Category Archives: History

Back to D.C. — thanks New England archivists & librarians

The Burns Library holds BC’s Irish and Irish American collections.

I’m back in Washington, D.C., after 10 months in Boston for my wife’s Nieman Foundation fellowship at Harvard. It was a great experience for both of us. I visited several libraries and archives in the region to research my book on American journalists in revolutionary Ireland. In appreciation, I’ve listed the institutions and two individuals below, followed by more photos:

  • Boston College: Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., and John J. Burns libraries.
    • Thanks to Guy Beiner, Sullivan Chair of BC’s Irish Studies program, Connolly House.
  • Boston Public Library: “Irish Papers” collection and newspaper microfilm.
  • Cambridge Public Library and associated Minuteman Library Network.
  • Colby College (Waterville, Maine): James A. Healy Collection at Miller Library.
    • Thanks to Patricia Burdick, head of special collections and archives.
  • Harvard: Widener, Lamont, Houghton, and Divinity School libraries, and
    • Radcliffe Institute: Schlesinger Library.
  • Tufts University: Tisch Library.
  • University of Massachusetts at Boston: Joseph P. Healy Library.
  • Yale University (New Haven, Conn.): Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Plaque at the entrance of Harvard’s Widener Library describes the fate of its namesake.

Bates Hall, the main reading room at Boston Public Library.

Hallway leading to special collections and archives at Yale University.

Miller Library at Colby College in Maine.

U.S. press opinions on end of the Irish Civil War

In May 1923, U.S. newspaper editorial pages assessed Ireland’s 11-month-old civil war as Éamon de Valera and recalcitrant republicans took the final halting steps toward ending their insurgency against the Irish Free State. “Strong hope that peace nears in Ireland is voiced by American editors,” began an “editorial digest” from more than a dozen dailies. (Clicking the image will enlarge it in most browsers.) Below it are opinions from three other papers after the IRA’s May 24 order to “dump arms,” officially ending the hostilities.

Periodic violence and political turmoil continued to trouble Ireland, but the revolutionary period that began in 1912 with the arming of Ulster and Nationalist volunteers had finally ended. As important, the civil war permanently shifted Irish American attention from the politics of the old country to assimilation in their adopted country, though affection remained for the homeland.

From the Evening Star, Washington, D.C., May 8, 1923.

The Buffalo (N.Y.) Enquirer compared the situation in Ireland to the U.S. Civil War, which ended nearly 60 years earlier.

If de Valera is seeking an example for the future he may find it in America where all are friends of Ireland. Our own civil war was fought with all the bitterness of Ireland’s civil war: but when the Confederacy laid down its arms, it did so with no thought of taking up arms again after a period of recouperation. It kept alive no purpose to take up arms again. To that noble action this country owes its present peace, unity, prosperity, and greatness. It will serve Ireland as magnificently as it has served the United States.[1]”Peace In Ireland”, The Buffalo Enquirer, May 31, 1923.

The Birmingham (Ala.) News, which encouraged anti-Catholic and nativist opposition to de Valera’s April 1920 visit to the city, remained hostile to the republican leader:

Lack of common sense has been de Valera’s besetting sin–or was it ambition? … For de Valera’s ambition or idealism or lack of common sense the greensward of Ireland has been drenched in the blood of Irishmen–and women–shed by other Irishmen. … It is well that Mr. de Valera has finally admitted that he cannot impose his will upon the majority of the Irish–but at what ghastly price has he become convinced! The wraiths of the unnecessary dead should attend him always; the sorrows of mothers who have lost their sons–at his command; the wailings of helpless children who are so by his devotion to his ambition in the fade of the majority; the moans of the widows–made so at his behest–should ring in his ears as the tolling of some ceaseless, solemn knell.[2]”De Valera At Last Bows To Inevitable; He Orders A Cessation of Hostilities”, The Birmingham News, May 31, 1923.

While heartened that de Valera and Irish republicans had finally decided to stop fighting, the Decatur (Ill.) Herald noted other roadblocks remained for Ireland’s path forward:

The chaos brought by the Republicans afforded exactly the opportunity desired by the Communists, including large groups of strongly organized workers. The Communists will scarcely cease their activities because the Republicans have decided to become good citizens. Finally, of course, there is Ulster, a problem as relentless and troublesome as ever. If the Free State does succeed in overcoming all of the difficulties thrown in its way … it will be entitled to credit for a remarkable achievement. It is not yet time for the expression of unreserved optimism.[3]”It Comes Late”, Decatur (Ill.) Herald, May 30, 1923.

See my American Reporting of Irish Independence series.

References

References
↑1 ”Peace In Ireland”, The Buffalo Enquirer, May 31, 1923.
↑2 ”De Valera At Last Bows To Inevitable; He Orders A Cessation of Hostilities”, The Birmingham News, May 31, 1923.
↑3 ”It Comes Late”, Decatur (Ill.) Herald, May 30, 1923.

Guest post: Jack Kavanagh on the ‘Spirit of the West’

Jack Kavanagh is the author of National Geographic’s ‘Complete National Parks of Europe’
and ‘Always Ireland: An Insiders Tour of the Emerald Isle.’ He lectures on National Geographic Expeditions’ ‘Tales and Treasures of the Emerald Isle’ tours. Read our February discussion. As the post-COVID 2023 travel season begins this month, I am delighted to publish his piece about Galway and the West of Ireland, which begins below the image. MH

Galway hooker.                                                                                                     Chaosheng Zhang photo via Fáilte Ireland

Galway is a city full of ghosts.

Nestled in a bay that gives scant shelter from North Atlantic winds and rain, Ireland’s westernmost city is also one of Europe’s liveliest places.

From spring onward, a string of festivals turn Galway into a dizzying celebration of life: A poetry Cúirt (Court) cherishes a rich heritage—Ireland’s current president is a Galwegian poet and a statue of another Galway bard beatifies the town’s center, Eyre Square; Galway’s Arts Festival dazzles with performers and street parades in July; princes, paupers, and punters mix easily at Galway Races every August; and at September’s Oyster Festival, the local delicacy is washed down with plentiful pints of Guinness, an Irish makeweight, perhaps, against aphrodisiac excess.

When I visited during the pandemic, though, the city was quiet and the living were largely out of sight. So I went walking through shadowed streets in the company of Galway’s ghosts with a man who knows them well, historian Willie Henry.

The first spirit we meet is Christopher Columbus. The Italian is recorded in the annals of St.
Nicolas’s Collegiate Church, passing through Galway in 1477, a few years before he set out on his way to America. Perhaps he offered up a prayer to Nicolas, patron saint of mariners. The church was founded in 1320, some say on the site of a Knights Templar convent, and funded by the Tribes of Galway (the city’s 14 merchant families). It has been Catholic and Protestant down the ages, reflecting Ireland’s conflicted history, yet its peaceful interior is a haven in this cosmopolitan port. On a Saturday, you might chance upon a choral practice, or hear the ghostly echoes of an ancient Avé—generations of Galwegians have peopled its choir.

Galway city buskers.                           Mark Holan photo

Willie leads me down to the Spanish Parade next to the sun-dappled waters of the River Corrib
gushing down from the salmon-leap weir upstream near Galway Cathedral. The cathedral sits next to The National University of Ireland, on the site of an old prison: Galway has long been a town of saints, scholars, and sinners. There are different suggestions at to how Galway was named, but the one that Willie likes best is the story of a girl who was drowned there some 3,000 years ago. Her name was Gaillimhe or Galvia and she was a princess of the Fir Bolg (a mythical race of Greek origin). Gaillimhe was the original Galway girl. Her father was Breasal and according to legend, the fabled island of Hy-Brasil, or Tir nÓg (the Land of Eternal Youth) is named after him.

We wander down to the Spanish Arch, a gate in the walls of the medieval city, and the Galway City Museum. The stories start to pour out of this Galwegian raconteur; Willie is as close to a seanchaí (Irish storyteller) as you’ll get.

We cross over the trout-brown freshwater of the River Corrib to Claddagh, an old fishing village along the briny quay. On Nimmo’s Pier, where Galway Bay oysters fuel the love-struck each September, Willie divulges the story of the Claddagh ring: after Richard Joyce was captured by Algerians and sold to a Moorish goldsmith in the 18th century, he returned to Claddagh with a new trade and a new ring design, the hand-held heart topped with a crown. The heart in exile could be worn facing outward to signify single status, or inward for those whose heart was “spoken for” back home. Exile, separation, and heartbreak are large parts of the story of western Ireland.

Which reminds me—I must call the poet.

We’re strolling past the King’s Head Pub, once the Mayor’s residence, but seized in 1649 by Colonel Peter Stubbers, the alleged executioner of King Charles I. Suddenly, the strains of an old song bring a wistful smile:

“I wish I was a fisherman, tumbling on the sea,
Far away from the dry land, and it’s bitter memory…”

I can hear the ghost of my 18-year-old self. Mike Scott’s “Fisherman’s Blues,” sung by a hungry-looking busker, takes me back to a time when I left Galway under a cloud. I’d come here to study law, but my heart wasn’t in it. Mike Scott, singer with the legendary Waterboys, on the other hand, found exactly what he was looking for in Connemara, the hilly boglands stretching west from the city. Ireland’s ancient traditional music kept the Scotsman entranced within a fairy ring—a Celtic rapture supposedly induced by a spirit-woven spell—for several years. Like me, Scott finally left for America. But his words and music still haunt these streets.

Willie and I share stories over a gut-burning Redbreast Irish whiskey in Garavans’ pub and we’re soon reminiscing about the joys of a music session by an open fire in any Galway pub. The quintessential west of Ireland aroma of burning turf; the mad swirl of a reel with guitars, fiddles, tin whistles, bodhráns (goat-skin drums) and uilleann (elbow) pipes all mixed into a mesmerizing musical gumbo; feet stomping as black pints of stout are passed along; then a hush is called, silence descends, and a plaintive female voice bleats a multi-versed tale of emigration and loss in the unaccompanied, sean-nós (old form) style. “The song would be singing her,” explains Willie, “as these songs would have been passed down many, many generations.” Then he adds, “Sure you’d hear the same song sung on the other side of the pond,” meaning in any bar in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.

We’re soon sitting in Eyre Square, and Rory O’Shaughnessy has joined us. Rory is one of my
favorite Galwegians; we’ve travelled many a mile together. He and Willie evoke more ghosts.
“JFK spoke right over there,” says Willie. Rory starts into a great impersonation of the famous
speech, complete with the long, flat vowels of Boston (he has a mimic’s musical ear):

“If the day was clear, and you went down to the bay, and you looked west…you’d see Boston, Massachusetts. And you’d see there, working on the docks, Dohertys, Flahertys’, and Ryans, and cousins of yours who’ve made good.”

JFK memorial in Eyre Square.            Mark Holan photo

Chuckling, I excuse myself to call the poet, but the poet is busy.

We’re beside the statue of the Irish-language poet Pádraic Ó Conaire, and I want to hear Gaelic, not American, spoken today. The greatest speech ever given in Irish, the lads quickly conclude, was Joe Connolly’s in 1980. Joe was Galway team captain, accepting the All-Ireland trophy for hurling, the ancient Gaelic sport played with a small ball (sliotar) and an ash stick (camán).

By the modern-day voodoo of You Tube, Rory summons up the past and Joe’s mellifluous voice
is addressing the 70,000-strong crowd in Dublin in Gaelic. “There are people back in Galway
with wonder in their hearts, but also we must remember (Galway) people in England, in
America, and round the world and maybe they are crying at this moment…” His lovely
Connemara blás (accent) and the poetic power of the words are a reminder that Irish might be
up there with Italian in the language musicality stakes. “If you want to hear real Irish, head to
the Aran Islands,” Rory advises me. I will, but first I have a medieval castle to haunt.

A night in Ashford Castle, 33 kilometers north of Galway, is like a happy séance, a
suspension of time where you stray into another realm. Step inside this hotel, and oldworld elegance and timeless Irish hospitality envelop you. This 5-star hotel was once the
hunting retreat of the Guinness family.

Aerial view of Ashford Castle.                                                                                        Aervisions photo via Fáilte Ireland

Invading Normans built this battlement in 1228 and now another Gaul, Chef Philippe Farineau, is telling me why the Achill Island lamb is sooo tasty (they’re all mountain-climbing muscle and they come ready salted by the wild Atlantic winds). We debate the relative merits of Galway Bay oysters or the Dooncastle variety which are kept closed a little longer for extra succulence. When local food tastes this good, you can see why a French chef thrives in the west of Ireland. They say that the Normans became “more Irish than the Irish themselves” and Farineau is continuing the tradition.

Next morning, I head for the Aran Islands via the ferry from Ros a’ Mhíl. As we sail out, a beautiful Galway hooker (a traditional fishing boat) in deep red sails catches the wind and slips like quicksilver into the bay.

I really must call the poet today.

The choppy Atlantic waters churn up the Gaelic noun farraige (sea) from my exile-rusted
memory; like many a poetic Irish word, it resounds with its own meaning. Ffffffarrrrra—
gaaaaa… like the waves breaking on a rocky western shore.

Aran rises from the sea, three limestone ridges breaking the waves, outposts from an out-of-time Gaelic world. These islands were historically the last refuge of Irish nationalists and outlaws.

I’m standing, blasted by Atlantic winds, on the prehistoric hill fort of Dún Aonghasa when I finally get in touch with the poet. Here on Inis Mór (Big Island), a sacred place in pagan and monastic times, I shelter behind a prehistoric limestone wall, cupping a cell phone to my ear.

I ask Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, what makes Galway and Connemara so special.

“Galway is a city that exists on the periphery, a place between realms,” says the poet-president. “Between the Gaelic and English languages. Between ancient Ireland and our future vision. The
culture of Connemara is born out of long traditions of immigration and emigration. This is a
place that seduces, a place where people can renew their spirit, where the creative artist in
particular can find new rhythms of complexity.”

In Dún Aonghasa, I too feel suspended between worlds—between America and ancient Ireland. Looking westward from the western edge of Europe. Happy in the spirited company of Ireland’s poetic ghosts, past and ever-present. —Jack Kavanagh

O’Brien’s Castle on Inisheer, one of three islands that make up the Aran Islands.                    Jeff Mauritzen photo

***

Journalists, historians, authors, researchers, and travelers to Ireland are welcome to offer guest contributions. Submissions are generally from 500 to 1,000 words, with an accompanying photo or graphic. Use the contact form on the Guest Posts page, where you can see previous contributors.

Women journalists offer perspectives on Northern Ireland

Boston College highlighted three women journalists from three generations of the Troubles in Northern Ireland at the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. They were:

  • Susan McKay, a teenager in 1972 when her native Derry became the center of international attention on Bloody Sunday. She established her reputation for fearless reporting of the loyalist community during the Drumcree conflicts in Portadown in the late 1990s, and post-agreement coverage. She has authored Northern Protestants – On Shifting Ground, 2021, Bear In Mind These Dead, 2007, and other work.
  • Freya McClements, Northern editor of The Irish Times, 17 when the Good Friday Agreement was reached in 1998. Her post-agreement work includes Children of the Troubles, 2020, co-written with RTÉ broadcaster Joe Duffy. The book details the stories of 186 youth aged 16 and under who died in the conflict between 1969 and 2006, including some killed accidentally and not part of earlier Troubles’ death lists.
  • Lyra McKee, a 29-year-old up-and-coming journalist killed during 2019 rioting in the Creggan area of Derry. Now subject of a new documentary film, Lyra, McKee helped call attention to high post-agreement teen suicide rates in the North and LGBTQ advocacy.

The 92-minute Lyra is a tough to watch, in part because viewers are drawn so intimately into McKee’s life through an abundance of archival video dating to her childhood in Belfast’s Ardoyne neighborhood, a working-class, mostly Catholic and republican enclave. We see her grow up, blossom with professional and personal promise, then get shot as senselessly as earlier Troubles deaths.

Authorities have attributed McKee’s murder to an IRA splinter group. Several people have been arrested but nobody has been convicted of the crime.

McKee was represented at BC by her surviving partner, Sara Canning. She said the best way to honor McKee’s memory is to contribute to the Lyra McKee Journalism Training Bursary at the Centre for Investigative Journalism. And she encouraged wide viewership of the movie.

Here’s the official trailer:

McClements, the Times editor, said there has been “peace but not reconciliation” in Northern Ireland over the last quarter century. She noted that most schools remain segregated by religion and dozens of “peace walls” are still required to separate sectarian neighborhoods. Brexit has created “a new fault line” of tension in the North.

McClements predicted that the Democratic Unionist Party will rejoin the Northern Ireland Assembly, which it has boycotted for over a year, perhaps by this fall. If not, she said, the British and Irish governments will begin to devise an alternative, which could leave the DUP and other unionist hardlines even more in the cold. Direct rule from London is not an option, she said.

Adding to the tension is the British government’s determination to pass a “Troubles Legacy and Reconciliation Bill,” which seems to have support only from the Tory majority and military veterans groups. The measure, which blocks enquiries of past events and even destroys records, is opposed by Northern politicians, the European Union, the United Nations, and the United States. McClements expects Parliament will pass the measure, which will then be targeted for a long grind of court challenges.

The 1972 civil rights demonstration in Derry, Northern Ireland, that became Bloody Sunday.

McKay said she had to learn to rein in her aggressiveness to get the story when she noticed the fear in other journalists also covering the loyalist mobs at Drumcree.  She said that international press coverage of the Troubles “on the whole told the story properly,” though some visiting journalists “looking for certain images were disappointed if they didn’t get it.”

McKay declined to speculate about the immediate future of Northern Ireland politics due to her current role as ombudsman for the Press Council of Ireland.

BC’s two-day symposium began with Belfast-born author Louise Kennedy reading from her acclaimed debut novel, Trespasses, about a romance across the sectarian divide in 1970s. A previous symposium at BC reconsidered terrorism in Northern Ireland. The latest event concluded the 2022-23 academic year at the school’s Irish Studies program under the leadership of historian Guy Beiner.

The D.C. death of an Irish ‘stormy petrel’, April 1923

Laurence Ginnell, Library of Congress photo

By mid-April 1923 the Irish Free State army regularly routed anti-government forces. Liam Lynch, the IRA’s chief of staff, was killed on April 10; Austin Stack, his deputy, was captured a few days later. Talk of a ceasefire and the end of Ireland’s 10-month-old civil war was in the air, and in the press.

But the death by natural causes of Irish politician Laurence Ginnell[1]See Dictionary of Irish Biography entry. in a Washington, D.C. hotel room also contributed to the demoralization of the “irregulars.” Since August 1922, the 71-year-old served as envoy to the United States for Éamon de Valera’s unrecognized Irish republic. Ginnell had no real diplomatic status, and his stature was diminished after a failed attempt to take control of the Free State’s consulate office in New York City.

“He was in apparent good health earlier today, and when a hotel attendant called to deliver a message said he would attend to it later. On going back he was found dead,” the Evening Star reported on page 13.[2]”Irish Republican Leader Dies Here”, Evening Star, Washington, D.C., April 17, 1923. Historians have suggested Ginnell’s health suffered from the cumulative impacts of several imprisonments earlier in his life.

Ginnell died at D.C.’s Hotel Lafayette, about two miles west of the U.S. Capitol. Three Aprils earlier a dinner honoring de Valera, then on his 18-month tour of America, was staged in the hotel’s ballroom. From November 1920 through January 1921 the Lafayette became headquarters of the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland, a non-U.S. government body created by pro-Irish interests to generate publicity and political support for the declared Irish republic. Ginnell’s combative and argumentative nature emerged at the outset of his Dec. 15, 1920, testimony before the commission, :

I cannot go into this thing unless I am allowed to state the conditions. The evidence I have to give you is at your disposal only on the condition that it is not to be made use of in any recommendations regarding Ireland. We in Ireland have settled our own government on the basis of your President’s own statements. We have applied the right of self-determination to our own country. Indeed, I will not go behind the present status of the Republican Government in Ireland today. Indeed, I will not give any evidence whatever unless I am assured that no effort will be made to go behind the Irish Republican Government, the only constitutional government in Ireland today. And to attempt to discuss the right of Ireland to her independence is to attempt to re-establish the English Government where she has lost all power and respect whatsoever. If I get the assurance that that is not your intention, then I will sit down and begin my evidence immediately.[3]See Ginnell’s full testimony, pages 462-505.

The Washington Herald described Ginnell as “one of Sinn Fein’s most militant spirits” upon his arrival in the city earlier in 1920.[4]”Notes By A Washington Observer”, The Washington Herald, July 29, 1920. In coverage of his 1923 death, the American, Irish, and British press noted Ginnell’s unique status of having been elected as an Irish Parliamentary Party member in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, and as a Sinn Féin republican in Dáil Éireann. The irascible Ginnell held the distinction of being ejected from both legislative bodies.

Following his 1920 American Commission appearance, Ginnell represented the Irish republic in South America. His telegramed vote against the Anglo-Irish Treaty was not accepted, but he became, at de Valera’s request, the only opposition member to sit in the Dáil. It was because of his relationship with de Valera that John Devoy’s Gaelic American offered a critical, if respectful, assessment of Ginnell’s career.[5]See “Ginnell, De Valera’s Envoy in America, Dies Suddenly“, The Gaelic American, April 28, 1923.

Ginnell entered politics during the Plan of Campaign agitation of the Irish Land War in the late 1880s, “the stormy petrel of Parnellite politics,” according to press accounts. He was the co-founder of the Irish Literary Society (1892) and the author of several books, including The brehon laws: a legal guide (1894), The doubtful grant of Ireland by Pope Adrian IV to King Henry II (1899), and Land and liberty (1908) .[6]DIB, linked in Note 1.

Hotel Lafayette in Washington D.C., between 1910 and 1926. Library of Congress photo.

The first of three funeral Masses for Ginnell was held at D.C.’s St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, 40 years later the site of slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s service. Ginnell’s body was then conveyed to New York City, where another Mass occurred at the Carmelite Catholic church on East 28th Street.

During the Irish revolutionary period, the Manhattan church’s friars sheltered Irish revolutionaries on the run from British authorities, including de Valera. They also stashed part of a cache of 600 Thompson submachine guns, wrapped in burlap sacks and bound for Ireland during the war.[7]”The End of an Era at Bellevue and a Nearby Church”, The New York Times, June 27, 2007.

In a telegram to Alice Ginnell (née King), de Valera described his departed colleague as “one of the most indefatigable workers for Ireland.”[8]”Delegations From Many States At Ginnell Funeral”, Buffalo Morning Express, April 21, 1923. But only a week earlier de Valera effectively removed Ginnell from Irish activities in America, “an unfortunate and sad end to a long career.”[9]Dr. Paul Hughes, a Mullingar-based journalist and historian, in the “Laurence Ginnell–Part 2: from Ireland to America” podcast from the Westmeath County Council Decade of Centenaries, … Continue reading

Finally, the widow accompanied her husband’s body back to Ireland, contrary to an incorrect press report that Ginnell was buried in New York. Major Michael A Kelly, veteran of the Irish American 69th New York Infantry Regiment, represented De Valera at the May 1, 1923, service at the Carmelite church on Whitefriars Street, Dublin. Interment followed in Ginnell’s native Delvin, County Westmeath.

The Irish Civil War ended before the month concluded.

References

References
↑1 See Dictionary of Irish Biography entry.
↑2 ”Irish Republican Leader Dies Here”, Evening Star, Washington, D.C., April 17, 1923.
↑3 See Ginnell’s full testimony, pages 462-505.
↑4 ”Notes By A Washington Observer”, The Washington Herald, July 29, 1920.
↑5 See “Ginnell, De Valera’s Envoy in America, Dies Suddenly“, The Gaelic American, April 28, 1923.
↑6 DIB, linked in Note 1.
↑7 ”The End of an Era at Bellevue and a Nearby Church”, The New York Times, June 27, 2007.
↑8 ”Delegations From Many States At Ginnell Funeral”, Buffalo Morning Express, April 21, 1923.
↑9 Dr. Paul Hughes, a Mullingar-based journalist and historian, in the “Laurence Ginnell–Part 2: from Ireland to America” podcast from the Westmeath County Council Decade of Centenaries, Jan. 24, 2022.

Biden to visit N. Ireland, address legislators in Republic

UPDATE:

Read the full text of Bident’s April 13 address to the joint session of the Irish legislature.

ORIGINAL POST:

Joe Biden is visiting Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The April 11-14 trip is pegged to the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and Biden’s unabashed Irish heritage. He visited the Republic as vice president in 2016. I’ll report any extraordinary developments during the week; otherwise, I’ll wait until after the visit to write a follow up post. MH

On April 13 Biden is scheduled to become the fourth U.S president to address a joint sitting of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann, lower and upper chambers, respectively, of the Republic’s legislature. Below are select excerpts from the speeches of John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, with some background about their visits and remarks.

KENNEDY, June 28, 1963: Famously the first Catholic U.S. president, though not the first with Irish heritage, Kennedy visited Ireland three times before he won the presidency in 1960: in 1939 with his father, then U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy; in 1945 after his service in World War II, when he interviewed Taoiseach Éamon de Valera for the New York Journal-American; and in 1955, as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, when he met with T.D. Liam Cosgrave. Kennedy was assassinated five months after the historic 1960 trip, five years before the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

I am deeply honored to be your guest in a free parliament in a free Ireland. If this nation had achieved its present political and economic stature a century or so ago, my great grandfather might never have left New Ross (County Wexford), and I might, if fortunate, be sitting down there with you. Of course if your own president had never left Brooklyn, he might be standing up here instead of me. (Éamon de Valera was born in 1882 to an Irish mother and sent to Ireland two years later after his father died.) … I am proud to be the first American president to visit Ireland during his term of office, proud to be addressing this distinguished assembly, and proud of the welcome you have given me. … John Barry, whose statue we honored yesterday and whose sword is in my office, was only one who fought for liberty in America to set an example for liberty in Ireland. Yesterday was the 117th anniversary of the birth of Charles Stewart Parnell–whose grandfather fought under Barry and whose mother was born in America–and who, at the age of 34, was invited to address the American Congress on the cause of Irish freedom. “I have seen since I have been in this country,” he said, “so many tokens of the good wishes of the American people toward Ireland . . .” And today, 83 years later, I can say to you that I have seen in this country so many tokens of good wishes of the Irish people towards America. KENNEDY’S FULL SPEECH

JFK, standing at center right, at the Dáil in Dublin, June 1963.

REAGAN, June 4, 1984: Reagan’s visit to Ireland stirred wide protests against his hawkish foreign policies, including several Dáil members who walked out of his speech. His visit came about halfway through the 30-year Troubles. Reagan won a second term five months later.

I am the great-grandson of a Tipperary man; I’m the president of a country with the closest possible ties to Ireland; and I was a friend of Barry Fitzgerald. (William Joseph Shields, 1888-1961, known professionally as Barry Fitzgerald, was an Irish stage, film and television actor, like Reagan.) One Irishman told me he thought I would fit in. “”Mr. President,” he said, “”you love a good story, you love horses, you love politics — the accent we can work on.” …  The trouble in the north affects more than just these two great isles. When he was in America in March, your Prime Minister (Garret FitzGerald) courageously denounced the support that a tiny number of misguided Americans give to these terrorist groups. I joined him in that denunciation, as did the vast majority of Irish Americans. I repeat today, there is no place for the crude, cowardly violence of terrorism — not in Britain, not in Ireland, not in Northern Ireland. All sides should have one goal before them, and let us state it simply and directly: to end the violence, to end it completely, and to end it now. … The position of the United States in all of this is clear: We must not and will not interfere in Irish matters nor prescribe to you solutions or formulas. But I want you to know that we pledge to you our good will and support, and we’re with you as you work toward peace. (Reagan made two references to Kennedy.) REAGAN’s FULL SPEECH

CLINTON, Dec. 1, 1995: Clinton was the first U.S. president to visit Northern Ireland. His visit came just over a year after the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries declared ceasefires, which were subsequently broken and then renewed before the Good Friday Agreement was reached in April 1998. Clinton returned to Northern Ireland and the Republic in September 1998.

We live in a time of immense hope and immense possibility — a time captured, I believe, in the wonderful lines of your poet, Séamus Heaney, when he talked of, “the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.” (Biden often quotes this line from Heaney’s poem, ‘The Cure at Troy.’) … Today, I have travelled from the North where I have seen the difference Ireland’s leadership has made for peace there. At the lighting of Belfast’s Christmas tree before tens of thousands of people, in the faces of two communities divided by bitter history we saw the radiance of optimism born especially among the young of both communities. In the voices of the (Protestant) Shankill and the (Catholic) Falls there was a harmony of new hope and I saw that the people want peace, and they will have it. George Bernard Shaw with his wonderful Irish love of irony said: “peace is not only better than war but infinitely more arduous. … In the prosperity and freedom of our nation we are grateful for what (Irish immigrants) did and for the deep ties to Ireland they gave us in their sons and daughters. Now we seek to repay that in some small way by being a partner with you for peace. We seek somehow to communicate to every person who lives here that we want for all of your children the right to grow up in an Ireland where this entire island gives every man and woman the right to live up to the fullest of their God-given abilities and gives people the right to live in equality, freedom and dignity. That is the tide of history. We must make sure that the tide runs strong here for no people deserve the brightest future more than the Irish. (Clinton made one reference to Kennedy.) CLINTON’S FULL SPEECH

Four other U.S. presidents have visited Ireland but did not address the Dáil: Richard Nixon, October 1970; George W. Bush, June 2004 and February 2006; Barack Obama, May 2011; and Donald Trump, June 2019. See 23 presidents with Irish heritage.

‘Rethinking terrorism’ in N. Ireland during the Troubles

Violent episodes such as the February shooting of a Northern Ireland policeman do not portend resurgent Troubles-era terrorism in the province, says Richard English, director of  the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast.

The dissident New IRA has claimed it shot Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell in Omagh. But English suggested loyalist violence sans political agenda could be “more dangerous” to the region in the post-Brexit era.

Belfast-born English and Dame Louise Richardson, president of the Carnegie Corporation, April 3 discussed the state of terrorism studies at Connolly House, home of the Boston College Irish Studies program. In late March Northern Ireland’s terrorism threat level was raised from substantial to severe, meaning an attack is highly likely as the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement is marked this month. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected in Belfast next week as the largest unionist party refuses to participate in the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly.

Left to right: Guy Beiner, Richard English, and Louise Richardson at BC’s Connolly House.

County Waterford-born Richardson said Irish republicanism was “in the ether” in the 1960s Ireland of her youth. The Troubles were simply a continuation of the island’s revolutionary history. Richardson said she began to hear opposing views during her undergraduate studies at Trinity College Dublin; and the North generally “was at a remarkable remove.”

As she developed her reputation as an expert on terrorism studies at Harvard, Richardson was present for the historic U.S. visits of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in 1994 and 1997, respectively. She had a higher opinion of McGuinness: “You could see why he was the person who could delivery the IRA (for the 1998 peace agreement),” she said. McGuinness died in 2017.

I asked English to delineate the differences between Troubles news coverage in Northern Ireland, Britain, the Republic of Ireland, and America. He noted that while reporting within the province was the most consistent, it also was the most problematic, since “nothing is neutral in the North.” International coverage was episodic and flatlined later in the conflict, he said, revived only for the most significant developments. “Very little media worked well for the non-state actors (such as the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries)” at the center of the Troubles, he said.

Guy Beiner, BC’s Sullivan Chair in Irish Studies, said terrorism “has slipped off the radar” in programs marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. “It’s a neglected angle,” he said. “Terrorism is a central question, but none of the events want to address the t-word.”

Headline: Good Friday Agreement reaches 25th anniversary

Most of my posts this month will be dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the April 10, 1998, accord that largely ended 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Below are the next-day front pages of five U.S. dailies in cities with large Irish American populations. (Click images to see larger versions.) The agreement was approved the following month in referendums on both sides of the island’s partition. Watch for more posts through the month, including U.S. President Joe Biden’s anticipated trip to NI/Ireland. MH

Catching up with modern Ireland

I was pleased and grateful to return to Ireland this month for the first time since before the COVID pandemic; my 11th visit since 2000. I’ve included two photos from the trip as I conclude Irish Heritage Month with one of my periodic posts of curated content. Enjoy:

Minard Castle, west of Inch Strand, on the south side of the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry.

  • Niall Gibbons, chief executive of Tourism Ireland, is stepping down after 14 years in the role and a total of 21 years with the promotional organization. The job will be filled through an “open international competition,” said Christopher Brooke, chairman of Tourism Ireland.
  • A pilot program in the Republic is giving 2,000 artists $350 a week with no strings attached, allowing them to concentrate on creative pursuits. “Worrying about putting bread on the table really impacts artists’ creative juices,” Catherine Martin, Ireland’s culture minister, told the New York Times. “This is about giving them space to work.”
  • Ireland plans to hold a referendum in November to delete references to a woman’s place being in the home from its 86-year-old constitution, the government announced. The country has already removed bans on abortion and permit same-sex marriage. More coverage from the Irish Times.
  • As the Irish government lifted an eviction ban, historian Diarmaid Ferriter made the connection to what happened in Ireland during the 19th century.
  • Ireland’s rugby team defeated England 29-16 to win the Six Nations Grand Slam championship.

St. Patrick’s Day parade in Kilkenny town. Yes, it was a showery, but cleared later in the day.

Irish Civil War’s toll on Kerry’s ‘Lartigue’ monorail

Anti-government forces in the Irish Civil War attacked the Listowel and Ballybunion Railway several times in early 1923. Damage to the rolling stock and stations of the 9-mile monorail between the two Kerry towns, and the impracticalities of operating such a unique line in the newly consolidated Irish rail system, forced its permanent closure in October 1924.

Passengers and mail on the LBR had been targeted by Irish republican forces during the Irish War of Independence, 1919-1921. In January 1923, during the civil war, armed men forced the Ballybunion stationmaster to open the line’s office, goods store, and waiting room, which they doused with petrol and paraffin oil and set on fire. Within an hour a similar attack occurred at the Lisselton station, about halfway between the two terminuses.[1]”Destruction In Kerry”, Freeman’s Journal, Jan. 25, 1923.

Such destruction is generally attributed to the IRA forces opposed to the Irish Free State. These “irregulars” also cut down about 1,700 yards of telegraph wire and six poles between Listowel and Ballybunion, matching attacks along other Irish rail routes.[2]”The Wire Cutters”, The Belfast News-Letter, Jan. 25, 1923.

Photo and caption in the Belfast News-Letter, Jan. 31, 1923.

Nicknamed the Lartigue after inventor Charles Lartigue, the monorail was “suspended indefinitely” in early February 1923 due to the sabotage. Nearly 40 employees lost their jobs, impacting about 100 family members and ancillary businesses.[3]”Kerry Railway Destruction” , The Irish Examiner, Feb. 2, 1923. With the train out of service, a char-a-banc and motor car service began operating between the two towns, but it also came under attack in March.

Once the civil war ended later that spring, the Lartigue was repaired in time for the busy summer season at Ballybunion, a seaside resort. By mid-July, the Freeman’s Journal reported the Lartigue “has already, particularly on Sundays, been taxed to almost its fullest capacity in the conveyance of visitors.”[4]”Provincial News In Brief, Ballybunion Season Opened”, Freeman’s Journal, July 17, 1923.

Like the Lartigue, however, the national newspaper also would have its run ended in 1924.

See my earlier work on the Lartigue monorail:

The Lartigue monorail in Kerry opened on Leap Year Day in 1888. It closed in October 1924.

References

References
↑1 ”Destruction In Kerry”, Freeman’s Journal, Jan. 25, 1923.
↑2 ”The Wire Cutters”, The Belfast News-Letter, Jan. 25, 1923.
↑3 ”Kerry Railway Destruction” , The Irish Examiner, Feb. 2, 1923.
↑4 ”Provincial News In Brief, Ballybunion Season Opened”, Freeman’s Journal, July 17, 1923.