Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Pre-Irish & post-U.S. election letter from Dublin

DUBLIN–I arrived here days after Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election and as Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris declared a general election date for later this month. The Irish Times headlines above prompted two quick thoughts:

  • Irish campaigns are mercifully shorter than the U.S election calendar.
  • Trump’s win not not only thrusts America into the unknown, but also Ireland and the rest of Europe and the world.

Both elections are main topics of conversation in the once low-slung capital, where church steeples, the 17-floor Liberty Hall (opened in 1965), and the decommissioned power-generating Poolbeg “Stacks” (taller than the office tower), once dominated the skyline. Today, the city is filled with construction cranes and scaffolding-wrapped buildings. At least a dozen residential and commercial towers with floor counts in the teens or low 20s are rising in the city, most on the south side of the River Liffey. That’s no match for the 58-floor Trump Tower and other U.S. skyscrapers, but a noticeable change from my first visit here 25 years ago.

Trump’s election is raising concerns in Ireland. A post-election Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll found 58 percent of respondents are “more worried about the future”, an 8 point increase from September. Just 28 percent said Trump’s return to the While House will make “no difference” in Ireland, while fewer then 20 percent answered “less worried” or “don’t know.”

Simon Harris, bottom poster.

My Irish family and friends, plus a random mix of taxi drivers, UCD library and archives staff, and political observers in the media, suggested the electorate is adverse to radical change. That seems to favor the two main center right political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which have been coalition partners since 2000. Harris, the Fine Gael leader, is favored to remain taoiseach, or prime minister.

Like the U.S., lack of affordable housing is a major domestic issue in Ireland. The biggest concern about Trump is related to his economic policies, especially trade tariffs. Irish Times columnist Cliff Taylor detailed how Irish exports to the U.S. in the first nine months of this year increased by 28 percent to €52.5 billion. He continued:

“From the U.S. point of view, the trade deficit with Ireland so far this year is more than €35 billion. The vast bulk of Irish sales to the US — 80 percent so far this year — are chemicals and pharmaceuticals, where Irish exports to the US surged by no less than one-third compared to the same period last year. To say the least, it was not a good time for this to happen. And the pharma sector — a big employer and taxpayer — looks exposed as the new administration examines why the U.S. has a big trade deficit with Ireland. Unlike most other big US companies here, it targets much of its exports back to the American market.”

While the Irish campaign season is shorter, it is not exempt from the daily rough-and-tumble of national politics. Michael O’Leary, the flamboyant and longstanding chief executive of Ryanair, made headlines for a swipe at the high number of teachers in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish legislature. “I wouldn’t generally employ a lot of teachers to go out and get things done,” he said in remarks endorsing the re-election of a candidate with private sector business experience. Let’s remember here the teacher backgrounds of Pádraic Pearse, Éamon de Valera, and other figures of Irish history and politics. For good measure, O’Leary also said the Green party needed to be “weeded out” of Irish politics.

Housing is a key domestic issue.

In another campaign flare up with historical overtones, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said it is unfair to demonize and force her party members to defend the actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. “You don’t ask someone who was a baby in the 1970s about things that happened in the 1970s. That’s not a reasonable proposition, it wouldn’t be reasonably done with somebody from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or the Labour Party,” McDonald said. She criticized the “Free State establishment,” a reference to the Irish Free State that emerged in 1922 and split republican separatists into civil war.

That’s rather tame stuff compared to calling your opponent “scum”, “fascist,” and the other insults slung between Trump and K. Harris during the too long U.S. campaign. But there are still a few weeks to go. I’ll write about the Irish election outcome at the end of the month.

BULLETIN: Trump’s win could impact Irish election, economy

Donald Trump’s U.S. election win has introduced new uncertainty into Republic of Ireland elections, now set for Nov. 29. Irish officials fear that Trump’s protectionist trade policies and corporate tax cuts could put U.S. foreign direct investment and Irish jobs at risk. That’s on top of wider worries about the European economy, Russian aggression on the continent’s eastern front, and Irish domestic concerns. I’ll be in Dublin Nov. 9-16. Watch for my reports. MH

Why latest Dublin riot rattles Irish republic

The Republic of Ireland faces a reckoning in the wake of Nov. 24 violence in Dublin.

The episode began with the stabbing of three children and one adult outside a local school, reportedly at the hand of an immigrant, quickly followed by a spasm of right-wing looting, arson, and attacks on police. Now, the Irish government and people must take a hard look at tension between the country’s growing non-native population and rising anti-immigrant ideology, and the even tougher challenges of economic equality in a world transformed by globalism and technology.

“The Dublin riots have changed everything,” The Irish Times proclaimed in a next-day headline.

Changed utterly? Perhaps.

Screen grab of images from the Nov. 24 riot in Dublin.

This was not the first time street violence and looting have flared in the Irish capital. It’s worth remembering that the April 1916 Easter Rising began with high-minded nationalist ideals. But it also included opportunistic looting and indiscriminate arson that had nothing to do with republican aspirations.

Most recently, the February 2006 “Love Ulster” riot is the more precise precursor of the latest unrest. It resulted when a group of Northern Ireland unionists came to Dublin to protest alleged government collusion with the IRA. They were met by dissident republican counter protestors. The two groups clashed with each other and the police. Historian John Dorney detailed the event, based on personal observations, on The Irish Story website he edits.

Replying to my outreach on the latest event, Dorney wrote that the 2006 riot started as “a small demonstration of political extremists that attracted a wider crowd of people basically looking for trouble. The looting was the same. The geography of these disturbances was almost exactly the same as those, also.”

What’s different this time around, Dorney continued, is the level of destruction and the driving ideology.

“You have a segment of young people, mostly males, a lot of whom are involved in petty crime or anti-social behavior who have been recruited by anti-immigrant agitators in Dublin over the past year or so. … Thanks to the internet a lot of them believe in conspiracy theories like ‘the great replacement’. We have social media to thank for this.”

Simmering trouble, uncertain future

Kindling for the recent riot has gathered at least since the start of the COVID pandemic. It was apparent in September as 200 right-wing protestors harassed and threatened politicians, government staff, and journalists outside Leinster House, the republic’s legislative home. In addition to anti-immigrant messages, the crowd appeared driven by COVID conspiracy theories, attacks on transgender rights, and other grievances, such as Ireland’s (especially Dublin’s) affordable housing crisis.

Central Statistics Office, Ireland

Unconfirmed social media messages that a native Algerian was the perpetrator of the school stabbings fueled the latest riot. Details of the man’s nationality and status in Ireland have not been released by officials. But Irish census data reveals 20 percent of the population in the 26 counties was born abroad. The growth has been driven by enlargement of the E.U.; the arrival of more than 90,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion; and arrivals from India, Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines, and other places for a variety of reasons, Shane Harrison noted at BBC.com. Ironically, a Brazilian food delivery driver stopped the knife wielder.

“My Dublin-based friends are mostly internationals; many of them are people of color,” wrote Daniel Carey, a teaching assistant at the Dublin City University School of Communications and another of my transatlantic Irish history connections. “More than one colleague whose experience of Ireland has been overwhelmingly positive has reported being racially abused in the days since. At least some are considering their futures here. How did we – a nation of economic migrants – get here?”

Dublin historian Felix Larkin begins to answer that question by pointing to a broader “root cause of the malady which troubles our liberal democratic societies,” not just Ireland. He noted the American political philosopher Michael Sandel has identified the “competitive market meritocracy that deepens divides and corrodes solidarity.” With meritocracy in practice less based on ability and talent than generally acknowledged, the system leaves those who fall short with a sense of personal failure, hopelessness, humiliation, and resentment.

“That, in my view, is the most convincing analysis of the reason for the rise of populist movements today:  Trump and MAGA in the U.S., Johnson and Brexit in the U.K., and now Geert Wilders in The Netherlands,” Larkin said in reply to my outreach. He continued:

Ireland is not immune to this phenomenon: it has been bubbling below the surface of our society for some years, and it is a factor in the phenomenal rise of Sinn Féin. What we saw on (Nov. 24) in Dublin was an ugly manifestation of it, one not without precedent in other great cities of Western Europe and North America. All it takes is a spark to light the fire, like in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Those of us who value liberal democracy need to take heed.

Keep in mind that while Sinn Féin might have populist underpinnings, the party leans left rather than right. As Harrison observed, Ireland’s right-wing extremists so far have not yet rallied around a single personality or party. But in the early aftermath  of the riot, it appeared former UFC champion Conor McGregor was positioning himself for the role in a series of–what else?–incendiary social media postings. “Ireland-we are at war,” he wrote days before the riot in support of the boyfriend of 23-year-old Ashling Murphy, murdered last year by an immigrant.

American friends of Ireland should keep things in perspective. The U.S. State Department has not issued any travel advisories for the Republic; the usual Level 1: “Exercise Normal Precautions” status remains in place. The September protest outside Leinster House was hardly the same stuff as the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Ireland, thankfully, has avoided the mass shootings that plague American communities.

But as is true for the United States, the Irish will have to move beyond the knee-jerk cliches of political leaders claiming, “This is not who we are.” (Joe Biden, Leo Varadkar) and columnists such as Fintan O’Toole outdoing themselves to denounce the rioters as “scumbags” and “pitiful thugs.” That hasn’t worked on the MAGA crowd, and it won’t work in Ireland. As Irish artist Adam Doyle wrote in guest column for The Irish Times: “Demonizing and dehumanizing these communities pretty much ensures this will happen again. Calling people names and questioning their right to exist in the city means they’ll never trust you. You’ll never see eye-to-eye with someone who thinks you’re an animal.”

Catching up with modern Ireland

Here’s another of my occasional posts with headlines and curated content about contemporary Ireland and Northern Ireland. Enjoy:

Ireland’s Central Statistics Office released the country’s latest census figures, a snapshot of the Republic from April 3, 2022. Highlights include:

  • The population exceeded 5 million (5,149,139) for the first time in 171 years. This is an 8 percent increase from 2016. All counties showed at least 5 percent growth.
  • The proportion of the population who identified Roman Catholic fell to 69 percent from 79 percent in 2016. The “No Religion” category increased to 736,210 people from 451,941.
  • Almost 80 percent of Irish households have a broadband internet connection, up from 71 percent in 2016 and 64 percent in 2011. Nearly a third of workers indicated they did their jobs from home for at least part of the week.

The CSO’s Summary Report is the first of nine 2022 census releases. More detailed reports on topics such as housing, homelessness, and religion will follow throughout the year.

CSO graphic.

Other stories:

  • The Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party, which supports reunification of Ireland, followed last year’s historic Northern Ireland Assembly victory by defeating their pro-Britain unionist rivals in May council elections by a wide margin. Sinn Féin for the first time is the largest party at the local and provincial levels. The Assembly remains in limbo, however, due to the Democratic Unionist Party’s refusal to participate in the power-sharing government.
  • Ireland’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent in May, a record that surpasses the “Celtic Tiger” period of two decades ago. Unemployment in the North fell to 2.4 percent, slightly below pre-pandemic levels and just 0.1 percentage point shy of the record low.
  • Almost all sectors of the Irish economy will fail to meet 2030 carbon reduction targets, The Irish Times reported; while warming weather and rising seas continue to demonstrate the impact of climate change. A proposal to slaughter 200,000 cows to reduce methane emissions generated blowback from the agricultural sector, as expected, and from outside actors ranging from PETA to Elon Musk.
  • The Republic’s Department of Rural and Community Development has launched a 10-year “Our Living Islands” initiative to repopulate nearly two dozen islands from Donegal to Cork.
  • The New York Times detailed Ireland’s vanishing fishing fleet, following a similar story from Euronews.com in January.
  • Former President Donald Trump, now under state and federal indictments, earned nearly $25 million from his golf property in Doonbeg, County Clare, during his four years in office, Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington has reported. The revenue was part of a $160 million haul from overseas businesses with interests in U.S. foreign policy. Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence each stayed at Doonbeg at taxpayers expense while in office.

The entrance of Trump’s Doonbeg golf course in County Clare during my July 2016 visit.

Trump’s ‘American carnage’ as seen from Ireland

“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
–From Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2017, inaugural address

That is the first of what turned out to be thousands of lies from Trump during his term as U.S. president. Spoken only minutes after he assumed the powers of the office, it was in fact the start of his American carnage. That includes his incompetent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, now with more than 350,000 U.S. deaths.

I’ve reached out for reactions to the Trump-stoked anarchy in Washington, D.C., including historical parallels and contemporary Irish media views,. which begin below the photo, newest at the top. I will update this post over several days. MH

Trump-fueled violence in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Jan. 8 updates:

CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, native of Cahersiveen, County Kerry, became a social media sensation for the way he held his nerve and gave clear and concise updates amidst the Trump mob on Capitol Hill.

***

This was a manifestation of weakness and eclipse, though Trump should not expect to escape legal consequences for inciting an attack on democracy, the shock troops involved praised by him as “patriots”. Impeachment? Probably impossible in the 12 days he has left in office. But prosecutors need to look at possible charges.
—Editorial in The Irish Times

Jan. 7 updates:

Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former acting chief of staff turned special envoy to Northern Ireland, resigned from the post in the wake of the “international travesty” that took place at the Capitol. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” he said.

***

“This was not a moment of madness. It was a show for which Trump had been running trailers for at least a year. This was never a dark conspiracy. It was an undisguised insurrection. Trump’s one great virtue is his openness.”
—Finton O’Toole in The Irish Times

***

Former Miss Universe Ireland Fionnghuala O’Reilly was followed and harassed by a Trump supporter as riots unfolded in Capitol Hill, the Irish Independent reported. She said that the man followed and yelled at her for wearing a mask while out for a run.

***

“The Irish people have a deep connection with the United States of America, built up over many generations. I know that many, like me, will be watching the scenes unfolding in Washington DC with great concern and dismay.”
–Tweet from Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin

***

The Irish Post and other media report that Trump could be headed to his golf resort in Doonbeg, County Clare, a day before Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inaugural. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said Trump is not allowed to visit his course in that country.

Original Jan. 6 post:

Police in the US Capitol Jan. 6 responded with drawn guns and teargas as hundreds of protesters stormed the building and sought to force Congress to undo President Donald Trump’s election loss shortly after some of Trump’s fellow Republicans launched a last-ditch effort to throw out the results.
–Early report in the Irish Independent

***

“Shocking & deeply sad scenes in Washington DC – we must call this out for what it is: a deliberate assault on Democracy by a sitting President & his supporters, attempting to overturn a free & fair election! The world is watching! We hope for restoration of calm.”
–Tweet by Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney

***

“Trump’s conduct reminds me of Ian Paisley in the old days in Northern Ireland. Whip up followers to violence, then wash hands and walk away when violence breaks out.”
— John Dorney, editor of the The Irish Story

***

“The closing chapter of Donald Trump’s presidency was never going to conclude quietly. After four tumultuous years in the White House, the outgoing president is continuing his attack on the norms of American democracy right up to the end.”
—Irish Times Washington correspondent Suzanne Lynch in Jan. 5 column, before the unrest at the U.S. Capitol.

***

“I never thought I would see such scenes in America.”
–Dublin historian Felix Larkin.

He passed along a 2014 BBC story about the “Burning of Washington” by British Army Maj. Gen. Robert Ross, from Rostrevor, of County Down. It was the only time that a foreign power captured and occupied Washington. This time it was domestic.

Catching up with modern Ireland: September

The extraordinary year 2020 is three quarters done. On the island of Ireland two big questions hang over the remaining quarter: can the COVID-19 pandemic be managed and contained without too large an increase of infections and deaths; and can Britain and the E.U. agree a final Brexit trade deal? The monthy roundup picks from there:

  • The Republic of Ireland postponed the scheduled April 2021 Census until April 2022 because of the pandemic and to ensure the decenial count “achieves the highest possible response rate, across all facets of Irish society,” Central Statistics Office Director General Pádraig Dalton said.
  • The pandemic has relieved Dublin’s housing crunch that in recent years sent rents skyrocketing and left many people struggling to afford, or find, a place to live, The New York Times reported. How so? Denied tourists and business visitors, short-term Airbnb rentals have been returned to the market.
  • U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland Mick Mulvaney said the American government is “confident the EU and UK will be able to work this [trade deal] out in a way that’s acceptable to everybody.”
  • Ireland’s 3 billion euro ($3.5 billion) plan to connect rural areas to high-speed broadband is proceeding quicker than expected, according to David McCourt, chairman of National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the vehicle created by U.S. media and telecoms investment firm Granahan McCourt. He told CNBC that despite some hurdles in the early days of the coronavirus lockdown, the project could be completed in about seven years, under the originally slated 10 years. See my earlier post: Ireland’s broadband push recalls rural electrification effort.
  • As more of the world’s leading tech companies expand their operations in Ireland, the county is being forced to choose between its climate ambitions and investment from these giant firms, OilPrice.com reported. Massive data centers are great for the nation’s finances, but wearing on its energy infrastructure and increasing its carbon footprint.
  • Wild salmon returns have improved, likely due to an easier run for the fish into Ireland’s rivers during the COVID-19 lockdown, SeafoodSource says. But The Guardian carried a troubling report about how urban wastewater and nutrient runoff are polluting Ireland’s waterways.
  • Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden referenced his “Irish Catholic” roots during the Sept. 29 debate with President Donald Trump. The Irish Times described the televised confrontation as “shouting, interruptions and often incoherent cross talk.”

History News:

  • Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut received a $10,000 grant coronavirus relief grant through the National Endowment for the Humanities. It will be used to defray financial losses incurred during the museum’s extended closure during the pandemic.
  • The 100-mile (165K) National Famine Way hike/bike/history trail from Strokestown, Co Roscommon, to Dublin, opened after a decade of development. It follows the route of 1,490 tenants evicted from the Strokestown estate of Major Denis Mahon in 1847 and forced to walk to the “coffin ships” that would take them from Ireland to America and Canada.
  • The Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland has decided to bring charges against no more than one of 15 soldiers involved in the 1972 “Bloody Sunday” civil rights demonstrations in Derry, the BBC reports. Thirteen were killed and 15 wounded when troops opened fire on demonstrators.

The old man and the clock:

  • This photo of an old man enjoying his pint in a Galway pub captured international media attention. He apparantely didn’t have a watch or smart phone to avoid overstaying the 90-minute limit imposed by Ireland’s COVID-19 restrictions, so he brought a bedside alarm clock. 

John Joe Quinn at McGinn’s Hop House in Galway city. Photo, Fergus McGinn.

Brexit and the Irish-American vote

In 1920, many Irish-American voters were focused on their homeland’s struggle for independence from Britain. It was hardly the biggest issue of the campaign, dominated by domestic economic and social concerns in America’s first post-World War I election. U.S. Sen. Warren Harding, an Ohio Republican, defeated the state’s Democratic Gov. James M. Cox.

In 2020, Irish-American voters with relations, friends, or business interests on either side of the Irish border are watching Britain’s departure from the European Union, the so-called Brexit. British officials recently suggested they might break an earlier trade deal regarding the Irish border. As National Review explains:

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with a member of the EU — the Irish Republic. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which put an end to the decades-long civil conflict in the province between Protestant unionists and Catholic secessionists (That’s NR’s word, I’d say nationalists.), established an open border on the island of Ireland so that people and goods could travel seamlessly between North and South. This was a rather easy measure to implement because both the UK and the Republic of Ireland were in the EU at the time, and so they were bound by the same customs and market regulations.

The sticking point in the exit negotiations between the British and EU delegations was how to maintain an open border in Ireland once the UK had left the EU regulatory framework. Differing regulations and standards between the two countries could, without any physical border infrastructure, lead to rampant smuggling and undermine the internal integrity of the EU market. But all sides balked at the idea of putting up a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic given the violent history and still-volatile politics surrounding the constitutional question.

Now, as The Washington Post reported, “relations between Europe and Britain have grown shouty.” American politicians want to be heard, too.

The border on Killeen School Road County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Oliver Dixon

“If the UK violates that international treaty and Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be absolutely no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress,” U.S House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. Former Vice President Joe Biden, this year’s Democratic presidential nominee, issued  a similar Sept. 16 tweet:  “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”

President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland weighed in a few days later:

“Everyone assures me that no one is interested in seeing a hard border between the republic and Northern Ireland,” Mick Mulvaney said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We appreciate that, we respect that and we agree with that. The one thing I keep trying to assure is on the front of everybody’s mind is avoiding a border by accident. The Trump administration, state department and the U.S Congress would all be aligned in the desire to see the Good Friday agreement preserved to see the lack of a border maintained.”

Still, Brexit is hardly the top of mind issue for Irish-American voters, or any segment of the American electorate. With early voting underway in several states, the 2020 campaign is a referendum on Trump’s overall behavior, his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, and now a fierce fight over filling, or waiting to fill, a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy.

Which helps illustrate another point:

“The Irish vote has become not, unfortunately, the lockup of the Democratic Party,” Brian O’Dwyer, vice president of the Irish American Democrats, told The New York Times in May. “But it is one of the few swing votes, along with the Catholic vote, left in the United States, and you can see various patterns back and forth where the Irish in particular have gone one way or another.”

Or as a columnist Tom Deignan wrote in August in Irish America magazine, “2020 may finally be the year we recognize the many shades of green out there amidst the red and blue of politically-polarized America.”

Also see:

Police behavior matters: America, 2020 & Ireland, 1920

U.S. President Donald Trump caused an uproar earlier this summer by sending federal agents, indistinguishable from soldiers, to Portland, Oregon, and Seattle to quell Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality. State and local officials said the unrequested agents acted like “outside agitators” with tactics that included grabbing protesters from the streets and forcing them into unmarked vans. The images flashed instantly around the world on social media. 

“Many of those federal agents aren’t easily recognizable as law enforcement officials, nor do they act like them,” The New York Times editorialized.1 “Even the military is concerned about the public confusion sown into society when heavily armed federal agents dress like soldiers. All the more reason that the federal agents on the streets of American cities be required to wear uniforms that clearly identify themselves and their civilian agency.”

A century ago, the irregular uniforms and heavy-handed tactics of hastily-trained Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) recruits caused in uproar in revolutionary Ireland. Though press coverage wasn’t nearly as fast as today, the “Black and Tans” soon became notorious.

The nickname is attributed to Christopher O’Sullivan, a reporter for the Limerick Echo, who encountered an early group of the recruits at a local train station. In a March 25, 1920, story, he applied the nickname of a local hunt club’s pack of foxhounds to describe their mismatched dark green and khaki uniforms.

The Limerick Echo is not included in the Irish Newspaper Archive of nearly 90 titles. The earliest use of the name that I found in the database (besides adverts for shoes and other leather goods) was a July 1, 1920, story in the Freeman’s Journal. It mentioned the train boarding of “armed soldiers and khaki policemen now-known in the country as ‘Black and Tans.’”2

Within two months, however, the name was in wide circulation. It became notorious after the Sept. 21, 1920, sack of Balbriggan, when Black and Tans rampaged in revenge for the Irish Republican Army murder of RIC officers (and brothers) Peter and William Burke. A week later, the Belfast Newsletter published a statement from the Irish Office in London responding to press inquiries about the “exact relationship” between the Black and Tans and the RIC. It said:

The Black and Tans, so-called because of their hybrid uniform of dark green and khaki, were recruited solely on account of the shortage of men in Ireland. They are, it is stated, genuine recruits to the Royal Irish Constabulary, and it is due only to the lack of Royal Irish Constabulary uniforms that they appear in their present dress. The suggestion that these men are in any way connected with the military was denied at the Irish Office yesterday. The auxiliary division of the Royal Irish Constabulary, also named Black and Tans on account of their uniforms, were recruited for the purpose of instructing the existing men of the Royal Irish Constabulary in the defense of their barracks.3

Black and Tans in Dublin.

The term Black and Tans began to appear in U.S. newspaper reporting of Ireland by mid-August 1920. The source appears to be an Associated Press story datelined from Dublin, July 30: “The recruits from across the Channel and soldiers specially detached for police duty are nicknamed ‘Black and Tans.’”4

As in Ireland, press use of the name became frequent after Balbriggan. The New York Times, no supporter of Irish independence, editorialized:

Violence, arson, murder by Sinn Feiners have of late been not repressed, but provoked and imitated by a series of reprisals. To private tumultuary lawlessness a sort of official tumultuary lawlessness has responded. The police have been driven into a natural but none the less unpardonable frenzy. Apparently some English recruits and demobilized army officers, hastily and unnecessarily impressed of enlisted for purposes of defense, have had a hand in the series of ‘Black and Tan’ raids. Private war prevails.5

Earlier this year the Irish government planned to recognize the RIC and Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), most of whom were Irish-born men who carried out their duties with honor at a troublesome time, as part of the country’s “Decade of Centenaries.” The event was cancelled, however, after days of protest that it would honor the still-notorious Black and Tans.

Irish correspondents in America, today & yesterday

UPDATE:

The National Union of Journalist (Ireland & U.K.) has proposed technology firms should pay a 6 percent “windfall tax” towards a rescue package for the embattled media industry. Despite soaring online traffic, national and local media have been hit hard by declining advertising revenues since the start of coronavirus crisis. Many outlets have cut jobs or reduced pay. Lynch and O’Donovan raised these concerns in their conversation with IN-DC.

ORIGINAL POST:

A New York Times profile of 41 foreign correspondents working in the United States included Suzanne Lynch of The Irish Times and Brian O’Donovan of RTÉ News. Two weeks after the story published in April, both reporters discussed their roles at an Irish Network-DC virtual meeting.

“In this tumultuous period of American politics, there are perhaps more foreign correspondents in Washington, D.C., than ever before,” the Times wrote in The Journalists. “What unites them is their fight against the threat of misinformation and their struggle to accurately inform their fellow citizens about what’s happening here — and how it might affect them.”

Notwithstanding such high-minded missions, Lynch, 41, and O’Donovan, 40, told IN-DC that “Trump is gold” for online clicks and viewer ratings back in Ireland. “He keeps on giving as a story,” O’Donovan said. Lynch added the U.S. president has become “so all-consuming” that he often cuts into other coverage.

Lynch

In the Times piece, Lynch said she “was taken aback by how open the [political] system” is in America. “On Capitol Hill in particular, you can really walk around the halls of power, go into the offices of members of Congress and talk to them directly.”

O’Donovan

O’Donovan told the paper that the four-year RTÉ posting in Washington is “one of the best jobs within the station,” and that he is very aware “this will be remembered as a unique time, and I’m privileged to be covering it and watching it firsthand.”

During the IN-DC discussion, both correspondents shared how they are now frustrated and challenged by the social distancing and travel restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Irish audiences love stories of the real America,” said Lynch, who nevertheless filed nearly 50 stories during April.

She also noted how the health crisis has distracted U.S. political attention (already waning in the Trump administration) from the restored power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland and the impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland. RTÉ‘s Caitríona Perry, who preceded O’Donovan in Washington, last fall published a book from the opposite perspective, The Tribe: The Inside Story of Irish Power and Influence in US Politics.

Earlier correspondents

Dillon

“Ireland has had a long established tradition of excellence in foreign news coverage,” Kevin Rafter, head of Dublin College University’s School of Communications, has written.6 He includes William Howard Russell, Francis McCullagh and Emile Joseph Dillon among a “very impressive group” of late 19th and early 20th century Irish foreign correspondents.

Ford

Another group, Irish immigrants in America who owned or wrote for U.S. newspapers, also influenced audiences back in the homeland. These include Jerome Collins, John Devoy, John F. Finerty, Patrick Ford, John Boyle O’Reilly, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, and Margaret Sullivan.7

Russell

A century ago, as Ruth Russell, Harry Guest, and other U.S. journalists filed dispatches from revolutionary Ireland, Irish papers included stories about American politics, business, society and events. Much of this reporting came from un-bylined and now forgotten correspondents; either Irish, British, or American writers, often working for wire services and other cooperative arrangements between papers.

I encourage readers to share the names of Irish correspondents who were on assignment in the United States during this period.

Catching up with modern Ireland: April

The COVID-19 pandemic remains the dominant story in Ireland, as it is in most of the world. Wish there was happier, more diverse news in this month’s roundup … maybe May:

  • As of April 27, the coronavirus death rate was roughly the same in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland: 1,102 deaths, or 22 per 100,000 population in the south; 405 deaths, or 21 per 100,000, in the north, according to The Irish Times. (The number of cases and fatalities reported by media and government varies widely.)
  • Reunification of the island of Ireland through cooperative pandemic exit strategy? “Happily, there is now an official agreement between the two jurisdictions that could facilitate the achievement of a harmonized approach,” one public health official wrote to the Times. “… there is a ‘compelling case’ for ‘a common approach to action in both jurisdictions’ where appropriate.”
  • On the other hand, Foreign Policy reported, “Not Even Coronavirus Pandemic Can Overcome Northern Ireland’s Divisions.”
  • Ireland said it would quadruple its contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO) after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would cut American funding.
  • Trump’s Doonbeg, County Clare, golf course has accepted Irish government relief to help pay furloughed workers.
  • First the St. Patrick’s Day parades, now the Twelfth of July parades: The Orange Order cancelled 17 Northern Ireland parades that commemorate the Battle of the Boyne. Locally organized Eleventh Night bonfires also are being discouraged.
  • Taoiseach Leo Varadkar rejoined the medical register to help out in the crisis. Varadkar studied medicine and worked as a doctor for seven years before leaving the profession for politics. He was removed from the medical register in 2013. The New York Times wrote an April 11 story about how the pandemic “Rescued the Image of Ireland’s Political Leader.”
  • Politicians in the Republic are still trying to form a coalition government from the outcome of the February elections.
  • The scheduled Aug. 29 college football game between the University of Notre Dame and Navy in Dublin has not yet been cancelled, despite the city’s ban on gatherings of more than 5,000 people.
  • Dublin’s Abbey Theatre is producing and posting on its YouTube channel a series of 50 pandemic-themed “theatrical postcards” called “Dear Ireland.”