This little island definitely punches above its weight on the world stage, and I can attest to the veracity of that statement.
For over four decades, your humble correspondent and his Irish passport have seen what world the thinks of us Paddies.
Of course, there are quite a few places in the global village where we can find our own.
My Big fella wasn’t long in South Korea before he was turning out for Seoul Gaels.
Abú!
We’re blessed to have him home in this lockdown, but those lads in Korea have lost a handy Cornerback.
It is part of the Irish experience to leave this island and then to return or want to return.
For the avoidance of doubt, the presence of multi-generational Irish communities across the world is often the result of oppressive historical circumstances.
I’ve just finished this tome.
It is a worthy attempt at a massive subject, and at over 700 pages, it isn’t exhaustive.
Across the anglosphere, the most influential Irish community is the one that put down roots in Continental United States in the 19th Century.
There is a British trope that Irish Americans are misty-eyed idealists who wistfully imagine a fantasy Ireland.
That has not been my personal experience.
In the 1980s, I spent a lot of time with family and friends in Boston and Philadelphia, and I found them to be highly knowledgeable about what was happening in Ireland.
This podcast is definitely worth a listen, especially the contribution by Congressman Brendan Boyle.
The last time I was in Philly I had the craic with his brother Kevin.
He’s in the state legislature, and we met at a Celtic presser in the Hyatt hotel in the city.
That was in 2012, just after Rangers had died.
Representative Boyle’s chief of staff, a pleasant young fella, introduced his guy to me.
I then asked the question that almost every 2GI person asks on meeting one of your own:
Where are your people from?
When he said his father was from Gleann Cholm Cille, it took me one other sentence to establish that a man I had worked with there back in the day was Kevin’s first cousin.
Fair to say the chief of staff youngster was utterly gobsmacked.
I trooped out my well-used observation that.
“You see, we Irish aren’t a nation, we’re a tribe!”
It is a cultural reality that the ruling elite in Westminster has never really grasped.
Now, they might pay for that ignorance.
The holy grail of the Brexiteers crouching in their hedge funds is a free trade deal with the USA.
In that scenario, everything is on the table, including US standards ion food and the British NHS.
If this comes to pass then only the chaps in the Square mile and the guys on Wall Street will be smiling.
Still, blue passports I suppose…
Of course, if the UK diverges from the current European Union standards on things like food, then the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the Six-County statelet is once more in sharp focus.
That was meant to have been dealt with by the Withdrawal Agreement which included the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m sure that you’re aware that the Brits have now torn that up with their Internal Market Bill.
Indeed, the British Pro Consul for the Six Countries Brandon Lewis stood at the dispatch box and admitted that the bill, should it become law, would break international law.
Yes, dear reader, you heard that correctly:
“Yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way”.
That sent alarms bell off in DC, and it was time for Irish America to step up.
Even if the Mango Mussolini in the Oval Office wants to do a deal with Boris and his visually impaired consiglieri it isn’t solely in the President’s gift.
He will still have to get it through the Democrat-controlled Congress.
Thank you, Thomas Jefferson!
So, the Brits are in a pincher movement between Brussels and Washington as they prose to break international law and treatment the Belfast agreement.
Brandon Lewis, the lawbreaker, is on Twitter and he took exception to this tweet by Gerry Kelly.
Full disclosure, it is my honour to know a few of the fellas on there who left without giving Prior notice.
Your humble correspondent felt it only fair to point this essential truth out to the Brit direct ruler.
The IRA of my grandfather’s generation was rather fond of gaol breaks too.
When that wasn’t on, they used their time in captivity to turn British penal facilities into Irish Republican universities.
That’s Frongoch internment camp in Wales in 1916.
My father’s uncle Michael is in there somewhere.
Fetching outfits that the guards have …
In his book, Tim Pat Coogan addresses the situation of the multi-generational Irish community that I was born into in the 1950s.
Cinderellas indeed.
I wonder if the cyber warriors who convinced the poor of Britain to vote for Brexit have been able to factor in the cultural clout that Ireland has in Washington.
The Easter Proclamation states that Ireland in that historic moment was
“supported by her exiled children in America and gallant allies in Europe”.
As these words blink to life in Cloich Cheann Fhaola the next parish over is America.
A century ago, those connections were vital to the cause of Ireland; they still are.
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Good luck to Dundalk FC this evening. Tough fixture for the Bhoys this evening. Will pray as usual.
Off topic, Phil, but I felt I had to register my disappointment and disgust to learn that O’Rahilly House in Dublin had been demolished. It seems we have a way to go yet.
It was an appalling act of vandalism by the developer.
Shameful.
Aye. When historical structures of ANY kind are destroyed, I always feel a little bit of the history, good or bad, dies with tbem. It might be in the books, or online, but you need to go and look for it there. It’s not in your face.
Kids can walk past a structure with a parent or grandparent and ask why it’s there, what it represents, or why it’s special. If it’s NOT there, the question doesn’t get asked.
I have a cousin in Ohio. His parents were from Longford and Kerry. Until I advised himotherwise he understood Britain and Ireland to be a single landmass.
Brilliant piece Phil, read it twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
Loved your retort to Lewis.
Chapeau.
Irish influence in the US is no more exaggerated then British influence! The ‘Special Relationship’ suggests parity but is threatened any time the UK disagrees with US policy.
One thing that has been noticed is that the UK concentrate on having good relations with the White House whilst Ireland puts greater emphasis on the Senate and Congress.
I live in Britain and I’m alarmed at what the US will demand in the Brexit trade talks.
It may not be your personal experience of the U.S. Irish diaspora being misty eyed and wistfully imagining a fantasy Ireland, but I have travelled extensively in the U.S. and that is exactly the experience I have of them.
A Hollywood created, fairytale land, that NEVER existed the way it does in their imaginations. A country they will talk of visiting “someday” but probably less than 5% ever will.
The Irish diaspora aside, the knowledge possessed by the average U.S. citizen of ANY country outside their own borders, is so limited it could be written on the back of a stamp with a heavy felt-tip pen. In fact few of them have much experience of anything outside the state they grew up in. Across the entire continent they are in general the most parochial, least cosmopolitan, people I have encountered ANYWHERE in the world.
Hi Phil,
I could tell you stories of neighbours and friends I hadn’t seen in decades that I happened upon in Porter Bellys in Boston, where my old CSC was based. I could tell you of the ridiculously insane relationship of the company I joined when I first arrived in the US. to the company I had just left in Dublin…totally unknown to me at the time. But whats the point…these things probably happen to most Irish emigrants.
Now down here in South Florida, I am with my 2nd generation Greek girlfriend. She often shows me pictures of indescribably beautiful Greek islands. I just tell her “ah but you haven;t seen the stark beauty of Gelcolmbkille, with its wild Atlantic coastline” A place I spent my childhood summers with family friends from Belfast and Dublin, who by the way were, coincidentally, called the O’Boyles. Fantastic memories.
The Irish border is being used by the USA as trading negotiation leverage. Nothing more. Once they’re happy with their deal, Ireland will be dropped like your proverbial mic.
The UK is far more important to the USA than Ireland. Economically, Militarily, politically, culturally, intelligence, power, influence, …… Ireland is a pawn on our chessboard.
You certainly don’t have a big brother looking after you. How politically naive of you. Congressman B is a singular wee voice. Latinos have a bigger say in US Politics, heck Asians have a bigger say than the Irish.
New York/Boston/Philly Irish diaspora do not control the Democrats. It’s simply useful at this point to use them (Irish Democrat’s) as leverage. The US plays dirty and looks out for itself first, always.
Strange you endorse the wonderful USA involvement in Ireland and in the same breath demonize the USA as big baddies over food standards and the NHS. Split personality there.
Ireland has a trade agreement with the US, it involves your food standards and your health service (which doesn’t have a big budget per head in Ireland).
The Irish are lab rats for big pharma. You don’t know what’s being put into you.
The United Kingdom Govt don’t Control the Scottish NHS, it’s controlled by Nicola Sturgeon and the girls. The UK Govt can’t sell it out.
Guess what? Nicola hived off West of Scotland cancer treatment to American big pharma already. Her alma mater, Glasgow University, runs and owns Beatson financed by big pharma. Beatson wards and ‘Beatson private 5 star healthcare’ facilities Were built and get paid by pharma companies in return for working class lab rats to fill them for Testing unapproved unsafe trial drugs.
The beds need to be kept filled.
Poor desperate people get duped into signing themselves contractually out of the NHS and into Beatson. They then get drugs that have zero chance of curing them but are in the developmental stage and cause inhuman pain and side effects. They then die. Beatson are interested greatly in the pain sites and side effects.
Gagging orders are signed by entire families before victims are allowed into these wards. It all works on the gullibility of the working class to trust NHS embedded Beatson oncologists. These people are avid researchers not caring doctors.
NHS oncology wards are kept spartan and old, with steel beds etc.. Worse than general hospital wards, to make the Beatson ward (Individual rooms) look five star. Noise proofed to contain screaming.
Beatson are embedded in 5 west of Scotland nhs health districts; Lanarkshire, Glasgow and Clyde, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, etc.. in the NHS, Beatson are Gatekeepers to NHS drugs that give years of life to the incurable. It costs a lot if an old geezer is kept alive for five years on safe cancer drugs instead of put on high risk trial drugs and dies after three months. ScotGov cannot afford the cancer bill they say they deliver for Scots.
Beatson NHS Oncologists Use various lies to trick patients off standard of care drugs and onto Beatson trial drugs. There’s no options, you’ve bad genes, this is the only hope, this is five star health care,… They get angry and assertive with the cancer victims.
Each lab rat is worth a fortune to big pharma and Beatson. A financial burden is turned into a financial asset.
The global rich (Via private medicine and insurance) benefit from the research and the effective safe drugs that emerge after eight years of tests. Their money goes into the big pharma purse.
Beatson disguises itself as a nice caring charity and is registered in Scotland as such. Takes donations etc… Beatson is also a limited company, this is the mainstay research arm that profits. Check out shareholders at Companies House. Beatson also places Glasgow Uni med school oncologists into the NHS to direct cancer patients into profitable Beatson Research.
The conflict of interest is criminal. Directing people onto early death paths in excruciating pain is murderous. Sturgeon (Lawyer) and her health secretaries, chief Medical Officer, etc… are all Glasgow Uni mafia, Glasgow Uni Med School.
GPs and Cancer nurses in these health authorities are all in on it. Try finding a Surgery without the senior doc being from Glasgow Uni Med School. Of course they are all in on it and looked after, with their families, parents, etc… if get cancer. They get the good stuff.
Beatson in the last few years joined Cancer Research UK. To disguise their acts further as people started to clue up. Beatson realised they weren’t going to cure cancer on their own and reap the billions/trillions of pounds in doing so.
Beatson prefer advanced cancer tumours to research on and people get fobbed off with their symptoms for several months until they are beyond surgery/curative. Legal cases are bought off with family gagging orders. Honest mistakes, telling patients they are cancer free, etc..
The cancer industry is a dirty dirty game, hidden behind smoke and mirrors. Don’t spook the sheep.
Hospices take the human almost dead after the Beatson facilities (outside NHS) have finished experimentation. Bad for business to have place of death on death certificates being Beatson research facilities.
Ask your MSP how many cancer patients signed out of NHS oncology treatment and into Beatson private facilities in last 20 years. Under freedom of information. Then take it from there.
Get a judge to declare Beatson gagging orders unlawful and watch thousands step forward with their stories of loved ones.
The only thing unproven is that they deliberately give people cancer to use them as valuable lab rats. I suppose if the beds start emptying..