Pub Guide
Boston Irishman in Ireland
by Larry DonnellyRSS 
Recent Posts
- Potential political pitfalls of Barack Obama’s support for same-sex marriage
- Another Irish referendum campaign -- the politics of the upcoming vote on the European Fiscal Compact
- Confessions of a former Boston Red Sox fan - why I hope my baseball team have a dreadful season
- A Boston Irish Catholic on faith and practice in today’s Ireland
- Some wide-ranging thoughts on Rick Santorum’s exit from the race for the Republican presidential nomination
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Potential political pitfalls of Barack Obama’s support for same-sex marriage
Another Irish referendum campaign -- the politics of the upcoming vote on the European Fiscal Compact
This one would authorize the Irish government to ratify the European Fiscal Compact. Formally known as the Treaty on Stability, Coordination, and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, it requires all countries that sign up to it to have budgets that are in balance or in surplus within a year of its coming into force.
A night to remember – Nancy Pelosi honoured at Trinity College Dublin
Early this week, I received an unexpected telephone call from Eoin O’Liatháin, President of the University Philosophical Society (the Phil) at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). The Phil is no ordinary student society. Founded in 1683, it is the oldest society of its kind in the world and boasts the likes of Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and Mary Robinson as past members.
President O’Liatháin had a very appealing offer for me. Would I be willing to speak at a special Phil event, called “The Inaugural,” at which the former Speaker and current Democratic Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, would be receiving the Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage of the Phil in the presence of two members of Seanad Éireann (the upper house of Ireland’s parliament), the Vice Provost of TCD, a host of distinguished guests and hundreds of students? What’s more, a large delegation of Leader Pelosi’s congressional colleagues and other visiting Americans would be in attendance at the event.
Still trying to smash the glass ceiling in Irish politics - six male candidates for every female
While Irish women continue to make long overdue and steady, if slow, advances toward equality in an overarching sense, an examination of their progress in the political arena is far less heartening. This may surprise casual observers of Irish politics who can point to Ireland’s two trailblazing and outstanding female presidents, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, or to capable and powerful TDs (members of the lower house of Irish parliament), like former Tánaiste, (deputy Irish prime minister) Mary Harney, and former Minister for Justice, Nora Owen. The numbers do not lie, however.
In last year’s general election, just 85 of 566 candidates for 166 seats in Dáil Éireann (lower house of Irish parliament) were women. There were six male candidates for every female candidate. There are just 25 female TDs; 85% of TDs are men. This puts Ireland in 76th place on the international league table when it comes to the representation of women in national legislatures. It comes just ahead of Zimbabwe.
By way of comparison, in Britain, more than 20% of the membership of the Westminster parliament is female. In Sweden, women constitute nearly 50% of elected members of parliament.
Bussing in Boston – setting the record straight
Tom Deignan’s recent piece on Irish Central, “The real fighting Irish – Boston Irish fight each other,” deals with the 1970s, a terrible chapter in Boston’s history. By judicial fiat, public school students were forbidden from attending their local neighborhood schools and compelled to board school buses that took them to schools in far-flung corners of the city.
An Irish-American federal judge, Wendell Arthur Garrity, imposed this order to remedy the segregation of white and black students in the Boston school system that he found existed in fact, albeit not by law. Forced bussing was not a solution; it was an unmitigated disaster. It brought our city to its knees and accelerated the flight of ethnic Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, from the city to the suburbs.
Super Bowl XLVI - An American spectacle (for some) in Ireland
This is a very big week in our house in Wicklow. My hometown team, the New England Patriots, is back in the Super Bowl and facing our sworn enemy, the New York Giants. I am hoping and praying that the Patriots will exact revenge for the devastating loss in Super Bowl XLII the Giants inflicted on that year’s theretofore undefeated team.
The New York Giants of the National Football League are – the New York Yankees included – the professional sports franchise I loathe most of all. Battles during college with Giants fans and, even more vexingly, heated discussions with my father fueled this passionate and venomous distaste. My father, like many of his generation in Boston, grew up a Giants fan in the days before our city had a professional sports franchise. Just as after the 2008 Super Bowl, there will undoubtedly be a grin on his face late on Sunday evening, regardless of who wins.
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More news on the Super Bowl from IrishCentral
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RTÉ’s Colm Murray: Fighting motor neuron disease with courage, dignity and class
In full knowledge of the emotional roller coaster we were about to board, my wife Eileen and I sat down to watch a television program, “MND: The Inside Track,” earlier this week on RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland’s national broadcaster). Advertisements for the program revealed that it would chronicle the struggle of legendary sports broadcaster and horse racing expert, Colm Murray, against motor neuron disease, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease in the United States. Because I know Colm, I regret to say that this is the second time I have had the misfortune of coming into indirect contact with this incurable and fatal illness. It is a monster.
The first time was nearly twenty years ago when a good friend, Anne O’Shea (nee Flynn), broke the news that her father, a highly regarded and well-liked sergeant detective with the Boston Police Department, had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Daniel Flynn fought the disease with everything he had and valiantly continued his case work as a detective, but ultimately succumbed in late 1994 at age 48.
Colm Murray came into my life in a most unexpected, yet forever appreciated, way when he toasted me and Eileen, his friend and colleague at RTÉ, at our wedding in 2009. Pressed into service at the last minute by other colleagues at the wedding, who had heard him give toasts before and knew of his magical way with words, Colm quickly undertook to learn everything he didn’t already know about my wife, and whatever he could learn about me.
An American’s perspective on Ireland’s new property tax
“As a State, we are living so far beyond our means that the Government borrows €1.3 billion a month for public pay, pensions and vital services. The only way this money can be raised is through the IMF-EU bailout agreement. A condition of the agreement requires the introduction of a property charge, something that has been known for three years.”
So began a recent Irish Times editorial on the origins of the new property tax that Ireland’s 1.7 million households are now responsible for. In 2012, the first year of the new tax, all households, regardless of size or geographic location, must pay a flat fee of €100. While a flat fee is arguably a regressive tax, those living in local authority (i.e., public) housing and those on low incomes will be exempted from having to pay it.
2011: An extraordinary year in Irish politics
Here in Ireland, most people are quite justifiably delighted to bid farewell to 2011. It may have been the worst in a sequence of difficult years for this country and its people. We continued to come to grips with the depth of our financial problems, but at last succumbed to stark reality and now must satisfy the demands of external stakeholders, namely the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
For all of us who love the sport of politics, however, 2011 was action packed and memorable. A general election, a presidential election, votes on referendum questions and a wide array of other happenings were, if nothing else, a welcome distraction from the steady diet of economic doom and gloom that otherwise dominated the broadcast airwaves, the websites and the newspaper headlines. Following are my own top ten memories, and some reflections thereupon, from what was an extraordinary year in Irish politics.
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Westmeath TD Willie Penrose: Profile in courage or parish pump politician?
Last week, Willie Penrose, a Labour Party TD (member of Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s lower house of parliament) based in the town of Mullingar in the constituency comprising the counties of Longford and Westmeath, resigned his seat at the government’s cabinet table and the party whip. He had been a so-called “super junior” minister with responsibility for housing and planning. This is a very big job in Ireland in 2011 in light of mounting mortgage arrears and the collapse of the building industry.
Penrose is enormously popular in his locality. Largely as a result of this personal appeal, his is one of very few constituencies in rural Ireland where Labour has a strong presence and well-developed organisation. He has now resigned from his cabinet seat, lost the party whip and is no longer a member of the parliamentary Labour Party. As he had promised, he refused to support the Fine Gael/Labour-led government’s decision to close the Irish army barracks in Mullingar. The two government parties some time ago united on a decision to close a number of army barracks around the country as a cost cutting measure in these difficult times.
The barracks has long been an institution in Mullingar and a boon to the local economy. In addition to what the barracks has meant to the town financially, the soldiers stationed there and their families are part of the fabric of the community. Penrose said that “the barracks is in his DNA” when he announced his decision to flout the party whip and resign his seat in the cabinet.
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Musings on a rollercoaster ride - the 2011 Irish Presidential election
Hearty congratulations are due to the President-elect, Michael D. Higgins. The long-time Labour activist and office holder had been interested in pursuing the presidency for some years now and prevailed in his first campaign for the office.
He conducted his campaign with dignity, integrity and vigor. At all times, he demonstrated both a clear vision for what he would undertake to accomplish if elected and, at the same time, an understanding of what the President of Ireland can and cannot do.
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