Irish Voice Letters to the Editor

AT this time of year many of us are busy getting prepared for Christmas -- buying gifts for loved ones, planning the dinner menu, baking cookies, looking forward to being with our families and friends, etc.

At present there are nearly 100 Irish Republican political prisoners being held in British and Irish prisons on both sides of Britain's border in Ireland and in England. They cannot share any of these Christmas joys with their families.

There are no dinners at home feasting on favorite home-cooked holiday dishes. There’s no family midnight Mass or opening presents Christmas mornings.



These prisoners have spouses, children, parents and siblings from whom they are separated at Christmas. Their families need the support of others who care about the sacrifices these young men have made for their country.

IN these trying times all the airwaves and newspapers are alive with the sounds and writings of pseudo economic gurus exposing all the villains for our economic malaise and fears.

A good example of this was James V. Burke's letter "GOP Out of Touch" in last week's issue.
He advises us to listen to a speech by Calypso songster Harry Belafonte, who never met a Communist dictator or Bolshevist economic system he didn’t like -- i.e. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are his personal friends.

Their mantra is that corporate fascism is the root of all economic evil. I love these one dimensional proclamations. They remind me of Karl Marx's cure for all the world's evils -- the elimination of private property ownership.

IT is no secret that divorce is an assault on faith and family, but shouldn’t the social ramifications of divorce be brought to light too? For “if one member suffer anything, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored all the members share its joy.” (1 Cor, 12:26).

Speak about family destruction and abandonment of our youth in a dehumanizing culture and no one seems to care. Personal matters become political ones. Impoverishment, exile, rootlessness, family members scattered far and wide, alcohol and drugs, crisis-making, poor health and extreme loneliness go unheeded.

The general populace in the world is not aware of the great harm that can inflict itself on vulnerable families that are being tossed about by forces over which they have no control, and the end result is the total annihilation of the family nucleus that is so important for the continuation of the freedom of the entire human race that is now under attack.

I JUST wanted you to know how much I enjoy Mike Farragher’s “Narrowback's Corner” in the Irish Voice.

We read the Irish Voice from cover to cover each week and have for a number of years.  My husband and I have made nine trips to Ireland and loved everyone and made a number of good friends.  

My great grandparents came from Ballymena, Co. Antrim in 1857.  They were Scots that had been dumped over there when the English needed the land their crofts were on in the 1600s.  

EARLY Irish sagas teach us that bad judgments of rulers result in disasters such as bad weather, economic ruin, famines and crop failure.

The decision of Fianna Fail and the National Roads Authority to desecrate Tara’s immediate landscape, the Gabhra Valley, in July 2007 was a bad judgment. The M3 opened this year.

We have lost our sovereignty. What did we unleash? Need I see more?

IN what has been a very depressing time for the Irish people, it once again took a sports star to get them out of their doldrums as the week closed out.

With the economy in a shambles and triple and quadruple murders on the same day, I honestly can't remember anything like it since The Troubles at their peak back in the early 1970s.

On Sunday evening, Graeme McDowell came from four shots back to defeat Tiger Woods in his own backyard to cap a magnificent six month spell for the Irishman.

CORPORATE "feudalism" threatens to destroy our democracy.  One of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, predicted the coming of the corporate Robber Barons in the 1880s with these prophetic words in 1864:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

On October 2, at out One Nation Working Together rally for jobs, justice and education at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington (which drew 250,000 people from all over the country), singer/activist Harry Belafonte echoed Lincoln's fear of corporate tyranny. 

I URGE every Irish man and woman to read page 18 of the 40 page PDF file drafted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/EU masters.

It states under iii Structural Reforms: “Transfer of responsibility for water services provision from local authorities to a water authority, as appropriate with a view to start charging in 2012/2013.”

What this really means is that ordinary Irish citizens will have to pay for water beginning in 2012.  The transference of water from local control to an “authority” will pave the way for privatization of water, probably to a U.K. or French private corporation.

I COMPLIMENT you on your coverage of the Irish banking and financial crisis in last week’s issue.  John Spain in particular has been spot on these past few months predicting what was going to happen.
Reading his columns was like watching a bad movie that you already knew the ending to.  You wanted to hit the pause button so many times and re-write the script, but the incompetent leaders in both the government and banking sector made that impossible.

Spain wrote a few weeks back that the government is basically run by former schoolteachers and inexperienced locals who have no idea how to operate a business.  I think the next government that comes into power must include people who have thorough economic backgrounds – a former CEO of a major corporation, for example.

This will likely never happen, but it should.  I have been watching the likes of Fine Gael party leader Enda Kenny in action, and he definitely does not inspire a great deal of confidence.  What experience does he have in dealing with a crisis of the magnitude that Ireland is facing?

I AM writing regarding Kathleen Kemmey’s letter “Sinn Fein Lies” (November 17-23), and also the recent Irish Voice articles on Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams going to Louth to contest the upcoming elections in the Republic, so that he can be on the political front in Dublin.

It is an amazing transformation from leader of Sinn Fein, to one being led by a government of insecure liars who have done not one thing to help out the people who put them into office to begin with.

By someone saying that the Orange Order doesn’t exist is a lie.  As for the Sinn Fein guests who spoke in New York on November 5, making such a statement is truly a lot of propaganda.  I wonder if these guests were connected to the U.S. Justice Department instead of the Friends of Sinn Fein?


IN his letter in last week’s issue, Thomas Gaffney stated that Gerry Adams should stay up North where he lives, and not run in the upcoming election in the Irish Republic.

The extension of that logic would be that Mr. Gaffney should keep his opinion in Hartford, Connecticut where he lives.

Bobby Schauder
Flushing, New York

THE Irish Voice response from senior editor Debbie McGoldrick about Christina Walsh and her family in the issue of November 17-23 was weak.

Sure you have the right to publish news of interest to the Irish community, but you didn't have to splatter the whole Walsh family over the front page.  I'm very disappointed in you, like a lot of others. 

No doubt it will sell papers in Woodlawn, but I thought the Irish Voice would have more sensitivity than to blast the Walsh family's pain on the front page!  How would anyone on your editorial board feel if this was about one of his/her family? 

THE race for the House seat in Illinois’ 8th Congressional District gives an answer to the midterm election.  It’s a Republican leaning district. But three term Congresswoman Melissa Bean was considered to be a shoo-in.

The 8th District is a mixed suburban and rural district that sprawls over three counties 30 to 60 miles northwest of downtown Chicago.  To add to her incumbency, Bean had the support of the entire Chicago area media, plenty of money and a strong rapport with the area’s business community.

By contrast her Republican opponent, Joe Walsh, was labeled as a Tea Party extremist. He had no support from the Republican Party, no media support, little money and no name recognition. His strength was a core of Tea Party activists who mounted an arduous grassroots campaign for him.