Tag Archives: Mike Pence

St. Patrick’s Day 2020 disrupted by pandemic & politics

UPDATES:

March 14:

  • The U.S. government reversed an earlier exemption from the 30-day European travel ban for Ireland and the U.K. The prohibition on the two islands will take effect midnight March 16.
  • Masses are being cancelled across most dioceses in Ireland for at least the next three weeks.

March 13:

  • It’s not just St. Patrick’s Day parades that are cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic; it’s also St. Patrick’s Day masses, scheduled either for Sunday or March 17. The Catholic Archdioceses of Washington, D.C., is closing all its churches from March 16 through March 27. In Chicago, Old St. Patrick’s Church is closed March 13-March 23. The Cleveland diocese cancelled its March 17 masses. A growing number of dioceses are suspending the weekly mass obligation.

St. Patrick’s in Washington, D.C., on March 10. The doors are being closed March 16.

March 12:

  • “I know that some of this is coming as a real shock. And it’s going to involve big changes in the way we live our lives. And I know that I’m asking people to make enormous sacrifices. But we’re doing it for each other,” Varadkar said in announcing that Ireland’s schools, universities and childcare facilities are being closed until at least March 29.
  • The board of the New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade announced “with a heavy heart” that the 2020 edition is postponed until “a later date,” the first scratch since 1762.
  • Varadkar and Trump met at the White House. But they did not shake hands or exchange the traditional bowl of shamrocks, the Associated Press reported. Varadkar addressed the Ireland Funds gala dinner Wednesday night at the National Building Museum, according to The Journal.ie.
  • White House officials have confirmed that Ireland is not included in the 30-day European travel ban announced by President Trump to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The Washington Post explains why. In his Oval Office address, Trump only named the U.K. as being exempt.

March 11:

  • New York parade pin

    There has been mixed reporting through the day about whether New York City will cancel its scheduled March 17 parade for the first time since 1762. “This is 259 years consecutive years the parade has been marching in New York. It’s an unbelievable tradition to break,” parade president Tommy Smyth told The Daily News. Here is the parade’s official website.

  • Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Savannah, and smaller U.S. cities have cancelled parades set for March 14 or March 15.
  • Ireland recorded its first coronavirus death, said to be an elderly patient in the eastern portion of the island, The Irish Times reported.

ORIGINAL POST:

It’s not a usual season of St. Patrick’s Day events, socially or politically. Ireland has cancelled all parades due to ongoing threats from coronavirus. The official statement:

Due to the unique nature and scale of the St Patrick’s Day festivities, in terms of size, the mass gathering of local and international travelers, and the continued progression of community transmission in some European countries, along with the emergence of a small number of cases of local transmission in Ireland, the Government has decided that St Patrick’s Day parades, including the Dublin parade, will not proceed.

There are 50 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Republic and Northern Ireland as of March 10, but the number is likely to grow. The last time the parade was canceled was in 2001 because of foot-and-mouth disease.

On the U.S. side of the Atlantic, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh cancelled the city’s iconic parade “out of an abundance of caution.”  Other parades across America also have been scratched, including Newport, R.I., Hartford, Conn., Denver, and San Francisco.

Organizers in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Savannah say their events are still on for this weekend, but that could change any moment.

Varadkar and Trump in 2018. “Wash your hands.”

Political events

Nominal Taoiseach Leo Varadkar cancelled a series of meetings in New York in connection with Ireland’s bid for a seat on the United Nations’ Security Council. He is still scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C., for events on March 11 and March 12, including a White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and the traditional shamrock presentation.

The Irish Times’ U.S.  correspondent Suzanne Lynch reported Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence will boycott [my emphasis] the annual St. Patrick’s lunch at the U.S. Capitol because of tensions with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The B-word, of course, comes from the Irish Land War. A White House spokesman, referring to Pelosi’s ripping up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year, said:

Since the Speaker has chosen to tear this nation apart with her actions and her rhetoric, the president will not participate in moments where she so often chooses to drive discord and disunity, and will instead celebrate the rich history and strong ties between the United States and Ireland at the White House on March 12.  … The relationship between our two countries has never been stronger.

Fine Gael‘s Varadkar and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin are in close talks about forming a coalition government in Ireland, now more than a month since the general election failed to produce a majority. The Journal.ie noted Enda Kenny curtailed his St. Patrick’s trip in 2016 while in a similar position of government formation talks.

On March 10, Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster (DUP) and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill (Sinn Fein) cancelled their scheduled trip to Washington.

Pence hit for cross-Ireland commute; Brexit comment

UPDATE:

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

The Doonbeg boondoggle: “Pence’s stay at Trump’s resort reeks of corruption.” Washington Post editorial

“As Pence read from the autocue and Irish eyes definitely stopped smiling, it was clear he was channeling His Master’s Voice. Trump is a fan of Brexit and of Boris.” — Miriam Lord in The Irish Times

ORIGINAL POST:

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is being roundly criticized for spending his two nights in Ireland at the Doonbeg, County Clare, golf resort owned by his boss, U.S. President Donald Trump.

Most of Pence’s business is in Dublin, 180 miles east on the opposite side of the island. In America, this would be like Pence staying in Allentown, Pennsylvania, while he conducted business in Washington, D.C. Cue the Billy Joel classic.

“… the opportunity to stay at the Trump National in Doonbeg, to accommodate the unique footprint that comes with our security detail and other personnel, made it logical,” Pence said, according to Politico.

The bigger story is that Pence (and Trump) appear to be throwing Ireland under the Brexit bus. The Irish Times reported the Veep’s meeting with Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar “did not go entirely to plan” as the American leader “made an unexpected intervention … on Brexit that is far from helpful as Ireland enters a crucial period in the those negotiations.”

Varadkar told Pence that Ireland “must stand our ground on the withdrawal agreement, an agreement which was carefully negotiated to overcome all these risks. … And so Mr Vice-President I ask that you bring that message back to Washington with you. This is not a problem of our making.”

Pence refused to take questions from dozens of assembled reporters, The Guardian reported.

U.S. Vice-President Pence signs the guest book at Áras an Uachtaráin. Also shown, left to right, Sabina Higgins, Irish President Micheal D Higgins, and Karen Pence. MAXWELLPHOTOGRAPHY.IE

 

Catching up with modern Ireland: August

I’m posting the August round up a few days before the Kerry-Dublin All-Ireland Final, and will update the result in a fresh post. I did not publish a July round up due to my two-week travels in Ireland.

In late July/early August, people on both sides the Irish border shrugged when I asked about Brexit: there was concern, but not panic. Now, developments are gathering pace ahead of the Oct. 31 deadline. Brexit is intensifying like a hurricane, with the outcome equally unpredictable. British PM Boris Johnson has abruptly suspended the opening of Parliament; an alternative proposal to solve the Irish border riddle is gaining attention.

People on each side of the border voiced caution when I asked about whether a messy, “no deal” Brexit would lead to Irish reunification. “Not right off,” was the general consensus. The passage below is from Daniel Finn’s Aug. 21 piece in Foreign Affairs, Ireland’s Rocky Road to Unity: Can Demographic Shifts Undo a Hundred Years of Separation?

The terms of the impending separation from the European Union [Brexit] remain uncertain, but nothing since the June 2016 referendum has discouraged the belief that the end result will be messy and disruptive. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, Northern Ireland will take a much bigger and more immediate hit than the rest of the United Kingdom, because of its reliance on cross-border trade with the south. In a region that voted to remain in the EU by a solid majority (56 to 44 percent), that prospect is widely and bitterly resented. Especially among soft nationalists and soft unionists—those who take a more pragmatic and transactional view of the union with Britain—the shock of a chaotic Brexit could push more voters to embrace Irish unity as a safer option than remaining tethered to the United Kingdom.

  • Fáilte Ireland and accountancy firm Crowe have developed a Brexit Readiness Check for businesses to determine “how prepared you are to respond to the potential impact of Brexit.”
  • Catholics and Protestants lived side by side in Northern Ireland for decades, “but they had very few social or economic ties across the communities,” academic researchers Joseph M. Brown and Gordon C. McCord wrote in The Washington Post story marking the 50th anniversary of the Troubles. “This meant geographic proximity bred violence instead of mutual tolerance.”
  • The New York Times this month published several stories about Ireland and Northern Ireland, ranging from surfing and television to abortion and housing:

Chasing Waves on Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way

In ‘Derry Girls,’ the Lighter Side of Life in a Conflict Zone

Climate of Fear: When One Part of a Country Bans Abortion

Housing Crisis Grips Ireland a Decade After the Property Bubble Burst

From an evening walk on Inisheer, looking west to Inis Meain.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, 2017

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll be updating this post through the day with news of the Irish and Irish America on this special day.

Irish immigrants cited in veep debate

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) made two Irish references in his 4 October vice presidential debate against Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R). Kaine is Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Pence is paired with Donald Trump.

Kaine’s quotes, from the Vox debate transcript:

…we are a nation of immigrants. Mike Pence and I are both descendants from immigrant families. Some things, you know, maybe said weren’t so great about the Irish when we came in, but we [were] absorbed, and made our nation stronger. When Donald Trump said Mexicans are rapists and criminals, he said the judge was unqualified to hear a case because his parents were Mexican. I cannot imagine how you could defend that.

***

I grew up with a great Irish Catholic council. I was educated by Jesuits. I worked with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras now nearly 35 years ago and they were the heroes of my life.

Pence also grew up in an Irish Catholic family. As I reported earlier this year in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he has family ties to Doonbeg, County Clare, where Trump owns a golf course. Kaine’s ancestors were from counties Longford and Kilkenny.

Astute readers will remember that Irishness was raised at the vice presidential debate four years ago between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

TimKaine.JPG (1400×933)