Irish Voice Letters to the Editor

I am trying to trace my U.S. relatives. They would be the descendants of Margaret, Anne, Bridget and Ellen Moran (from Bofield, near Ballina, Co. Mayo), who emigrated to Pennsylvania (Scranton/Pottsville area) between 1880 and 1900.

Bridget (married name Mullen) had 10 children.

Anne (married name Weirich) had one daughter, named Margaret.

IT is most disheartening to see the feigned hand-wringing, barrels of spilt ink and the general ruaille-buaille over one miserable man’s inane comments at an event on the Upper East Side overshadow the intent and purpose of that occasion, namely the launch of John T. Ridge’s new book, Celebrating 250 Years of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

While what has now become of the March 17 parade holds no interest for me whatsoever, its beginning and subsequent history is certainly fascinating.

Mr. Ridge is a brilliant New York historian, an engaging speaker and a fine writer with a real love and affection for his topic. I’ve no doubt that his latest contribution is just as irresistible as his earlier works and articles.

AS I listened to Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin attacking Sinn Fein with regards to corruption, I wondered had he heard of the adage, “People in glass houses . . . do naughty things in the basement.

The sheer effrontery of the party that gave us such selfless, frugal examples as Ray Burke, Liam Lawlor, the Flynns, Ivor Callelly, Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern attacking others for corruption is breathtaking.

Are they trying to eradicate the memory of the last 14 years, or is it because the contest for the last seat in many areas is between Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein?

AS independents have shown in the U.S. electing Barack Obama president in 2008, independents will lead the way in Ireland in 2011.

Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, the Greens and Sinn Fein should reach out to all independents because not only will independents get you elected, but they will have a lot to say about Ireland and what needs to be done about the Irish political situation and the economic crisis effecting the Emerald Isle.

There are no solutions, just more questions and a listening ear.  These questions have to be asked by the common people, not the political elite.

LAST week I received a letter from an Irish Republican imprisoned in Maghaberry Jail in Co. Antrim. As may of your readers know, there still are many Irish Republicans imprisoned on both sides of the border.

Copied below is one POW's letter, printed verbatim from the man himself.  His words tell the story of life today for imprisoned Republicans. In memory of the 10 Irish Republicans who died on hunger strike 30 years ago, I hope you will print this letter.

“Hello everyone. I’m just back from the court. I was twice subjected to forced strip searches today. That was my 10th forced strip in the last 12 weeks.

IT was a Sunday morning 50 years ago that I left Cobh, Co. Cork, bound for New York aboard a Cunard ship named Ivernia. I had a £20 note and a few bob in my pocket.

After a five day voyage and a stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I landed in New York and I still had eight or nine dollars in my pocket. All the Irish emigrants on board had one thing in common -- namely, nobody had money.

We had no internet, e-mail, laptops or social network outlets before we headed out to help us explore the new country. Yet, starting from scratch, we all made out very well in the new country.

AM I alone in being rather tired of the persistent and pessimistic tone of the contributions from the Irish Voice’s Irish-based contributors? Even the sports pages are now singing the same song of blame the bankers, the government, the developers.

Nobody is saying "we are all to blame.”  What with the shopping trips to the U.S. and Northern Ireland by the ladies taking trade away from local businesses, the trips to Ireland rugby/soccer games by the menfolk, the expensive family weddings!

Everybody (well, nearly everybody) was having a ball.  One has to ask who asked the bankers for the loans, who voted for the "cute-hoor" politicians, who wanted bigger houses, and associated bragging rights than the one down the road?

Some questions for the Irish media:

1. Why is the establishment media so hostile to radical new ideas in this beleaguered country?

2. Why do those, such as Sinn Fein, the United Left Alliance, etc., who advocate such obviously sensible ideas as standing up to greedy bankers and applying a proper tax on high incomes and wealth (the norm in most successful European countries) get dismissed as "economic illiterates?”

I’ve just read the most brutally honest, blunt and accurate assessment of how Ireland's economy went from being one of the strongest on the planet, to being weaker than that of Iraq, if that's possible.

The best-selling author Michael Lewis visited Ireland a while back and wrote the piece for the new edition of Vanity Fair, and it's absolutely imperative reading for anyone out there who ever wondered how Ireland went from being a poor nation to a rich nation, to a poor nation again, in a few short years.

The Irish election will be held in a couple of weeks from now and the next Taoiseach (prime minister) in waiting, Enda Kenny of the Fine-agler party is refusing to appear on a TV debate (with excuse after excuse), with the other contenders as the guy, truthfully, can't put two words together without stammering.

There was a “Page 2” piece in last week’s issue about Sinead O’Connor having difficulty raising a son that she had out of wedlock with a married man.

O’Connor has four children with four different fathers. Doesn’t that say something? How could her kids possibly be happy with such an un-traditional home life, and how could she even think to do conduct her life like this?


I don’t really want to pass judgment, but there’s no way kids can be happy in that kind of atmosphere. If O’Connor wants to do the right thing by her children then she should start living her life in a more respectable fashion, and put her children first instead of herself and her own needs.

During his recent state visit to the U.S., the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, seemed to acknowledge that his country needs to do more on human rights. For him to dismiss human rights issues with a mere line or two, and in such a bland abstract way, is to seriously underplay the situation in China.

China is one of the major human rights violators in the world. Freedom of speech is barely a concept there, much less a reality. Even the Internet is heavily monitored. 
Human rights activists are constantly hounded, imprisoned on the thinnest of pretexts, or shot and beaten off the streets if they dare lobby publicly for even the tiniest of the freedoms that we in the West take for granted.

It is anyone’s guess how many “political prisoners” are currently languishing in China’s jails, but a measure of the official Chinese attitude to human rights was in its reaction to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the imprisoned campaigner Liu Xiaobo, which it described as “an obscenity.”

I hope you do a follow-up to the article in last week’s Irish Voice on one of Ireland's most powerful voices, Sinead O'Connor.

She is reaching out for help out of frustration with being a single mom. It must be a shock to many who are just learning that Donal Lunny gave her a baby boy while still in marriage.

I for one have always imagined Lunny to be the nicest guy with a heart as big as the Island itself. I love anything he touches musically. He has an amazing background and a great influence on the Irish music scene and beyond.

I have been reading about all the poor horses in Ireland being thrown out to fend for themselves, with nowhere to go.

All of my family loves animals. My daughter has two dogs and my husband and I have a cat.

My heart breaks for these horses.  They are beautiful animals.
Those old farmers in Ireland are very cold, and some of those horses being left on their own are racehorses. The people who made money off of them are cold-hearted bums.

I feel very sad for the 19-year-old who wrote the hate filled Facebook postings about the beautiful Michaela Harte McAreavey murder.

I will not mention this person’s name.  How anyone can compare what happened to Michaela to soldiers in a war is beyond me.

Beautiful Michaela was murdered.  My heart goes out to her husband, father and family. You could feel the love they had for each other.

As Tunisia and now Egypt writhe in political and social revolution, the world looks on and the powers that be brace themselves for economic and societal chaos.

Ireland and its people could learn from the Tunisians and Egyptians.

In both these countries a dictatorship has ruled with repression for 30 years. In Ireland, although we have no military dictatorship, we have had a bunch of parochial clowns ruling the country for decades, a golden circle that has ensured its own preservation no matter what the cost to ordinary Irish people, the taxpayers!

"I don't know of one person who says abortion is a good thing," says letter writer Jane Stevens in the January 19-25 issue, as she proceeded in the rest of the letter to support unrestricted rights to abortion and condemned pro-life letter writer Steve Casey with nasty character assassination slurs.

Ms. Stevens, in her attempt to be all things to all people on this greatest of modern evils, wound up being a prime competitor to the great equivocator himself, Senator John Kerry, when he famously said, "I voted for the war before I voted against it."

This issue, Ms. Stevens, can't be straddled with yes, yes and no, no.

While our wildlife was struggling to survive in recent Siberian conditions, it was "sport" as usual for the country's foxhunts whose terrorization and killing continued.

The activities of one was outlined in a disturbing Farmers' Journal hunting report. Sixteen mounted followers of the Westmeath hunt, along with 29 hounds, found a fox that was caught and "chopped."
Later on, another fox was "overhauled before he managed to put any distance between himself and them."
Both "chopped" and "overhauled," in hunting terminology, mean that the fox was caught by the hounds and brutally killed.

One can only imagine the gruesome scenes of suffering as these foxes were attacked, torn apart and disemboweled by the pack.

I am writing in response to Jane Stevens’ letter, “Keep Abortion Legal” in the January 19-25 issue, which was in response to Steve Casey’s pro-life letter of the previous week.

Stevens stated that Casey “has no right to dictate how a woman should take care of her body, end of story.”

That is so. However, an unborn child is NOT part of any woman’s body. He or she is a completely separate life.