Irish Are Left the "Good Boys" of Europe

Today the Irish government went ahead with its promise to pay 715 million euro to unguaranteed bondholders of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly the infamous Anglo Irish Bank.
Sinn Fein TDs and others in opposition walked out of the Dail, the Irish Parliament, when the body voted down their move to debate whether or not to go ahead with the payments.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the TDs that he tried but failed to convince the European Central Bank to permit the "burning" of the bondholders -- paying them back a percentage of the worth of the bonds. Kenny admitted that he does not know the names of any of these bondholders.
Irate callers to afternoon Irish radio shows made the point that some of these speculators bought the bonds at reduced rates, some as low as 20 cents on the euro and will be paid back the full worth of the bonds.
While the Greeks protest in the streets and now their prime minister calls for a referendum as to whether Greece should agree to strict terms of its bailout, the Irish have meekly done the right thing with very little questioning.
A small businessman calling into RTE's Liveline today says shopkeers are "on our knees" while there is money for the bondholders. After 31 years in business, he went to the bank for help and they told him "no." What will happen to him when he loses his business? As a self-employed person he will get no benefits. "They don't give a damn," he said.

It's 'Fiver Friday' This Friday

While the Greeks protest harsh economic austerity measures in Athens, the good Irish people are dealing with their own hard times with “Fiver Friday” on July 1.
RTE presenter Joe Duffy suggested that regular punters go out and spend an extra fiver locally on Friday to stimulate the economy. Retailers and service people responded with special offers – a meal, a car wash, a wedding photo, concert tickets, etc. – for a fiver. The offers have flooded the radio station’s phone lines. Two hundred businesses in Mullingar alone are participating.
Fires are burning and tear gas is filling Athens streets. One man explained, “We have the sun, the tourists, some vegetables and olive oil,” and no other industry. There is no way Greece will be able to pay the mammoth debt it has taken on. The cuts to pensions and social services are desperate measures for desperate times.
The threat of the same thing happening in Ireland has been put off only because the Irish people go willingly along with the budget cuts – they complain and call into the talk shows, but very few would come out on the streets like the Greeks.
Hope that Fiver Friday adds a few bob to the pockets of many Irish shopkeepers who are trying to provide for their families in difficult times.

May a Courageous Irish Man R.I.P.

Sad news this morning hearing on RTE of the death of Brian Lenihan, former Irish Minister of Finance, who died of cancer today at age 52.
Lenihan learned that he had pancreatic cancer in December 2009, in the midst of the worst economic crisis ever faced by Ireland and perhaps the western economies since the Great Depression. He continued on with both his brief and chemotherapy until his Fianna Fail party was unseated by Fine Gael in February 2011.
He took on the post of Finance Minister in May 2008, shortly before the housing and banking crisis. Under Lenihan the Irish State guaranteed all the Irish banks in September 2008.Who would have been prepared to handle the banking crisis which was itself a worldwide cancer? It was up to Lenihan to put together the massive cuts of the December 7, 2010, brutal budget.
Listening to RTE, the tributes all deem Lenihan to have been a “decent man” of great personal courage and humor who was dedicated to the work he had been given.
This comes in contrast to some politicians in Ireland, the U.S., Italy, etc., who have no personal dignity whatsoever and find themselves embarrassed and on front pages.
Maybe courage and honor and grace are old-fashioned attributes. But when a man or woman lives with courage or honor, people do take notice and mourn the passing of someone good.

Visit the Irish Hunger Memorial in NYC

For years, I knew there was an Irish Hunger Memorial set in Lower Manhattan, but hadn't made the journey to see it until yesterday.

I found a small corner of Ireland in Battery Park City at Vesey Street and North End Avenue. Here artist Brian Tolle created on a half acre a living reminder of the Irish Famine of 1845-52, "An Gorta Mor," an event which brought many, including my own great-grandmother, from Ireland to the U.S.

At the heart of the monument is a derelict Famine-era fieldstone cottage, which was brought from County Mayo and reconstructed on the site. A winding path circles small fields dotted with native Irish plants including bearberry, blackthorn, burnet rose, foxglove, gorse and heather. The yellow flag irises were just a few days past blooming.

Set along the pathways are 32 large stones, each one etched with name of one of the Irish counties. You can easily find Cork, Kerry, Tyrone, Monaghan and Armagh. Other names hide under grass or at the sides of stones.

The entire memorial is supported by a limestone plinth and overlooks a small fountain pond and the boat traffic on the Hudson River.

Quotations from Irish texts and authors encircle the outside wall of the base of the memorial. More text on the Famine times lines the walls of the passageway entrance to the memorial. Listen carefully to hear the audio presentation about world hunger during the short walk.

There was no signage on the nearby streets directing to the memorial, but the site should call to the naturally curious. The gorse was not in bloom yet, so I will have to go back to see the profusion of yellow that promises.

The Message in Dublin Was No More Negativity

After much anticipation, President Barack Obama made a triumphant visit to Moneygall, Ireland, the home of his ancestor, Fullmouth Kearney.

RTE presenters were thrilled to see him and the first lady spending 45 minutes walking the length of Moneygall shaking hands and kissing babies of the 300 residents of the County Offaly village. "These pictures will be seen throughout the world tonight," they swooned. They dreamt of the tourists who might come over this summer as a result.

But news is always ruled by timing and unfortunately the main story on our news pages, websites and early morning shows today was the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri.

A short wrap-up and photo of Obama drinking a pint of Guinness was on page 6 of The New York Times. The evening news featured only about 30 seconds about the Irish visit. Not enough coverage to see how the Irish, who have been on their knees in this recession, were finally given something to be proud about.

There was no coverage of Taoiseach Enda Kenny's powerful speech in Dublin introducing Obama to a crowd of more than 25,000 in College Green. This was hardly recognizable as the same Enda Kenny who was shielded from opening his mouth too much in the recent elections and debates.

President Obama told the crowd, "Is feidir linn," in Irish, "Yes, we can." It was a day that gave the Irish something to cheer about, which they haven't had in several years.

Morgan Kelly Predicts Bankruptcy for Ireland

How often does a newspaper op-ed piece elicit reaction that becomes news in itself?

Yesterday, Ireland’s Governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, responded to an article by Morgan Kelly in The Irish Times (May 7, 2011) in which Kelly said, “Honohan’s miscalculations of the bank losses has turned out to be the costliest mistake ever made by an Irish person.”

Kelly is a professor of economics at University College Dublin and is credited with having predicted the Irish property crash.

“With the Irish Government on track to owe a quarter of a trillion euro by 2014, a prolonged and chaotic national bankruptcy is becoming inevitable,” Kelly said in his Times piece. “Ireland is facing economic ruin.”

“While most people would trace our ruin to to [sic] the bank guarantee of September 2008,” he explains, “the real error was in sticking with the guarantee long after it had become clear that the bank losses were insupportable.”

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan’s mistake in guaranteeing most of the bonds of Irish banks…was “obvious” and ridiculous,” Kelly said. A few months later, Patrick Honohan was appointed Governor of the Central Bank….and had the opportunity to reverse Lenihan. But instead, Honohan deemed the bank losses to be “manageable.” Honohan “appeared to believe that Ireland was still the export-driven powerhouse of the 1990s, rather than the credit-fueled Ponzi scheme it had become since 2000….,” Kelly said.

Honohan went over Lenihan’s head and stated on November 18 on RTE Radio 1 “that Ireland would need a bailout of tens of billions”. “Rarely has a finance minister been so deftly sliced off at the ankles by his central ban k governor,” Kelly said. “And so the Honohan Doctrine that bank losses could and should be repaid by Irish taxpayers ran its predictable course with the financial collapse and international bailout of the Irish State.”

Kelly says that the IMF “presented the Irish with a plan to haircut €30 billion of unguaranteed bonds by two-thirds on average. Lenihan was overjoyed, according to a source who was there, telling the IMF team: ‘You are Ireland’s salvation’.”

Kelly says the “haircut was vetoed by U.S. treasury secretary Timothy Geithner who, as his payment of €13 billion from government owned AIG to Goldman Sachs showed, believes that bankers take priority over taxpayers.”

Kelly concludes, “…the IMF was forced by the obduracy of Geithner and the spinelessness, or worse, of the Irish to lend their imprimatur, €30 billion of their capital, to a deal that its negotiators privately admit will end in Irish bankruptcy.”

Kelly writes, “Back when the euro was being planned in the mid-1990s, it never occurred to anyone that cautious, stodgy banks like AIB and Bank of Ireland, run by faintly dim former rugby players, could ever borrow tens of billions overseas, and lose it all on dodgy property loans.”

Kelly predicts “Ireland’s government debt will top €190 billion by 2014, with another €45 billion in Nama and €35 billion in bank recapitalization, for a total of €270 billion”…this for a country of only about 4 million people, half the population of New York City, and with a reported 100,000 planning to leave the country this year. The bill comes to about €120,000 per Irish worker, Kelly says, or “60 per cent larger than GNP.”

As a result, Kelly reports, “the banks that lent to the Irish Government are at risk of losing most of what they lent. In other words, the Irish banking crisis has become part of the larger European sovereign debt crisis.”

Kelly says that government default of its debt would be for Ireland “that trades on its reputation as a safe place to do business, a bankruptcy would be catastrophic.”

Kelly says that Ireland’s national survival requires that “Ireland walk away from the bailout. This in turn requires the Government to do two things: disengage from the banks, and bring its budget into balance immediately.”

Kelly predicts that the current Fine Gael Government won’t follow his advice and that the result will be bankruptcy. Fine Gael and Labour will fall into disrepute and the next election, “after the trauma and chaos of the bankruptcy” will be nothing like the “dull and predictable” one that took down Fianna Fail.

At such a juncture for Irish society, one would hope there is someone at the helm with training in economics and not just smiling and back-slapping. The ship is getting very close to the edge of the earth.

Easter Rising Commemoration

Friends of Irish Freedom held a celebration of the 95th anniversary of the Easter Rising at The Green Tree Restaurant in the Bronx, N.Y., on April 24.
Msgr. Patrick Moloney celebrated Mass for those gathered at the Friends of Irish Freedom's celebration of the 95th anniversary of the Easter Rising at The Green Tree Restaurant in the Bronx, N.Y.
Kelly Donnelly Ramsey of Derry was one of the guest speakers at the Friends of Irish Freedom's celebration of the 95th anniversary of the Easter Rising at The Green Tree Restaurant in the Bronx, N.Y. Ramsey is the sister of Gary Donnelly and she spoke of her brother's experiences as a POW in Maghaberry Prison in County Antrim, as well as harrassment of her family by the PSNI.

Back to the Old Days in the North

Sad news came from Omagh in the North of Ireland this weekend that Ronan Kerr, a young policeman, died when he got in his car and a bomb beneath it exploded.

Kerr, a Catholic, was a member of the North's reconstituted Police Service of Northern Ireland, PSNI, which had replaced the infamous RUC. Only since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 have Catholics been allowed to join the force. News reports attribute the bombing to republican dissidents who want to dissuade Catholics from joining up.

I have had the opportunity to photograph political murals in Belfast and Derry in the North of Ireland over the past eight years. To my eye, there is peace amid a still raw history. The political murals, such as the Derry mural above, tell that story vividly. Only days after my first visit to Derry, a car bomb was found in the city centre near where I had walked. There is still injustice that does not get reported.

There are still those who are dissatisfied with the Good Friday Agreement. Men and women who were imprisoned and/or on hunger strike have told me they wonder what it was all for if they haven't achieved a united Ireland.

But what I hear this morning on Irish radio is disgust with the cowardly act of killing a 25-year-old as he got in his car to go to work.

Hopefully there are ways for people to express their dissent in non-violent ways. There needs to be, in all fairness. Whoever committed this act has brought only widespread condemnation and the name of "terrorist" on themselves. What were they thinking?

Last Leaders Debate Before Irish Election

Watched on RTE via computer last night the last party leaders debate before the Feb. 25 election in Ireland.

Enda Kenny (Fine Gael), Michael Martin (Fianna Fail) and Eamon Gilmore (Labour) each put his case before the Irish people in the bid to become Taoiseach.

After opening statements, RTE's moderator, Miriam O'Callahan, began the questions.

Kenny, who leads in the polls, insisted that the IMF deal must be renegotiated. "We still don't know the full scope of the stress test on the banks," he said, and won't until the end of March. It could turn out that Irish taxpayers will be due for 100 billion euros in debt from the banks, he warned. Kenny called the situation a "penal taxation level."

Gilmore, whose party may go into coalition with Fine Gael, said, "The choice on Friday will determine the future of the country for the next 20 years." He promised that under Labour, "no family will lose their home" and those with incomes under 100,000 will have no new taxes. Gilmore called the current Irish economic situation "the biggest mess that anyone has ever faced." He offered Labour's program of "three pillars" of jobs, reform of the political system and "fairness."

Gilmore also called for renegotiation of the IMF deal, "a straitjacket on future governments."

Martin was left to defend his Fianna Fail party and to cast suspicion on Fine Gael's "five-point program." "It doesn't add up," Martin said of Kenny's plan to cut government spending by 6.5 billion euros. Kenny is "codding the people by saying there will be 6.5 billion savings, but gives no detail."

As for the IMF deal, Martin said, "Anyone who says they can unilaterally re-negotiate is not honest."

Martin defended Fianna Fail's actions by saying that if the bank guarantees had not been made, "it would have been catastrophic to the banking system."

Kenny countered by saying that if he is elected he will "close down Anglo and Irish Nationwide before the end of the year and sell AIB." He said, "We have enough banks as it is." As things stand, small businesses cannot get "a penny from banks in credit," he said. "It is absolutely critical. We are going nowhere unless we can extend credit to small business."

'We must get the two main banks up and running," Martin said. "AIB and Bank of Ireland have to survive."

In an email to a friend in Cork yesterday, I wished that the best man would win. She replied, "We are all still trying to figure out who is the best man to win the election on Friday -- they are all equally good at spin and ineffective at managing our lovely country."

Bloody Sunday Victims' Brothers Tell Their Story

On the evening after Brooklyn's 39th and last Bloody Sunday March and Mass, two Bloody Sunday victims' brothers joined march organizers and participants for dinner and conversation.

John Kelly and Gerry Duddy had traveled from Derry to be part of the Bay Ridge Irish American Action Association's last march. After 39 years, the 14 unarmed civil rights protesters who were killed by British Army Parachute Regiment soldiers on January 30, 1972, were finally vindicated by the release of the Saville Report on June 15, 2010.

Over dinner, Kelly and Duddy, explained how the victims' families waged an unrelenting campaign to have their loved ones declared "innocent" of any wrong-doing on that Bloody Sunday. They took on the British government and won. "We were a thorn in their side," Duddy said.

Kelly, who was the elder brother of 17-year-old Michael Kelly, said that he never gave up over 38 1/2 years for his mother's sake. His brother's death was devastating for her, and sadly she died before the report was released.

Their lives were taken over by the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign of which they were both founding members. Postcards, letters, visits to politicians, "any door that was open" kept their cause alive through the years between the Widgery Tribunal whitewash and the commencement of the Saville investigation more than 20 years later.

Duddy, whose 17-year-old brother Jackie was killed, was himself 14 years old on the day of the march. "I went this way and my brother went that way," Duddy said. If it had been the other way, and Gerry had been shot, he said, he knows his brother would have done the same for him in seeking justice.

Kelly said that on last June 15, when the families went to the Guildhall in Derry to read the final Saville Report, they had no idea what to expect. Within a few minutes, though solicitors let them know that it was good news -- the "innocent" verdict they had been seeking for years was there.

It was pure joy to look out on the thousands in the Guildhall Square when the news was shared with the world. The families looked out on the crowd and knew the news was spreading worldwide with the great press coverage there.

Kelly invited anyone who visits Derry to stop by and see him at the Free Derry Museum in the Bogside where the Bloody Sunday story is told. He said that some British visitors have come in and are appalled at what happened on January 30, 1972, and apologize to him. But he tells him, it is the government not the people who needed to apologize.

Kelly did say, though, that the families are not finished yet. They want to see the soldiers who were responsible for the murders of their unarmed relatives to be prosecuted. This has nothing to do with monetary compensation they stressed, but everything to with justice.

Last Bloody Sunday March in Brooklyn

Brothers of two Bloody Sunday victims joined the Bay Ridge Irish American Action Association for the last Bloody Sunday Memorial Mass and March in Brooklyn on Feb. 13.

This was their 39th annual memorial of the January 30, 1972, unprovoked killing of 14 unarmed Irish civil rights marchers by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment in Derry, in the North of Ireland.

Jack Kelly and Gerry Duddy, founding members of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, came from Derry to join marchers through the streets of Sunset Park to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica for 1:15 p.m. Mass.

Marchers carried white crosses with the names of Michael Kelly, Jack Duddy, William McKinney, Patrick Doherty, Bernard McGuigan, Gerald McKinney, William Nash, James Wray, Michael McDaid, Gerald Donaghy, John Johnston, Kevin McElhinney, John Young and Hugh Gilmore.

The Clann Eireann Pipe Band led the march from the Irish Haven on Fourth Ave. Father Francis Mulvaney, C.Ss.R., of O.L.P.H. walked along with longtime memorial organizers Mary Nolan, Mary Lennon and Martin Brennan.

Before Mass at O.L.P.H., Jack Kelly, brother of Michael Kelly, described what it was like for families of Bloody Sunday victims last June 15 with the release of the long-awaited Saville Report, which vindicated the victims as “innocent.”

The report acknowledged: no warning was issued to the thousands who marched that day; contrary to their claims, the British Army was not responding to gun attacks or stone throwing; many died while helping other wounded marchers; and the British Army lied and covered up its actions of January 30, 1972.

Kelly thanked the faithful in Brooklyn for their “support of the Bloody Sunday families” through the years. After 38 ½ years of waiting, Kelly said, “the admittance of the truth was one of the greatest moments of my life.” The seven years waiting for the publication of the Saville Report was frustrating, he said. The last witness had been heard in 2004. The report took 5 ½ years to write compared to three months for the original Widgery Tribunal report, a whitewash of the events of Bloody Sunday.

On June 15, two members from each family entered Derry’s Guildhall at 10:30 a.m., where they were given the opportunity to read the Saville Report, which finally acknowledged their relatives were innocent.

“We took on the might of the British establishment and won,” Kelly said. “What we have always known was acknowledged.” Kelly did note there was still the matter of acknowledging that the RUC had planted nail bombs in the pockets of victim Gerald Donaghy. “The Saville Report still left this lie,” he said.

Nevertheless, the release of the report prompted British Prime Minister David Cameron that day to call the shootings “both unjustified and unjustifiable.”
Cameron admitted in a British House of Commons statement, “What happened should never, ever have happened. The families of those who died should not have had to live with the pain and hurt of that day, and a lifetime of loss. Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces. And for that, on behalf of the government – and indeed our country – I am deeply sorry.”

“It was a brilliant day, a day I will never forget,” Kelly said.

Two weeks ago, Derry held its own last Memorial March, with 30,000 participating, Kelly said. “We will still have a Memorial Mass,” he said. “We will still continue commemorating the memory of our loved ones.”

Father Colm Campbell, founder of the New York Irish Center, concelebrated Mass with Father Mulvaney. The Bloody Sunday victims had “lived the Gospel of hungering and thirsting for justice,” Father Campbell said in his homily. He commended the families who through “39 frustrating years of seeking justice, never gave up.”

As each of the 14 names was called out during the prayers of the faithful, Gerry Duddy, brother of Jackie Duddy, echoed in a strong, loud voice, “Innocent.”

Coming Elections in Ireland

Brian Cowen, Irish Taoiseach, has stepped down as leader of Fianna Fail opening the way for new elections and a change in national leadership.

God knows who will take his place. Michael Martin of Fianna Fail? Enda Kenny of Fine Gael? A coalition of Labour with Fine Gael?

After months of the desperate voices of the Irish public, who have been strangled by harsh budget cuts, something had to change. Young families are leaving daily for Canada and Australia. Who will be left there to pick the country up off its knees and rebuild?

As an occasional visitor and photographer of Ireland, it has broken my heart to hear these stories daily on RTE on my computer here in Brooklyn. Hope the Irish people are given a good choice and have a chance for some kind of future so their children can stay in Ireland.