Author Archives: Mark Holan

About Mark Holan

I am an Irish-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. I obtained Irish citizenship in 1997 through my immigrant grandparents from County Kerry. I have traveled to Ireland a dozen times and explored most of the island, including the partitioned north. I have written nearly 1,000 posts for this blog since 2012 in addition to freelance work for popular and academic publications.

U.S. press on the rise and fall of the Paisley dynasty

UPDATE:

Mervyn Gibson, grand secretary of the Orange Order, has said the poor performance of Northern Ireland’s unionist parties in the July 4 general election “could have been a lot worse for unionists, it wasn’t too bad. But there is a lot of work to do to promote the union.” As Twelfth parades stepped off across the province, he told the Belfast Telegraph there is “massive growth in Orange activity across the country.” This claim is suspect, according to nationalist Irish News columnist Brian Feeney. He writes the Orangeism’s “ageing membership is a fraction of what it was fifty years ago. Many marchers can’t manage the distance of their parades. Instead of a manifestation of the power of unionism ‘the Twalf’ is Exhibit A of what has happened to unionism.” … Northern Ireland’s Secretary of State Hilary Benn attended a Twelfth parade in County Fermanagh one day after meeting Irish Tánaiste (deputy PM) Micheal Martin in County Down. “I see my job as being a friend to all, beholden to none, but an honest broker in Northern Ireland,” said Benn of the newly empowered U.K. Labour party.

ORIGINAL POST:

Ian Paisley Jr.’s defeat in the United Kingdom elections marks the first time in 54 years that the family will not represent Northern Ireland’s North Antrim constituency at Westminster. The Rev. Paisley Sr. entered Parliament in June 1970, then 15 months later founded the militant Democratic Unionist Party. Now, the DUP’s loss of two other seats in the July 4 election means it is no longer the largest or dominant party among 18 representatives from Northern Ireland.

Paisley’s defeat has been called “a political earthquake,” one that reveals division among those who seek to maintain Northern Ireland’s union with Great Britain. It comes as Northern Irish Protestants begin their annual July 12 Battle of the Boyne commemorations. It will worth watching to see if unionism’s troubles manifest at this year’s marches and bonfires. (See update above.)

The election result sent me to U.S. newspaper databases[1]Newspapers.com and ProQuest. to review coverage of Paisley Senior’s rise to political power early in the Troubles.

Paisley Sr. in 1970.

The firebrand preacher was named in the U.S. press as early as 1951, when Religion News Service reported on the St. Patrick’s Day formation of the Free Presbyterian Church.[2]“Presbyterian Church Inaugurated In Ulster”, RNS via Public Opinion, Chambersburg, Pa., March 31, 1951. More widespread coverage of Paisley began in 1962, when the Associated Press reported that Italian police had detained him and two other Protestant preachers from Northern Ireland for distributing pamphlets in St. Peter’s Square to protest a meeting of the Roman Catholic Ecumenical Council.

Paisley did not surface in the New York Times until 1966, when he was mentioned in 14 stories, mostly about his incarceration for unlawful assembly and related rioting in Belfast. In covering that year’s Twelfth marches, the Times American-born correspondent Dana Adams Schmidt reported that Orangemen were “divided over a form of religious and political extremism known as Paisleyism. … (He) has gained an avid following with emotional tirades against the Catholic Church, against the ecumenical movement and against the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Capt. Terence O’Neill.”[3]”A Divided Northern Ireland Celebrates The Battle Of The Boyne”, New York Times, July 13, 1966. “Dana Adams Schmidt, Reporter Based In Europe and Mideast, 78”, New York Times, … Continue reading

Paisley had already developed a relationship with the namesake founder of the Christian fundamentalist Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The university bestowed Paisley with an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree, and Jones visited the Free Presbyterian Church in Belfast in October 1966. The American preacher told the Irish congregation that the United States and the United Kingdom had in common “the same biased press.”[4]“Jones Charges British, U.S. Press Biased”, Associated Press via The State, Columbia, S.C., Oct. 28, 1966. Paisley’s namesake first son was born in December 1966.

Dynasty begins

By the time he was elected to Parliament four years later, Paisley Père was a fixture in U.S. press coverage of Northern Ireland. He was described as “Northern Ireland’s answer to Alabama’s George Wallace. … Both men possess formidable oratorical talent, and both speak—with varying degrees of subtlety and fervor—to the deep-seated fears of many people.”[5]“Paisley Alters 20th Century”, Marvin Kupfer of Newsweek Features via Press and Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N.Y., June 30, 1970.

Paisley joined the House of Commons months after Catholic civil rights crusader Bernadette Devlin won a Mid Ulster by-election to become the youngest woman elected to Westminster. The 21-year-old claimed the seat in London, unlike traditional Irish republican abstentionists.

“These are the two symbols of Northern Ireland today … the Socialist martyr, hope of despairing Catholics … (and the) ordained apostle of right-wing reaction, arch-sectarian, defender of Protestants who feel their world and its values crumbling away,” wrote one correspondent.[6]”The Rebel In Armagh Jail, The Hater In The Pulpit”, Anthony Carthew of the Daily Mail, London, via the New York Times, Aug. 9, 1970. Another said she was “a rabblerouser, Castro in a miniskirt” while he was “a rank demagogue and an embryo Fascist.”[7]”Bernadette Devlin, Rev. Ian Paisley Symbols of N. Ireland Polarization”, Edwin McDowell in the Arizona Republic, Sept. 14, 1970. McDowell later worked for the Wall Street Journal and the … Continue reading Noted U.S. conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr. worried that “Paisleyism is more important than Paisley, and would most likely survive him. … If Paisleyism triumphs, Northern Ireland will disintegrate.”[8]Buckley’s July 1970 column was widely published in U.S. papers.

Paisley Jr. in 2020.

Northern Ireland did disintegrate into bloodshed, which lasted until the late 1990s. As it turned out, Paisley had a longer and more successful political career than Devlin. But he eventually moderated his position enough to lead the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness. (Alabama’s Wallace also moderated his politics later in his career.)

Dynasty ends

Paisley Sr. retired from politics in 2011, and he died three years later. Paisley Jr. replaced his father at Westminster in 2010, and was re-elected three times. He was defeated by 450 votes this month by Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice, which split from the DUP in 2007 as a more hardline party. Since his loss, Paisley refused to join the DUP’s call for unionist unity, and he has dodged the press.

The end of the Paisley dynasty rated only two paragraphs in the New York Times‘ online roundup of the U.K. election. It was the paper’s first mention of the family since the father’s death a decade ago. Most U.S. media outlets have ignored the fall of the house of Paisley.

References

References
↑1 Newspapers.com and ProQuest.
↑2 “Presbyterian Church Inaugurated In Ulster”, RNS via Public Opinion, Chambersburg, Pa., March 31, 1951.
↑3 ”A Divided Northern Ireland Celebrates The Battle Of The Boyne”, New York Times, July 13, 1966. “Dana Adams Schmidt, Reporter Based In Europe and Mideast, 78”, New York Times, Aug. 26, 1994.
↑4 “Jones Charges British, U.S. Press Biased”, Associated Press via The State, Columbia, S.C., Oct. 28, 1966.
↑5 “Paisley Alters 20th Century”, Marvin Kupfer of Newsweek Features via Press and Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N.Y., June 30, 1970.
↑6 ”The Rebel In Armagh Jail, The Hater In The Pulpit”, Anthony Carthew of the Daily Mail, London, via the New York Times, Aug. 9, 1970.
↑7 ”Bernadette Devlin, Rev. Ian Paisley Symbols of N. Ireland Polarization”, Edwin McDowell in the Arizona Republic, Sept. 14, 1970. McDowell later worked for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
↑8 Buckley’s July 1970 column was widely published in U.S. papers.

New British PM makes connections with Ireland

UPDATE 4:

New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spoken by phone with Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris. They are scheduled to meet in London on July 17. Starmer also spoken with Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly. He is expected to visit the province within days. … Hilary Benn has been named Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Funding, and either repeal or modification of the Legacy Act, are top issues for the new Labour government in the North.

Leaders from London, Dublin, and Belfast met 100 years ago …

Leaders Ramsay MacDonald of Britain, William Cosgrave of the Irish Free State, and Sir James Craig of Northern Ireland discussed the Irish boundary commission and related matters four years after partition. Ransey was the Labour Party’s first prime minister. Image from the Buffalo (N.Y.) Courier, July 13, 1924. 

UPDATE 3:

Nationalist Sinn Féin has emerged as the largest U.K. parliamentary party in Northern Ireland by holding its seven seats from the 2019 election while the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lost three seats in a split among unionists. Sinn Féin now has the most seats in local council offices, the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, and at Westminster, though the party does not take its seats in the London parliament.

The unionist debacle included the “political earthquake” of the DUP loosing the North Antrim seat held by the late firebrand Ian Paisley, then his namesake son, since 1970. The seat tipped to Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister. The Alliance Party captured the Lagan Valley seat held by Sir Jeffery Donaldson, the former DUP leader now criminal charged with sexual offences. Sorcha Eastwood, 38, is the first non-unionist and first woman to win the seat.

Political observers suggest the massive majority won by Labour at Westminster will foster a “reset” between London and Dublin, with implications not only for British-Irish relations but also between Northern Ireland and the Republic. More in the next update.

UPDATE 2:

Labour has won a landslide victory in the U.K. general election, according to BBC exit polling. Party leader Keir Starmer will becomes the new prime minister. … Results from Northern Ireland are likely to remain outstanding until early July 5, U.S. Eastern time.

UPDATE 1:

Voting is underway in the U.K. until 10 p.m. local time, or 5 p.m. U.S. Eastern time. The U.K. does not permit exit polling to be reported while the voting is ongoing. (Original post below the photo.)

Former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, standing at right center, addresses the House of Commons on May 15. He was ousted by the Labour landslide. ©House of Commons

ORIGINAL POST:

Voters in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom head to the polls Thursday, July 4. Many observers believe the election will boot the Conservatives from power after 14 years, five prime ministers, and one Brexit.

Northern Ireland, bright yellow, and the rest of the U.K.

Only 18 of the 650 seats at Westminster represent constituencies in the six partitioned counties of Ireland. Sinn Féin nationalists don’t bother making the trip to London. But the election results will matter as the North continues to find its post-Brexit footing as the only part of the U.K. with a European Union land border–the Republic of Ireland. The make up of the Northern Ireland delegation, and the full Parliament and new prime minister, will also impact ongoing speculation about holding a referendum on whether to re-unify Ireland.

Of course, both of these matters will be influenced by the still unscheduled national election in the Republic, which must take place by spring. And, too a lesser degree, the U.S. election in November.

In the 2019 U.K. election, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) won the most seats in Northern Ireland with eight. The resignation of party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has reduced that to seven. Sinn Féin also has seven seats. Michelle O’Neill, the party vice-president, is first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the power-sharing local government established by the Good Friday Agreement. At Westminster, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) hold two seats and the non-aligned Alliance Party one.

Sinn Féin, which took a beating in last month’s local and E.U. elections in the Republic, may not make gains in the North, but still could emerge with the most seats. On the unionist side, the vote could be split between the DUP, the Ulster Unionists, and Traditional Unionist Voice. This may help the Alliance.

The BBC offers this roundup of key races in the North.

Post-treaty Ireland’s brief ‘nationalist happiness’

Col. Frederick Palmer, a veteran American war correspondent, sailed into the Queenstown harbor on Feb. 2, 1922. His use of the town name that honored Victoria’s 1849 visit drew a quick correction from “an Irishman on board my steamer,” Palmer later reported. The passenger informed him the name was changed to Cobh with the establishment of the Irish Free State. The correspondent used the anecdote to open his exploration of “how it feels for the Irish to be free, and what the Irish are going to do with their freedom.”

Palmer told his U.S. readers: “It is from the people by the way-side that one gets the real story of Ireland today. They would not be Irish if they did not know how to talk. An Irishman can tell more in a sentence than some people can in a book.”

Col. Frederick Palmer, about 10 years before his 1922 trip to Ireland.

As he waited for the tender to take him to shore, Palmer, 48, stood 5-foot, 9-inchs tall under “brown-gray” hair; a “long oval” face, “fair” complexion, and “prominent” chin, with gray eyes behind glasses, in the parlance of his U.S. passport.[1]1921 Passport application. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925; Roll #: 1478; Volume … Continue reading He had accumulated more than two decades of reporting from conflict zones: the Greco-Turkish War of 1897; the Philippine-America War of 1899-1902; the Boxer Rebellion in China (1900); the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902); the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905); the Balkans in 1912; Mexico City in 1914; and the First World War.

As a New York Herald correspondent before the Great War, Palmer earned what today would be an $800,000 annual salary. But he gave it up to become what he called “the pioneer press censor and general utility public relations” man with the American Expeditionary Force.[2]John Maxwell Hamilton, Manipulating The Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda [Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2020], 110, 237. Other top American journalists had joined the Wilson administration: George Creel, Charles Edward Russell, and Ray Stannard Baker, among others. Only Palmer earned a military rank.

As he arrived in Ireland, Palmer’s 1921 exploration of international conflicts, The Folly of Nations, was drawing positive press reviews in America. In one passage of the 400-page book, he wrote:

If the Irish had relied upon propaganda, would they have won concessions from the British government? They have proved that when a people are in the exalted mood to offer blood sacrifice, even in the era of the machine gun and rapid-firing artillery, there is no preventing the progress of a sniping warfare, with the connivance of the masses, from month to month and from year to year.[3]Frederick Palmer, The Folly of Nations [New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1921] 197.

It was not the correspondent’s first visit to Ireland. “I had seen it in the old days of Redmond and Healy, and again two years ago (1920) under the reign of terror when the faces of all the people were gray and the Sinn Fein leaders proscribed. I had always thought of the Irish as at heart the kindest of peoples, generous of impulse as they were obliging and civil of manner. Confirmation of that view is complete after the severest of tests.”[4]“People Of Ireland Get Down To The Task Of Learning Gaelic”, The Toronto Star, Feb. 27, 1922. Story dated Feb. 10, 1922. The same story appeared in other papers at later dates with later … Continue reading

Later in his opening piece, Palmer continued:

There is something in the smile on all the Irish faces, in the light in Irish eyes worth coming from afar to see. It is happiness, sheer nationalist happiness; the happiness glowing out of great depths, over a dream come true after hundreds of years of waiting and striving. It is enough for the men and women in the streets of the towns and in cottage doorways from Bantry Bay to Donegal that the British are going. People who live faraway in the back country, and who doubt if it really can be true, journey to the railroad stations to watch the passing of the ancient enemy, and meanwhile bear themselves in a way that amounts to fine dignity—a finer dignity than some of the other people who have recently achieved nationhood have shown.”

The Buffalo Times, March 12, 1922.

For six weeks Palmer traveled Ireland “end to end” from his base at the Shelborne Hotel in Dublin. His six-part series for the New York Evening Post was distributed to other U.S. and Canadian newspapers under the title “Building The Irish Free State.” The stories appeared in newspapers through April, the datelines changed to appear more recent than it really was.

Palmer devoted most of his reporting to interviewing the now divided pro- and anti-treaty Irish leaders, who faced a general election in mid-June. He described Eamon de Valera as “the voice for another man’s words,” insisting “the real power behind him is Erskine Childers, who is not Irish in blood, manners or training.” Further, Palmer continued, “the driving force behind Childers himself is Mrs. Childers. She does not appear in public. There is no mention of her in the press, as there is of Miss MacSwiney, the sister of the martyr mayor of Cork; or Mrs. O’Callaghan, the wife of the martyr mayor of Limerick, and other female extremists.”[5]“Silent, Frail Little Englishman And Boston Wife Real Force Behind Valera, Says Palmer”, The San Francisco Journal and Daily Journal of Commerce, April 16, 1922, and other papers before and after … Continue reading [6]Mary Alden “Molly” Childers, nee Osgood, was a native of Boston. Her husband was executed by Free State forces in November 1922. “Of all the men I ever met, I would say he was the … Continue reading

The next time Palmer disembarked from a liner was in mid-March at New York City. He told a dockside reporter: “What Ireland needs now more than anything else perhaps is a sturdy and quick development of her industries. The people realize this and are striving to bring it about. They want the Irish in America to come back home and with capital and brain power (to) assist in building up the country. When I left Ireland there was a project underway for big development in the harbor of Queenstown.”[7]“Free Staters Will Win, Say Frederick Palmer”, New York Tribune, March 21, 1922.

Palmer had already forgotten the name change to Cobh. And the deepening rupture among Irish republicans would soon spoil the country’s brief nationalist happiness.

References

References
↑1 1921 Passport application. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925; Roll #: 1478; Volume #: Roll 1478 – Certificates: 135500-135875, 29 Jan 1921-31 Jan 1921. Cedric “Arriving Passengers” List, Queenstown, Ireland, February 2, 1922. The National Archives in Washington, DC; London, England, UK; Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Inwards Passenger Lists; Class: Bt26; Piece: 715; Item: 45.
↑2 John Maxwell Hamilton, Manipulating The Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda [Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2020], 110, 237.
↑3 Frederick Palmer, The Folly of Nations [New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1921] 197.
↑4 “People Of Ireland Get Down To The Task Of Learning Gaelic”, The Toronto Star, Feb. 27, 1922. Story dated Feb. 10, 1922. The same story appeared in other papers at later dates with later datelines.
↑5 “Silent, Frail Little Englishman And Boston Wife Real Force Behind Valera, Says Palmer”, The San Francisco Journal and Daily Journal of Commerce, April 16, 1922, and other papers before and after this date.
↑6 Mary Alden “Molly” Childers, nee Osgood, was a native of Boston. Her husband was executed by Free State forces in November 1922. “Of all the men I ever met, I would say he was the noblest,” de Valera declared.
↑7 “Free Staters Will Win, Say Frederick Palmer”, New York Tribune, March 21, 1922.

American Commission’s 1920 Irish independence reading list

The American Commission on Irish Independence emerged from the February 1919 Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia. Frank P. Walsh, a former Wilson administration labor lawyer, chaired the activist group’s three-member delegation to the Paris peace conference later that spring to lobby for Ireland. Then, the trio made an outspoken and controversial stop in Ireland. By January 1920, Walsh was at work promoting the Irish bond drive in America.

Frank P. Walsh

On Jan. 29, 1920, Walsh wrote to Monsignor John Hagan, rector of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome and a supporter of the Irish republican cause, as detailed in an earlier post. The short letter itemized a list of pro-Irish reading material (propaganda, some would say) that Walsh had mailed separately from New York City to Rome. He asked Hagan to acknowledge once he received the material.

Below, the original language of the list on American Commission stationary (441 Fifth Avenue, a block from the New York Public Library) is reproduced in bold. It is linked where possible to the named publications. I’ve also added further background and context.

                    ***

  • 1 copy of George Creel’s Ireland’s Fight for Freedom. Creel (1876-1953) gave up his career as an investigative journalist and editor to head the Committee on Public Information, the Wilson administration propaganda agency during the First World War. Wilson sent Creel to Ireland in February 1919 after Sinn Féin candidates elected to the British Parliament in December 1918 instead convened as Dáil Éireann in Dublin. Walsh wrote a promotional blub for the book, which was published in July 1919. “No clearer, finer presentation of the Irish cause was every framed,” he wrote. [1]“What George Creel Found In Ireland”, advert, New York Tribune, Aug. 9, 1919. As Wilson balked at helping Ireland, Creel became “one of the more unlikely Irish apologist,” historian Francis M. Carroll has written.[2]Francis M. Carroll, American opinion and the Irish question, 1910-23 : a study in opinion and policy, Dublin : New York, Gill and Macmillan ; St. Martin’s Press, 1978, p. 144.
  • 1 copy of O’Brien’s The Hidden Phase In American History. Michael J. O’Brien (1870-1960) was the chief historian at the American Irish Historical Society in New York City. This book, like most of his work, details Irish contributions to the American revolution.
  • 2 copies of Maloney’s Irish Issue. William J. M. A. Maloney (1882-1952) was born in Scotland to Irish parents. He became a medical doctor and served as a captain in the British Army during the First World War. Afterward, he was a New York-based activist for the Irish cause. This publication is a bound collection of five articles Maloney wrote for the Jesuit-published America magazine in October and November 1918.
  • 1 colored map of Ireland. It would be interesting to know whether Walsh or others added any notations beyond the standard geographic representations. In particular, were there any suggestions of the coming partition of Ireland? The 1920 C. S. Hammond & Company map below is for illustrative purposes only, not necessarily what was sent to Hagan.
  • 10 copies of Foundation Of The Irish Republic Eamon de Valera (1882-1975) wrote this booklet to memorialize Sinn Féin’s success in the December 1918 U.K. general election. It was published in 1919 as de Valera began his 18-month tour of the United States.   
  • 10 handbooks. It is unclear whether these handbooks were all the same title, or a variety. They might have come from the Benjamin Franklin Bureau in Chicago, which produced Irish Issue and other pro-Irish pamphlets.

***

Though not included on this list, Walsh also wrote a promotional blurb for Chicago journalist Ruth Russell’s 1920 book, What’s the Matter with Ireland?, which he described as “a most valuable contribution to the literature of Ireland.”[3]Advertisement in The (Brooklyn, NY) Tablet, Aug. 28, 1920, 5, The Nation, March 23, 1921, 441. Walsh and Russell had met when she covered the American Commission’s spring 1919 arrival in Dublin.

Walsh concluded his letter to Hagan: “We trust you will be able to use these to good advantage.”

1920 C. S. Hammond & Company map of pre-partition Ireland.

References

References
↑1 “What George Creel Found In Ireland”, advert, New York Tribune, Aug. 9, 1919.
↑2 Francis M. Carroll, American opinion and the Irish question, 1910-23 : a study in opinion and policy, Dublin : New York, Gill and Macmillan ; St. Martin’s Press, 1978, p. 144.
↑3 Advertisement in The (Brooklyn, NY) Tablet, Aug. 28, 1920, 5, The Nation, March 23, 1921, 441.

Irish local and E.U. election outcomes offer surprises

Pressure continues building from within the coalition government to hold a national general election in the Republic of Ireland before the end of the year, perhaps Oct. 18 or Oct. 25. That brings this coverage of the local and E.U. election full circle (see original post at bottom). Remember, U.K. (Northern Ireland) elections are July 5. Happy Bloomsday and Father’s Day. MH

UPDATE 5: Counting completed

After a week of counting under Ireland’s proportional representation system, June 7 election totals are now complete. Among 14 European Union seats, Fianna Fáil doubled its previous total to four; Fianna Gael also has four seats, one fewer than before the election; Sinn Féin doubled from one to two seats; Labor took one seat and independent candidates claimed three. 

UPDATE 4: Local seat totals & turnout

With a 49 percent election turnout, the tally of 949 county and urban district seats shows:

  • Fianna Fáil, 248
  • Fianna Gael, 245
  • Independents, 227
  • Four small party total, 127
  • Sinn Féin, 102

Only 6 of 14 European Union seats had been resolved as of June 13.

UPDATE 3: Call him Mayor Moran

Independent candidate John Moran has emerged as Ireland’s first directly-elected mayor in his native city of Limerick. Mayors are normally elected by local councilors and for one-year terms. “If the new position proves a success, if Moran makes it a success over the next five years, it could well trigger similar elections in other local authority areas and potentially the biggest shake-up in local government in decades, the Irish Times reports. The story details Moran’s high-profile background, including work as a lawyer and investment banker in the U.S.

UPDATE 2: Time to undo Mary Lou?

Media speculation over whether Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald can survive her party’s poor election result is gathering pace, even as local and E.U. counting continues Tuesday morning (U.S. time):

“If Sinn Féin strategists were hoping to conduct their 2024 election postmortem in private, they might be seriously disappointed. The party is struggling to contain the fallout from the local and European elections and, for the first time, McDonald’s leadership is on the table as an item for discussion.” — Irish Times

“(McDonald) adopted an open borders policy which would allow mass immigration into Ireland. (Her) attempts to become respectable with the overwhelmingly liberal and middle-class Dublin mediocracy quite simply blew up in her face, as rising non-EU immigration has come to dominate the political agenda.” — The Spectator

The unexpected level of lost support has cast doubt on the leadership of McDonald and her longtime status as a prime minister-in-waiting. Their fall from public favor has left Sinn Féin activists stunned, demoralized and speculating over whether the party needs a new leader in time for a general election that must happen by March.” — Politico.eu

UPDATE 1: Uncoupled doubleness

” … The modern Sinn Féin on the one hand drew on the same kind of ethnonationalist identity politics that now fuel the far right across Europe, the United States and elsewhere. Yet on the other, it thought of itself as a progressive socialist party, committed to equality and inclusion. … This doubleness created a kind of ambivalence that was very useful in a society experiencing a very rapid transition from monoculture to multiculture. … And for about a quarter of a century, this accidental mechanism was extremely effective. … What we’ve now seen in the election numbers are the first effects of (an) uncoupling: a shrinking of Sinn Féin’s vote and the emergence of the far right as a potentially viable political force.” — Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times.

ORIGINAL POST:

June 7 local and European Union election results in the Republic of Ireland have prompted fresh calls for a national government contest before the March 2025 deadline. Taoiseach Simon Harris has doubled down on his earlier commitment to have the existing coalition government run its full five-year course until spring. Harris, of Fine Gael, became the Irish leader in early April after the unexpected resignation of Leo Varadkar.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the main coalition partners, have done better than expected in the local elections, each polling about 23 percent. Independent and small party candidate surged to just over 28 percent of the vote at the expense of Sinn Féin, which fell shy of 12 percent. As of early June 10, U.S. East Coast time, 829 of 849 city and county council seats had been decided.

The outcome in Ireland’s 14 European Parliament races is still developing. Far-right candidates in other E.U. member nations have made gains, but the centrist governing coalition in Brussels is expected to hold.

Regardless of what Harris says, Irish political observers expect snap election will take place before the year-end holidays. Why should Ireland miss the “year of elections,” as at least 64 countries (plus the E.U. assembly) decide the representation of about half the world’s population. French President Emmanuel Macron Sunday was forced to call an election for later this month after his centrist alliance was roughed up by the right in his country’s E.U. ballot.

Sixty-two percent of respondents to an online poll at TheJournal.ie website favored holding the Irish national election before the end of this year. Disclosure: I participated in the poll on June 9 in order to see the result and take the screen grab shown here.

Regardless of when the election is scheduled in the next nine months, voters in the Republic will follow the electorate in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The national election there is set for July 4, with the Tory government predicted to fall to the British Labor Party.

A total of 136 candidates are running in Northern Ireland, nearly three dozen more than the last election five years ago. The more moderate Alliance and the Social Democrat and Labor Party (SDLP) are contesting all 18 constituencies, while the pro-reunification Sinn Féin and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are each skipping a few races, according to the BBC.

The DUP were knocked off stride in March, when leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson resigned after being charged with sex crimes. He is not seeking re-election in his Lagan Valley constituency. The DUP had already lost top billing to Sinn Féin in the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly.

On recognition & partition: Ireland, Israel, & Palestine

Ireland’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood has gravely disrupted diplomatic relations between Ireland and Israel. The latter condemned the gesture as “a reward for terrorism” perpetrated by Hamas in October and withdrew its ambassador from Dublin.

On May 22, Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris said:

“On the 21st of January 1919 Ireland asked the world to recognize our right to be an independent State. Our ‘Message to the Free Nations of the World’ was a plea for international recognition of our independence, emphasizing our distinct national identity, our historical struggle, and our right to self-determination and justice. Today we use the same language to support the recognition of Palestine as a State.” Read his full statement, which also condemns the Hamas attack and supports the Israeli state.

The recognition has generated a new round of media stories about why the Irish identify so strongly with the Palestinians. Such reports began long before the civilian death toll in Gaza from Israeli military strikes surpassed the number of victims from the Hamas incursion into Israel.

Palestinian flag

Fourteen months before that attack, Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab wrote a piece headlined “Comparing the Palestinian and Irish-Catholic Struggles.” In each case, he wrote, “a powerful force oppressed local indigenous populations in a clearly racist and paternalistic fashion.” He also details their differences with today’s Northern Ireland.

Kuttab noted that U.S. President Joe Biden, during a July 2022 speech in East Jerusalem, compared the Irish-Catholic struggle against Great Britain to the Palestinians against Israel. But the journalist questioned whether Biden, a strong supporter of Israel, is capable of “real and actionable policies related to Israel and the Palestinians.” The Biden administration has criticized Ireland’s recognition of Palestine, which was joined by Spain and Norway. But Ireland enjoys far more attention and goodwill from the U.S. government than the other two European nations.

In late May, a headline in the Jesuit magazine, America, declared, “Ireland recognizes Palestinian statehood: Why many Irish people resonate with the conflict in Palestine.”

Notice for Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign protest against U.S. weapons to Israel being shipped through Ireland. The bill has been delayed.

The piece quotes an Irish documentary filmmaker who says the Irish have a deep cultural memory of British rule and know what being colonized by a stronger neighbor is like more than most nations. The filmmaker has documented the efforts of peace activists to prevent the U.S. military from using Shannon airport in the west of Ireland as a refueling stopover for its Middle East adventurism, including arms shipments to Israel.

Catherine Connolly, an independent member of the Irish parliament, raised the Shannon issue in a May 23 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Connolly rejected the suggestion that Ireland’s recognition of Palestine is a prize for terrorism. “This is a step for peace,” she said.

Partition plans

The sectarian and territorial conflicts between the Palestinians and the Israelis parallel those between nationalists and unionists, Catholics and Protestants, in the north of Ireland, as detailed by M.C. Rast at History Today.

“Ireland and Palestine: United by Partition?” recounts how British officials in late 1930s planned to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states in much the same way they had divided Ireland along sectarian lines nearly two decades earlier. A British report suggested “the gulf between Arabs and Jews in Palestine is wider than that which separates Northern Ireland from the Irish Free State.”

Rast also quotes Dublin’s Irish Independent newspaper as saying: “Partition is the Englishman’s favorite way out of a difficulty. But it is in itself a confession of failure.”

Economic impact

The economic impact of Ireland’s recognition of Palestine is beginning to take shape. Israel’s national airlines announced it will not renew direct flights to Dublin, which were only launched last year. Irish officials have said its €15 billion sovereign investment fund would divest from six Israeli companies, the Irish Times reported.

Israeli flag

Israel’s trade deficit with Ireland was €4 billion in 2022. Israeli imports totaled €5 billion, seventh largest among trading partners, but less than a quarter of the U.K.-leading €29 billion and U.S. second-place €22 billion.

Just under 600 Israelis lived in Ireland in 2022, according to the Central Statistics Office. The same census return does not indicate the number of Palestinians, while 2016 data showed fewer than 200 Palestinians. There were fewer than 3,000 Jews living in Ireland in 2016 compared to more than 63,000 Muslims. These figures do not include Northern Ireland.

For more on how activists in Ireland are responding to the recognition, visit the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Ireland Israel Alliance.

Dev’s last visit ‘home’ to USA; Ireland’s ‘cruel partition’

Irish President Éamon de Valera made a state visit to the United States in May 1964 that bookended U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s trip to Ireland 11 months earlier. Kennedy was 46 when he set foot on Irish soil for the fifth time, the first time as U.S. leader. He was assassinated five months later in Dallas. De Valera was 81 when he made his sixth journey to America, his second U.S. trip in six months. He died in 1975, aged 92.

“This is the country of your birth, Mr. President. This will always be your home,” U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson reminded de Valera during a welcome ceremony on the South Portico of the White House. “You belong to us, Mr. President, just as in a very special way John F. Kennedy belonged to you.”

De Valera was born in New York City in October 1882. Two years later, following his father’s death, an uncle escorted him to Ireland, where he was raised by his mother’s family in County Limerick. His return trips to America included:

  • June 1919-December 1920, as Ireland’s revolutionary “president.”
  • December 1927-February 1928, as opposition leader to raise money for his newspaper.
  • December 1929-May 1930, again to raise money for The Irish Press.
  • March 1948, part of his anti-partition tour.
  • November 1963, for Kennedy’s funeral.
  • May 1964, official state visit.

See three related lists at bottom of post.

Johnson gifted de Valera with a copy of journalist William V. Shannon’s new book, The American Irish. In what must rank among the most ill-timed releases in publishing history, the book’s concluding chapter about Kennedy had been published and distributed just before the assassination.[1]“Always Welcome To U.S.: Johnson’s Warm Greeting To De Valera”, The Cork Examiner, May 28, 1964. Also mentioned in The Irish Press and The Irish Independent.

Shannon, a Washington correspondent for the New York Post, wrote that Kennedy’s “winning of the presidency culminated and consolidated more than a century of Irish political activity.” It wiped away the bitterness and disappointment of Al Smith’s 1928 defeat as the first Irish American Catholic presidential nominee and “removed any lingering sense of social inferiority and insecurity” from Famine immigrants and their offspring, too long caricatured as ditch-diggers and domestics.

If de Valera read the book, or just checked the index, he would have seen that he was not included in this story of the Irish in America. Ireland’s early twentieth century revolutionary period is barely mentioned. Shannon later became U.S. ambassador to Ireland during the Carter administration, two years after de Valera’s death.

There were plenty of press compliments for de Valera. Syndicated columnist Max Freedman declared him “one of the supreme figures of our age. … invulnerable to criticism, implacable in defeat, imperturbable in victory, and immortal in the perspectives of history.”[2]”De Valera Holds High Place In History’, The Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune, May 25, 1964. Freedman was a Canadian journalist.

‘First’ ladies man: Éamon de Valera greeted Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the slain president, during his May 1964 visit, above. They had written to each other since the assassination. Dev also escorted Lady Bird Johnson to a state dinner, below. President Johnson is to his left.

In 1964, De Valera delivered a 20-minute address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. An Irish radio broadcaster observed that members of the U.S. House and Senate, hardly known for their youth, seemed incredulous to hear the octogenarian recall his 1919 visit. De Valera spoke without written remarks or a teleprompter.

“I would like to confess freely that this is an outstanding day of my own life,” he told the assembly. “To see recognized as I have the rights of the Irish people and the independence of the Irish people in a way that was not at all possible 45 years ago. I have longed to come back and say this too you.”

But de Valera lamented the “cruel partition” of the island, in place since 1920. He mused that a future Irish leader would “joyfully announce that our severed county has been reunited” and that all enmity between the British and Irish people has been removed. Listen to the full speech.

Anglo-Irish relations are not as bad today as during the Troubles, which began soon after de Valera’s speech to Congress. But 60 years later the border remains in place. Now, the partition debate is further complicated by Brexit and immigration disputes.

JFK’s visits to Ireland:[3]This chart has been revised since the original post. There is conflicting information about JFK’s stops in Ireland, with one source suggesting he made six visits.

  • 1939, a brief stopover at Foynes.
  • 1945, after his service in World War II, and interviewed de Valera for the New York Journal-American.
  • 1947, visited his sister Kathleen, who was staying at Lismore Castle.
  • 1955, as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, and met with Irish T.D. Liam Cosgrave.
  • June 1963, as president on an official state visit.

Irish leaders who addressed the U.S. Congress:

  • Feb. 2, 1880, Charles Stewart Parnell, Member of Parliament, (U.S. House)
  • Jan. 25, 1928, William T. Cosgrave, President of Executive Council, (U.S. House)
  • March 15, 1956, John A. Costello, Prime Minister, (U.S. Senate)
  • March 18, 1959, John T. O’Kelly, President, (Joint session)
  • May 28, 1964, Éamon de Valera, President, (Joint session)
  • Jan. 28, 1976, Liam Cosgrave, Prime Minister, (Joint session)
  • March 15, 1984, Dr. Garrett FitzGerald, Prime Minister, (Joint session)
  • Sept. 11, 1996, John Bruton, Prime Minister, (Joint session)
  • April 30, 2008, Bertie Ahearn, Prime Minister, (Joint session)

U.S. leaders who addressed the Irish Oireachtas:

  • May 9, 1919, Frank Walsh, Edward Dunne, and Michael Ryan as the American Commission on Irish Independence, (1st Dáil). The commission was the creation of Irish activists in America, not a body of the U.S. government. The three commissioners were not elected.
  • June 28, 1963, John F. Kennedy, President, (Joint session)
  • June 4, 1984, Ronald Reagan, President, (Joint session)
  • Dec. 1, 1995, Bill Clinton, President, (Joint session)
  • April 13, 2023, Joe Biden, President, (Joint session)

Of course, other Irish leaders have visited America, notably at St. Patrick’s Day, and other American presidents have visited Ireland, without addressing the welcoming country’s national legislature.

References

References
↑1 “Always Welcome To U.S.: Johnson’s Warm Greeting To De Valera”, The Cork Examiner, May 28, 1964. Also mentioned in The Irish Press and The Irish Independent.
↑2 ”De Valera Holds High Place In History’, The Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune, May 25, 1964. Freedman was a Canadian journalist.
↑3 This chart has been revised since the original post. There is conflicting information about JFK’s stops in Ireland, with one source suggesting he made six visits.

U.S. opinion on Ireland, 1919: the view from Rome

Msgr. John Hagan

Monsignor John Hagan became rector of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome during the Irish War of Independence. The County Wicklow native, who had been vice-rector of the Catholic seminary since 1904, succeeded Michael O’Riordan in late 1919. Both priests were staunch Irish nationalists. Hagan was in close contact with Irish separatists and used the May 1920 beatification of Oliver Plunkett (1625-1681) as a propaganda coup that became known as “Sinn Féin Week in Rome.”

In summer 1919, shortly before O’Riordan’s death, Hagan drafted an article for Vatican officials that sketched his views on Irish affairs abroad since the end of the First World War. Below are excerpts on how public support for Ireland in the United States was unleashed after the November 1918 armistice. It is unclear whether any of Hagan’s material was ever published. Reader beware: the monsignor wrote sprawling sentences.

Till the signing of the armistice, and indeed for some months after, it could with truth be asserted that outside Ireland there was no such thing as an Irish question, or if there was anything in the shape of feeling on the matter it was one of hostility or indifference or coolness. … Even in the United States where the program of Irish independence had always reckoned millions of supporters, sympathy had been dimmed considerably after the (spring 1917) intervention of that country in the European arena; and naturally enough English propaganda had left no stone unturned to foster feelings of hostility or indifference, partly by the old methods of defamation, partly by periodic discoveries or inventions of alleged German plots, and partly by making it appear that as far as England was concerned there was no difficulty in the way of a solution of the Irish question and that if any difficulty existed it was due to the failure of the Irish themselves to formulate anything in the shape of a substantial claim supported by practical unanimity. …

(In the United States) public expression of opinion could be cooled by the ardor of war, and could be retarded or perverted by English control of the ocean cables, and could be rendered impossible by an iron discipline imposed on the country by President (Woodrow) Wilson and an army of English propagandists, but only as long as hostilities lasted. The moment hostilities ceased the previous attitude of indifference or aloofness gave way as if by magic to an outburst of enthusiasm and to a loud-voiced demand that to Ireland first of all should be applied the principles in defense of which the President had led his country into war. As early as December (1918) the country was ablaze; and a series of meetings, culminating in a huge gathering of the Friends of Irish Freedom at Philadelphia, brought the United States into line and led to an active program which has admittedly brought Ireland out of the purlieus of a simple question of English domestic policy into the forefront of international considerations affecting the immediate outlook and the future good understanding that has to be arrived at if England is to face the financial and commercial burthens arising out of the five years’ struggle that is just drawing to a close.

In the 10-page typescript, Hagan also described the activities of the American Commission on Irish Independence; Bishop Michael Gallagher of Detroit’s outspoken view on the Irish question (quoted extensively); and Eamon de Valera’s then month-old tour of the United States, including his July 13, 1919, address in Chicago (also quoted extensively). Hagan’s papers have been digitized by Georgetown University. I’ll have more about this valuable source in a future post.

In 1926 Hagan moved the Irish College at the Church of St Agata dei Goti to its present site on the Via dei S.S. Quattro. Photo from my April 2024 visit. (I got inside the gate.)

A guide to celebrated, touristy Killarney in 1865

UPDATE:

The BBC reported on the “incredible reinvention” of Killarney, three months after my post.

ORIGINAL POST:

One of my sisters, an inveterate antique store browser, occasionally sends me 19th and early 20th century books that she discovers during her explorations. Her most recent gift is a copy of Black’s Guide to Killarney and the South of Ireland, from 1865.

The 1865 edition.

Nineteenth century travel guide books developed with a simultaneous expansion of the tourist industry. Victorian era travelers were looking for sublime encounters with nature and ancient history. Comprehensive guides replaced the earlier travel narratives of individuals or groups who described only their specific journeys. The new books had “a more streamlined look, with well-indexed sections that made it easy to flip to a certain area of interest and a more compact shape.”[1]See “Guidebooks and the Tourist Industry” in Villanova University’s “Rambles, Sketches, Tours, Travellers & Tourism in Ireland.“

Black’s Guides were published by the Adam and Charles Black firm of Edinburgh, Scotland  (later London) from 1839 to 1919. They competed in the British Isles with similar series from Baedeker’s, Ward Lock, and Francis Guy’s. These guides are a great resource for historians.

The gifted 1865 edition of Black’s Guide to Killarney circulated 15 years after the devastation of the Great Famine. Work was just beginning to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable from Valentia Island, Kerry, about 45 miles west of Killarney. The U.S. Civil War ended after claiming the lives of many Irish immigrant soldiers. Suppression of the Irish People newspaper began a nationalist agitation that two years later resulted in the failed Fenian Rising.

The guide opens with a 21-page summary of “interesting objects” to view from either side of three Great Southern and Western Railroad routes through the region. Key mile markers are provided on the lines from Dublin to Cork, through Kildare, Queen’s County (renamed Laois in 1922), Tipperary, County Limerick, and County Cork; from Kildare to Waterford, through Carlow and Kilkenny; and from Limerick Junction to Tipperary, Clonmel, Carrick-On-Suir, and Waterford. The next 86 pages contain more detailed descriptions of these natural and built landmarks. The last 32 pages is a “Catalogue of Books,” which sells additional guides, maps, and atlases, as well as the 21-volume Encyclopedia Britannica and a collection of Sir Walter Scott’s works. The Killarney book also features a foldout “Chart of the Lakes of Killarney and Surrounding Country” (below), two-page “Plan of Cork” city, and an illustration of the Killarney lakes (below).

Lakes of Killarney illustration in 1865 Black’s Guide of the region.

Similar view from my March 2023 visit.

Regional map from the 1865 guide. (The right edge has been cropped out due to tears.)

Of Killarney’s natural landmarks, Black’s stated:

From the over-strained laudation, and the multitude of paintings and engravings that have been produced of these justly celebrated lakes, the tourist is apt to form too high an estimate of their beauty. There can be do doubt, however, that the rocks that bound the shores of Muckross and the Lower Lake, with their harmonious tints and luxuriant decoration of foliage, stand unrivaled, both in form and coloring; and the character of the mountains is as grand and varied as the lakes in which they reflect their rugged summits.

A framed photo of my wife standing on the same rocky shores of Muckross graces a corner of my writing desk, herself looking even more lovely than the surrounding scenery. But Black’s was less charitable about Killarney’s built environment and denizens, which it described as “certainly not the cleanest town in the world, and it has the misfortune to be filled with beggars, touters, guides and other annoyances.” German journalist Richard Arnold Bermann made similar observations during his 1913 visit.[2]See my post, “Welcoming American tourists to Ireland, 1913-2021.” As if dirt and mendicants were absent in London and other destinations.

In 1865, Black’s also offered a comprehensive, island-wide guide to Ireland, and three other regional titles:

  • Belfast and Giant’s Causeway
  • Dublin
  • Galway, Connemara, and the Shannon

Several editions of these books from the 1870s to 1912 have been digitized by HathiTrust. Antique book sellers offer Black’s guides in very good condition at prices approaching $100; while print-on-demand copies are available for much less. Other guide series are also available.

Years ago one of my Irish relations spoke a memorable line that my wife and I still quote in our travel-related discussions: “Why would you want to be anywhere in the world but Killarney in May?”

References

References
↑1 See “Guidebooks and the Tourist Industry” in Villanova University’s “Rambles, Sketches, Tours, Travellers & Tourism in Ireland.“
↑2 See my post, “Welcoming American tourists to Ireland, 1913-2021.”

Visit to Old St. Patrick’s in New York City

Over the years I’ve visited more than two dozen St. Patrick’s churches in four countries, as detailed in this special section. But one historic church eluded me until earlier this month, when I finally stepped inside the Basilica of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Lower Manhattan.

As the first church in the United States dedicated to Ireland’s patron saint, it was the original cathedral of the Diocese of New York. The cornerstone was laid in 1809, and the completed church was consecrated in 1815. St. Pat’s became a target of the Know Nothings and other anti-Catholic and nativist movements. Damage from an 1866 fire was repaired two years later. By then, however, construction had begun on the larger and now more familiar St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Read more history of the first St. Patrick’s.

My wife and I attended the midday Mass at Old St. Pat’s during our recent visit. Here are a few photos:

The orange and yellow umbraculum at left signals the church’s 2010 designation as a basilica.

View from about three quarters back.

Front entrance is on Mott Street between Houston and Prince.

Mural on nearby building shows view down Mott Street with the church on the left, behind the trees. Empire State Building seen in the background at right edge of the green canopy.