Irish author Tim Pat Coogan has received a ten year non-immigrant visa to come to the U.S. after New York Senator Chuck Schumer directly intervened with the U.S. State Department.
There was widespread outrage when IrishCentral and the Irish Voice revealed last week that Coogan had been denied.
In a statement, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer said that, "after a personal push, renowned Irish author and historian Tim Pat Coogan will finally be granted a visa, allowing him to come back to the United States for a long-scheduled book tour."
Coogan had been denied a visa twice by the United States Embassy in Dublin, with no explanation. Yesterday Schumer weighed in, sending a letter to the State Department, urging them to quickly reconsider their decision.
Schumer cited Coogan’s long standing support of the United States and his highly-praised work.
“Mr. Coogan is an Irish treasure, a gifted author, a noted historian and a long standing supporter of the United States – our country should be rolling out the red carpet for him, not slamming the door in his face,” said Schumer.
“I look forward to welcoming him back to our country, and I am glad the State Department has corrected their mistake.”
In the letter, Schumer also wrote, “I write to express my concern regarding the recent U.S. State Department action of denying noted author, Timothy Pat Coogan, from coming to America for a book tour. I would urge the State department to reconsider this denial and expeditiously resolve this matter.”
Schumer’s move has resulted in a ten-year visa for Coogan who was informed by the U.S. Embassy directly on Tuesday morning.
Read more: Niall O'Dowd -- Barring of writer Tim Pat Coogan from U.S. is an absolute disgrace
Responding to the news, Tim Pat Coogan stated:
“I would like to thank IrishCentral and the Irish Voice, Senator Schumer and the thousands of Irish Americans who protested successfully at my being refused a Visa to enter the United States.
In fact I was refused two Esta Visa waivers it transpires, not one, by, it emerges, Homeland Security.
"I was phoned today by a gentleman from the U.S. embassy in Dublin who said that he could not give me his name ‘for security reasons’, telling me that it was Homeland Security who denied the two ESTA applications, but that I was being granted a ten year Visa, with multiple applications – with a proviso. The proviso is that an annotation stating that my application had been cleared after security checks, or words to that effect.
“Instinctively I don’t like the idea it seems a sort of Scarlet Letter approach and there’s something more than a little significant about my being phoned the day after I was originally scheduled to be in New York to begin my now cancelled book tour.
“However the embassy phone call marks a great advance on the attitude over my ESTA applications and I would once again like to thank very sincerely all those who supported me.
“The episode again underlines the great strength of the Irish American community when they decide to combine on a particular issue.
“Daniel O’Connell’s famous message to the Irish was, ‘Organize, Organize.’ That message is as relevant today as ever and Irish Americans should be vigilant to ensure that the hard won concessions they secured on visa dispersement are not eroded by the action of any segment of the bureaucracy.
“Remember Lincoln’s warning about the price of liberty being eternal vigilance.”
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.curtisjohnson | Dec 05, 2012, 10:42 PM EST
@puffy Interesting how anything that is not written to minimize/exculpate british atrocities is somehow considered unscholarly. What are these "peer reviews" by "historians" to which you refer - are they published in journals?
seanomelb | Nov 30, 2012, 06:04 PM EST
PUFFIN! The truth is not subject to bias only fact.
puffin | Nov 30, 2012, 07:45 AM EST
Coogan is a journalist and writer,who makes a few bob,in North America and the best of luck to him,I have not read his latest,it has not arrived at my public library yet,but I have read the peer reviews by historians and it has to be said they were less than impressed,Coogan tells one side that is his perogative,but no way could you say he is unbiased.
IrelandNorth | Nov 30, 2012, 06:58 AM EST
Quite obviously the Rt Hon US Sen Schumer took the trouble to read Tim[othy] Pat[rick] Coogan's - The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy, or one of his other previously published works. Having purchased a copy of TPCs - TFP:EsRiIsGT, it's unputdownable and characteristically objective throughout. Coogan's claims are no bluff, thought bound to be troublesome for those uncomfortable with inconvenient historical truths.
cillowen | Nov 29, 2012, 05:28 PM EST
Obamar thought he was doing right by our Master - tribe member Schumer just set him and team straight. That's what that was all about the usurpation of words genocide and holocaust being the wording that tribe deemed being theirs snared Pat by Amer Embassy exclude keywords listing.
puffin | Nov 29, 2012, 02:45 PM EST
publicity stunt
seamus60 | Nov 29, 2012, 02:28 PM EST
Pilib04. Of course I jest. Then man could not be trusted to admit he is the real Gerry Adams. Though he and King go back a long way. With even their attitudes on human rights issues swaying in tandem.
pilib04 | Nov 29, 2012, 12:00 PM EST
Apparently EdmundBurke has the earliest manifestation of this famous quote "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance." Curran and Jefferson are contemporaries. Quite possible for Jefferson to paraphrase in his speeches and then get printed later without attribution to Curran.
pilib04 | Nov 29, 2012, 11:55 AM EST
Apparently my post disappeared. The "Jefferson Monticello"{ credits the quote to Jefferson. The earliest know quote in print is 1817 "eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty." Earliest known attribution to Jefferson is 1834. Mr. Jefferson, has told us, that "the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance."
pilib04 | Nov 29, 2012, 11:48 AM EST
If Zionists were blocking Tim Pat's visit to the states, I surely doubt that Senator Chuck Schumer would have intervened. Please find another conspiracy theory.
pilib04 | Nov 29, 2012, 11:42 AM EST
Seamus60, Gerry Adams TD as a go between, surely you jest. Gerry was a victim of the DHS no-fly list while he was in the USA visiting the President and Congress. I doubt he would be the proper go between. My guess remains that the Anglophile U.S. Dept. of State was up to their dirty tricks. All U.S. Presidents have had to deal with the lifers at State.
occassio | Nov 29, 2012, 10:50 AM EST
Through a deeper dive it might be that there are other factors. But, Mr. Coogan did say it was DHS, which was the comment I made in my post last week. If it reads Department of Homeland Security, it generally smacks of Janet Napolitano who doesn’t seem to use or understand the word, discretion. There is no rhyme or reason to the DHS and, as a security organization, it seems easier for them to authorize the pat down of nuns, the elderly, children or leukemia patients than to create a more effective method of screening and trace detection. In the past and perhaps currently, genital and breast areas are not immune from pat downs. If this would prove the most efficient method of preventing an attack on American soil, I’d submit to one myself. But, these methods do nothing to protect us on a wider front, in sea ports, along coast lines, biochemical intrusion, computer hacking, etc. I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Boston99 and his comments about Israel. President Michael D. Higgins said much the same in his book, Causes for Concern. There are too many facts that will accord with his opinion.
Joe Kelsall | Nov 29, 2012, 10:18 AM EST
Feck me! There is NO chance of me getting a US visa! I am amazed as to how he got his criticism of Israel publicised. The US media is proven to be under Zionist control. See Johan Galtung on the Jews and the USA press.
seamus60 | Nov 29, 2012, 10:13 AM EST
All representation on Coogans behalf is to be rightfully praised. I sincerely hope the same who have afforded Coogan the same will now turn their attention as to why this happened in the first place and to what or who`s agenda. Perhaps Niall and others will now approach one Peter King from Homeland security to get answers. Failing that perhaps Gerry Adams would make himself available as a go between as he done during the Hungerstrikes.
Mr. Boston99 | Nov 28, 2012, 04:49 PM EST
Mr. Coogan was denied for the only reason anyone is ever denied entry into the USA. he was publically critical of Israel. He wrote an article critical of Israeli's handling of the Gaza flotilla a few years ago. No criticism of Israel is permitted. It is blatant hypocrisy that Schumer -- one of the most egregious of the Israel Firsters in the American senate -- comes riding in as the hero.
seanomelb | Nov 28, 2012, 04:28 PM EST
The madness has ended but it leaves a nasty taste as to why and by whom Tim was denied a visa
barneyjo | Nov 28, 2012, 03:13 PM EST
America - Land of the free; home of the brave...... and employer of the INEPT!!!
mlchellus | Nov 28, 2012, 01:54 PM EST
Who/What was behind the refusals. This American Irish needs to know. I think it would be very revealing...that is...as is UN-usual for Ireland.....that the Irish are given the truth...................ML
Joe Kelsall | Nov 28, 2012, 12:05 PM EST
Incongruously, Ireland hosted war criminal George W Bush.
tomryan | Nov 28, 2012, 12:04 PM EST
I am most grateful to Irish Central,Irish Voice, Nial O' Dowd & Sen. Schumer for both publicizing this travesty and resolving it. Tom Ryan
crowsnest | Nov 28, 2012, 11:16 AM EST
HMMM... be interesting to know the reason for previous 2 responses from Dublin. Maybe someone with the same name on a ' no fly' list ? Glad it was resolved.
bunkerisland | Nov 28, 2012, 11:05 AM EST
Resolved! Fixed! Now get to the bottom of this obstruction and report on the initial causes of such a rejection of TPC.
J.D.McCaffrey | Nov 28, 2012, 10:46 AM EST
I would urge the State Department to find out who the person or persons were that denied Mr. Coogan his visa. To deny a visa to a historian of Mr. Coogan's stature without offering an explanation just doesn't smell right. It seems like a gratuitous insult to those of us who admire the kind of truthfulness that Mr. Coogan brings to the Irish historical record.
eiriamach | Nov 28, 2012, 10:45 AM EST
Maybe not: I read edmundburke's comment and decided to check it out: "This quotation was well-known in the nineteenth century, and was in fact used by a number of famous figures, including Frederick Douglass, James Buchanan, and William Henry Harrison. It is most often traced back, ultimately, to John Philpot Curran's statement, 'The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.' While the form in question, 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,' is most often attributed to Wendell Phillips, this form is in fact far older. The earliest appearance in print that we have been able to locate is 1809, and it is clear that this source is quoting yet an earlier (unnamed) source. Several nineteenth-century sources claim that this was a quotation from Junius, an anonymous political writer who wrote a series of letters to the London Public Advertiser between 1769 and 1772, but we have not found this exact statement in his writings, either" (from the Jefferson Encyclopedia).
Murph46 | Nov 28, 2012, 10:42 AM EST
Though in general I consider Schumer a great grandstander,I applaud him for this. Maybe the public perception of Washington politicians will go up to 12%!
eiriamach | Nov 28, 2012, 10:35 AM EST
Throughout US history, several people have quoted and rephrased Jefferson's (not Lincoln's) words about eternal vigilance being the price of liberty. Perhaps Lincoln used these words also, but the idea originated, I believe, in Thomas Jefferson's writings. (It's one of my favorite quotations too.)
edmundburke | Nov 28, 2012, 10:27 AM EST
As a long time fan of Coogan's, I am pleased with this result. But I am SHOCKED by this Irish historians mistaken attribution of the famous aphorism "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" to Lincoln. IN FACT, the author of those words was the famous 18th century Irish barrister JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, who defended many Irish freedom fighters in the Four Courts before the 1798 Rising.
Mousemess | Nov 28, 2012, 10:18 AM EST
Coogan = O' Cugain in Irish
Dunkelly1 | Nov 28, 2012, 09:52 AM EST
I am thrilled to learn of this as iit waw an outrage that he was denied in the first place. Thank you Senator Schumer for stepping up to the plateon this one.
donal1951 | Nov 28, 2012, 09:50 AM EST
I'm very glad for Tim Pat Coogan and for justice prevailing in the end. It is a shame it required the intervention of a powerful U.S. Senator to make it happen. Mr. Coogan should have been granted a visa as a routine matter. Shame on the US State Department and the US Embassy in Dublin!
ancavker | Nov 28, 2012, 08:58 AM EST
Once again, the Irish-Americans get it done!!
MatthewJshow | Nov 28, 2012, 08:57 AM EST
Good luck with your book tour!