-old boys, 12- to 14-year-old boys, were the most in demand because obviously they were labor,” Kline said.

It also did not help that Children’s Aid Society founder Charles Loring Brace had an extensive record of anti-Catholic writing, and was open to the charge that he was taking Catholics off the dirty city streets in order to convert them into Protestants.

According to Kline, the extent of the era’s anti-Irish sentiment went to bizarre lengths.

“I came across a newspaper article from The New York Times about how the trains that were being sent were not allowing redheads,” she said.

During a heated exchange of letters in The New York Times back in 2001, Irish American novelist and historian Peter Quinn said the Children’s Aid Society “was not merely a compassionate agent of charitable relief...but an active partner with the courts and Protestant proselytizing societies in seeking to ‘redeem’ Irish Catholic children from a cultural-religious identity considered destructive of personal virtue and moral behavior.”

Of course, many Irish “orphan train” children grew up to live happy and productive lives. But the pervasive sense of dislocation and loss these children must have felt – especially after their own parents endured the trauma and uncertainty of emigration – is a rarely-discussed aspect of the Irish experience in America.

Perhaps the tragic story of Philomena Lee, and her son’s ultimately fruitless quest to reclaim a past he never knew, will help heal the wounds of the past.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Mayor-elect de Blasio blundered by not including Catholic on transition team

New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio.

It's the Battle of the Bills!

In this corner, newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who rode a wave of liberal/progressive populism to City Hall.

And in the other corner, Irish American Bill Donahue, who leads the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and who blasted de Blasio last week, noting that the new mayor’s 60-person transition team is light on Catholics.

“There are two ministers, two rabbis and one imam on the transition committee. There are no Catholic priests,” fumed Donohue. “Catholics make up 52.5 percent of New York, yet they have no clergy representation.

“This is not an oversight. Every attempt was made to include persons from virtually every sector of New York. This was clearly done by design. Looks like de Blasio’s politics of inclusion has its limits.”

Well, Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

Look, first things first. This was a blunder on de Blasio’s part.

Of course, we’ve come a long way since New York City mayors had to pay special attention to the three “I”s — Ireland, Italy and Israel. Nevertheless, it’s not like Irish Americans and other white ethnic Catholics have vanished completely from the political landscape. From the northern Bronx to Staten Island to the Rockaways, there are still solidly Irish enclaves across New York City.

Did they vote heavily for de Blasio? Um, no. Even in an election where de Blasio won three out of every four votes, he fared poorly among white Catholics.

As a New York Times report noted, “Mr. de Blasio didn’t fare so well in white Catholic areas in places like Staten Island, Middle Village and Howard Beach, where Mr. Bloomberg won by 3 to 1 in 2009. [Joe] Lhota still managed a margin of 2 to 1.”

In one voting district in the heavily Irish Breezy Point neighborhood in Queens, de Blasio barely got 12 percent of the vote. Ditto central Staten Island.

In another election district in traditionally Irish Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, de Blasio barely got 20 percent of the vote. In one Far Rockaways precinct, de Blasio got exactly 7.4 percent of the vote.

So, theoretically, de Blasio’s camp could argue that since Irish Americans and other white Catholics did not support their campaign, they may need to focus on areas where they received more support.

But that’s lame on two levels. First of all, de Blasio’s administration should reach out to those who voted for Republican candidate Lhota, to perhaps find common ground on various issues.

More importantly, Hispanics – who did vote in large numbers for de Blasio – are Catholic, too. So de Blasio goofed by deciding that, when striving for diversity, Catholics are unimportant.

This reflects a larger problem with liberal and progressive political types. They remain rather uncomfortable with religion in general and Catholicism in particular.

Coming on the heels of the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, it’s important to note that there is a rich tradition of anti-Catholicism among not only close-minded bigots, but also high-minded progressive intellectual types who tend to view religion as oppressive and corrupt.

But angry conservative Catholics like Donohue should be careful what they wish for.

Here is where de Blasio really screwed up. He does not need to appoint a token Irish Catholic right winger in the mold of Sean Hannity just to prove that he is open minded. If he put any effort into the task at all, de Blasio would have no problem locating a Catholic priest whose views on economic equality and social justice match his own just fine.

As former Bill Thompson campaign adviser Bruce Gyory noted in the Daily News, “(T)he church has been a dependable ally for progressives on other causes, including immigration, fighting hospital and mental-health cuts and preserving social-service spending.”

Sure, de Blasio would have to have an honest debate with such a devout Catholic on issues such as abortion and gay rights.

But isn’t that a debate worth having not only in New York City, but within the entire American Catholic church?

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Kennedy’s greatest legacy: proving that the Irish could be American, too

John F Kennedy greeted by crowds waving American flags in Ireland
(Photo: JFK50Ireland)

PHOTOS - John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Life in Pictures

On November 25, 1963, John F. Kennedy’s young son was famously photographed saluting his father, as the president’s flag-draped coffin passed mourning family members as part of the somber funeral procession through Washington.

What is less well known is that November 25 was also young John F. Kennedy Jr.’s third birthday.
Until his own untimely death in 1999, with the approach of every birthday, JFK Jr. was forced to recall his own father’s violent passing on November 22, 1963, now 50 years ago.

Then again, that date is still so burned into the nation’s psyche that most Americans took note of the assassination anniversary every time late November rolled around. 

Try this quiz.  Ask anyone when JFK was assassinated and it’s a good bet they know the date. 
Then ask when JFK was born.  Good luck with that.

The glut of books, documentaries and other TV specials revolving around the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination have looked at the events and people linked with this tragedy from nearly every angle.

However, one important aspect of JFK’s death that has not been discussed much is just how distinctly Irish the somber proceedings were.

Over two dozen Irish Army cadets were invited by JFK’s grieving widow, Jackie Kennedy, to perform a drill that had so impressed Kennedy when he visited Ireland just a few months earlier, in June of 1963.

“How I envied you being in Ireland with him,” Jackie is said to have told Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell, advisers who were members of JFK’s so-called Irish Mafia.

Meanwhile, when the funeral procession left the White House, family members made sure that Irish music accompanied the president on his final journey, including “Come Back to Erin” and “The Boys of Wexford,” according to Thomas Maier’s excellent book The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings.

Perhaps the most interesting song played, however, was one set to words written by Boston Cardinal William O’Connell, entitled “The Cross and the Flag.” 

When we think of great lyrics, we tend not to think of clergymen.  But O’Connell is said to have written this angry song as a direct rebuke to anti-Irish and anti-Catholic bigots who proudly resurrected the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.

“Hail banner of our native land / Great ensign of the free / We love thy glorious stars and stripes / Emblem of liberty,” O’Connell wrote in one section of this song whose purpose was to refute the bigoted idea that Catholic immigrants could never be loyal to the U.S.

“Lift high the Cross / unfurl the flag / May they forever stand / United in our hearts and hopes / God and our native land.”

And if he did nothing else, John F. Kennedy -- the first “minority president” as Thomas Maier calls him -- finally did prove that Irish Catholics could be loyal Americans.

This was no small matter.  Just six years before Kennedy’s election, best-selling author Paul Blanshard published a screed entitled The Irish and Catholic Power, which made the argument that foreigners in general and Irish Catholics in particular should not and could not be trusted by Americans.  A few years earlier, Blanshard made the same arguments about Roman Catholics in his best seller American Freedom and Catholic Power.

So, for proving to bigots that the Irish could be loyal Americans (if not necessarily loyal husbands), we owe JFK a great debt.

What else is there to say about JFK 50 years after his assassination?  Was he a great president?  Hardly.  For those who argue he would have realized his greatness in his second term, it’s just as likely things would have gone horribly wrong.

The fascination with JFK, and all the whacked-out assassination conspiracies, really says more about us as a nation.  Life before November 22, 1963 was hardly a paradise.  But the years that followed, the explosions in war and technology, paranoia and violence, truly were frightening. 

Nostalgic visions of Camelot tend to soothe us. Also soothing -- oddly -- is the belief that vast powers must have been at work to topple this handsome king.  But no, it was just a nut with a gun, as it usually is.

There is one more thing we should know about JFK. He was born on May 29, 1917.

PHOTOS - John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Life in Pictures


(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

The hypocritical Irish American right-wing anti-immigration reform “Lynch” mob

Dennis Michael Lynch.

You gotta love it when folks named Hannity and Kelly can sit around with a dude named Dennis Michael Lynch and moan about how the damn foreigners are just ruining America.

But this is what the debate over immigration has come to -- a bunch of conservative Irish Americans on Fox News implying that immigrants are to blame for everything from trans fats to terrorism.
And you know what?  This tactic is working.

Movers and shakers in both the Republican and Democratic parties believe the time is now for substantial immigration reform.  Last week, President Obama met with CEOs -- corporate titans, for heaven’s sake -- who were open to immigration reform.

As the Associated Press reported, “Obama said some ‘unlikely bedfellows’ are supporting immigration reform from the liberal and conservative side. The U.S. Chamber is sending 50 small business owners to meet with lawmakers...while the (labor union) AFL-CIO planned...to announce new political actions to push for passage.”

So, it sounds like people on both sides of the aisle are acknowledging that something should be done to secure the borders and bring the undocumented out of the shadows.

Obama -- still bruised by the horrendous roll out of Obamacare -- was hoping the labor unions and CEOs would build momentum for the passage of an immigration bill before Congress left Washington for the year.

Well, that didn’t happen.  Congressional leaders now say there’s not enough time to take up the issue this year.

Why is the debate stalled?  Irish Americans like Dennis Michael Lynch, for starters.

Lynch is a prosperous businessman who was born in Hicksville, Long Island.  In recent years he has reinvented himself as a documentary filmmaker whose two movies, They Come to America One and Two, earned raves from those who believe immigrants are bent on destroying America.

“It’s a must-see,” gushes fellow Irish American and Fox news commentator Sean Hannity.  Lynch has also appeared regularly on Fox with yet another Irish American, Megyn Kelly.

Lynch, and those who agree with him, generally argue they don’t hate immigrants themselves.  However, they feel America’s borders are wide open, which leaves the country vulnerable to criminals and terrorists.  They also believe immigrants are using up American services and taking jobs.

I guess at this point I should note that I don’t want America to face a hellfire apocalypse.  And yes, I do love my children, even if folks like Lynch might make you feel otherwise, since they generally equate sympathy for immigration with sympathy for rapists and drug lords.

So, yes, of course American law enforcement should do everything they can to keep criminals out.  The trouble for Irish Americans like Lynch is that much of his rhetoric sounds as if it comes right from the anti-Irish Know Nothing playbook.

The idea that only savage criminals and freeloaders are pouring into the U.S. was pushed for decades by anti-Irish bigots who wanted to “save” America.  Yet somehow we survived the 19th century.
Irish Americans have a particular duty to at least be sensible when discussing immigration, mainly because their own grandparents and great-grandparents faced Lynch’s style of manipulative, paranoid nativism.

The fact is, from New York and Boston to tiny little towns across the mid-west, immigrants have generally revitalized local economies.  Do you think the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would support immigration reform if it was bad for business?

As for crime, yes, immigrants have their fair share of bad people. Oh, as opposed to the well-behaved American-born population?

And let’s end this naive idea that all immigrants back in the good old days were legal.  There were no federal immigration laws until the later 19th century, and so many families with immigrant roots have a secret about a grandfather who crossed the Canadian border or uncle who came to the U.S. for a “vacation” and forgot to go home.

Lynch is currently crossing the country, whipping up support for his ideas.  If you’re Irish American, feel free to go hear him speak.

Just don’t mention that your grandfather once probably took a “real” American’s job.  Because Lynch’s grandfather probably did the same.

(Contact “Sidewalks: at tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Don’t cheer just yet, Pope appoints new bishop who went after outspoken US nuns

Bishop Leonard P. Blair.

Much attention was paid this week when rumor spread that an Irish academic named Linda Hogan may well become the first female cardinal in Rome.

“She’s married and a feminist to boot, but Irish theologian Linda Hogan is being touted as a candidate to become the first female ‘prince’ of the Catholic Church,” is how the New York Daily News breathlessly reported the rumor.

While canon law says only men can become cardinals, the pope is free to ignore such rules.  A papal spokesperson said, “No nomination of women cardinals are due.”

Nevertheless, the rumor seemed to confirm the feeling that Pope Francis may indeed support radical change within the Vatican.

What did not receive much attention this week was an actual appointment Pope Francis made.  Leonard P. Blair, the bishop of Toledo, was named archbishop of Hartford.

What’s the connection?

Just over a year ago, a group of nuns led by Irish American Pat Farrell were causing some trouble by speaking out on women’s issues and the church.

The group, officially known as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), challenged fundamental aspects of church theology, raising questions about issues ranging from abortion to the ordination of women into the priesthood.

“I think there are many issues in the Catholic Church right now that could leave the faithful somewhat demoralized,” Sister Pat told NPR earlier this year.

“And I think that the climate of scandal and abuse is one piece of that. The declining membership is another piece. The great and deep spiritual hunger of our time is another issue.”

Sister Pat later added, “In other parts of society the roles for women have expanded. So the places where young women today can experience greater leadership typically are not within the Catholic Church.”

In light of these comments, it is tempting to see the rumor about a female cardinal as a breath of fresh air, a possible step forward, a new beginning for the church and its relationship with women.

Which brings us to our friend Leonard P. Blair, the newly-minted archbishop of Hartford. Blair assumed this position on October 29, just days before the rumor broke that we might have an Irish female cardinal. Pope Francis, of course, appointed Blair to his new position.

Blair is no stranger to the Vatican. He was also charged, a few years back, with investigating a certain nuns’ organization that had been vocally critical of the church and its treatment of women.

That’s right. When the Vatican needed someone to take a close look at pesky Sister Pat and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, it was Blair who submitted a report that was critical of the organization.

After reviewing the report Blair worked on, the Vatican announced that LCWR had “serious doctrinal problems.”

Blair personally expressed “great disappointment” at LCWR’s leader Sister Pat, who suggested the church may want to consider its blanket opposition to abortion.

More broadly, Blair argued that LCWR should think again about trying to reform the church.

“If by dialogue (LCWR) mean that the doctrines of the church are negotiable and the bishops represent one position and the LCWR presents another position, and somehow we find a middle ground about basic church teaching on faith and morals, then no,” Blair was quoted as saying in 2012.

“I don’t think that is the kind of dialogue that the Holy See would envision.”

It’s not to say that rumored Irish female cardinal Hogan is not a fascinating person. A vice provost of Dublin’s Trinity College, she is also a founding member of the International Association of Catholic Social Thought. She’s also written several books on gender and religion, including "Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics: Conversations in the World Church."

However, while the rumors about a female cardinal may make an interesting story, the elevation to archbishop of Leonard Blair by Pope Francis might actually say a whole lot more about how church big wigs feel about women.

Irish America’s other Halloween, the Ragamuffin’s of Thanksgiving

A little monsters geared up for the Ragamuffin's Parade...not Halloween (Photo: NYDailyNews)

I like to joke with my mother about how rough I had it growing up.  The joke is that I know I had it a whole lot easier than she did growing up in Brooklyn and New Jersey, where sometimes her parents and their five children lived in one- or two-bedroom apartments.

But even I was taken aback when my mom once told me her brothers and sister used to go begging door-to-door -- and it wasn’t even on Halloween!

But it turns out the begging my mother was talking about had nothing to do with poverty.  Though it’s not widely remembered these days, there once was a time when Halloween was not the primary day for dressing up and knocking on doors seeking tricks or treats.

In the first half of the 20th century, particularly in heavily Irish neighborhoods, the best day for begging -- not to mention often violent and dangerous behavior -- was actually Thanksgiving morning.

This was the day kids would dress up in sloppy clothes and transform themselves into little Ragamuffins. They would knock on doors and shout “Anything for Thanksgiving!”  The hope was that the kindly homeowner would offer up tasty treats -- just as millions of kids hope for this week on Halloween.

Ragamuffin activities were particularly popular in Irish neighborhoods, and gave kids a chance to -- shall we say -- try on different identities.

Jack O’Leary, for example, was an Irish American mover and shaker in the New York State Conservative Party.  But in his memoir Playing it Well, O’Leary wrote lovingly of wearing his “mother’s face powder, lipstick and rouge” on Ragamuffin Day.

Indeed, it was very common for young boys to wear makeup or dress up in girls’ clothing on Ragamuffin Day.

Meanwhile, in 1995, a New York Times letter writer named Jim Tierney recalled a particularly Irish spin on Ragamuffin Day.

“On Thanksgiving we dressed as Ragamuffins -- three Irish-American kids -- and went from backyard to backyard, pub to pub, looking for handouts. But with a difference. We played Irish traditional music on the fiddle and flute and sang and danced to it. We sometimes earned $45 for the day. The best money was made playing ‘The Stack of Barley’ and singing ‘A Nation Once Again.’”

What could New Yorkers a century ago expect to see on this Halloween that was not really Halloween?

The streets might be filled with bizarrely dressed boys and girls not-so-gently requesting money or gifts, “amateur beggars” deemed “a plague” by The New York Times as far back as 1907.  At night, children as young as five prowled their neighborhoods dressed as Indians with makeup, greasepaint or burnt cork on their faces.

They also lit huge bonfires, which led to a fair share of tragedies.  In 1913, a six-year-old Bronx boy (wearing his sister’s dress) was badly burned as he danced around a bonfire.

Gunfire and gang fights broke out in Brooklyn as packs of Ragamuffins crossed each other’s paths in 1906 and 1907.  Even less explicitly violent behavior created tension.

In the classic novel "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," Betty Smith writes, “Most children brought up in Brooklyn before the First World War remember Thanksgiving Day…children went around ‘Ragamuffin’ or ‘slamming gates’ wearing costumes topped off by a penny mask.”

Smith’s main character Francie Nolan buys a “yellow Chinaman [mask] with a sleazy rope mandarin mustache.”  Her brother Neely wears one of his mother’s old dresses with “stuffed wadded newspapers in the front to make an enormous bust.”

The streets are “jammed with masked and costumed children making a deafening din with their penny tin horns.”  Some storekeepers lock their doors to keep the noisy panhandlers out while others unleash “profane lectures on the evils of begging.”

Police and school officials regularly cracked down on Ragamuffins and begging. The ascension of Halloween and calls for more orderly Thanksgiving celebrations seemed to hasten the demise of the Ragamuffin traditions.

But the tradition has not completely vanished.  Every October, community organizers in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, host a Ragamuffin parade.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tdeignan.blogspot.com)