Irish America October / November 2014

THE WALL STREET 50

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 CANADA $4.95/ U.S. $3.95

Limerick

City of Culture & Urban Renewal

Paraguay’s Uncrowned Irish Queen

Paris

Where an Irish Presence Lingers

Ireland’s

Quirky Golf Holes As Nature Intended

Emigrant Dreams The Old Country in Black & White

The Big Thriller Anne Rice and Michael Connelly

What Happened?

The Forgotten Sculptor Launt Thompson

Kathleen Lynch The COO of UBS Group Americas and Wealth Management Americas Talks About Work, Family, Heritage and Why She Loves Wall Street

“There’s a universal culture of giving back.”

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October/November 2014 Vol. 29 No. 6

Contents 42

38

90

70 108

74 80

FEATURES

38 DREAMS OF THE OLD COUNTRY

The haunting and distinctive photographs of Richard Fitzgerald.

42 COVER STORY

Kathleen Lynch, COO of UBS, is interviewed by Patricia Harty.

50 THE WALL STREET 50

The 17th annual celebration of the best and the brightest IrishAmerican and Irish-born leaders in the financial industry.

70 QUIRKY GOLF

Tom Coyne, famous for his book, A Course Called Ireland, writes about his favorite quirky Irish golf holes.

74 URBAN REBRANDING

As Ireland’s first City of Culture, Limerick is positioning itself to become a new capital of the arts in the west.

By Adam Farley

COVER PHOTO: KIT DEFEVER

80 LAUNT THOMPSON

How one of the most important post-Civil War sculptors died in obscurity and is buried in an unmarked grave.

By Michael Burke

102 THE BIG THRILL

The former Collège des Irlandais is now the Irish Cultural Center.

Matthew Skwiat traveled to Paris to explore its storied past.

108 WILD IRISH WOMEN

90 LE CENTRE CULTUREL 92 ART AFTER KELLS

A new publication promises to change the way we look at art and architecture in Ireland.

Sharon Ní Chonchúir investigates the five volume tome.

96 WHAT ARE YOU LIKE

Actor Glenn Keogh takes questions from Adam Farley and talks about his favorite places, missing home, and the time he forgot the words to the StarSpangled Banner.

98 WE ARE NOT OURSELVES

Matthew Thomas, whose debut novel is receiving rave reviews, talks to Tom Deignan.

Writers Anne Rice and Michael Connelly spoke to Mary Pat Kelly at the Ninth Annual Thriller Fest in New York.

Rosemary Rogers writes about Eliza Lynch, the uncrowned Queen of Paraguay.

116 HOLY NAME WEDDINGS

Maureen Haugh Farley restores a 150-year-old family tradition of weddings in Brooklyn’s Holy Name of Jesus Christ Church.

DEPARTMENTS 6 8 12 18 88 104 106 110 112

First Word Readers Forum News & Hibernia Irish Eye on Hollywood Roots Books Crossword Sláinte Those We Lost

Enjoy the Waterford Crystal Factory Experience.

Book your tour online today.

To book your factory tour visit waterfordvisitorcentre.com or phone +353 (0)51 317000

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Making the Most of What You’ve Got “Being Irish means being the best you can be by making the most of what you’ve got.

It’s about being loyal to your friends and family, sharing with them all the joys that make life worth living.” – Wall Street 50 Honoree Sean Kelly.

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M.A. KITCHELL

n the 1980s when Kathleen Lynch was On meeting Kathleen Lynch, the COO of making her way to Wall Street, Irish UBS, whose own mother, Norah, was also America was in its infancy. With little money “good at stretching a buck,” I thought and few staff, we all became dab hands at about what it is that we inherit from our multi-tasking. parents – the mapping that’s in our DNA. One of the duties I was charged with was I once heard of a linguist who could keeping accounts. pin-point with some accuracy, the generaLooking back, I probably wasn’t the tion of an Irish American by the inflections best person for the job. and rhythms of speech that had gotten When we finally got an accountant, he passed down from one generation to another. gave us the good news/bad news scenario.

But it’s more than the subset of lanThe bad news was that we owed $20,000 guage that we inherit. It’s gesture, too. I Ireland in the years following the Famine more than what was on the books. The swear to you as Kathleen Lynch stood in and through the middle of the following cengood news was that we had $20,000 more her office, arms folded across her chest, tury, and paid passage for countless family in the bank than recorded. engaged in conversation and listening, I members to join them in America.

So, no problem, right? could picture her maternal grandmother and I once met the descendants of a mill Over the years, I’ve driven our financial aunts standing in front of the hearth fire in worker in Holyoke, MA, who had saved her people dolally with my attitude money, and a few years after she towards money. I could blame emigrated, made a trip home and Sister Dolores who read to us returned with her entire family, from The Lives of the Saints when including her parents and a new she was supposed to be teaching husband! us about bookkeeping, but in fairAs we honor our Wall Street ness, I think my outlook is caused 50, we honor their ancestors too, by something in my DNA – inherwith the knowledge that the many ited from my father. contributions our honorees make Money was never talked about to community programs are done in our household. I would pick up in memory of those who endured. clues as to the state of our finances Of course, if we had listened by watching my father go through to financial advisors we would the mail. As the postman pedaled never have started Irish America his way back down the avenue, Dad with just $50,000 – back in 1985 would slip the brown window we thought it was a lot of money. envelopes – the bills – into his We have survived for almost inside pocket. What my mother The cottage in Donegal where Kathleen’s Lynch’s mother grew up. 30 years because of our loyal didn’t know wouldn’t worry her. readers, advertisers and spon(When my father died, I found a couple the cottage in Donegal where her mother sors. We approach the holiday season of old envelopes in his tweed jacket. On the grew up, and know the stuff of which she knowing that our readership will swell, as back of one, he had written all our names and is made. it does at this time every year, because of dates of births).

(There’s a good reason why the song, “The the gift subscriptions that you give. Thank In contrast to my father Pat, my mother Homes of Donegal,” tells of the welcome you for your continued support and interNorah was marvelous at budgeting. found there.) est in your heritage.

“Take care of the pennies and the pounds Inherited too, as we see from the profiles Congratulations to Kathleen Lynch, who will take care of themselves,” she used to of our honorees, is a work ethic passed will give the keynote address at our Wall say. Though she was careful with money, down from ancestors who left home to Street 50 gala celebration, and to all our mother was never cheap. She went without travel to a place where they could earn a honorees. so that we kids didn’t have to. And always wage, and send money back to those who You do us proud. made sure that we had great presents at stayed behind. (Irish women domestics Christmas. sent millions, in small amounts, back to 6 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

IA Opportunity

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{readers forum} A Positive Attitute Helps When Living With MS Many thanks to Sharon Ní Chonchúir for such a positive piece about having MS. I live in the U.S., and have had MS for over 26 years. I plan to completely follow her suggestions, and I want to find Dr. Jelinek’s book so I can learn more. I have R/R MS and have been taking Avonex (since I just have to deal with a shot/needle once a week). I plan to make exercise a priority, since I can go free of charge to a local gym. Again, many thanks for your positive piece!

– Becky Toney Posted online

Dear Sharon Ní Chonchúir: A friend, whose father was born on the Great Blasket Island, shared your story on Facebook knowing I’d be interested.

Author’s note: I’m so pleased to hear that you’re doing well. The more we share that message, the more hope we give to each other. I’m not anti-medicine. I’m just anti the particular medicine that I was taking.

If a better option came up and I could see that it might help, I’d be willing to try it.

For now though, lifestyle changes seem to be enough. Stay well and happy.

–Sharon Ní Chonchúir

When it’s More Than Just a Sore Tummy Great article on Crohn’s disease by Darina Molloy. Thank you. I’m from Tralee, Co. Kerry, and would appreciate the support. I have Crohn’s disease and an Ileostomy. Please visit my support page on Facebook: #crohnssupporttralee.

– Finbarr Griffin Posted online

Great Issue I enjoyed the latest issue, especially the article “My Grandfather’s War.” I was also delighted to see Gina McCarthy on the cover and learn more about her. And then there was Mary Beth Keane’s article about her father, and the warning of the perils of being pale (think it’s probably time to visit a dermatologist!). All in all, just a great issue – really dense with meaty, well-crafted articles.

– Megan Smolenyak Received via email

Gina McCarthy It was extremely interesting to see how Gina McCarthy skirted the fracking question. Still, your interview with her gave me hope for the future.

–Sarah Buscher Received by email

About the Climate . . .

ABOVE: Sharon Ní Chonchúir who wrote about living with M.S. in the Aug./Sept. issue.

TOP: Major William “Bill” Egan of the Royal Army Medical Corps who saw action in WWI.

I was diagnosed in 2006 and was advised to get on medication right away.

I did, and I follow a diet of no red meat, fish, chicken, and veggies. I try to stay away from the fried foods but not always.

I could be better. But I feel great!

I work as a registered nurse. I am involved in my community, family and even the MS society. I feel we must have a positive outlook and support. I also found out it does not matter who knows I have this disease, I’m okay with it, and I am going to continue to live my life as it was intended. I still have plenty more to do and accomplish. Being on meds does make a difference. It keeps the disease at bay. I have been on most of them, but it’s been worth it. Thanks for your article.

– Kim, submitted online

8 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

My Grandfather’s War Being an historian, I read Patricia Harty’s article “My Grandfather’s War” with intense interest. She captured why we should know and care about our ancestors. But then how did she and her present family get to the U. S. and when? I hope she will write a sequel.

– Harolyn Enis Received by email

Author’s note: Thank you for you comments. I emigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s but still have lots of family in Ireland.

Ireland is a beautiful and impressive place to admire nature but I’m not sure where you are getting your information about climate change or what used to be called global warming. It seems that there has been no increase in temperature or global warming since 1996. The predicted timing of the melting of the North Pole has long since past, and the reality is the polar ice cap is growing in both area and thickness.

Hopefully this winter will be easier on those in the Wicklow Mountains and the snow won’t cause as many problems as this past winter.

– Brian O’Shea, Posted online

Visit us online at Irishamerica.com to leave your comments, or write to us: Send a fax (212-244-3344), e-mail (submit@irishamerica.com) or write to Letters, Irish America Magazine, 875 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001.

Letters should include the writer’s name, address and phone number and may be edited for clarity and length.

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Vol.29 No.6 • October / November 2014

IRISH AMERICA Mórtas Cine Michael Burke who writes about Launt Thompson in this issue, is the author of a biography on Fitz-James O’Brien, an Irish born writer who died in the American Civil War. He is currently doing research for a biography on John Mackay and the Mackay family.

Rosemary Rogers, who writes about “Wild Irish Woman” Eliza Lynch in this issue, has collaborated with fellow humorist Sean Kelly on the bestseller, Saints Preserve Us! (Random House).

Their other books include: Who in Hell?

A Guide to the Whole Damn Bunch; The Birthday Book of Saints, and How to be Irish. Rogers is currently working with Kelly and Alberto Patrick Forero on a book about empires and their corrosive legacy.

Tom Coyne is the author of A Gentleman's Game, Paper Tiger, and The New York Times bestseller, A Course Called Ireland. He lives in Philadelphia where he is an assistant professor of English at St. Joseph’s University.

Tom Deignan writes columns about movies and history for Irish America, and is a regular columnist and book reviewer for the Newark Star-Ledger. In this issue, he interviews writer Matthew Thomas.

Mary Pat Kelly is an author and filmmaker whose latest novel Of Irish Blood, a sequel to her bestselling Galway Bay, will be available in February 2015. For this issue, she talked to writers Michael Connolly and Anne Rice.

Sharon Ní Chonchúir, who investigates the fivevolume tome Art and Architecture of Ireland in this issue, is a journalist from the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. She writes about health, education and the people, places, and changing culture of Ireland.

Matthew Skwiat is a Ph.D. student at Drew University in New Jersey concentrating on late nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish history and literature. He is also an adjunct English lecturer at Kean University, and a contributing editor at Irish America. He writes about the former Collège des Irlandais, now the Irish Cultural Center, in Paris.

10 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Pride In Our Heritage

Founding Publisher: Niall O’Dowd

Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief: Patricia Harty Vice President of Marketing: Kate Overbeck Deputy Editor: Adam Farley

Art Director: Marian Fairweather

Advertising & Events Coordinator & Music Editor: Tara Dougherty Copy Editor: John Anderson

Contributing Editor Matthew Skwiat

Financial Controller: Kevin M. Mangan Editorial Assistant: Mary Egan

IRISH AMERICA

875 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 201, New York NY 10001 TEL: 212-725-2993 FAX: 212-244-3344

Subscriptions: 1-800-582-6642 E-MAIL:

submit@irishamerica.com

www.irishamerica.com

Irish America Magazine ISSN 08844240) © by Irish America Inc. Published bi-monthly. Mailing address: P.O. Box 1277, Bellmawr, NJ 08099-5277.

Editorial office: 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001. Telephone: 212-725-2993. Fax: 212-244-3344 E-mail: Irishamag@aol.com. Subscription rate is $21.95 for one year.

Subscription orders: 1-800-582-6642.

Subscription queries: 1-800-582-6642, (212) 725-2993, ext. 150.

Periodicals postage paid at New York and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster please send address changes to Irish America Magazine, P.O. Box 1277, Bellmawr, NJ 08099-5277.

IRISH AMERICA IS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

For museum information, pFl o e ra sm e uvsiesui tm wi w g ha m n fwo.ri m t i .oonr,g please visit www.ighm.org 3011 Whit n ey Aven u e • H a m d en , Con n ec t icu t 3011 Whit n ey Aven u e • H a m d en , Con n ec t icu t Untitled-1 1

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PEOPLE

| HERITAGE | EVENTS | ARTS | ENTERTAINMENT

Marching Towards Compromise:

Gay group to take part in NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade

A

decision announced in early September by the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, will allow some gays to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, specifically the NBC-affiliated LGBT group OUT@NBCUniversal.

The announcement has been seen by many as a change of heart towards the gay community by the organizers, who have long claimed that the parade is a Catholic parade.

The 2014 Parade made headlines last March when NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio refused to participate and Irish beer icon Guinness dropped sponsorship because the LGBT community were not allowed to participate.

A softening of conservative attitudes towards the gay community seems to be taking place within the Catholic Church.

Last year, Pope Francis, when asked about gays seeking God, said, “Who am I to judge?”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who will serve as the 2015 Grand Marshal of the Parade, offered nothing but “confidence and support” to the parade committee,

saying in a press release, “I have no trouble with the decision at all. I think the decision is a wise one.”

However, some Catholics are dissatisfied with Dolan’s statement, seeing it as incompatible with Catholic doctrine.

Phil Lawler, the editor and founder of Catholic World News, rebuked Dolan and the committee’s decision saying, “You don’t honor a saint by encouraging a sin.”

And the “Catholic Citizens of Illinois” sent an open letter to Cardinal Dolan asking him to step down because of the “great probability of misunderstandings, confusion and scandal among the faithful.”

Cardinal Dolan has remained resolute.

Meanwhile, opposition has also broken out within the gay and lesbian community, where many found the decision politically motivated and insincere, noting that only one gay group was asked to march.

Nathan Schaefer, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, told The Washington Post that the parade committee’s announcement was “disappointing and self serving,” adding that it “is a far stretch from the full inclusion we deserve.”

MARIA WALSH: THE GAY NEW ROSE OF TRALEE

he annual Rose of Tralee festival concluded in August with the crowning of a winner, Maria Walsh.

The stunning new Rose, a native of Boston, beat out 31 other Roses to win the title.

The announcement of the winner coincided with a revelation that Walsh was gay.

After her crowning, Walsh sat down with The Sun newspaper and revealed her sexual orientation saying, “I am confident in who I am as a person.”

The Rose of Tralee festival began in the 1950s and takes place every year in Tralee, Co. Kerry. Its reputation has spread far and wide, and Irish communities all over the world send representatives to the festival.

Walsh’s revelation brought a touch of modern life to the festival, which has been accused of being old-fashioned and out of touch. Not so, Walsh said, telling The Irish Times, “I know the 31 other Roses who shared this moment with me are very far from old-fashioned. These women are classy,

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12 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who will lead the 2015 New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade up Fifth Avenue.

Members of Irish Queers held a news conference on the steps of the New York Public Library in Manhattan and called on OUT@NBC to withdraw from the parade.

While divisiveness seems widespread, compromise seems possible. Irish LGBT activist Brendan Fay remained positive that both sides will be able to come to an agreement telling The Irish Voice, “our message to the Parade Committee is that we would prefer to build a bridge than drive a wedge.” – M.S.

and intelligent.”

Walsh’s announcement makes her the first openly gay Rose, and her declaration was greeted with enthusiasm throughout social media and in print.

Former government minister Mary O’Rourke referenced the song, “The Rose of Tralee,” saying Walsh epitomized the words, “It was the truth in her eyes ever dawning,” which Walsh said was “lovely.”

The Rose of Tralee executive chairman Anthony O’Gara had noting but positive things to say about Walsh.

He described her as “A wonderful person. An attractive, intelligent woman, and a very worthy winner who happens to be gay.”

While there may be some who continue to denounce homosexuality in biblical terms, for the most part the Irish greeted Walsh’s announcement as no big deal. – M.S.

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{news from ireland} RYANAIR ANNOUNCES $22 BILLION BOEING PURCHASE

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he Dublin-based budget airline Ryanair announced in early September the purchase of 100 new models of Boeing’s 737, with an option to purchase 100 more.

The deal is valued at over $22 billion.

Ryanair is the first airline to buy the new aircraft, according to The New York Times.

Boeing’s new 737s are designed to fit even more passengers in the single-aisle frame – where the existing maximum is 189, the so-called 737 Max 200, will, per its title, be able to accommodate (or squeeze) up to 11 more passengers. Ryanair, however, will only be adding eight seats, avoiding the cost of adding an additional exit door and crew member that would be required if the full seating capacity was utilized.

According to Ryanair, it will do so by using less-bulky seats that do not recline and eliminating the front and rear galleys.

But, while you may be appropriately concerned about the legroom, already a persistent cause for concern among flyers of Europe’s budget airlines, Michael O’Leary said that’s not the case, calling the new planes a “gamechanger.” He said they “will allow Ryanair to lower our costs and airfares, while improving our customer experience with more leg room and the Boeing Sky Interior, as we roll out new offers, particularly for our Business Plus and Family Extra customers,” according to The Irish Independent. The current average legroom on Ryanair planes is 30 inches.

When the 737 Maxes were announced in July of this year, Boeing’s CEO Raymond L. Conner said that they would reduce airline operating costs by five percent, a savings that Ryanair hopes to pass on to its customers. “My hope is that it will hasten an era of a new price war in Europe, which, like all the old price wars, Ryanair will win,” O’Leary said. Let’s hope our knees do too. – A.F.

Claire Molloy in the third-place game against France in August’s Women’s Rugby World Cup at Stade Jean-Bouin in Paris.

IRELAND FINISHES FOURTH, BUT FIGHTING

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he Women’s Rugby World Cup took place in France in August, and the Irish team, true to form, upset the whole tournament, even if they didn’t make it to the podium.

It started with a quarter-finals match against the New Zealand All Blacks, who have won the last four World Cups, and were expected to make it an unprecedented fifth victory. The All Blacks, in fact, hadn’t lost a World Cup match in 23 years.

But the Irish team, led by captain Fiona Coghlan, put an end to that streak, beating the Black Ferns 17-14. Of course, going into the tournament, England was poised as New Zealand’s most able challenger.

But with the win against the Southern

Hemisphere foes, Ireland took their spot in the semi-finals against England.

That’s where the upsets ended, unfortunately, with a less comfortable 7-40 loss to the Queen’s team. In the third-place match against host-team France, the game was anybody’s until the 65th minute when Le Bleu earned a penalty. For the last 15 minutes, the Irish just couldn’t come back, ultimately losing 25-18.

But despite the loss, the team has increased not only the profile of rugby in Ireland, but women’s sports in general.

“Any publicity is good,” Coghlan told The Irish Times. “If we’re being commented on how we play, good or bad, that’s what we want.” – A.F.

Rory McIlroy Wins PGA Championship

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ory McIlroy, the worldrenowned Northern Irish golfer, won the 96th annual PGA championship on August 11 at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, KY. In a closely fought match that was anyone’s game, McIlroy, currently the number one golf player in the world, defeated Phil Mickelson by one shot. Throughout the competition the lead went back and forth between McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson, and Henrik Stenson.

Afterwards, McIlroy said of the match, “Today wasn’t easy. I didn’t get off to the best of starts. The guys came at me quickly. I had to bide my time and make something happen.”

Something did happen, and with his victory, the 25-year-old McIlroy now becomes the third-youngest person to win four majors in the modern era,trailing only Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.

Rory, who is from County Down in Northern Ireland, has been taking the

golf world by storm ever since he was coached by his dad Gerry as a young boy.

Since he topped the amateur league in 2007 at age 17, McIlroy has won just about every golf title there is.

Upon his win, McIlroy was ecstatic saying, “I didn’t think in my wildest dreams I’d have a summer like this. I think I showed a lot of guts out there to get this done.” – M.S. OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 IRISH AMERICA 13

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Jackie Kennedy Letters Returned to Kennedys

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he private letters of Jacqueline Kennedy to an Irish priest caused controversy last May when the Vincentian Fathers at All Hallows College in Dublin announced they were being put up for auction. The letters, written between 1950 and 1965 to Rev. Joseph

Leonard, a resident of All Hallows, were subsequently removed from the auction, and their fate had been uncertain until the announcement made by the college.

The letters, some of which were reviewed by The Boston Globe, contained details of Jackie Kennedy’s life with JFK, discussion of her youthful aspirations and ambitions (she and Rev. Leonard met when she was just 21), and intimate expressions of her grief after the assassination of her husband in 1963.

The transfer “has taken place with regard to the respect due to what is correspondence of a private nature,” the Fathers said in a statement, adding, “We will be making no further comment on this matter.” The 172-year-old and cash-strapped college subsequently announced that they would be closing, citing the decision to cancel the auction as a major factor, according to RTÉ.

– A.F.

CHICAGO ACTRESS MOLLY GLYNN KILLED IN STORM

olly Glynn, a renowned, red-headed, and slightly subversive Chicago stage actress, died September 6th at NorthShore Evanston Hospital in Illinois after a bike ride turned fatal. The 46year-old actress was cycling in a forest park with her husband Joe Foust, another Chicago actor, when a tree felled by a swift-moving powerful thunderstorm struck her as they tried to pedal to safety. She was taken to the Evanston hospital but did not recover.

Glynn was born the youngest of four in Hartford, CT and attended Tufts University in Massachusetts, but spent nearly all of her professional career in the Windy City, including roles on television shows that filmed in the city, including “Chicago Fire.” On stage, she

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COLIN BARRETT WINS 2014 ROONEY PRIZE FOR FICTION

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rish short story writer and Mayo native Colin Barrett was recently awarded the 2014 Rooney Prize for Irish literature for his new book, Young Skins. The event took place at the Provost House in Trinity College this past September. Barrett’s short stories have been greeted with enthusiasm from critics all over Ireland. Chris Power from The Guardian called it “an extraordinary debut short story collection.” It has since appeared on the long list for The Guardian’s “First Book Award,” which Donal Ryan win last year for The Spinning Heart. Among Barrett’s other honors this year is the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award which made him the second only Irish winner of the award, the other being Edna O’Brien. John Williams, one of the committee members of the Rooney Prize, described Barrett’s book as a “shimmering debut.”

Guests at the Rooney Prize ceremony included Patricia Rooney and Former US Ambassador to Ireland and Pittsburgh Steelers owner, Dan Rooney. The Rooney prize was created in 1976 by Rooney to honor Irish writers under forty. Past awardees have included Kevin Barry and Colum McCann.

Barrett’s writing style has been compared to other authors such as Kevin Barry, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.

Barrett was nothing but grateful, thanking the committee for its “perspicacity and good taste,” before offering a reading from his book. The Rooney Prize for Literature is valued at €10,000 and includes a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. – M.S. 14 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

was a champion of subtle acting and often brought new, feminist sophistication to her roles. Most memorable, perhaps, was 2003’s Steppenwolf Theatre’s “Orange Flower Water,” which focused on the breakdown of a marriage in the midst of explicit sexuality and nudity.

BJ Jones, artistic director of the Northlight Theater with whom Glynn frequently worked, mourned the loss of not only a groundbreaking actress, but a uniquely compassionate member of the Chicago theater scene. “Molly was a mother, an actress, a wife,” he told The Chicago Tribune. “She assumed the mantle of councilor and confidant for young actors. She made everyone feel like she was there for them.” – A.F.

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CREDIT: ALLAN TANNENBAUM

Northern Irish Filmmaker Chronicling the Rebuilding of the World Trade Center

16 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

CREDIT: THE PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY

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orthern Irish filmmaker and artist Marcus Robinson’s award winning, mixed media documentary “Rebuilding the World Trade Center” debuted on the History Channel September 11th, in a two-hour special. A project eight years in the making, which chronicles the construction of One World Trade Center from laying the foundation to the topping of the spire, was screened on Channel 4 in the U.K. in 2013 to critical and public acclaim.

On September 3rd at a screening event on the 68th floor of 4 World Trade Center, Robinson was presented with a BAFTA Television Craft Award for Photography – Factual by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts New York. Remarkably though, the project isn’t actually complete, and the two-hour History Channel special is just one part of a far greater artistic endeavor that mixes painting, sketches, film and digital imagery into a complete installation designed to open in conjunction with the completion of the entire World Trade Center site.

As with any work of this scale, Robinson is supported by numerous organizations, including Tourism Ireland, History Channel, BAFTA, Invest Northern Ireland, NI Bureau, and is being produced by Lion television. Gary Hanley, head of Invest Northern Ireland Americas, said Robinson represents a new era for creative artists in Northern Ireland (even though he’s working in the U.S.).

“His vision, tenacity, and determination is yet another example of the world class talent and creativity of our people,” he said.

“It’s a labor of love and it’s a labor of total commitment,” Robinson says in the film

Robinson, who has created several documentaries on other large-scale construction projects, focuses as much on the site, its memory, and the reconstruction process as he does on the workers who are laboring to erect the edifice. Doing so, he presents voices not often heard in the debates around national consciousness, collective grief, and the symbolism of the site. But Robinson wants viewers to know they’re a part of it, from ironworkers to carpenters.

“They are healing a scar in the bedrock of the city, in its skyline,” he says. “And in many ways what they are doing is part of a much greater act of rebuilding and healing.”

“Rebuilding” focuses heavily on their personal stories too, many of which include a family history of construction work.

For a lot of workers, their parents or grandparents helped build the original World Trade Center, giving this project a sense of collective closure and enduring legacy.

“We work out in the rain, the sun, the snow, and for the rest of my life or my children’s lives, I can say, ‘You know grandma or mommy helped build this building,’” Chantelle Campbell, a carpenter with Rogers and Son, says in the film.

But it’s not all serious, and Robinson captures the difficulty and comedy of constructing such a high profile building. The trailer for “Rebuilding” has Scott Zelenak, chief of surveyors for the Port Authority at the TOP: Marcus Robinson on site at the World Trade Center in 2011. ABOVE: Topping the spire of One World World Trade Center, touching on Trade Center, May 10, 2013. the constant struggle between trailer. He arrived on site in 2006 and set up engineers and designers.

13 time-lapse cameras around the site to “We’re talking about four or five of the document its progress. At first though, he world’s tallest buildings in one spot. The arwas unsure how his project would be re- chitects, the designers, the things that they ceived by the construction workers he are trying to do, are fantastic, believe me it’s sought to capture in action. utterly beautiful. But to be the guy who has “I didn’t know how guys were going to to put it together? It’s a helpless hopeless react if I turned up with pencils and paper… task,” he laughs.

And I was drawing and there were three “I don’t know how people go home at towering figures above me and they all the end of the day and say ‘I just put up a looked down and seemed interested in what 200-ton column.’ Where else does that I was doing and one guy said, ‘look, how happen?” would I get a drawing like that?’”

– Adam Farley

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{ irish eye on hollywood}

By Tom Deigan

Dublin native Samantha Power is now a high-ranking member of the Obama administration, currently serving as Ambassador to the United Nations, a demanding position at a time of great instability across the globe. In October, Power will be prominently featured in a documentary entitled W atchers o f the Sky, which won numerous awards at the recent Sundance Film Festival and is well-timed given the humanitarian issues the film raises. Watchers of the Sky tells the story of Raphael Lemkin, himself an immigrant to the U.S., from Poland.

Lemkin is credited as the first person to use the word “genocide” and used his legal talents to become an activist against what he termed “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.” Lemkin went on to play a key role in the Nuremburg trials (which exposed Nazi atrocities) and helped create the International Criminal Court. Prior to her government work, Samantha Power herself was an activist and scholar whose books, such as the Pulitzer Prize winning A Problem from Hell, explored genocide, and how America and the world should respond. Given recent terrible events in Syria and elsewhere, Watchers of the Sky is very much a timely film.

vampire legend created by Irish author Bram Stoker. Starring Welsh actor Luke Evans, Dracula Untold focuses on the origin story of the infamous vampire, focusing on the real-life 15th Century Romanian who became known as “Vlad the Impaler,” and is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Stoker.

On a decidedly lighter note in October, Idol style crowd pleaser O ne C hance, and Bill Murray teams up with Irish star Chris O’Dowd and Irish American Melissa McCarthy for the October comColm Meaney stars in the American-

TOP: Samantha Power RIGHT: Colm Meaney

edy St. Vincent. St. Vincent features McCarthy as a stressedout Mom and Murray as perhaps the world’s least qualified baby sitter. St. Vincent also stars Naomi Watts and Terrence Howard.

Finally, October will see the long-awaited release of G o ne G irl, based on Irish American writer Gillian Flynn’s best selling novel, as well as a special 75th Anniversary theatrical release of G o ne W ith the W ind, based on Margaret Mitchell’s blockbuster book, which introduced the world to Irish American heroine Scarlett O’Hara.

Gillian Flynn

Another dark movie about international violence (also featuring Irish talent) is 1,000 Times G o o d Night. Also hitting theaters in October, 1,000 Times Good Night features U2 drummer Larry Mullen in his latest acting role, as well as Irish actress Mary Doyle Kennedy (best known from the TV shows The Tudors and Orphan Black).

Filmed in Ireland, 1,000 Times Good Night stars Juliette Binoche as an ambitious war photographer forced to choose between her dangerous work and her family

Wicklow-reared actor and Transformers star Jack Reynor has been added to the star-studded

In keeping with this dark October for Irish acting talent, Cavan-born Diarmaid Murtagh as well as Northern-Irish-raised Will Houston are among the stars of Dracula Unto ld, the latest retelling of the 18 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

cast being assembled for a new film version of the Rudyard Kipling classic Jungle Book. Entitled Jungle Bo o k: O rigins (and in 3-D, of course), Reynor joins Benedict Cumberbatch, Christian

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Jim Sheridan

Bale and Cate Blanchett, among others. The film will be directed by Planet of the Apes star Andy Serkis and will combine animation sequences with live action scenes. Jungle Book is about a boy named Mowgli living in the wilds of India, who is befriended by most (but not all) of the animals in the jungle. Threats come not only from a particularly fearsome tiger named Shere Khan, but also from Mowgli’s fellow humans. Look for the big budget Jungle Book: Origins to hit theaters in the Fall of 2016.

Jack Reynor is certainly keeping busy, since he is also slated to appear in a new version of Macbeth (along with fellow Irish actor Michael Fassbender) as well as the film based on Irish writer Sebastian Barry’s novel Secret Scripture.

Reynor also stars, alongside Toni Collette, in the much-acclaimed film from Kerry director Gerard Barrett. Entitled G lassland, this bleak film explores a Dublin family wracked by addiction. Glassland shared top film honors at this summer’s Galway Film Fleadh along with another drama, this one about schizophrenia, entitled Patrick’s Day. Glassland presented star Toni Collette with a challenge that has sunk many other actors: the Dublin accent.

“I loved the script but I was very nervous about doing the accent,” she told Britain’s Express newspaper. “I arrived on the set and sat down with a dialect coach and turned myself into a knot. I actually called my husband and cried and said, ‘I cannot do this, I think they are going to have to re-cast’. It freaked me out so much but I relaxed and just did it.” Keep an eye out for the U.S. release of Glassland and Patrick’s Day. On to TV news, Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley (Game of Thrones) will star in the new season of Resurrection on ABC television. The fantasy show revolves (as the title suggests) around a dead person who comes back to life, and the complications that ensue and the secrets that are subsequently revealed. Fairley, who also starred in the Fox series 24: Live Another Day, will portray Margaret Langston, who (according to Variety magazine) “who has been dead for over three decades.” She is “the formidable matriarch of the Langston clan and mother of Henry and Fred (Kurtwood Smith, Matt Craven). Her return and knowledge of the family’s dark past will have consequences for the entire family.”

Fairley, who also appeared in Philomena, will also star Michelle Fairley alongside fellow Irish actor Cillian Murphy in the March 2015 release In the Heart of the Sea, directed by Ron Howard.

Irish director (In the Name of the Father) Jim Sheridan is

also looking to conquer TV. Sheridan is reportedly working on adapting his film In America for long-form television.

Sheridan was recently quoted in the Irish Independent as saying: “It could be HBO, but I don’t want to say for definite before we sign the deal. I want to tell the story of illegal aliens; the people on the edges of American society. It will focus on the Irish community in the States.” In America, starring Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton, from 2002, explored the ups and downs of an undocumented Irish family in New York City.

Sheridan will also be honored at the fourth annual Irish Film New York (IFNY) event in New York, which will run from October 3-5.

Irish-born Director John Moore has signed John Moore

TOP: Jack Reynoe.

ABOVE: Toni Collette

on to direct another action flick, this one entitled The Hunters.

Moore, a Dundalk native, has previously directed A Good Day to Die Hard, Behind Enemy Lines and Max Payne. The Hunters is based on Chris Kuzneski’s bestselling novel about an elite team of treasure seekers. Moore recently said The Hunters reminded him of “the kind of great action movies I grew up on like ‘Lethal Weapon’ - great characters and smart dialogue.”

After appearing in the Irish comedy Life’s a Breeze (released in the U.S. in September), legendary actress Fionnula Flanagan will lend her vocal talents to an animated film entitled Song of the Sea. Brendan Gleeson and Patt Short (he also appeared in Life’s a Breeze) also star in the film, directed by Kilkenny artist Tomm Moore. Song of the Sea follows Ben and Saoirse who live in a lighthouse with their grieving, widowed father, and the magic shell they find that opens up a whole new world for them. Look for Song of the IA Sea in December.

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The

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ugust 12th marked the 100th anniversary of the death of John Philip Holland, a Clare man recognized as “the father of the modern submarine.” Much of Holland’s pioneering work on submarines was done after he emigrated to the United States in 1873.

Despite many challenging times and rough currents, Holland persevered for decades to refine and perfect his vision of a submersible craft.

For all his life, the sea was an essential element of Holland’s life. It started with his father, John Holland, who patrolled the headlands of Clare as a “riding officer,” essentially a roving coastal patrolman with the British Coastguard Service.

While reports differ as to whether Holland was born on Feb. 29, 1840 or Feb. 24, 1841, there is no doubt about where he came into the world – on the wild Atlantic coastline of Liscannor, just north of Lahinch.

As a well-known ballad about Holland, often sung by the late Micho Russell of Doolin, County Clare, explains: It was in Liscannor he was born in the wild west coast of Clare, Not far from the Cliffs of Moher that hangs so high in the air.

Liscannor Bay stretches far away, from Hag’s Head to Rineen, For young John Philip Holland who invented the submarine.

Holland attended St. Macreehy’s National School and then the Christian Brothers School (C.B.S.) in the nearby town of Ennistymon. During the Great Hunger, he 20 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

By Teresa O’Dea Hein

lost one of his younger brothers, Robert, and two uncles to the illnesses (fever, dysentery and smallpox) that swept the country.

In 1852, his father retired and the family moved to Limerick where Holland studied at the Limerick C.B.S. When the elder Holland died soon after, John Philip ended up teaching in a number of Christian

Brothers schools in Ireland to help with the family finances. Ultimately, Holland joined the Christian Brothers and took the name of Brother Philip.

On November 3, 1858, Brother Philip was assigned to the North Monastery school in Cork where he met Brother

James Dominic Burke, Limerickman and noted science teacher, who was the founder of vocational training in Ireland. Burke encouraged Holland in his plans for a submarine and as early as 1859, Holland completed his first drafts of a sub, a design he never radically changed.

Over the years, the inventive Holland also built a number of useful items at the schools where he taught.

Ill health forced him to leave the Christian Brothers in 1873. By then, Holland’s mother and two brothers had emigrated to Boston. He booked passage – in steerage – to meet them there, and worked for a time with an engineering firm.

Ultimately, Holland joined St. John’s Parochial School in Paterson, New Jersey, as a lay teacher again under the auspices of the Christian Brothers.

Funding to continue development of his submarine came through Holland’s brother, Michael, who was involved with the Fenian movement. The Fenians and the inventor teamed up in an effort to build a submarine to use against the British Navy.

Throughout the next two decades, Holland worked with a number of corporate backers to advance his submarine prototypes, and achieved a level of success that was shadowed at the same time by financial and bureaucratic struggles.

Finally, on St. Patrick’s Day, 1898, Holland’s first successful, full-fledged trial run of diving and surfacing, while underway in his Holland VI, occurred off Staten Island, New York.

A demonstration 10 days later for the U.S. Navy convinced then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to recommend the purchase of a Holland submarine. Despite the support of such an in-

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Opposite page: John Philip Holland stands in the hatch of his submarine.

LEFT: Design plans for Holland I. BELOW: The Holland VI, built at Lewis Nixon’s Crescent Shipyard of Elizabeth, New Jersey for Mr. Holland as his sixth personal submarine.

fluential figure, it would be another two years before the Navy finally contracted to go ahead with the deal.

On April 11, 1900, the date now celebrated as the birthday of the U.S. Submarine Force, the Navy finally bought Holland VI – for $150,000, just half of its design cost.

(Though the Navy did quickly order seven more).

On October 12, 1900, the Navy’s first submarine was officially commissioned as USS Holland (later SS-1).

The 53-ft.-long submersible incorporated the submarine design principles Holland had validated in the Fenian Ram 20 years earlier, and became the prototype for virtually all modern submarines.

Other countries, including Great Britain, and the Netherlands, later purchased Holland’s submarine designs. Holland built two subs for Japan that were used against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, earning him the Rising Sun from the Emperor of Japan for his contribution to the Japanese naval victory.

Over the years, the U.S. Navy named two submarine tenders for John Holland: USS Holland (AS-3), commissioned in 1926; and a second USS Holland (AS-32), commissioned in 1963.

Holland died at the age of 73 on August 12, 1914, from pneumonia, in Newark, N.J. He was survived by his wife of 27 years, the former Margaret Foley of Paterson,

N.J., along with three sons and one daughter. Two other daughters and one son had predeceased him.

Holland is buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in the suburb of Totowa, New Jersey, just a mile from the Passaic River where he first tested Holland I in 1878.

His gravestone, redone in 1976, includes a sculptural version of an iconic photo – characterized by Holland’s walrus mustache and bowler hat – as he emerged from the conning tower of Holland VI. In 1964, a plaque was erected in Liscan-

nor commemorating the 15th anniversary of his passing. Castle Street has also been renamed Holland Street in his honor.

To mark Holland’s anniversary back in North Clare, Liscannor Development Committee hosted a program on Sunday, August 31, as part of Heritage Week 2014.

The day’s events at Liscannor Harbor featured the unveiling of a commemorative stone, a talk on Holland’s life, a film showcasing his achievements, a photo and children’s art exhibition, and music and songs of the sea.

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Irish American Inspired the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

I

f you found yourself staring down an ice cold bucket of water ready to be dumped on your head this summer remember, first, that it was for a good cause, and second, that it was Irish-inspired. The ALS ice bucket challenge that has left everyone from politicians and celebrities to school teachers and grandparents soaking wet was created by Pat Quinn, an Irish American from Yonkers who was diagnosed with the deadly disease last year. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurodegenerative disorder that attacks the body’s muscle and brain nerves leading to trouble speaking, swallowing, and breathing. The disease usually attacks those 50 or over with an average life span of 3 to 4 years.

Quinn, however, was not going to let that stop him. He, along with his friend from Boston College Pete Frates, decided to raise awareness for this heartbreaking and deadly

disease. Quinn who is 31, recently told The Irish Voice, “I wasn’t going to take the diagnosis lying down.” He immediately took action with his contact list and social media.

He helped spread word around Iona College in New Rochelle, with Frates tackling the Boston area. Quinn’s Irish connections certainly helped out as Rory Dolan’s Bar and Restaurant in Yonkers was one of the first places to host an ALS fundraiser.

As the bucket challenge continues to dominate the social media world, fundraising for ALS has skyrocketed. As of September 4th, ALS have received $108.4 million in fundraising contributions. This number, while impressive, doesn’t cover the millions more raised around the world to fight the disease. While there is no known cure or any major treatment for ALS, the fundraising efforts can expand awareness about the debilitating disease, and hopefully find a cure. –M.S.

Virtual Reality for Ulysses

U

IMAGE: JAMESJOYCE.IE

pon completion of his masterpiece Ulysses, James Joyce told his French translator Jacques Benoîst-Méchin, “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” Joyce’s prescient words have proven all too true as his famous novel continues to perplex, astound, and flabbergast his ablest critics. Ulysses’ mystique as an impenetrable tome and a challenge for millions of readers who have attempted to climb the formidable literary mountain and found themselves retreating in frustration are in for a treat thanks to Irish filmmaker Eoghan Kidney who is set to design a virtual reality game based on Joyce’s famous novel.

It’s titled “Ulysses: Proteus,” named after a chapter from the book, and it will employ an Oculus Rift headset for a virtual visionary experience where the player wanders across Dublin in the guise of Stephen Dedalus on that famous day of June 16, 1904. For those who always meant to read Ulysses and haven’t gotten around to it, you can now play it, as the game will hopefully combine the prose of Joyce with an interactive e-book style format that will open up readers and gamers alike to a whole new Joycean world. – M.S.

22 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Twenty Years After the IRA Ceasefire

A

ugust 31 marked the 20th anniversary of the 1994 IRA ceasefire that paved the way for the ending of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the beginning of the Good Friday Agreement. This historic event is being celebrated all over Ireland and America as the world remembers this historic moment. Niall O’Dowd, co founder of Irish America and founder of Irishcentral.com, offered nothing but jubilation when he recalled hearing the Angelus bell ring and realizing that the work that he and the rest of the Connolly House Group had done for over three years was finally complete. He said it was “a magnificent moment, for Sinn Féin, for Irish America, but mostly for Ireland.”

It was on that day in August 1994 when Ireland and the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief knowing that peace could be possible. The late Albert Reynolds, who passed away late August, played a significant role as did politicians on both sides of the Atlantic including Sinn Féin leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, Senator Ted Kennedy, SDLP Leader John Hume and President Bill Clinton. McGuinness hailed the decision as a crucial step forward in Irish history saying, “I think of all of the decisions that have been taken, if you are asking what was absolutely key and critical to end the war, and end the conflict that has existed to the detriment of all of us for far too long, the most important decision of all of the decisions taken in the last 20 years was that decision.” Gerry Adams singled out the importance of Irish Americans in the ceasefire and later peace process, telling The Irish Times, “Irish America was key,” adding that “the peace process was also now on the agenda of the Clinton administration.”

The initial ceasefire was rocky at first, and many were unsure that it would last, but it was the start of a new era in the history of Ireland, one where peace could not only be possible, but permanent as well. – M.S.

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Tax Troubles

Easing TaxFree Shopping in Ireland

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his past July President Barack Obama had many heads swirling when he went after American businesses who base their headquarters in other countries, specifically mentioning Ireland.

Obama’s speech in California came at a time when many businesses in America are looking to rearrange their operations given the high 35% tax corporation rate in the U.S. Obama said, “What we are trying to do is to say that if you simply acquire a small company in Ireland or some other country to take advantage of the low tax rate [and] you start saying, ‘we are now magically an Irish company,’ despite the fact that you might have only 100 employees there and you have got 10,000 employees in the United States, you are just gaming the system.” He further castigated those looking to flee the high American tax rate, adding, “You shouldn’t get to call yourself an American company only when you want a handout from American taxpayers.”

Ireland in recent years, thanks to its low tax rate of 12.5%, has become one of the top investment countries in the world. Studies from the Industrial Development Authority have shown that Ireland, since 1990, has had more capital investment than Brazil,

Russia, India, and China combined, with 70% of foreign investment coming from the U.S. in 2013. Among the major companies to invest in Ireland over the past few years are Amazon, Twitter, Paypal, ebay, Yahoo, and Deutsche Bank.

These tax loopholes are doing wonders for Ireland, but hurting the American economy.

While it is legal in the United States for U.S companies to base themselves in foreign territories, Obama called it “wrong,” adding that “you don’t get to choose the tax rate you pay. These companies shouldn’t either.”

Part of the problem in the U.S lies within the flawed American tax system. Just recently it was announced that Warren Buffet, the American billionaire and close aide to Obama, planned to buy Tim Horton’s, a doughnut chain in Canada, for $3 billion.

This will enable the fast food giant Burger King, which Buffet co-owns, to avoid paying millions in taxes by basing themselves in Ontario.

Obama has supported Democratic efforts in Congress to stop businesses from fleeing tax loopholes, but has been met with resistance from those who argue for a larger reform of the tax system that would lower the high corporate rate. – M.S.

new card developed by FEXCO, a top finance company headquartered in Killorglin, Co. Kerry since 1981, aims to ease the burden placed on U.S. and Canadian tourists in Ireland when trying to reclaim the tax on purchases made while on vacation.

The so-called Horizon card in fact removes the need to reclaim taxes at all. Instead, customers register their card online, present it when making a purchase, and the charged price will automatically exclude Irish taxes.

“Ireland is a very popular destination for tourists from the US and Canada,” said Danielle Maloney, FEXCO’s head of Tax Free Shopping.

“The US in particular is the largest non-EU market for tourism and we believe it is important that tourists are aware of the savings they can make on purchases when they are on vacation here.”

The emphasis on spreading the word about FEXCO’s Horizon card came after the appointment of Annalise Stack to the role of business development manager for North America and Canada. Stack, whose appointment was announced in April, has worked extensively in the travel industry in the U.S. and brings a new perspective to the 30-year-old Killorglin company. – A.F.

Donegal Island For Sale or €175,000, a little over $225,000 at the current exchange rate, a 96-acre island in Donegal could be yours. To put that price in perspective, that’s $30 per square foot – 1,230 percent less than Dublin’s reasonably affordable $369 per square foot, and nearly 5,000 percent less than the median price for an apartment (apartment!) in Manhattan ($1,482 per square foot).

That price comes after an 84 percent price cut by the German listing company Vladi.de, which originally listed the island at €1 million. But after being on the market since 2011 at a price the owner told The Donegal Daily said even he

F

24 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

thought was “a little steep,” the island is within the grasp of affordability.

Inishdooey Island, located three miles off the Irish coast in the Donegal Archipelago, came into the possession of Falcarragh man Mark McClafferty when he inherited it from his late grandfather, reports The Irish Times. But respecting full disclosure, Seamus McClafferty, a local contractor, estimates that erecting even a modest structure on the barren isle could cost at least €200,000. Even combined with the price of the island though, that’s less than half the going rate for a house in the Pale. – A.F.

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Mayo Brothers Selling Checkpoint Charlie Shares

26 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

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uly 28 marked the one hundred year anniversary of outbreak of the Great War, and commemorations echoed around the world. Representatives from 70 countries, including Ireland, flocked to Liege and Mons in Belgium to take part

memorations of a military presence. He actively voiced his displeasure saying, “It seems to me that all the generals and all the military people have been polishing up their buttons and their medals: medals that they got for killing people.”

PHOTOGRAPH: STEPHANIE LECOCQ/EPA

T

hrough a series of debt purchases and security offerings, it turns out that one of the most iconic sites in Cold War relations is actually controlled by County Mayo developers Michael and Cathal Cannon, though not for much longer.

Checkpoint Charlie, on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin’s city center, was once the gateway between the American and Soviet sectors in the walled city and saw its share of standoffs.

Since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, much of central Berlin has been rebuilt. But despite plans by the Cannon brothers to develop the area around the former checkpoint, much of the 9,000-acre site has remained vacant with the exception of a few cocktail and fast-food kiosks catering to tourists. Calling the use of the space disrespectful to the city’s history, many local politicians in Berlin wanted Berlin’s state government to seize the site, a standoff that almost led to foreclosure. But the brothers paid their back property taxes and opened a temporary exhibit on the Cold War in 2012, though now they’re ready to move on for good.

“We feel the time is right to move it as Berlin is going very strong,” Michael told The Irish Times. “When we moved to Germany things were quiet, and we take a view that Germany is now going where we hoped it would.” – A.F.

WWI Centenary Commemoration in Belgium

President Michael D Higgins (right) and his wife Sabina (second from right) are welcomed by King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium as they arrive at the Abbey of St Lawrence to attend the commemoration for the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War in Liege, Belgium.

in a day of remembrance. Irish President Michael D. Higgins was on hand to attend the many ceremonies and offer a few words of remembrance.

Speaking to The Irish Times he said, “I think the significance of heads of state coming together on the anniversary of World War I is an opportunity to recognize the catastrophe the war was.”

Some of the commemorative events under way are ruffling the feathers of anti-war campaigners who find the pomp and circumstance of the military at odds with the memory of the war dead.

Anti-war activist and artist Robert Ballagh is in favor of stripping the com-

Ballagh did, however, remain respectful to the memory of those who died in WWI, and was positive about honoring those who fought. “We absolutely have no problem at all in commemorating and remembering and mourning those who died in this tragedy, this catastrophic war. But I would prefer if these commemorations just dealt with that and left the military people at home in their barracks.”

President Higgins reasoned that the remembrance of World War I should not be divisive but instructive, saying, “I think we should use the opportunity of World War I to recognize the catastrophe that war is as well as how easy it is to become trapped in a bubble of warlike thinking. And to learn from its lessons, and this is consistent with my previous public life, about the importance and the difficulties of building peace.”

– M.S.

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{hibernia} Irish App Aims to Ease Travel for People with Disabilities

ccess Earth, a new app developed by a trio of computer science students and a biology student, all at NUI Maynooth, aims to make searching for and reviewing accessible hotels easier for people with disabilities.

“Back in 2012, myself and KC took a trip to London,” Matthew McCann, who has cerebral palsy and uses a rollator, told The Irish Times, speaking of co-founder KC Grant. “It said on the [hotel] website that they were accessible, but when we got there, there were three steps up to reception.”

From there, the two of them recognized the necessity of an app that is designed by people with disabilities for others.

There are two other apps which perform similar functions, allowing people to preview and review the accessibility of buildings, but developer Jack Gallagher says they don’t go far enough – “They might give parking three out of five [stars], but what does that mean?”

“Ours is a rating system where you answer Yes or No questions that are easy to understand,” he told The Irish Times. The questions are based on existing guidelines outlined by the National Disability Authority and the Irish Wheelchair Association. Access Earth have already rolled out ratings for hotels throughout Ireland, North America, and Sydney, but wants the app to be crowdsourced as well, so users can also add locations if it hasn’t been covered yet.

With support from Microsoft, the app is available for download from the Windows store, as well as on accessearth.org. – A .F.

Croke Park Classic Puts American Football Front and Center in Dublin

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t’s not football season without the Croke Park Classic in Dublin. This year’s match-up saw the University of Central Florida pitted against Pennsylvania State in both teams’ season opener, drawing a crowd of 53,304 to Ol’ Croker on August 30.

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28 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

fewer, according to ESPN. For UCF coach George O’Leary, the game was even a bit of a homecoming – Croke Park is just a three-hour drive from Cork, where his grandfather was born. “The Irish heritage has always been a big part of his life,” his son Tim told The Orlando Sentinel prior to the game. “So I think to be over there playing in front of all those fans and so many relatives is exciting for him.”

George alleged that nearly 70 Irish and American-born family members were in attendance at the game, so he was not worried about reconnecting with long-lost relatives. “Anybody who is related will be hitting me up for tickets, so I’ll meet them that way,” he said.

Though the timing of the match rufUniversity of Central Florida head coach George O’Leary. fled some feathers when it displaced the Penn State won with a last-minute field Gaelic football semi-final match to goal 26-24, but the game, at least for Dublin, Limerick, the general response was one of wasn’t really about the score (UCF might cultural camaraderie. argue differently).

“I don’t know if Irish people understand The Classic saw thousands of fans inunthe game,” Dubliner Joan Martin told the date the city, bringing their enthusiasm for Sentinel. She had attended UCF’s weekday American football and expendable income practice before the exhibition. “But Gaelic with them. The last time a college football people love to see [American football fans] game was held in Ireland was 2012, when walking around the street. We know how Notre Dame scuttled the Navy 50-10 in the much the game means to the people in the season opener to a crowd of about 4,000 States.” – A.F.

The Son of a Monaghan Footballer Is Now an NFL Starting Kicker

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f the only thing your fantasy roster is missing is a young Irish kicker, we’ve got you covered. Patrick Murray, whose father Aidan played at senior level for Monaghan and uncle Ciarán won an All-Star for the Farney in 1985, is now the starting kicker for the Tampa Bay Buckaneers. Even more remarkable is the fact that he got the job (over the most accurate kicker in Tampa’s history, nonetheless) after receiving no training camp offers and showing up instead at open try-outs.

The 23-year-old Murray was born in New Jersey and graduated from Fordham University in New York, but he spent summers kicking frees with his cousins at St. Tiernach’s Park in Clones and cites the Irish rugby star Ronan O’Gara as one of his biggest influences.

“I went on YouTube and watched as many clips of Ronan O’Gara as I could, how he prepared for the kick, doing the same thing every time. I’ve tried to bring that into my game, though I have a lot less time to kick than he did,” he told The Journal’s online sports section The Score.

In fact, Murray, who was the second-ranked kicker in the NCAA his final year at Fordham, has always considered Ireland his place of origin, telling The Score, “I feel like Ireland is my home and even thought about going to college there.” But in the end, Fordham it was. Tampa and your fantasy team will undoubtedly be grateful. – A.F.

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The Potato Blues S

ay it isn’t so! Sales and consumption of the potato have drastically fallen in America.

Sales in the U.S. are down more than 25 percent since peaking in the mid 1990s. According to the Department of Agriculture’s statistics from 2012, the consumption of fresh potatoes – baked, chopped, or mashed – fell to 27 pounds per year, down 40 percent from 47 pounds in 1970.

A diet-conscious America is shunning the once proud potato, a staple of the American meal for decades.

Even though potatoes remain one of the healthiest of vegetables – packed with more nutrients, vitamins, and minerals than most other veggies – a stigma of the potato as unhealthy has stalked the potato’s image for years. While most would view the potato with scorn given its disastrous consequences with famines, the potato, up until the mid-nineteenth century, was a staple product of Ireland. True, it was a subsistence crop that the Irish had survived on for centuries due in large part to unfair land policies of the British government, but its daily consumption made the Irish one of the healthiest people in the world. Thanks mainly to census and army records (lots of Irish served

in the British Empire), it was discovered that the potato was perhaps one of the world’s first super foods, making many of the Irish taller, stronger, and healthier than the rest of Europe. Dublin dietician Paula Mee told The New York Times of the potato’s importance, saying, “In terms of overall nutrition and including vitamin C, the potato is head and shoulders above pasta and rice.”

Today an ever-changing and on-the-go American palate is slowly leaving the potato behind. The ever popular Atkins and South Beach diets spread fear across the

country of carbs and its fatty intake.

The long cooking and preparation time for potatoes is also forcing many to cook new and faster carbs like quinoa, couscous, and pasta. Time, it seems, is not on the potato’s side.

Even in Ireland, potato sales are down. The potato is still regarded as the number one carbohydrate in Ireland, but consumption has fallen by 25 percent since 2005. Bord Bia in Ireland estimates that potato consumption is estimated to drop to 40 percent over the next decade. Lorcan Bourke, Bord Bia analyst, stated, “That’s a crisis that will affect the livelihoods of growers and packers, it’s quite sobering.” Bord Bia is proposing a €1-million campaign over the next three years to turn the stigma of the potato around.

Back in the U.S., potatoes may be down but they aren’t out. According to the USDA, the raw potato crop was valued at $4 billion in 2012, with sales of $7.5 billion in chip and crisp sales in 2013. Chris Wada, marketing director of Wada Farms, stated his desire to “bring the sexy back” to the potato. Only time will tell if the potato will ever get “sexy” again, but for now we should all just enjoy its nutritional goodness. – M.S.

It’s Official: Ireland Had Worst Winter in 140 Years

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ontinuing within the trajectory of global climate change, it was revealed by NUI Maynooth climatologists that Ireland last winter had the stormiest season on record in over 140 years. They found there was an “unprecedented strength and number of cyclones over the mid- and high-latitude north Atlantic.”

They pointed to cyclones that occur over the north Atlantic and eventually hit Ireland. Dr. Connor Murphy at Maynooth said, “The exceptional nature of last winter’s storminess emphasises the importance of understanding the processes driving such extremes, particularly in light of projections of increased cyclone activity in this part of the Atlantic.”

The researchers, who included Dr. Murphy, Dr. Tom Matthews and doctoral student Shaun Harrigan, all from Maynooth, reviewed the atmospheric datasets from winters in Ireland and Britain. They found that while some years winters had more storms and storms that were more intense, “no year in the 143year record endured a winter as severe as 2013-2014 when both the frequency and intensity of storms are combined.”

This research provides an important insight into the global na-

30 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

A truck overturned by high winds on the M8 near Fermony, Co. Cork

ture of climate change and the ways in which our environment is continuing to adapt and change not only in the United States, but around the world. – M.S.

A leader in financial services— and in our communities UBS is one of the largest financial services employers in the United States. We are committed to the U.S. financial markets and to the 276 communities across America that we call home.

In fact, since 2010 UBS and its employees have contributed nearly $50 million to nonprofits and 150,000 hours to community partners.* We draw on our 150-year heritage to offer a combination of wealth management, investment banking and asset management services.

And we look to our people and our culture to keep us focused on building a sustainable business for all our stakeholders.

ubs.com/fs

*

Source: UBS. As of December 31, 2013.

ŠUBS 2014. All rights reserved. UBS Financial Services Inc. is a subsidiary of UBS AG. Member FINRA/SIPC. 140821-1338 Untitled-2 1

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Knock Shrine

LIST OF

(From the N CURES AT ation)

KNOCK.

233. John K never spoke elly, of Moville, coun ty a now stand w word or even attempte Donegal, never put a fo d to utter a ithout assist cry, until he ot under him, nor an ce and can 235. Thomas ca ca me to Knock ll M al cN o u am d. ar eyes were d ; can he story of one of the world’s most famous Marian im; he was a, of the county Tipper o ar b y, li 239. Mary M ged to have has recover Shrines began 135 years ago at 8 o’clock on Thursed a guide with offit, of Ah the past two him coming his sight; both day evening, August 21, 1879, when the Blessed years; is no amlisk, had been suff to er w in q 2 g from a pai Knock. uite cured.

45. Mrs. Ned Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and John the Evangelist appeared n h in her side fo an , o f St. Andrew malady, incu r ’s paris rab on the south gable end of a church in the rural village of 247. Cather le by human agency; is h, Glasgow, was the v ictim of a te fully resto Knock, County Mayo. To the left of John there was a age; is now ine Mary Hayes; had been paraly red to her former good rrible reco plain altar with a cross and a lamb (the Lamb of God) sed since sh h 248. John C vered. e was three ealth. surrounded by angels. years of he is now p arroll, of Tipperary, w erfectly cure as suffering The apparition was witnessed by 15 people, men, d. from a cata 249. James ract on his G o rm an , left eye; of the Paris and was bli women and children, ranging in age from 6 to 75, who h of Lusk, D nd in the ri g u h b th t li e ey n D , watched for two hours in pouring rain reciting the e; he had b eaf and Du een an inm was deaf for twelve yea ate 250. Thomas mb; he can now hear, rs rosary. They reported that not one drop of rain fell on an d has recov of the Cabra Institute , L o ughran, of deaf since h ered his sig fo r the parish o the apparition or the gable end of the church. e was three ht. f Millto yea under the ca re of Drs. W rs of age, recovered h wn, county Kildare, w Since that time the physically and spiritually afflicted is ilde and Wil h any good re son, of Dub hearing at Knock. He h o was sult. have traveled there seeking heavenly relief. Up to a lin, but they ad been 265. Edwar were unable dO million visitors a year. to effect 266. Mary O ’Brien, of Nenagh, h as recovered ’Brien, of th Pope John Paul II visited the shrine on September h 267. Mary e is sa si m g e h t. pla 30, 1979 to commemorate the centenary of the apparinow able to Murty, of Kerry, who ce, has been cured of an was a cripp walk erect. ev le tion and established the shrine church as a basilica. during the la il.

268. Kate K st seven yea en n ed y, of from hip an rs, is At right is an excerpt from a list of cures recorded d spinal dis the parish of Gurtnaho ea , in co se for the la u Dublin, and n ty in 1880 and printed in The Nation. – Albert P. Forero T ip per st strong as ev was not cured or even two years and a half. ary was suffering She er. improved, n o w fully reco was in hospital 271. Mary A vered, and fe n n e C arola the sight of els as her right ey n, of the parish of Mull e. in , county Cav 276. Widow an, has reco Northumber John Kelly, of Morp vered eth la could not w nd, had been suffering (Rev. Mr. Davy, paris ork during h priest), co from severe th u her bed. Sh e was comp e last five years, and so pains in her back and le nty of letely cured gs. She metimes co chapel at K the second u nock. time she wen ld not even turn in 277. Mary D t on her knee s in the foot, from w onnelly, of the county Tyrone, has hich she was been cured of deal smaller suffering sinc la and shorter than the left e she was a child. The meness in the right , and she co uld barely to right foot was a great For more se uch the ground with it Knock parish priest Monsignour Horan greets . e wwwIrish Pope John Paul II September 30, 1979. america.co m

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TCD Researchers Help Make Schizophrenia Breakthrough

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recent study published in the journal Nature has confirmed 108 locations within the human genome that are linked directly to schizophrenia, 83 of which were completely new discoveries. Aiden Corvin, professor of psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin’s school of medicine, was one of the lead authors of the study, which analyzed more than 80,000 genetic samples, including some 3,500 Irish contributions.

The study was performed by the schizophrenia working group of Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, which is an international body that includes TCD scientists. International collaborations such as this are increasingly common in the medical fields because they allow researchers to perform studies on tens of thousands of samples, which allows for more accurate results. That ability also has the potential to increase the speed

32 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

at which new drugs are developed and hit the market.

“In genomics, collaboration is key,” Corvin told The Irish Times. “Now that we have more pieces of the puzzle, we are starting to group genes into identifiable pathways so that we can explore schizophrenia at a biological level.”

Every year, about 100 people in Ireland are diagnosed with schizophrenia, which can cause both visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions, and other cognitive challenges. But while much is known about the symptoms, less is known about the underlying genetic causes of the mental disorder, and current drug therapies are limited and out of date.

To put it simply, there’s Dr. Gerome Breen, from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London: “This is perhaps the most important study in psychiatric genetics to date.” – A.F.

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Ian Paisley: How The North’s Dark Star Became a Prince of Peace: A lifelong journey from firebrand to peacemaker

By Niall O’Dowd

history in the making. Without Paisley there would be no power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. No other political leader, like Nixon going to China, had built up the credibility with the hardliners that allowed him to do a deal with the hated Sinn Féin.

Once Paisley had been the dark star of Irish politics, bitterly opposed to any com-

Clark were ejected from power once Paisley turned on them. was at the Battle of the Boyne site The man himself, it seemed, was never in Oldbridge, County Meath, 30 for turning. He brought down the 1974 miles from Dublin in May 2007 Sunningdale Agreement and attacked the when Ian Paisley as the First Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 feroMinister of Northern Ireland made ciously. His fiery oratory which stopped a visit at the invitation of then Irish just short of advocating violence nonetheleader Bertie Ahern. less led many to take up arms.

It was an extraordinary time, when In the American context he was a power-sharing government had pure Bible belt. He had interesting risen from the ashes of the old links to Bob Jones University in Stormont in Belfast and Ian Paisley South Carolina where he got his and Martin McGuinness shared doctorate. It was as fundamentalist a power.

Bible belt college as could be imagThe Battle of the Boyne was the ined, often accused of outright iconic Ulster Unionist battlefield as racism. Paisley once saw it and the sacred as Gettysburg or Normandy born-again Baptists in the South as a beaches to Americans. potentially lucrative source of fundIt was unthinkable that a Protestant ing for his political party, but it leader of Northern Ireland would be never worked out that way. officially invited to the battlefield I once gatecrashed one of their where Catholic hopes of independevents in Northern California and ence had died rather like the French saw the preacher Paisley in full flow. inviting the British to Waterloo.

It was quite a sight as the Book of Yet here was Paisley, still with a Revelations got a work-out and the booming voice, though he was 81 at audience was worked into a frenzy. the time, physically dwarfing everySuch a preacher’s gift caused one around him. many problems when The Troubles As he walked around the battlefield Dr. Paisley eventually said yes to sharing power with Sinn started. But in later years, driven I you had the deep sense of witnessing Féin at Stormont in 2007 and became First Minister with think (as many other leaders were), history that the 350-year-old battle Martin McGuinness as his deputy. The two are pictured by the notion of not allowing The was finally being reduced to an histor- in New York City on their first U.S. trip together.

Troubles to feed into an endless loop ical artifact, not a yearly rally cry for more promise on Northern Ireland being for future generations, he saw making bigotry.

British. He was there from the very beginpeace as his priority.

As Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs ning of The Troubles. He was in the tradiHe came to America during the IRA Charlie Flanagan noted on Paisley’s passtion of Hugh “Roaring” Hanna, a fundaceasefire phase, and through a strange ing, it was truly historic. mentalist preacher of the late 19th century twist he and I arrived at a post-speech Flanagan said, “I recall especially that who opposed Home Rule and the pope in event as the first people there. For ten historic occasion when Dr. Paisley and his equal measure. minutes we stood around awkwardly wife Eileen took part in the opening of the In 1963, he led a protest march at the making very small talk. He seemed very Battle of the Boyne heritage site. That day lowering of the Union Jack to pay ill at ease outside his normal environment represented what many had worked so respects to deceased Pope John XXIII. A and he bolted the Irish-American dinner long to achieve, cooperation between year later he caused a riot when demandas soon as he could.

North and South with recognition of our ing that an Irish tricolor be taken down in But when the opportunity to grasp shared history and heritage. On that occaWest Belfast. In 1966, he announced the peace came he took it, much to my sursion, Dr. Paisley spoke of his love for ‘this creation of a loyalist group to protest the prise I have to say. I had pegged him as an island we jointly hold together.’ He spoke Irish Civil Rights movement. irredentist Bible-belter whose prejudice of how he wanted ‘the best for the people He saw off successive Unionist leaders against Catholics was too deep-seated to of every part of this island.’” when they dared to reach out. Terence brook compromise.

It was certainly a moment to recognize O’Neill, Brian Faulkner, James Chicester Though he did not serve very long as

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First Minister, his impact was extraordinary.

Privately Martin McGuinness extolled him as a man who above all kept his word — critical for the working of the government.

Now he is gone, a controversial figure who spanned the role of both troublemaker and peacemaker. He is proof that even the most irredentist can change – a hopeful thought as I look around Northern Ireland and other trouble spots and see irredentism everywhere. He shone a light that pierced an IA encircling gloom.

On September 12, Reverend Ian Paisley died. The story is developing as we go to press and we will have more information at irishamerica.com. These are some of the first tributes paid to his family and legacy.

“Ian was a remarkable man whose long career in public life has left an indelible mark upon all of us who knew him.”

– Peter Robinson (DUP), First Minister of Northern Ireland.

“Very sad to learn that Ian Paisley has died. My deepest sympathy to his wife Eileen and family. Once political opponents – I have lost a friend.”

– Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin), Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Via Twitter.

“Dr Ian Paisley RIP. A good friend to me in my early day in politics. The only man I’ve shared a platform with who made me feel shy.”

– Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times, September 2, 2014. A recent UCC Émigré research project found that “an enormous proportion of emigrants [previously] employed in Ireland did not feel content with their professional careers before moving.” Between 2009 and 2014, the number of people in Ireland age 15-35 dropped by 217,000, more than the population of Limerick city and county.

“It’s shocking to me how few people know what happened....

You need to think, when you get involved in wars, how you’re going to get out of them.”

– Rory Kennedy, 45, the daughter of Robert Kennedy, discussing her documentary “Last Days in Vietnam.” – The New York Times, August 28, 2014.

PHOTO: GETTY

Ian Paisley Tributes

“It’s been clear for quite some time now that most of those who are leaving are not, in a simple sense, economic refugees…. [The] majority of emigrants are actually in employment… [but] having some sort of a job is one thing. Having a sense that you have a career and a future is something else.”

– Nigel Farage, UKIP leader. Via Twitter.

“I am shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Dr Ian Paisley. There will be plenty of time for political analysis but at this point I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to Ian’s wife Eileen and to the Paisley family at this very sad time.”

– Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin.

Rory Kennedy: Director Rory Kennedy and Kiem Do pose for a portrait during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival at the Getty Images Portrait Studio at the Village At The Lift on January 17, 2014 in Park City, Utah.

Sister Simone Campbell

“People ask where I get my courage, but it’s not courage, not really. When your heart’s been broken, nothing can stop you. And living beside the poor, I had my heart broken every day. I think that’s the problem with the bishops. They haven’t had their hearts broken. Most of them have had very little pastoral experience – they became bureaucrats very early on. When you are with the poor, really with the poor, you weep with them, you weep for the world. Weeping becomes part of your prayer.”

– Sister Simone Campbell who organized Nuns on the Bus to protest the cutbacks to social services proposed by proudly Catholic congressman Paul Ryan. The nuns support for Affordable Care Act and the Vatican’s investigation of the nuns, which ended with a censure, are topics discussed in an essay

by Mary Gordon “Francis and the Nuns,” that appeared in Harper’s magazine.

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 IRISH AMERICA 35

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Wild Atlantic Way

he road isn’t going to rise up to meet you all the way over there in America, you know.

If you’re looking for one good reason to come home to Ireland this year, we’ll give you a million. That’s the record number of visitors who came from the U.S. during the year of The Gathering. And the wonderful festivals, music and sporting events are still going strong in 2014. So make plans today to visit the friends and family you’ve missed. And we’re fairly certain the road will rise up to meet you along the way.

Find out more at Ireland.com

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Dreams of the Old Country

The haunting and distinctive photographs of emigrant Richard Fitzgerald

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hen I began taking photographs of Ireland some forty years ago I felt an immediate connection with Irish emigrants in America, the thousands of people who had left the old country to begin a new life in Boston and New York. The landscape back home was dotted with abandoned stone cottages and derelict farmhouses. The desolation reminded me of my own departure. I was forced out of Ireland myself at the age of fourteen, wrongly accused of stealing a bottle of lemonade at a country crossroads dance. The consequences of that Sunday summer evening was the reason I left my homeland far too soon. I naturally sensed a strange affinity with those who had journeyed out before me.

All Irish emigrants of the old country keep some part of the homeland firmly in their memory, images of a time past that linger on in the mind exactly as we remember it, and held there forever unchanged. My own memories seemed to concentrate on the dark mysterious side of Ireland that I experienced in my youth, a time when many villages still had no 38 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

ABOVE: Horses and jaunting cart at Inch beach, Co. Kerry, 1970.

“The animals stand patiently waiting for their next customer while the rain clouds move in over the distant hills. I took this photograph early one morning after spending the night camping on the nearby sand dunes.” – R.F.

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LEFT: Peatcutters returning home in a rainstorm, Connemara, 1970.

“The two men were drenched to the skin after a heavy downpour of rain, they looked pitiful, one man still sheltering under a sodden overcoat, the animals moved wearily with their heads lowered, the men too tired to speak to each other.

On the day I took this photograph I had just read “The Painted Woman”

by Liam O’Flaherty, a story which illuminates the harsh lifestyle of such men.” – R.F.

BELOW: Peatcutter beside his fireplace, Co. Galway, 1971.

“I met him on the road as he returned home from a hard day’s work in the bogs, he spoke only in Irish but through our difficulties in communication I sensed his warm friendship. He invited me to his home and we drank tea together. When he lighted his pipe I asked if I could take a portrait of him with my camera.” – R.F.

BELOW: Beaching the Currach, Achill Island, 1985.

“Resembling a strange creature with six legs, the black upturned currach came crawling from the sea, the men swaying to and fro with the weight above their heads. I buried my Rollieflex camera amongst the wet stones to get the lowest possible angle of view against a rain-filled sky.” – R.F.

electricity, and at night-time the homes were dimly lit with the calm flickering flames of candlelight and Tilly lamps. I remember too the small backroads where rural life was a daily struggle for both man and beast.

Some years after my sad departure from my homeland I took up photography and got a job as a ship’s photographer traveling the world on a luxury liner.

Later I opened a studio in London photographing celebrities. Fifteen years passed before I plucked up the courage to venture home on a visit to Ireland – it felt as though someone might still tap me on the shoulder and ask me to leave again.

On my return home to Ireland I was immediately gripped with a strong desire to record a way of life that was fast disappearing – it was stealing away almost unnoticed in the rush of modernization. I wanted to capture the essence of that old world, celebrating its unfathomable beauty. Since I first took to the road with my camera back in the early 1970s, I have travelled to the remotest parts of Ireland, focusing on the dark underbelly of the land of my birth. – R.F. OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 IRISH AMERICA 39

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ABOVE: Coffin-maker, Ohermong, Co. Kerry, 1985.

“A coffin-maker measures up a customer at his blacksmith’s forge, he was a highly respected craftsman in the community and repaired all manner of farm tools. He was also the local undertaker. I remember there was a cold rain outside, so I welcomed the heat and the sound of the bellows blowing the flames of the fire.” – R.F.

BELOW: Hurley-maker, Co. Tipperary, 1985.

“John Joe O’Brien poses with one of his hand-made hurleys in his workshop at Cahir town, around him are the various states of his craft from the rough balk of wood to the finely finished hurley with its perfect weight and balance. Behind him pinned to the wall are pictures of famous teams, amongst them are men who were glad of his hurleys when they played in the all-Ireland at Croke Park in Dublin.” – R.F. ABOVE: Milking time, Co. Waterford, 1990.

“I photographed this man as he approached his two cows at evening milking time. He frequently allowed his cows to graze on the lush grass by the roadside, in Ireland this free grass was often referred to as ‘The Long Acre’.” – R.F.

Photographer Richard Fitzgerald comes from Co. Waterford and now resides in London. For more information regarding his photographs, go to www.richardfitzgerald.com where you can view his Fine Art prints and posters. studio@richardfitzgerald.com 40 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

HELPING YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL S HAS ALWAYS BEEN OURS

Merrill Lynch Congratulates Thomas Keegan and all recipients of the 2014 Wall Street 50 Award.

Private Banking & Investment Group 212.236.5161 Merrill Lynch 225 Liberty Street, 35th Floor New York, NY 10281

pbig.ml.com Life’s better when we’re connected™

Merrill Lynch makes available products and services offered by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (“MLPF&S”), a registered broker-dealer and member SIPC, and other subsidiaries of Bank of America Corporation.

The Bull Symbol, Life’s better when we’re connected and Merrill Lynch are registered trademarks or trademarks of Bank of America Corporation.

The Private Banking and Investment Group is a division of MLPF&S that offers a broad array of personalized wealth management products and services. © 2014 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved. | AR6W5JLW | AD-08-14-0789 | 470938PM-0814 | 08/2014

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17th Annual Wall Street 50 Keynote Speaker

A world-class leader who is driven by

A Commitment to Excellence

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may not be the smartest person in the room, but I have my Irish work ethic,” laughs the woman with the M.B.A. from NYU as she sits behind her desk at the UBS headquarters in Manhattan. This is Kathleen Lynch’s sense of humor – wry, honest, and humble.

“My parents raised us to make sure that we had every opportunity in front of us. And they felt that education was the foundation. My mom would say, ‘I’ll make your bed, you study!’ There was a work ethic that was instilled in us early on, and I would say that has carried me forward.”

As a young college graduate in the late 1980s, with a degree in business from Bucknell University, Kathleen Lynch took the road less traveled, and went where not many women had ventured before – Wall Street.

Today, she is one of the most successful executives in the financial industry, having spent her whole career with two big-name investment banks, currently at UBS where she is COO for UBS Group Americas and Wealth Management Americas, and is a member of the Americas and WMA Executive Committee.

But it was at Merrill Lynch, then the leading financial firm on Wall Street, where Kathleen first found a home and a culture that she continues to emulate. “It was my first job; I worked there for 23 years. I grew up there. And in terms of the people, the camaraderie, the partnership, Merrill Lynch was a really special place,” she reflects when we met at the Midtown UBS offices in mid-summer. “It had principles. Responsible citi-

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42 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

zenship, teamwork, respect for the individual. That’s how I was raised,” she says.

Clearly.

When the Irish America team and I arrived early for our meeting, she was already in conversation with our photographer Kit DeFever – engaged and interested.

As I watched her, arms folded across her chest, listening, I intuited past generations – her grandmother and aunts gathered around the hearth fire back in the cottage in Co. Donegal where her mother was born.

“She’s a really beautiful woman,” Kit said later. He, who has had a career photographing top fashion models, was struck by Lynch’s naturalness and her down to earth manner as much as her stunning, at times even ethereal, looks – we all were.

She is not a tall woman but appears taller because she holds herself well – the straight back and good posture a throwback to her years as a cheerleader. In fact, she looks as if she might, if requested, still do a decent double jump. “I started cheerleading in 3rd grade and did it all through high school,” she says.

She assumed leadership roles early in life. “I was the first female to be elected president of our student council when I was in 8th grade at our middle school. I was also on the debate team. A wallflower I was not. I liked people and I was outgoing. I think actually over time I’ve probably dialed back a bit, but I always enjoyed being in the middle of things. I’m glad that I’m part of a big family.”

Lynch grew up in Florham Park, New Jersey, the fourth child in a family of five – four sisters and one

PHOTO: KIT DEFEVER

As Chief Operating Officer for UBS Group Americas and Wealth Management Americas Kathleen Lynch is a dedicated team leader and motivator.

Having achieved a role both professionally and personally rewarding, she enjoys paying it forward, acknowledging the support and encouragement she received from her own family and colleagues along the way.

By Patricia Harty.

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“

There’s an energy!

There’s a commitment to each other and an allegiance. There’s a lot of good that comes from this industry.

And I think particularly, given some of the challenges our industry has gone through, there’s a unifying commitment.

”

Kathleen Lynch Chief Operating Officer for UBS Group Americas and Wealth Management Americas (WMA), and a member of the Americas and WMA Executive.

IA.KathleenLynch.3revclean_Layout 1 9/13/14 8:04 PM Page 44

brother. Her mother Norah was born in Burtenport, a small fishing village in County Donegal, but left Ireland when she was 18 to join her sister Mamie in New Jersey.

Mamie worked for the Catholic Church and Norah got a job there too.

Soon afterwards she met Frank Lynch, who came from an Irish family in Newark. The son of a milkman, he put himself through Seton Hall and became a lawyer. The couple met in Newark’s

herself has that ability as well, she smiles knowingly. “My husband says the same thing about our daughter Áine. She will give you a look that will just knock you down. He calls her Apple, as in the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

Looking back, Kathleen says she doesn’t know how her parents did it all. “I know my mother could stretch a buck better than anyone. She would take that station wagon to the garage sales, and it had all the college stickers – Dartmouth,

LSAT, and he said ‘What are you doing?’

And I said, ‘Well I thought I would be a lawyer.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t be a lawyer.

You want to go into business!’ So I went to Bucknell University and got my degree in business, and I interviewed with Merrill Lynch, and you know, I haven’t looked back.

“I like the pace of this industry, I like that one of the roles of a COO is you’ve got your hands in everything. I like the multi-dimensional, multi-tasking range

McGovern’s Bar and married Kathleen’s Bucknell, Stephen’s Institute – parents Norah when Norah was 21. on the back.” and Frank Lynch.

“My mother came off the boat, Kathleen, her Paying tuition for Ivy League she didn’t go to college,” Lynch husband Tim, schools was the least of it. says. “Her commitment was to and their “I remember going through children, Aidan, raise a family. In our household Declan and Áine. my father’s papers after he died it was all about education. My and seeing his tax returns. I parents always said, ‘You get into marveled at how they did it, and the best college you can get into and we’ll even managed to have a second home at take care of the rest. Just work really the beach.” hard.’

Sadly, Kathleen lost both her parents in “My mother was lovely. People would 2000, but she’ll always be grateful for talk to her and tell her everything. I used their encouragement. “My father used to to say that she worked undercover, critique my writing and tear my essays because while ingratiating herself, she apart, which is kind of funny because one had a high radar for baloney and could of my early jobs was as a speechwriter.” kill you with a look if you were doing It was also her father who decided that something you shouldn’t be doing or if his outgoing daughter had the stamina for you didn’t measure up.”

Wall Street.

When I venture to suggest that Lynch “I remember I was studying for the

of what I do. And surprisingly I didn’t think I would’ve liked it, but when I took on a leadership role, I found that I really like managing people. It takes a lot of time but you can really make a difference in other people’s lives, and you can actually identify talent and push them to new levels that they never thought they could reach. And nothing’s more rewarding than when someone comes back to you and says, ‘I didn’t think I could do it but you pushed me, you supported me, you never let me fail.’”

And just as she sees her job as COO as that of a team motivator, she is also a cheerleader for her colleagues on Wall Street whose contributions she says are not always recognized by the media.

“There’s a lot of good that comes from this industry. Yes, we’ve had some chal-

“Men and women think differently, so to have a very effective team you need to have both. And again, that’s why people shouldn’t be thinking, ‘Oh, there’s not a lot of women in the financial services industry.’ You should think about, what’s the opportunity? And then figure out a way to make it work.”

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Kathleen pictured in the UBS Welcome Center.

PHOTO: KIT DEFEVER.

lenges; we need to earn our way back.

And there are a lot of quality people in our industry who are earning their way back every day,” she emphasizes.

“As clinical as the financial services industry is perceived, the reality is we’re made up of people who care about each other, who have homes, have families, have responsibilities to take care of – but sometimes tough decisions have to be made, and that’s hard. But there’s an energy! There’s a real sense of having a responsibility to give back to the community, a unifying commitment; there’s an allegiance. I like the film The Gladiator, when Russell Crowe says, ‘Everybody go in a circle and come together, we’re stronger.’ I say that to my team all the time, ‘We’ve got to do a Gladiator!’”

One of the more difficult of these moments for Kathleen was during the 2008 financial crisis when Merrill Lynch was felled by subprime mortgage lending and taken over by Bank of America.

She had risen from tax analyst to COO, and now the company she had committed herself to was no more. “I’ll never read a newspaper again in terms of the merger of two companies and not really appreciate how challenging that is for the employees, or even the managers,” she says. “And it was a completely different culture [after Bank of America took over]. We went from 60,000 people to 300,000 people.

“It was a really difficult time,” she recalls.

One of the hardest things for Kathleen was that many of her long-time colleagues had left Merrill to go to other organizations or semi-retire as she stayed behind. “I felt a commitment to my team, in terms of making sure they got through the merger, and I felt a responsibility to stay within the organization to make sure they were all right,” she says.

One of those who moved on after a lifetime career at Merrill was Bob McCann, her former boss and mentor, who arrived at UBS in 2009 as CEO of Wealth Management Americas.

When he called and asked Kathleen to come and work for him at UBS, she says it was “a no-brainer.”

“Literally, it was a three-minute conversation,” she explains. “I had gotten my team at Merrill through a good four years after the acquisition, and I was excited to come join him in UBS and work with former colleagues such as Rosemary Berkery, Brian Hull, and our

Group CEO Sergio Ermotti.”

The relationship between COO and CEO is an all-important one. And in the case of Lynch and McCann, it is one built upon trust – over two decades.

The two first met in 1992 at Merrill Lynch, and as she says herself, that first conversation could have been a career killer.

“I was working on another project and

someone said, ‘You know there’s a guy who’s looking for a business manager, you might want to interview with him.’

So I remember walking in to Bob’s office, and he looked up and said, ‘So, Kathy’ – down in the trading area, everyone was like Tommy, or Billy, or Joey – and I said, ‘Excuse me, it’s Kathleen.’

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“Being a woman in this industry you just need to continue to know your details, know your facts, contribute, and provide value. And then that whole female-male conversation gets taken out of the equation and it becomes more about contribution.”

kidding me, right?’ And I’m like, ‘But you know what? That’s my name! It’s Kathleen!’”

Suffice to say, Kathleen got the job, and the self-assurance that she exhibited as a young employee stood her well as she took on different roles working for McCann. As he moved up the ladder, Kathleen did too, absorbing all that he could teach her.

“There were so many occasions where I’d be with Bob in his office doing work and he’d have a conversation or a phone call or a meeting and he would always include me in on all of that. Looking back now, I had no idea at the time what a priceless training ground it was; just to be able to watch somebody like Bob at work; how he handled business situations, how he handled relationships, how he handled a problem,” she recalls.

She is clearly happy with the move she made to UBS in June, 2012, and though her title sounds daunting, she finds her job “personally and professionally rewarding.” Asked to break down the role of COO, Kathleen explains: “You have responsibility for the front to back control of the entire business – everything that takes place – operations, technology, human resources, and for the overall strategy and relationship with UBS regulators.”

In other words, “basically having oversight and making sure all the dots are connected, being a valuable contributor to the executive committees, and supporting the entire organization.”

One might expect to find someone with Kathleen’s responsibility to be a mite frazzled, but in person she displays an outward calm. It comes from a deep trust in her team to exhibit her same loyalty, work ethic and community mentality, which she asks from all of her employees.

“I like it when it is not all about them, it’s more about the team. And you can tell that very easily in terms of the number of ‘I’s’ in a conversation. ‘I did this, I did that.’ I don’t even like that on a sports field when I watch my children play lacrosse. I’d rather have my child get an assist than get the goal, because it takes a team.

“It really just comes down to basic 46 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

stuff. In addition to work ethic, loyalty’s a big deal for me. Integrity is a big deal for me as well, especially when you get into a role where there are a lot of people counting on you. If there’s a break in the integrity fabric, the damage can be broad.

“And that’s not fair to the team that you’re working with or the people who are counting on you to deliver. So integrity, loyalty, and commitment are what I’m looking for.”

Commitment and loyalty – the very traits that Bob McCann values in his COO. “Kathleen is committed to be the best wife, mother, friend and colleague she can be. She is very loyal to the people and organizations that have shaped her as a person,” he says.

Prior to assuming the role of Chief Operating Officer in March, 2013, Kathleen’s job was working with senior management on a number of key initiatives including the strengthening of UBS’s regulatory and operating framework.

“I would say the regulatory environment has changed our industry, especially on the heels of the financial crisis,” she says. “Making sure that everything passes the standards of the regulators is very important. Sometimes it’s made the work not as much fun, so we have to figure out how to work it into the fabric of how we operate, versus that’s all we focus on. I like to say that you just can’t leave it to audit or to the control functions; everybody needs to have a risk management mindset.”

UBS has one of the most diverse workforces of any financial institution, and women are an important part of that equation. “I feel it’s very promising to actually have more women come into the organization. If you look at Bob’s executive committee, he has three females, and he recently hired a CEO in Brazil who is female,” she says.

That said, Kathleen does believe it’s important to “de-gender” the conversation. “Being a woman in this industry you just need to continue to know your details, know your facts, contribute, and provide value. And then that whole female-male conversation gets taken out of the equation and it becomes more about contribution.

“Men and women think differently, so to have a very effective team you need to have both. And again, that’s why people shouldn’t be thinking, ‘Oh, there’s not a lot of women in the financial services industry.’ You should think about, what’s the opportunity? And then figure out a way to make it work.”

“I think firms are really trying to figure out, how do we either keep women or bring women back,” Kathleen says.

“What I’ve often said to women is that you need to define what’s important to you. And if you want to stay in the business, you should come up with a proposal that will work for both the firm and for you. You need to take stock of what your priorities are. And I do have certain goal posts in terms of what’s important.

“You make very deliberate decisions and trade-offs. Because the reality is, you have a job and you have a commitment to the firm.”

But even given the opportunity, it can be difficult to balance work and family.

According to Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In, “43% of highly qualified women with children are leaving careers or off-ramping for a period of time.”

It was pretty much an all-male industry when Kathleen started her career and she thinks Sandberg’s book paints an unfair image of men in business. “My experience has been completely opposite. The men in this industry have been nothing but supportive of me. When I was going to school at night for my master’s at NYU, they [her male supervisors] would let me leave at five. I’d come back afterwards. They’d put more on my plate because they knew I could do it, but they always supported me. So the early chapters of that book I didn’t agree with.”

But there are some areas with which she’s in agreement. “I absolutely agree with Sandberg’s point that the most important thing is make sure that you have a good support system. And like I always say, I married the right guy.”

For the early years of their marriage, her husband Tim Maseker was in sales, and traveled about 70 percent of the time.

“It put a lot of stress on me, working all day and then having to take care of the kids at night,” Kathleen explains.

“One morning, the alarm clock went Continued on page 48

WE SALU TE OUR FRIEND

Kathleen Lynch CONGRATULATIONS

on your wonderful family and all you do for Ireland.

Bob and Cindy McCann

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off and Tim was supposed to go to form, I’m like, huh! So two weeks went London. And I said, ‘That’s it. I can’t by, and there was one time when the train have you traveling all the time.’ I was pulls in and everybody’s getting out of pregnant with Declan, our third child, the seats, and he let me go in front of and I said, ‘Why are we raising a family him. And I said, okay he’s a gentleman! like this? You’re always away, I’m workSo we got off the train and I turned ing crazy hours, this has got to stop. around and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Don’t go to London.’

Kathleen, what’s yours?’ And he said “He went on the trip, much to my chaTim. And then I said to him, ‘I noticed grin,” she laughs. “I don’t always win!” you work at Merrill Lynch.’ And he’s like “But we sat and talked and I reminded ‘yeah, I do.’ And I said, ‘well, so do I.’ So him that he had always wanted to teach. this was in 1987, Fatal Attraction was He said, ‘but I don’t want to do that until the big movie at the time [laughter], so I I’m 55, 60 – you know, later.’ I said, ‘But think he was thinking, ‘God! I’ve a funny why don’t you do it now? You’d be home bunny here!’” more for the kids. You wouldn’t be travThe two became good friends for a eling. You’re going to miss them growing year. “Then he was my best friend. Then up!’ we started dating, and we got married in “So he actually got a job at our local 1993. So you never know! To those high school right there in Madison and he young people who wear their earphones, teaches business. He’s been doing it now I say unplug! Unplug yourself because for 10 years. It’s great and because we you never know who you might meet.” love the beach we have a place on the Tim is also Irish on his mother’s side, Jersey Shore. So now he spends the and he and Kathleen love to golf together whole summer at the beach with our kids. (something she’s planning to do lots of in I would actually say he’s probably the best friend and the best toy my kids have. And I would tell you, if I were my children I would want him home more than me, because he’s a lot more fun than I am,” she laughs.

Which is not to say that the children are not a team effort. “There are times where he’s got a commitment at school and I have to adjust my calendar. So I always look two weeks and six months forward and we look at our calendars and say, ‘Okay, who needs to be where?’

All three kids are involved in lacrosse travel teams. One has got to be in Baltimore and the other Kathleen’s retirement). Before they had chilone’s got to be in Richmond, mother, dren they spent time in Ireland, Norah, grew Virginia. If I have to take Friday off, up in this golfing at clubs all over the I take Friday off. But I get the work cottage in island, and meeting up with her done. You just have to be mature Donegal. parents for a week at the end of about how you handle it. And you have to the trip. All of their children have Irish set your priorities. And I do have certain names: Aidan, 15, Áine, 12, and Declan, guideposts and I’m not going to sacrifice 11. Her face lights up when she talks on my children. One of my strengths is about them. Kathleen is glad that her parI’m very organized.” ents got to see her son Aidan. They had Kathleen’s parents were a team, and married in St. Aidan’s church, she learned family and community were the center of after she and Tim had picked the name for their lives. “I like to think my husband their firstborn. And she sees their untimeand I do the exact same thing in terms of ly passing in 2000 as a lesson to pay how we manage. He’s terrific. And it attention. She doesn’t want to hurry one goes back to what our core principles are, minute of her children’s growing up. and it’s about family.”

“My commitment to the firm is They met on the train commuting into extremely important, but my family is my the city when they were just out of colultimate guidepost,” she says, though she lege. “I remember seeing him on the platacknowledges that means she can’t always 48 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

be at every event. In the evening of the day we spoke her daughter had a concert.

“I changed my schedule,” she says beaming. “I will be at that concert tonight.

Last night I didn’t see them before they went to bed. But that’s okay!”

Lynch obviously takes great pride in her balancing act, which she also maintains between her work and charitable endeavors.

Through Bob McCann, Kathleen became acquainted with the American Ireland Fund (AIF) and she was involved in fundraising to bring Sesame Street to Northern Ireland (The show added two new muppets, a Catholic and a Protestant muppet, to promote understanding through the muppets to the kids.) She was also involved in raising seed money for a program that helps Irish children with speech impediments.

For Kathleen, fundraising for the AIF was again a no-brainer. “It’s kind of appreciating where you’ve come from. I always did, based on the upbringing with my parents, so when I’m introduced to organizations like the AIF, I am happy to support them. I am proud of being Irish,” she adds.

Lynch is also quick to point out the culture of giving back to the community that is embedded in the financial industry at large, even if it often goes unrecognized.

“Here at UBS we’re constantly looking at how you can make a difference. We are very focused on education and entrepreneurship, so a lot of our charitable contributions are anchored around those two key cornerstones.

“We’re fortunate to have fruitful careers that are rewarding professionally and financially, but I think [the financial sector] is one of the most giving industries,” she adds.

“And it’s not just after 9/11 or Hurricane Sandy. There’s always been an outreach of people within this industry to give back. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that someone here isn’t fundraising for a good cause. They bring that passion and commitment to all they do.”

In a word? Wall Street is “cool.”

“If anybody told me that I could have a job like this when I was going through school, I would have said, ‘No way, like, that’s just too cool for me.’ But now as COO, I get to oversee so much and really help make connections across the firm for efficiencies, for productivity, for developing talent, promoting talent. It’s a really IA cool job. It’s really, really cool.”

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IRISH AMERICA’S ANNUAL

WALL STREET

Celebrating the Irish in the Financial Industry

F

or seventeen years, Irish America has sought out and recognized the best and the brightest Irish-American and Irish-born leaders in the financial sphere, and this year is no exception. The fifty honorees of 2014 are an extraordinary, inspiring, and diverse group – from standout rising stars to masterful Wall Street veterans, this year’s list is comprised of both new faces and longtime friends of Irish America. And as varied as the counties they come from, so too are the sectors in which these distinguished financiers work.

The 2014 Wall Street 50 honorees share a commitment to bettering the American economy. Some do this by handling investments and capital, some by developing and implementing the strategies and technology that make it all happen. Together, they recognize a heritage of unrelenting perseverance, a commitment to family, and the responsibility to others because of the struggles of their ancestors.

As Suni Harford of Citigroup puts it, “It’s a legacy of persistence in the face of tremendous adversity, and an overriding optimism. I am proud to be a part of such a legacy.”

The honorees featured in the pages ahead are a testament to the power of the diaspora – from the fourthgeneration Irish Americans who are themselves the manifestation of their ancestors’ dreams, to the many Irish-born who continue to work to maintain the strong connections and forge new bonds between our two great countries.

Mortas Cine, The Irish America Team 50 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

The Generations: 1ST GENERATION

12% IRISH BORN

25%

5TH GENERATION

2ND GENERATION

25%

5% 12%

4TH GENERATION

3RD GENERATION

22%

Popular Counties Cork Dublin Kerry Tipperary Mayo

Most Mentioned Schools St. John’s University College of the Holy Cross Villanova University University of Notre Dame

UBS salutes Kathleen Lynch 2014 Keynote Speaker We’re proud to recognize you for your outstanding leadership in business, commitment to Irish heritage and significant philanthropic contributions on both sides of the Atlantic.

ubs.com/fs

ŠUBS 2014. All rights reserved. UBS Financial Services Inc. is a subsidiary of UBS AG. Member FINRA/SIPC. 140820-1328

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WALL STREET

“I am indebted to my ancestors that came to the United States and endured a multitude of hardships in order to provide future generations the opportunity to succeed in our great country. My wife and I want to ensure our children are aware of these sacrifices and the legacy of those that came before them.” – Brendan Ahern

Brendan Ahern KraneShares

Brendan Ahern is the managing director of KraneShares, a provider of Chinafocused exchange traded funds. Brendan is a graduate of College of the Holy Cross where he received his B.A. and holds a Masters of Science in financial analysis from the University of San Francisco.

Prior to joining KraneShares, Brendan worked at Barclays Global Investors and at iShares AUM, a far cry from his first job as a caddy at the age of 12.

Brendan is a fifth-generation Irish American with roots in Cork and Tipperary on his father and mother’s side.

He says of his Irish ancestry, “I am indebted to my ancestors that came to the United States and endured a multitude of hardships in order to provide future generations the opportunity to succeed in our great country. My wife and I want to ensure our children are aware of these sacrifices and the legacy of those that came before them.”

Brendan is native of Connecticut, where he currently lives with his wife Kate and their three children, Mac, Addison, and Grayson.

Rosemary Berkery

Michael Brewster

UBS

Michael Brewster is the sole manager of the MB Value and Growth and MB Strategic Credit Suisse Private Banking USA. He also co-manages the Small, Mid-Cap, and Special Situations Portfolio on the team. He began his career in ledger accounting at Bally’s Casino Hotel Atlantic City and casino credit at Trump Castle Casino, where he also worked in the pit. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, he worked at Lehman Brothers for 16 years.

Born in Ireland, Michael graduated from Athlone Institute of Technology with a higher diploma in management finance and earned his B.Sc. in business administration from Thomas Edison State College. He serves on the boards of Enterprise Ireland Financial Services, the Irish International Business Network, and on the U.S. board of the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Michael, who was recognized from 20102014 as one of Barron’s Top 1,000 Advisors, lives in New York with his wife, Margaret.

His father’s family come from Co. Fermanagh; his mother’s family, the Hegartys, hail from Co. Longford.

Rosemary Berkery is the vice chairman of UBS Wealth Management Americas and chairman of UBS Bank USA. Prior to joining UBS, she had a 25-year career with Merrill Lynch, serving in a variety of roles including vice chairman and executive vice president. She received her B.A. in English from the College of Mount St. Vincent, later earning a J.D. from St. John’s University.

Rosemary is a native of Belle Harbor, NY and is third-generation with ancestors from Cork and Clare on both parents’ sides. A proud Irish American, Rosemary says of her heritage, “it is one that is rich in a culture that deeply values friendship, one’s inner strength and integrity, and a gift for language and laughter.”

Berkery is also a noted philanthropist and serves on a number of boards including: the boards of trustees of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, the School of American Ballet, the College of Mount Saint Vincent, and the board of advisors for Georgetown College. Her many honors include being named one of Fortune’s “Five Women to Watch,” the “Top 100 Professional Women in New York” by Crain’s New York Business, and the YMCA’s “100 Top Women Achievers.”

Rosemary and her husband Bob have one son, Bobby.

Colleen Casey Angelo, Gordon & Co. Colleen Casey joined Angelo, Gordon & Co. in 1998. She serves as managing director. In this position, she focuses on Institutional Client Development and Consultant Relations. Prior to joining the firm, Colleen was a national sales manager for The St. Regis, Aspen, a Starwood Resort.

Colleen was born in La Grange, Illinois, to John and Bridget (née Sullivan) Casey. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Villanova University.

A fifth-generation Irish American (she has Irish roots on both sides of her family), Colleen is grateful for her Irish heritage. “It has been the foundation for my personal and professional life,” she says. “The values my parents and grandparents instilled in me during my early years have kept me grounded, curious, loyal, kind, compassionate and hardworking.”

52 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Credit Suisse Private Banking USA

John Casey Casey, Quirk & Associates John Casey, chairman and co-founding partner of Casey, Quirk & Associates, has over 40 years of experience in the investment industry. Prior to the formation of Casey Quirk, a consulting firm focused on advising investment management organizations, John was chairman and co-founder of RogersCasey and Barra Strategic Consulting Groups.

Before co-founding RogersCasey in 1976, he and Stephen Rogers worked together at Dreher, Rogers & Associates.

John received, along with Ed Callan, the first McArthur Award from the Investment Management Consultants Association in 2000 in recognition of his leadership and innovation in the investment consulting profession. He is a graduate of Milton College in Wisconsin.

John is a fourth-generation Irish American with ties to Cork on his father’s side and to Roscommon and Clare on his mother’s. He and his wife, Bridget Sullivan Casey, have three daughters, Maura, Meghan and Colleen, who is also honored on this list.

IN RECOGNITION OF THE BRIGHTEST AND THE BEST.

citi.com/progress

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© 2014 Citigroup Inc. Citi and Citi with Arc Design are registered service marks of Citigroup Inc.

We are delighted to support Irish America, and proud to salute this year’s Wall Street 50.

Congratulations to all on your outstanding achievements.

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WALL STREET

“The groundwork that was laid by our Irish predecessors, is now the stepping stone of America’s future success.” – Sean Dillon

Joe Connolly

Richard Connolly

Permal Group

Bank of Ireland, U.S.

Morgan Stanley

Shane Clifford is the executive vice president for the Permal Group where he is responsible for broadening the group’s world-wide footprint. Before joining Permal in 2008, Shane covered the U.K., Ireland, and Middle East markets as a vice president for BlackRock in London. He began his career in New York and New Jersey working for Merrill Lynch, where he held numerous positions covering institutional markets in the Americas.

Born in Limerick but based in the U.S. since 1998, Shane received his M.B.A. in international management from Boston University.

He also holds a B.B.S. in business from the University of Limerick and says that his Limerick origins have endowed him with a personal and professional “drive to succeed.”

Shane currently lives stateside with his wife, Tricia, and three children, Liam, Owen, and Sean.

Joe Connolly is executive vice president and head of Business Development for Bank of Ireland’s U.S. Branch. In this role he and his team are responsible for identifying and establishing relationships with the many U.S. multinationals operating in Ireland.

Regarding his role, he says “U.S. foreign direct investment is a key part of the Irish recovery and it’s important that the Bank of Ireland supports these companies in any way that we can.”

The Bank’s U.S. office also works closely with the fast growing number of Irish companies that have established U.S. subsidiaries in recent years. These companies employ over 89,000 people in the States.

Born and raised in Dublin, Joe has worked for the Bank of Ireland for 35 years, holding a number of senior treasury management positions in Dublin before relocating to the U.S. with his family in late 2003. While always proud of his Irish background he says he has been very humbled during his 10 years living in the U.S. by experiencing first-hand the enormous pride Irish Americans have in Ireland and their desire to support its continued recovery.

Dick Connolly is a managing director of wealth management at Morgan Stanley. He is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and completed his M.B.A. from Babson College, and holds an honorary doctorate from Thomas Aquinas College.

Dick started at Ford Motor Company’s executive training program, later moving to Merrill Lynch where he was recognized as the company’s “Most Successful Rookie Broker,” then to UBS, and finally joining Morgan Stanley in 2007.

A second-generation Irish American and life-long Bostonian, Dick’s maternal grandmother emigrated from Pontoon, Co. Mayo.

“Being Irish means I have a responsibility. I have a responsibility to succeed – because my ancestors did not have the opportunities to do so,” he says.

Along with his wife Anne Marie, Dick devotes ample time to philanthropic and educational initiatives. He sits on a number of boards including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Children’s Medical Research Foundation in Ireland. He has been awarded the Labour Medal, the National Multiple Sclerosis Business Man of the Year, and was named one of America’s Top 100 Financial Advisors by Barron’s.

Shane Clifford

Mary Ann Deignan Bank of America Merrill Lynch Mary Ann Deignan is the global co-head of Equity Capital Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Prior to joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch she worked for UBS, and previous to that she worked for Merrill Lynch for 11 years.

A graduate of Mount Holyoke College where she received a bachelor’s degree, later earning an M.B.A. from the Tuck School at Dartmouth, Mary Ann is a native of Buffalo, New York and is a third-generation Irish American with ancestors hailing from Mitchelstown, Co. Cork on her father’s side. She is proud of her Irish heritage and cherishes the long line of storytellers in her family. She says, “the art of storytelling is a gift passed down from the clan through the generations. As an Irish American, I’m grateful to recognize that the teller and the audience are equally lucky to share the gift!”

Mary Ann currently sits on the board of advisors for the Hospital of Special Surgery and the board of directors for USA Luge.

She resides in New York.

54 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Sean Dillon UBS Wealth Management Sean Dillon is managing director of Wealth Management at UBS. He has over 25 years in the wealth management business, beginning with a career at Salomon Brothers, later joining PaineWebber, which is now UBS, when he moved to Boston. Sean was honored as one of Barron magazine’s “Best of the Best” winners in their circle financial advisor awards.

A second-generation Irish American with ancestors from Cork on his father’s and Galway on his mother’s side, Sean speaks proudly of his Irish heritage saying that “the groundwork that was laid by our Irish predecessors is now the stepping stone of America’s future success.” His strong work ethic began at an early age selling newspapers in his hometown of Rockaway Beach, New York. He later attended the College of the Holy Cross and graduated in 1983.

When he’s not working, Sean loves sports and competition, whether playing golf, core training, or coaching the Girls AAU team which has won four state championships.

Sean also sits on a number of boards including the Wellesley Education Foundation and the Autism Society of America. He lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts with his wife Suzanne and three children, Christopher, Kevin, and Lauren.

In good company.

SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL congratulates the leaders named to the Irish America magazine’s 2014 Wall Street 50.

We’re especially proud that among those named was our own President and CEO,

Margaret Keane

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“It’s always the great Irish songs, celebrations, and traditions that bring a lighthearted smile to my face when I realize that I am taking myself or circumstances way too seriously!” – Karen Elinski

Karen M. Elinski

Mary Callahan Erdoes

TIAA-CREF

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Karen M. Elinski is the senior vice president, general counsel, and head of Government Relations at TIAA-CREF in New York. In this role, she is responsible for managing the corporate federal, state and international government relations and public policy function.

Born in Buffalo with a B.A. and J.D. both from the State University of New York there, Karen was the eldest in a large Irish Catholic family with ties to Limerick and Cork.

It’s “the great Irish songs, celebrations and traditions,” she says, “that bring a lighthearted smile to my face when I realize that I am taking myself or circumstances way too seriously!”

Prior to TIAA-CREF, Karen served as vice president of Government Affairs at Prudential Financial. On the board of directors of Financial Women’s Association, Karen recently received the Annual Women’s Leadership Award from CUNY and the New York Times.

Mary Callahan Erdoes is CEO of JPMorgan’s Asset Management division. In addition to being a member of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Operating Committee, Mary leads the firm’s strategic partnership with Highbridge Capital Management and Gávea Investimentos. She joined J.P. Morgan in 1996 from Meredith, Martin & Kaye.

A graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Business School, Mary was recognized by Forbes and Fortune magazines their “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” and “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” lists, respectively. In 2013, Bloomberg Markets named her the Most Influential Money Manager as part of its “World’s 50 Most Influential People” list.

Mary is a fourthgeneration Irish American. Her greatgrandparents emigrated from Cork on her father’s side and Tipperary on her mother’s. She lives in New York with her husband and three daughters.

Jamie Fagan J.P. Morgan Securities

Brendan P. Farrell, Jr.

Anne M. Finucane

SunGard’s XSP

Bank of America

Brendan P. Farrell, Jr. is executive vice president and general manager of SunGard’s XSP. Brendan, a founder of XSP, has over 27 years of experience in financial services.

In 2009, Brendan created IMMRAM, an informal network for the Irish diaspora, which now has hundreds of members. He stays connected to the Irish-American community by serving on various committees including The American Ireland Fund New York Gala Dinner Committee and The Friends of Athlone Institute of Technology Foundation.

Born in the U.S. to Brendan, Sr. of Co. Longford and Rita McAuliffe of Co. Kerry, Brendan was raised in Longford Town, Co. Longford, where his family ran O’Farrell’s Bar and Grocery. His Irishness, he says, “has become my calling card everywhere I go across the globe. I’m ‘the Irish guy.’ I feel that most people respect the Irish and have a warm place in their hearts for us.”

A graduate of the Athlone Institute of Technology, he now lives in Denville, NJ with his wife of 23 years, Christine. Their children, Dylan and Brianna, are undergraduates in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Anne M. Finucane is global strategy and marketing officer at Bank of America and is also a member of the executive management team. She is responsible for Bank of America’s public policy and brand positioning around the world, current and proposed legislation and other public affairs globally.

As leader of the marketing, research, communications and public policy organizations, Anne directs the company’s engagement and position on global and domestic public affairs issues and advertising efforts.

Anne also oversees the company’s corporate social responsibility program, which includes a 10-year, $2 billion charitable giving goal through the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. A recipient of the 2013 New York Women in Communications Matrix Award and listed among American Banker’s 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking, Anne is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on numerous boards including The American Ireland Fund. She has roots in Cork on both sides of her family, most notably through her grandfather, who came to the United States as a young boy.

56 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Jamie C. Fagan is the managing director of J.P. Morgan Securities in Boston. A graduate of the University of Vermont, Jamie has more than 29 years of experience in the Wealth Management industry and was listed to Barron’s Top 1,200 Financial Advisors for 2014 and the Top 1,000 Financial Advisors in 2013.

Prior to J.P. Morgan Securities, Jamie was at the company’s predecessor, Bear Stearns, in 2006, and was senior vice president at Lehman Brothers from 2001-2006.

He began his career in finance at Smith Barney in 1984, and his career in sales even earlier, working as a toothpaste salesman for his first job.

He is highly involved in community affairs, and serves on the board of the New England Aquarium, where he is also the chairman of the Endowment Fund, as well as the Turtle Ridge Foundation which supports disabled athletes.

Jamie currently lives in Boston with his wife, Katie, and labradoodle, Lioness. He and Katie have three grown daughters and enjoy gathering the family at their home in Baddeck, Nova Scotia.

A third-generation Irish American with roots in the North, Jamie says his family is always impressed with the “extraordinary wit and enthusiasm for life that Irish Americans possess,” which he says “spans generations.” He is a five-time Massachusetts State Men’s Open Doubles Squash Champion.

Helping you achieve your goals has always been ours Merrill Lynch Congratulates Daniel T. O’Connell and all the recipients of the 2014 Wall Street 50 Award.

To find out more, please contact: Merrill Lynch Garden City Office 1325 Franklin Avenue, 4th Floor Garden City, NY 11530 516.877.8200 www.wealthmanagement.ml.com

Life’s better when we’re connected®

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management makes available products and services offered by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (“MLPF&S”), a registered broker-dealer and member SIPC, and other subsidiaries of Bank of America Corporation (“BofA”).

The Bull Symbol, Merrill Lynch and Life’s better when we’re connected are registered trademarks or trademarks of Bank of America Corporation.

Investment products: Are Not FDIC Insured Are Not Bank Guaranteed © 2014 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.

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“It speaks to a legacy of a love of family, home and community; of strength and pride; and of magic and faith. It’s a legacy of persistence in the face of tremendous adversity, and an overriding optimism. I am proud to be a part of such a legacy.” – Suni Harford

Dawn Fitzpatrick UBS O’Connor Dawn Fitzpatrick is the global head and chief investment officer of O’Connor, a hedge fund business of UBS in New York. She also serves as head of the Tactical Trading Strategy team within O’Connor.

Dawn attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business where she received a B.S. She joined O’Connor and Associates in 1992 and has served in a variety of roles including equities, index options, and derivatives.

A native of New York City, Dawn is a second-generation Irish American with ancestors hailing from Kilkenny and Cork on her father’s and mother’s side. She is a proud Irish American and counts her grandparents, who immigrated from Ireland, as her role models and the ones responsible for showing her the value of hard work and education. She says that they, “ingrained in me the unfailing belief that with hard work and a solid education there were limitless possibilities as to what could be achieved.”

Dawn is also a current member of the UBS Global Asset Management Executive Committee and was listed as one of the most powerful women on Wall Street by Business Insider. She lives in New York with her husband John and their three children John, Clair, and Nora.

Paul Jennings

Adrian Jones

Silicon Valley Bank

Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Paul Jennings is head of Product Advisory Services at Silicon Valley Bank. Paul has responsibility for the Bank’s foreign exchange and interest rate market advisory sales, and is also part of the SVB Ireland strategy group, which expects a lending commitment of $100 million to the fastmoving Irish technology and life science sectors. He is a board member of the Boston Irish Business Association, the winner of the Silicon Valley Bank President’s Club in 2011 and 2012, and the recipient of the Irish Voice newspaper’s Dreamer of Dreams in 2000.

Born in Warrenpoint, Co. Down, and raised in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, Paul is a graduate of the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Co. Antrim, and maintains an active involvement in the UU New England alumni group. He is on the board of the American Friends of the University of Ulster.

Paul lives in Wellesley, Mass. with his wife, Aine, and his three children, Catherine, Maura, and Neil.

“I’ve gained so much from being in the U.S.,” said Paul, who became an American citizen in 1997. He adds, “Being Irish, I have a strong sense of giving back and helping others. It’s in the Irish DNA to give back when you can.”

Adrian Jones is a managing director in the Principal Investment Area (PIA) of the Merchant Banking Division (MBD) of Goldman Sachs in New York, where he is co-head of the Americas Equity business and a member of the Global Investment Committee.

A Roscommon native, Adrian joined Goldman Sachs in 1994 as an associate in the Investment Banking Division. He joined PIA in London in 1998; returning to New York in 2002, he was named managing director. He became a partner in 2004.

Following his cadetship at the Irish Military College, Adrian was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Irish Army in 1983.

From 1987 to 1988, he served in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Southern Lebanon. After moving to the United States in 1989, he worked for two years at the Bank of Boston in Credit Derivatives.

In addition to representing GS Capital Partners on a number of corporate boards, Adrian serves on the boards of Autism Speaks, The American Ireland Fund and the Galway University Foundation. In 2012, Irish America honored Adrian as the Wall Street 50 keynote speaker. He resides in Ridgewood, New Jersey, with his wife, Christina, and sons Danny and Liam.

58 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Suni Harford Citigroup Suni Harford is a managing director and Citigroup’s head of Markets for North America. Suni’s roles at Citigroup also include director on the Board of Citibank Canada and co-head of Citigroup’s global women’s initiative, Citi Women. She received her M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, having previously completing a B.S. at Denison University. She began her career at Merrill Lynch and later worked for Salomon Brothers, which became Citigroup.

Suni is a native New Yorker and a third-generation Irish American on her father’s side.

Suni’s great-greatgrandparents hailed from Tipperary with later relatives emigrating from Donegal via Canada. Harford is proud of her Irish heritage saying, “It speaks to a legacy of a love of family, home and community; of strength and pride; and of magic and faith.

It’s a legacy of persistence in the face of tremendous adversity, and an overriding optimism.”

She lives in Connecticut with her husband Woody and three children, Devon, Jenna, and Liam.

Margaret Keane Synchrony Financial Margaret Keane is the president and CEO of Synchrony Financial. A graduate of St. John’s University where she completed both her B.A. in political science and an M.B.A., Margaret joined GE in 1996 and has served in a variety of roles including global operations and mid-marketing leasing, banking and consumer financing. She was named a GE officer in 2005 and has been recognized as one of the “Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance” by American Banker every year since 2007. Earlier this year she led her business segment to a successful IPO of the largest U.S. private label credit card business based on purchases and receivables.

Margaret is a second-generation Irish American with roots in Cork and Clare and finds in her heritage “a big, loving, warm family who is there in good and difficult times.” Her Irish sensibilities also inform the qualities she finds in a good leader: focus, respect and delegation. Margaret currently sits on the cabinet of GE Women’s Network.

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“Having an Irish heritage has been a huge advantage to me in the US. It’s an instant ice breaker with everyone you meet.”

– Aidan Kehoe

Catherine Keating

Daniel Keegan

Thomas J. Keegan

J.P. Morgan

Citigroup

Merrill Lynch

Catherine Keating is the head of Investment Management, Americas at J.P. Morgan. Prior to joining J.P Morgan, Catherine was a partner in the international law firm Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius, LLP, later becoming CEO of United States Private Banking at J.P Morgan.

Catherine is a graduate of Villanova University where she received her B.A., later attending the University of Virginia School of Law where she secured her J.D. Besides her hectic work schedule, Catherine is a noted speaker and author on investment and wealth planning. She has made appearances on Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and CNBC. Catherine has been honored by U.S. Banker as “One of the Most Powerful Women in Banking” and “the Most Powerful Woman in Finance” by American Banker.

Catherine also serves on a number of chairs including the board of trustees of Villanova University and the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York and the Inner-City Scholarship Fund.

Daniel Keegan is head of Equities Americas at Citigroup. Prior to his current position he served as head of Electronic Trading.

Born in New Jersey, Daniel attended the University of Notre Dame, receiving a B.A. and later, a J.D. at Notre Dame Law School.

Before joining Citigroup, Daniel was employed at J.P. Morgan Chase, where he established the Electronic Execution services business, and later sat on the executive committee and board of directors at Automated Trading Desk.

Daniel is currently on the board of BATS Global Markets and BIDS Trading, L.P. A third-generation Irish American with ancestors from Co. Meath on his father’s side and counties Meath and Louth on his mother’s, Daniel lives in New York with his wife, Elizabeth, and four children, Danny, Rosemary, Margaret, and Katherine.

Thomas J. Keegan is a co-founder and managing director of the Private Banking and Investment Group at Merrill Lynch. He has been with Merrill Lynch since earning his B.S. from Providence College in 1980, and his experience has earned him recognition from The Wall Street Journal, Research Magazine, and Registered Rep. The Financial Times listed him as one of their top 400 advisors in 2013 and 2014 while Barron’s has recognized him as one of their Top 100 advisors for the past 7 years.

A third-generation Irish American with Roscommon and Cork roots from both parents, one of his favorite quotes is “There are two types of people in this world, those that are Irish and those that wish they were Irish.”

Tom, along with his wife Patti, are also noted philanthropists and serve as benefactors for the Norma F. Pfriem Breast Cancer Center and The Pink Agenda. They also serve on the Parents Council of the University of South Carolina and volunteer with St. John’s Bridgeport Soup Kitchen.

Tom is also a trustee for Providence College.

He and Patti live in Connecticut and are the proud parents of four wonderful children.

Aidan Kehoe Oxford Global Aidan Kehoe is the cofounder and chief executive officer of Oxford Global and Oxford Solutions. In addition to his role at Oxford, he is also a partner and senior advisor to the Pascucci Family Office and serves as a senior vice president at Duck Pond Corp.

Aidan attended the Waterford Institute of Technology and began his career by working in a variety of different sectors including hospitality, transport, and financial services.

Born and bred in Ireland with ancestors hailing from Laois on his father’s and mother’s side. Martin is very proud of his heritage and considers it a key tool in his success, saying, “having an Irish heritage has been a huge advantage to me in the U.S. It’s an instant ice breaker with everyone you meet.”

Aidan is also involved in a number of organizations including the Lp advisory committee of Comvest Capital, the National Business and Disability Council board, the advisory board and steering committee of the Friends of Karen. He currently serves as the chairman of Cordaid’s U.S. Leaders Council.

Aidan lives in New York with his wife Tricia and son Liam.

Martin Kehoe PwC Martin Kehoe is a partner with PwC in New York. He has over 25 years of experience serving clients in the U.S. and internationally.

Born and raised in Enniscorthy, Wexford, Martin attended the Christian Brothers School and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with an honors degree in business.

Joining PwC Dublin after graduation, he subsequently moved to New York to join PwC U.S., becoming a partner with the firm in 1996. He says, “It is great to be part of the Irish community in this wonderfully diverse and vibrant city.”

Married to Mary Kelly from Bree, with whom he has two daughters, Allison and Laura, Martin is active with organizations such as The American Ireland Fund, The Gaelic Players Association, and The American Friends of Wexford Opera. He and his family also enjoy supporting Part of the Solution in the Bronx, which attends to the basic needs and hungers of all who enter their door.

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“My Irish heritage has always been a significant source of pride and inspiration. Being Irish means being the best you can be by making the most of what you’ve got. It’s about being loyal to your friends and family, sharing with them all the joys that make life worth living.” – Sean Kelly

Denis Kelleher

Sean Kelly

Wall Street Access Denis Kelleher is founder and chairman of Wall Street Access, which combines an independent, entrepreneurial culture with a powerful platform to build and operate a diverse set of successful financial service businesses.

He began his career in 1958 as a messenger with Merrill Lynch, where he rose through the company ranks until 1969 when he founded Ruane Cunniff and its Sequoia Fund. In 1981, he founded Wall Street Access.

A native of County Kerry, Ireland, he is a graduate of St. John’s University where he also served as Chairman and member of the board of trustees. He is a former director of The New Ireland Fund, a member of the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a member of the Staten Island Foundation. In 2005, Denis was Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

He received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame. He lives on Staten Island with his wife, Carol. They have three children and eight grandchildren.

Nomura Securities International, Inc. Sean Kelly is a managing director at Nomura Securities International, Inc. where he manages the Loans, High Yield, and Portfolio Management team. Sean is a graduate of Wesleyan University where he received a B.A. in government. He later attended University College Cork, completing an M.A. in history, and Boston College where he earned an M.B.A. Sean has an extensive career in finance, having worked for FleetBoston, Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers prior to joining Nomura.

A third-generation Irish American with ancestry from Kerry on his father’s side, Sean’s Irish heritage “has always been a significant source of pride and inspiration," he says. “Being Irish means being the best you can be by making the most of what you’ve got. It’s about being loyal to your friends and family, sharing with them all the joys that make life worth living.”

He is a member of Nomura’s Debt/ Loan Committee and the Global Fixed Income Approvals Committee. Outside of work, Sean is a member of Glucksman Ireland House. He lives in Connecticut with his wife Deirdre and their children Aisling and Liam.

Sean Kilduff UBS Private Wealth Management Sean Kilduff is a managing director and private wealth advisor at UBS Private Wealth Management. He focuses on managing risk and delivering needs based solutions to corporate executives, entrepreneurs and their families. He is also a senior portfolio manager in the portfolio management program and concentrates on developing customized investment strategies that incorporate tactical allocations.

Born and raised in New York, Sean is a graduate of St. John’s University with a B.S. in finance. He began his career at Lehman Brothers and spent nine years at Morgan Stanley Global Wealth Management before moving his team and practice to UBS Private Wealth Management.

Sean’s mother was born and raised in Dublin and his father’s family is from Westmeath. He notes, “Having visited my grandmother in Dublin often, Ireland has been a part of my life from an early age. I gained a true appreciation for the world-famous warmth and incredible wit of the Irish people.”

Sean lives in Rockville Centre, New York with his wife, Jean, and their four children.

60 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Shaun Kelly KPMG, LLP Shaun Kelly is vice chair of operations for KPMG LLP. In October 2010, he was appointed chief operating officer, Americas.

In this position, he works with the leaders of the KPMG International member firms in the region to align their respective strategies, structure and business plans.

A native of Belfast, Shaun joined KPMG International’s Irish member firm in Dublin in 1980 and transferred to the San Francisco office in 1984. He was admitted to the U.S. partnership in 1999.

He earned a Bachelor of Commerce, first class honors from University College, Dublin, and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland, and a certified public accountant. He is treasurer and member of the executive committee of Enactus, co-chair of KPMG’s Disabilities Network, and a member of KPMG’s Diversity Advisory Board. He is Chair of the North American Advisory Board of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, and on the board of directors of the Irish Arts Center in New York.

Shaun and his wife, Mary, who is from Donegal, live in New York.

Barbara G. Koster Prudential Financial, Inc. Barbara G. Koster is senior vice president and chief information officer for Prudential Financial, Inc., and head of the Global Business & Technology Solutions Department. She is also chairman of the board of Pramerica Systems Ireland, Ltd., and founding member of Prudential Systems Japan, Ltd. Barbara joined Prudential in 1995 as VP and CIO in Individual and Life Insurance Systems. She previously held several positions with Chase Manhattan, including president of Chase Access Services. Last year, she was inducted into Junior Achievement’s New Jersey Business Hall of Fame. In 2011, NJ Biz newspaper named her one of the “Fifty Best Women in Business.” She is a member of Executive Women in NJ and Research Board, an international think tank.

A third-generation Irish American with roots in Cork and Tipperary, Barbara holds both an A.S. and B.S. from St. Francis College, from which she also has an honorary doctorate. Barbara and her husband, Robert, have two daughters, Kathryn and Diana.

NFP would like to congratulate all of those being recognized in Irish America magazine’s 2014 Wall Street 50!

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“Our Irish heritage defines our values and shapes our future. Our families embrace our pasts and keep traditions going for future generations.” – John Patrick Moore

Sean Lane

Tara McCabe Permal Group

JPMorgan Private Bank

Tara McCabe is senior vice president of Product Development and Marketing for the Permal Group. Prior to joining Permal in 2013, Tara was with Morgan Stanley for 15 years as an executive director in Alternative Investments and previously chief administrative officer of Client Solutions and Investment Products.

Both of Tara’s parents are from Leitrim, and she studied abroad at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She serves on the board of directors of The American Ireland Fund and has been active with their Young Leaders program since its inception. She is also a member of the Irish government’s Global Irish Network.

For her business and community involvement, Tara was included in the Top 40 Under 40 by The Irish Echo, a Woman of Influence by The Irish Voice, and Outstanding Patron by Irish Arts Center.

She graduated from the College of the Holy Cross and resides in New York.

Sean Lane is a senior private banker at JPMorgan Private Bank. He is responsible for growing and managing client relationships and identifying, formulating and delivering wealth management solutions. Prior to joining JP Morgan, Sean served as senior vice president and private bank team leader at U.S. Trust, BoA. Sean holds an honors post-graduate diploma in business and a B.A. in French and English literature from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and is a board member of the university’s foundation. He holds both the Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Financial Planner designations. A first-generation Irish American born in New York, Sean is vice-chairman of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade Foundation, a member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, the AOH, and The American Ireland Fund. He also holds a blackbelt in Judo. His mother hailed from County Mayo and his father from Galway. Sean lives in Garden City, New York with his wife, Cielo, and their two children, Sarah and Ryan.

Robert J. McCann UBS Group Americas Bob McCann is the CEO of UBS Group Americas and Wealth Management Americas. He is also a member of the Group Executive Board of UBS AG. He leads a workforce of more than 20,000 people and is responsible for executing a cross-divisional strategy to integrate UBS’s platform for the benefit of individuals, corporations, institutions and governments. Prior to joining UBS, Bob had a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he held a variety of executive leadership positions.

He serves on the Executive Committee of the board of directors for The American Ireland Fund, is vice chairman of the board of trustees of Bethany College, and is a member of the board of trustees of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York.

A third-generation Irish American with roots in Co. Armagh, Bob received his B.A. in economics from Bethany College and an M.B.A. from Texas Christian University. He is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ireland. Bob and his wife, Cindy, have two daughters.

62 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Thomas E. McInerney

John Patrick Moore

Bluff Point

Harpswell Capital Advisors, LLC

Thomas E. McInerney is the CEO of Bluff Point Associates, a private equity firm based in Westport, Connecticut. Prior to Bluff Point, Tom worked for 23 years as a general partner of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, an NYC-based private equity firm.

A graduate of St. John’s University with a B.A. in literature, he attended New York University Graduate School of Business and began his career at the American Stock Exchange, serving as senior vice president of Operations and Technology.

Tom served on the board of trustees at St. John’s University for 13 years, four of them as Board Chairman. In 2001, St. John’s awarded him an honorary doctorate of commercial science and the University Gold Medal, St. John’s highest alumnus award.

A board member of the Institute for Catholic Schools and St. John’s Bread and Life, Brooklyn’s largest emergency food program, Tom is also on the board of IrishCentral, and 9 other private companies.

A second-generation Irish American with roots in Clare and Cork, he believes that “the contributions that Ireland has made to the world are astounding for a nation of over four million people.” He and his wife, Paula, have five children and twelve grandchildren.

Jack Moore is the CIO and managing partner of Harpswell Capital Advisors, LLC, and has over 25 years in the financial world. Graduating from Hobart College with a B.A. and later attending the London School of Economics where he received an M.S., Jack served on Capitol Hill as press assistant to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, later becoming a principal at Vanguard before joining Harpswell.

Raised in Maine, Jack is a second-generation Irish American and takes great pride in that fact.

“Our Irish heritage defines our values and shapes our future. Our families embrace our pasts and keep traditions going for future generations as our heritage, which is characterized with numerous traits including determination and perseverance, are what foster success for Irish in a very competitive industry,” he says. He currently sits on several boards in the Maine area including the U.S. Biathlon Foundation, Good Will Hinckley, and the Portland Museum of Art. Jack lives in Maine with his wife Alison and three children, Sean, James, and Michael.

METLIFE CONGRATULATES CONOR MURPHY AND ALL OF THE 2014 IRISH AMERICA NOMINEES

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“Be they kings, or poets, or farmers, they’re a people of great worth, they keep company with the angels, and bring a bit of heaven here to earth.”

– Peter Noonan

Brian T. Moynihan Bank of America Brian T. Moynihan is the CEO and a member of the board of directors of Bank of America, one of the world’s largest financial institutions. He joined Bank of America in 2004 following the company’s merger with FleetBoston Financial and became CEO in 2010. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Notre Dame Law School. In 2010, he was elected a trustee of the Corporation of Brown University.

In May 2012, Brian received The American Ireland Fund’s Leslie C. Quick Junior Leadership Award. In accepting the award, he talked about his heritage as a fourth-generation Irish American whose ancestors emigrated from Ireland to upstate New York in the 1850s. “The fighting spirit that led our relatives to come to America with little or nothing…that spirit is deeply ingrained in all Irish Americans. Hard work, tenacity and drive to do the right thing is something that serves us in good stead,” he said.

Conor Murphy

Peter Noonan

MetLife

Peter Noonan is a managing director and financial advisor with J.P Morgan Securities.

A graduate of Bates College with a B.A. in economics, he entered the financial world with a summer internship at Lehman Brothers in 1983. From there he worked for Robertson Stephens and later Bear Stearns before becoming a part of J.P. Morgan.

Peter is a secondgeneration Irish American with roots in Roscommon and Mayo. His interest in the financial world was sparked by his Irish grandmother Bridget Gavighan, from Charlestown, Co. Mayo, who gave him a book entitled Understanding Wall Street when he was 15 years old. One of his favorite Irish sayings is, “Be they kings, or poets, or farmers, they’re a people of great worth, they keep company with the angels, and bring a bit of heaven here to earth.”

A former member of The American Ireland Fund, Peter was recognized by Barron’s magazine as one of the top financial advisors in America four years in a row.

He resides in Massachusetts with his wife Jean and four children, James, Peter, Patrick, and Jack.

Conor Murphy is senior vice president and CFO of MetLife’s Latin American operations.

MetLife is the largest life insurance company in Latin America. He is also CFO of MetLife’s new US Direct business, which has recently launched MetLife Defender as the most comprehensive identity and cyber protection product on the market.

Conor joined MetLife in 2000, having previously spent seven years with PwC in New York. Prior to PwC, he spent five years with Grant Thornton in Dublin, Ireland.

He is a founding trustee of Cristo Rey New York High School in Harlem and a past president of the Association of Chartered Accountants in the U.S. He is a member of the Massachusetts Society of CPAs and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

A native of Donegal, where the third and fourth generations of Murphys run the family store, Murphy of Ireland, which is celebrating 75 years in September, Conor lives in New York with his wife, Ani, and sons, Jack and Aidan.

Kathleen Murphy Fidelity Investments Kathleen Murphy is president of Personal Investing, a unit of Fidelity Investments – the largest mutual fund company in the U.S. She assumed her position in January 2009 and oversees more than $1.25 trillion in client assets, more than 14 million customer accounts and over 11,500 employees. Her business is the nation’s No.1 provider of individual retirement accounts (IRAs), the fastest growing major online brokerage company, and a leading provider of managed account programs and college savings plans.

Prior to joining Fidelity, Kathy was CEO of ING U.S. Wealth Management. She received her B.A. summa cum laude from Fairfield University and earned her J.D. with highest honors from the University of Connecticut.

Fortune magazine named her one of the “Top 50 Most Powerful Women” in American business.

She is a third-generation Irish American – her father’s family is from County Cork and her mother’s family is from Kerry. She is married with one son.

64 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

J.P. Morgan Securities

Anthony O’Callaghan Credit Suisse Private Banking USA Tony O’Callaghan is a director and relationship manager for Credit Suisse Private Banking USA, and has over 31 years of experience as an investment professional. Prior to joining Credit Suisse in 1994, he was with Kidder, Peabody & Co. for 12 years.

Tony is among the most senior advisors in Credit Suisse’s Private Banking USA with particular expertise in asset allocation and fixed income. He earned his B.A. in economics from Michigan State University.

A fourth-generation Irish American whose great-grandfather came to the U.S. in the late 19th century, Tony’s branch of the O’Callaghans traces back to the town of Mallow in County Cork, where you can still see the ruins of the once great O’Callaghan castle. He and his wife Patti have three children: Anthony Ryan, Julia Britten and Bonnie Diane. They have all visited Ireland and speak to their friends there regularly.

Prudential is proud that Barbara Koster, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Prudential, has been named one of Irish America magazine’s 2014 Wall Street 50!

We congratulate Barbara and all of this year’s honorees.

Just another great day for the Irish.

© 2014. Prudential, the Prudential logo, the Rock symbol and Bring Your Challenges are service marks of Prudential Financial, Inc. and its related entities, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide.

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WALL STREET

“My Irish heritage is the foundation of my success. Honesty, modesty, and concern for the objective and the people helping to achieve that objective.” – Daniel O’Connell

Dan O’Connell

Deirdre O’Connor

Francis X. O’Connor

Merrill Lynch

Och-Ziff Capital Management

UBS Financial Services

Dan O’Connell is the managing director of Wealth Management at Merrill Lynch. He graduated from Villanova University with a B.A. and joined Merrill Lynch in 1983.

For the past 20 years Dan has been a member of the Merrill Lynch Circle of Champions. He has been recognized as a Financial Times Top 400 Global Advisor. And both Registered Rep and Barrons have named him one of the Top 100 Financial Advisors in America.

A native of Port Washington, NY, Dan is a second-generation Irish American with roots in Kerry and Waterford. Of his Irish heritage he says “it is the foundation of my success.”

His Irishness has also informed the qualities he finds in a good leader: “honesty, modesty, and concern for the objective and the people helping to achieve that objective.”

Dan and his wife Sue reside in Sands Point on Long Island and have four children, Molly, Daniel, Jack, and Moira.

Deirdre O’Connor is a managing director at Och-Ziff Capital Management.

Previously, she was a managing director in the Investment Management Division at Goldman Sachs, and the controller of Goldman Sachs Investment Strategies, responsible for $150 billion in assets under management.

A fellow at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and a member of the Chartered Global Management Accountants, Deirdre is on the board of the Women’s Bond Club and is also a board member of GOAL USA. She studied accounting at the Cork Institute of Technology.

Born in Cobh, Co. Cork, Deirdre lives in New York City with her husband, Feargall, and their three children, Cliona, Colin, and Ava. She is “extremely proud of her Irish heritage,” and calls it “the foundation upon which I approach life and work. Key values ingrained in the Irish culture are hard work, building long term relationships, and sharing lessons learned with the next generation.”

Francis X. O’Connor is the executive director of global equities at UBS Financial Services in New Jersey. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, and he holds a degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Born at Camp Stewart in Hinesville, Georgia, Francis is the eldest of eight siblings and a second-generation Irish American with ancestors from his mother’s side in Killarney and Tralee.

He remembers fondly his family vacation to Ireland in 1999 where he was able to catch up with cousins, aunts, and uncles while showing his children the importance of their Irish heritage.

For him, “being Irish makes you a welcome citizen of the world. I’m very proud of my Irish heritage,” he says.

He is a member of many Irish organizations including The American Ireland Fund and is a regular marcher in the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

He lives in New Jersey with his wife Donna, with whom he has five grown children, FX, Mike, Jack, Grace, and Kathleen.

James O’Donnell Citi James O’Donnell is a managing director and global head of Investor Sales and Relationships at Citi. He joined Citi in 1999 and served as head of U.S. Equities for four years. Afterwards, he was co-head of Global Investor Sales, and was appointed to his current position in 2008.

Jim is responsible for the distribution of Global Markets products to Citi’s Equities, Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities clients.

Prior to joining Citi, he was president and CEO of HSBC Securities Inc. His responsibilities included all equity, debt, futures and investment banking operations for HSBC in the U.S. He was also CEO of HSBC James Cape, HSBC’s global equity business. Before his tenure at HSBC, Jim was president and CEO of NatWest Securities in the U.S. He also held various roles at Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Jim received his B.A. in comparative religion from Princeton. He is second-generation Irish American, with his father’s family hailing from Dublin and his mother’s from Galway. He credits his Irish heritage, along with his family and his faith, as being the foundation of his life.

66 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Brian Ruane BNY Mellon and Pershing, LLC Brian Ruane is an Executive vice president at BNY Mellon, a member of the Executive Committee for Pershing, a BNY Mellon company, and a member of BNY Mellon’s Global Operating Committee. He is responsible for Broker-Dealer Services, U.S. TriParty Services and Global Clearing. And is also responsible for the newly established Banks, Broker Dealer and Investment Advisor Market Segment. Prior to his current role, Brian was co-lead of Pershing Prime Services, and CEO of BNY Mellon’s Alternative Investment Services (AIS).

A member of the board of directors of BNY Mellon SA NV, BNY Mellon Clearing and BNY Mellon’s Sovereign Wealth Advisory Group, Brian is also a member of the advisory board of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business and the Frank G. Zarb School of Business, from which he received an M.B.A. in international finance.

Born in the U.S. and raised in Ireland, Brian is a graduate of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants in the U.K. and Ireland. His father comes from Crossmolina, Co. Mayo and his mother from Drumhaldry, Co. Longford. He and his wife, Anna, who is from Dublin, live in New York with their four children.

Permal is proud to congratulate Shane Clifford and Tara McCabe, and all the honorees of the Irish America Wall Street 50

Permal is a leading global alternative asset manager, offering investment solutions through established funds and customized portfolios. www.permal.com Phone: 212-418-6500

This material is not an offer or a solicitation to subscribe to any Permal fund.

Legg Mason Investor Services, LLC (LMIS), Member FINRA, SIPC. LMIS and Permal Group are Legg Mason, Inc. affiliated companies.

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WALL STREET

“To be Irish is to be innovative.” – Ronan Ryan

Ronan Ryan

Sharon T. Sager

IEX Group

UBS Wealth Management

Ronan Ryan is the chief strategy officer for the IEX Group, an equity trading venue, and was part of the team that co-founded the company. A graduate of Fairfield University with a degree in international studies, he has over 17 years’ experience in networking infrastructure. He was the head of Financial Services Development at Switch and Data before moving to RBC Capital Markets where he became head of Electronic Trading Strategy, and was instrumental in developing THOR, RBC’s award-winning trading technology.

Ronan and his parents are all natives of Dublin. He moved to America in 1990 at age 16 and gets a lot of his business initiative from his Irish heritage, as exemplified by the saying, “to be Irish is to be innovative.”

He and IEX made headlines earlier this year when they were featured prominently in Michael Lewis's Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt. Articles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, interviews with BBC and a feature on “60 Minutes” all highlighted the success of Ronan's start-up stock market, which plans to become a registered exchange in 2015.

Ronan and his wife Kara have two children, Emma and Jack.

Sharon T. Sager is a managing director and private wealth advisor at UBS Private Wealth Management. A CIMA, she began her career in financial services in 1983 with Kidder Peabody & Co., which was acquired by Paine Webber Inc. and then by UBS. Barron’s has named her to its Top 100 Women Financial Advisors each year since its inception in 2006, and she was recently featured in Barron’s “Best Advice” column. Sharon was also most recently named to the 2014 Financial Times Top 400 Advisors.

A native New Yorker, Sharon earned a B.A. from the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Her father’s family, the O’Tooles, are from Galway, and her mother’s family, the Carrolls, hail from Cork. She and her husband, Loring Swasey, live in Manhattan and Remsenburg, Long Island. She is co-chairman of the Overseers for the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, secretary of the board for Careers Through Culinary Arts, a member of The Economic Club of New York and the Financial Women’s Association, and was a mentor with the CEO-UBS Small Business Advisory Program.

John Scully

Tom Troy

Nuveen Investments

UBS Wealth Management Americas

John Scully is senior vice president of Nuveen Investments where he responsible for marketing Nuveen’s investment solutions to institutional and ultra-nigh net worth investors.

He has over 20 years experience in the investment world, having previously worked at Evergreen Investments, MFS Investment, and Grantham, Mayo, and Van Otterloo before joining Nuveen in 2010.

A fourth-generation Irish American, John’s roots lie in Tipperary and Cork on his father’s side and English and Irish ancestry on his mother’s side that date back to 1637 when his forebears arrived in America. The quote that encapsulates what being Irish means to John is “Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?,” a saying he picked up from his grandfather and which he says “always makes me think of the Irish immigrants like my family that took the risk to come to America to build a better life for their families.”

John is a graduate of St. Lawrence University and holds an M.B.A. from Babson College.

He and his wife Hadley have two children, Charlotte and Jack.

Tom Troy is the head of Capital Markets and Sales for UBS Wealth Management Americas. A member of the UBS Wealth Management Americas Executive Committee, Tom has spent more than 30 years in the finance. Before joining UBS, his career included 20 years in Institutional Equity Capital Markets at Merrill Lynch.

Tom is actively involved in community service and is proud of UBS’s commitment to corporate responsibility. He sits on the boards of St. Ignatius School in the Bronx; the Center for Global Collaboration and Health Initiatives, which promotes emergency healthcare services to Southeast Asia and Africa; and the First Aid Squad of Summit, NJ. Tom holds a B.A. from College of the Holy Cross and an M.B.A. from NYU. Prior to his career in financial services, he worked as a hot tar roofer. This, combined with his Irish genes, “ensured I would always be the most freckled person at any gathering,” says the first-generation Irish American.

“My grandparents were Irish, my parents were Irish, I am Irish, my sons are Irish, the Troys will always be Irish.” His roots are in Cork on his mother Rita’s side and Mayo on his father Tom Sr.’s side.

Born in New York City, Tom now lives across the Hudson with his wife Kim and their four sons, Sean, Connor, Eamon, and Ryan.

68 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

UBS celebrates the outstanding achievements of our colleagues named to Irish America’s Wall Street 50 Rosemary T. Berkery Vice Chairman, WMA and Chairman, UBS Bank USA Weehawken, NJ Sean Dillon Managing Director— Wealth Management Boston, MA Dawn Fitzpatrick Global Head and CIO of O’Connor New York, NY

Sean Kilduff Managing Director— Wealth Management Private Wealth Management New York, NY

Francis X. O’Connor Product Manager Global Equities and ETF Trading Weehawken, NJ

Kathleen Lynch Keynote Speaker Chief Operating Officer, UBS Group Americas and Wealth Management Americas New York, NY

Sharon Sager Managing Director— Wealth Management Private Wealth Management New York, NY

Robert J. McCann CEO, UBS Group Americas New York, NY

Thomas F. Troy Head of Capital Markets Weehawken, NJ

ubs.com/fs

Accolades are independently determined and awarded by their respective publications. For more information on a particular rating, visit their corresponding website.

Neither UBS Financial Services Inc. nor its employees pay a fee in exchange for these ratings. Accolades can be based on a variety of criteria including length of service, compliance records, client satisfaction, assets under management, revenue, type of clientele and more. ©UBS 2014. All rights reserved. UBS Financial Services Inc. is a subsidiary of UBS AG. Member FINRA/SIPC. 140821-1337

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A Course Called

Quirky

Tom Coyne, whose 16-week jaunt through Ireland’s 38 seaside golf courses led to the best-selling book, A Course Called Ireland, has put together a list of 18 of his favorite quirky Irish golf holes.

Q

uirky: possessing an individual peculiarity of character; an unusual habit or way of behaving; different from the ordinary in a way that causes curiosity.

In compiling my list of the 18 quirkiest golf holes in Ireland, it quickly became clear that I must love the unusual, because my quirky list lined up perfectly with my tally of favorite golf memories in Ireland.

Ireland, like all the places I’ve traveled, seems to be the sum of its wonderful quirks – its flourishes, and its peculiarities. So when I call this my 18 quirkiest holes in Ireland, perhaps it’s more accurate to call it my 18 most Irish.

Lahinch #4, County Clare (par 5, 475 yards)

My list starts on the hole that haunts the links dreams of my youth. I recall playing Lahinch for the first time as a teenager, and arriving at #4 down a half-dozen balls and resenting my father for forcing this pastime upon me. After hacking my way through a gauntlet of dunes and finally blasting my ball back onto the fairway, my caddy told me to aim at a big green mountain of golfing death, and hit my ball back at the sort of hulking sand tower from which it had just escaped. I was sure Lahinch was having a laugh. The green on the par five sits hidden behind a massive sand dune, invisible and improbable for the first-time visitor. It’s actually a rather generous landing area if you trust your caddy and aim for the white rock. And they could have made it harder, I suppose. They could have painted the rock green.

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Mulranny #1, County Mayo (par 5, 428 yards)

Every hole at the nine-hole Mulranny could make this list, but I point to the first because it is a visitor’s first taste of a green wringed by barbed wire fence. Mulranny is a wonderful little links built on commonage, so it shares its acres with sheep, horses, golfers, and other donkeys, and the fences protect the greens from heavy hooves. I have approached many greens with a mental picture of a prohibitive barbed wire fence; in Mulranny, one doesn’t need to pretend. Trust in the 90%

air rule and chip right on through the fences (or take a free do-over if you find the 10%).

And don’t forget to close the gate after you on your way out.

Ardglass #2, County Down (par 3, 162 yards)

After teeing off #1, with ocean spray wetting your feet and a 15th-century castle up against your back, you might be wondering what you have gotten yourself into in Ardglass. Number two will confirm your suspicions that you’ve found one of the most special places in Ireland for golf.

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FAR LEFT: Tom Coyne golfing in Ireland.

LEFT: The fence guarded greens at Mulranny, where (CENTER TOP) donkeys rome freely.

CENTER BOTTOM: #2 at Ardglass – the preposterous view from the tee box.

BELOW RIGHT: The sixth hole at Cruit Island – my favorite hole in Ireland.

With a green perched above what looks like some sort of ancient coastal rock slide spilling into the waves below, number two combines water, rock, and green in a stunning tableau. You won’t know whether to hit your ball, rappel to safety, or go spelunking. No wonder Rory McIlroy, when asked his favorite golf course in Northern Ireland, chose Ardglass.

Otway #2, County Donegal (par 4, 356 yards)

If you are looking for quirky, this little nine-holer has you covered. Packed into a

small pocket of Donegal seaside, the course is as fun as it is confusing – holes crisscross and overlap, and without careful attention to the course map, you will likely end up inventing a tee-to-green routing of your own. Your tee shot on #2 will have you completely stumped – the tee markers point you up a hill and toward what looks like a fence at the edge of the property.

Trust that you are facing the right direction and swing away – there’s a gate in the fence, and over the ridge you will find the second half of the golf course. Along with your ball, one hopes.

Cruit Island #6, County Donegal (par 3, 149 yards)

Everything about Cruit Island is unique

– from the name Americans find impossible to pronounce, to the adventurous haul out to the edge of Donegal, to the stunning rocky claws upon which the golf course is built. For my money, #6 is the most dramatic par three on the golfing planet, a green that would look so wide and welcoming if it weren’t for the massive sea cave separating you from it. Depending on wind and tide, this little par 3 can be played with any of twelve clubs, and it has at least as many personalities – from soft and sleepy sands at low-tide, to angry waves reaching for your ball at high. You wouldn’t think it safe to travel such geography on foot, not until someone dug a small hole in the ground and stuck a flag in it, after which it became not only sensible, but necessary.

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Doonbeg #12, County Clare (par 4, 401 yards)

I happen to like my golf quirks for the age they connote – why would anyone put the green there? Because the course predates bulldozers – nature put the green there. Doonbeg’s #12 is a rare modern quirky hole, with a controversial and much debated design anomaly fashioned by Mr. Greg Norman: a bunker smack in the middle of the green. Love it, hate it, or laugh at it, you can say that you won’t find such a feature elsewhere in golf. But with the recent change of ownership at Doonbeg, one must wonder: Will Donald Trump leave the bunker in the green on 12? If enough of his own solidly-struck approach shots find themselves in the bunker, I fear that sand trap could very well be fired.

Achill Island – all, County Mayo

To pick a quirky hole at the nine-hole Achill Island links is a difficult challenge – in fact, remembering any particular hole at Achill has proven tricky. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my day at Achill and appreciate it as completely unique, but it isn’t a course of memorable golf moments so much as it is a pretty stretch of golfing land in the shadow of stunning grey sea cliffs, and a course covered with bucking sheep and fence-protected greens à la the commonage at Mulranny. But Achill has a feature I have never seen on a golf course elsewhere – as the resident sheep nibble all the grass to fairway length, rows of white stones are used to outline what would be the fairways at Achill. It’s sort of like a runway effect, as if you are a pilot looking 72 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

for the safe stretch to land your ball. Even if stray outside the lines, if you don’t find your drive on the short grass at Achill, it’s time to take up tennis.

European Club #12, County Wicklow (par 4, 459 yards)

The European Club’s rare and celebrated qualities are a product of the unique mind from which they were born. The green on the 12th in Wicklow is a perfect example of Pat Ruddy’s willingness to challenge golfers in unexpected ways. The putting surface is 127 yards long – a full pitching wedge from back to front, meaning the hole can be stretched or shortened for any approach in one’s bag. The green is not a gag – quirks abound at the European Club, but they aren’t accidental. This beefy putting surface is a chance to use every ounce of green-reading imagination at your disposal. And the green on 12 can provide you that rare golf experience where you aren’t sure if putter is enough.

Spanish Point #8, County Clare (par 3, 117 yards)

I finish my quirky front nine with a hole in Clare called “The Terror.” On the scorecard, it couldn’t look less terrible, but the hole asks you to hit over a deep hollow to a tiny green, with a wide expanse of holiday campers behind you and the resting grounds of the Spanish Armada just over your shoulder. Yard for yard, it is one of the most flashy holes in Ireland, and for a little flip wedge of a shot, terrible numbers do await should you get lost in the vista.

Old Head #18 , County Cork (back tee – par 4, 434 yards)

Play this hole from the forward tee and it’s another gorgeous hole set atop what might be the most uncommon golf setting on the planet. But take the long walk back to the black tee beneath the Old Head lighthouse, and this hole becomes something out of a video game, and you find yourself searching for a turbo swing button. The tee box is roughly four paces deep, from the lighthouse wall to the long drop into golfing Valhalla in front of you. I am accustomed to teeing off on waterside holes with a fear of losing my ball; on the back tee at Old Head, I was more worried about losing my club and whatever might be attached to it – namely, myself.

Lahinch #5, County Clare (par 3, 154 yards)

You arrived half-asleep in Ireland, sleptwalked through customs, ate a breakfast that you don’t think you could explain to your doctor, and dragged your jetlagged bones up to number five at Lahinch where you look into a wall of windy dunes, and your caddy hands you a seven-iron and tells you it’s a par 3. With no green in sight, you wonder in what strange land you have found yourself, if you are still asleep on that 747, or if they sometimes forgot to build the greens on holes in Ireland. Trust your caddy, the green is back there – you’ll never not see a blind par-three anywhere else in your golfing life.

Tralee #13, County Kerry (par 3, 159 yards)

Called Brock’s Hollow, one might won-

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the safer side of the course brings ruins of the 12th century Bon-a-Margy Abbey into play. Centuries of war and weather could not bring the Abbey down, but an assault by wayward eight-irons is still being waged.

Carne #17, County Mayo (par 4, 436 yards)

I couldn’t leave my favorite golf course off a list of the most unique holes in Ireland.

There has to be something unique about #17 if my writer friend John Garrity makes the unmerciful par-four a central obsession of his wonderful memoir, Ancestral Links.

The hole is a wild-ride of a par four with a deep, kinked fairway leading to a green that seems as if it has been melted across the side of a soaring dune. John found the hole so fascinating that he turned 17 into its own golf course, playing the hole eighteen times with a goal of breaking 90.

Narin & Portnoo #’s 13, 14,15, County Donegal (463, 490, 480 yards respectively)

LEFT: The sheep greenskeepers at Achill Island, and the fenced in greens.

TOP: Surf’s up at Ballycastle. ABOVE: A warning at Buncrana.

der about Brock and if he had a severe dislike of golfers. Find the green on this par three over a bottomless pit in the dunes and it will be your favorite in Ireland. Come up short and you should tell your playing partners to wait fifteen minutes before calling in a search party for extraction. And you thought designer Arnold Palmer was such an affable fellow.

Buncrana #8, County Donegal (par 4, 357 yards)

Named “Calamity,” the 8th at the charming nine-hole Buncrana is hands-down the most appropriately titled hole in Ireland.

The par-four #8 shares its fairway with the adjacent par four #7, in what I believe may be the world’s only two-way fairway, with traffic heading along the hole in both directions. As you find yourself launching your drive directly into the foursome behind or in front of you, don’t worry – swing away, yell fore, and enjoy the chaos.

The Island #14, County Dublin (par 4, 337 yards)

It is easy to mistake the fairway on 14 at The Island for an accidental path created by, say, an earthworm. The necktie-wide fairway is only made more terrifying by the deadly dunes on the left, and a wet landing on the right. You will have never played such a short hole with such fear before – putting the ball in the hole won’t feel nearly as satisfying as putting a ball on the short grass.

Ballycastle #3, County Antrim (par 3, 168 yards)

Ballycastle is one of the most unique courses in Ireland for its multitude of personalities. From tame parkland holes to wild links offerings, from flat and low-lying holes, to a back nine that launches you up into seaside hills like some sort of desperate shepherd searching for his flock, Ballycastle is wonderful for being weird. And #3 on

I suppose it’s no surprise that a list of quirky holes has a strong Donegal representation (a county I love and a place I found to possess as much character as any in the country). If back-to-back-to-back par fives isn’t quirky in a course design, I’m not sure what is. Narin & Portnoo is one of Ireland’s true hidden gems and a gorgeous track that rewards the willing traveler with pure links challenge and stunning seaside scenery.

Your love affair with Narin & Pornoo might take a brief hiatus as it lays out three meaty par-fives in a row for you, especially if they are into the wind. Don’t play it on an empty stomach. Your pint at round’s end will feel particularly victorious.

European Club, holes #’s19 & 20 (120 and 160 yards respectively)

Where better to end a round of Ireland’s most unique golf holes than with the most unique course plan in Ireland? The European Club again shows its singular Pat Ruddy vision with the addition of two extra holes that can be played for fun, or used so that another hole on each nine can be tended to or rested. Bonus holes are the kind of brilliant idea you only get when a course has the uncommon point of view and love you get at the European Club, where the extra cost of maintaining twenty holes is small beer when it comes to creating a perfect golfing experience. And two extra holes will help ease that feeling you are bound to encounter on all your golfing travels in Ireland – that eighteen is never IA quite enough.

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Urban Rebranding

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As Ireland’s first City of Culture, Limerick is positioning itself to become a new capital of the arts in the west.

Adam Farley traveled there to see how it’s going and what it means for the future of the former “Stab City.”

R

ichard Harris used to drink here. Angela McCourt used to buy single cigarettes here. The Cranberries used to play house shows here. Kevin Barry used to be a courthouse reporter for The Limerick Post here. For 12 days in 1919, the free and independent Limerick Soviet printed its own money here. President Michael D. Higgins used to wear knickers here.

But all that is in Limerick’s past, rich in cultural export, but overshadowed in the media by a history of crime, poverty, and the stigma of the now-obsolete moniker “Stab City.” In the present though, the city is filled with imported and home-grown optimism in a revitalized city center and a refiguring of Limerick’s popular perception. If you want a city buzzing with energy and excitement, balanced by a slow pace and friendly conversation, now is the perfect time to visit a city on the brink.

The optimistic energy is spurred by a successful bid as Ireland’s first City of Culture for 2014, modeled after the Derry~Londonderry UK City of Culture and Liverpool’s designation as the European Capital of Culture for 2013. Despite some difficulties during the fledgling stages of planning in late 2013 and controversy surrounding the departure of the original director on January 2nd, the initiative has funded over 100 projects, including walking tours, street art, original theater productions, and numerous art installations.

When I visited in June, the Cardiff-based NoFitState circus was in town at the site of the former Dell factory outside of the city center. James Galway has performed for City of Culture, artists from Israel, Sweden, Panama, Bilbao, and elsewhere are exhibited throughout the city. Van Morrison was announced as the headliner of the Jazz Festival, and in January, Riverdance, whose composer Bill Whelan was born in Limerick, kicked off its 20th anniversary tour at the University of Limerick Sport Center. As this article goes to press, a giant French puppet named Granny is walking down O’Connell Street. Current estimates put the influx of spectators at roughly 200,000 people, more than twice the population of the city.

74 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

It’s not all international culture stars though, and City of Culture has made efforts to support local artists who are at risk of being forgotten once the circus leaves town at the end of the year. The influx of capital for Limerick-based artists has allowed many to increase the scale at which they work, making their projects highly visible throughout the city. The seven-story portrait of a Limerick teen male in a hoodie on the side of the unused Ranks Silo on the Docks Road is a case in point.

“His image showcases the image of the young men of the city, so he speaks to them,” says Joe Caslin, the creator of the piece.

“So when you go down and view his portrait it asks you a question. Quite in your face – it’s a large question that he’s asking. And in a way it your choice as to what question it is.”

The confrontational nature of the installation is par for most of the projects in the city. Caslin says this shouldn’t be surprising given the city’s tough urban history.

“It’s great because there’s a beauty that sits within the city as well, but there’s also this kind of edginess and Limerick has started to embrace that edginess, and not see it as a negative,” he says.

Part of the focus on public art is to repurpose abandoned commercial and industrial space for cultural aims. Katherine O’Halloran, director of the Draw Out – Urban Exhibitionists project, another project funded by City of Culture, wants to create a city that is less reliant on commercial enterprises.

“Draw Out’s vision is that we, as a city, are no longer hindered by consumer-focused function but are ambitious enough to create dynamic examples of the highest quality art work that can live ‘outside.’” she says.

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ABOVE: Joe Caslin’s portrait of a Limerick teen on the Ranks Silo building. LEFT: The refurbished school room inside the Frank McCourt Museum, which is threatened with closure.

OPPOSITE: Irish street artist Maser’s installation at the shuttered gas station on Parnell Street. The aestheticization of unused space is a key component to City of Culture.

Draw Out’s flagship project for City of Culture was to transform a semi-derelict gas station into something of a cross between a mural and a sculpture. The entire space, including two cars, have been painted in bold color blocks by the renowned Irish graffiti artist Maser. It is a work that “surprises people and questions their relationship with the familiar and the norm,” he says of the gas station project. “Also how dissociated we are from the space around us,” he adds.

It’s easy to imagine the gas station as an often-passed but littleconsidered lot on Parnell Street. But now it is impossible to overlook. That, according to O’Halloran, is the point of such largescale public installations in the city.

“Being up close to the regeneration process, I suppose I was maddened by the idea that we would knock [down] and do away with all these once-lived-in spaces,” he told RTÉ. “To me that was an insanity that was happening. And I suppose for me it was about reclaiming spaces, reclaiming parts of ourselves that in some way we’ve shadowed.”

In this way, many of the projects embrace the post-industrial

past of Limerick, drawing attention to forgotten spaces. One of the largest projects for City of Culture involved the Dell factory, which has lain vacant since 2009 when Dell moved its productions to Poland, costing the city nearly 2,000 jobs. Now, it’s being reimagined as the Culture Factory, an events space for large-scale, international, avant garde productions.

Already, it’s hosted several shows. The first, which toured through town last March, was Fuerzabruta, an Argentinian performance that took place, “overhead, along, on your back – everywhere,” according to company manager Mariana Mele. When I toured the factory in June, NoFitState circus had their big top set up outside the space, whose high ceilings weren’t high enough to hold it.

“It’s a perfect space for productions of this scale,” said Joe Clarke who led me through the factory. “All the infrastructure is here – bathrooms, high roofs, solid floors, scaffolding, lighting, everything. This, hopefully, will be the lasting legacy of City of Culture. But it’s also a matter of whether it can be maintained as an events space when it becomes less of a novelty.”

That question of legacy is one that is perpetual throughout the city. Not only for after City of Culture, but to what extent the troubled history of Limerick should be preserved. Indeed, not all of Limerick’s past appears to be interpreted with the same intent of reclamation.

For much of the 20th and into the 21st century, Limerick has had a reputation dogged by poverty, gang violence, drug abuse, and political cronyism. Arguably, the most famous piece of culture to come out of Limerick was Frank McCourt’s blockbuster memoir Angela’s Ashes. But while Angela’s Ashes is a feat of personal storytelling, it didn’t exactly help Limerick’s image that the most famous book about the city was also about escaping it.

For fans of the book though, the Frank McCourt Museum is one of the gems of old Limerick. Founded just a few years ago by Una OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 IRISH AMERICA 75

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Heaton, who serves as its director, the museum occupies the top floors of the stately Georgian Leamy House, where McCourt used to attend school. The museum displays a lovingly curated assortment of the author’s possessions, including his personal copy of Angela’s Ashes which he would take on book tours, and his collection of rosary beads, as well as artifacts from the 1930s in a reconstructed primary school room. Upstairs, the McCourts’ tworoom apartment has been recreated as it would have looked when the family lived just around the corner from the school.

Unfortunately, the museum may not be around for much longer. The building has been put on the market and its future is uncertain, as is, it seems, Frank McCourt’s legacy in the city. Malachy McCourt recently told The Limerick Chronicle, “I don’t know if the well-heeled citizenry of Limerick would want to contribute to the memorial of a Limerick laner, at one time the lowest form of life in our city.”

In fact, most of the namesake lanes in Limerick were razed by the city in an effort to curb crime and poverty rampant in the narrow alleys. They were replaced by social housing projects, in which 40 percent of Limerick’s population currently lives. It might be for this reason that the city seems a little ambivalent about honoring the writer – the history is too close and the city hasn’t completely addressed the underlying social issues in the underprivileged neighborhoods.

And so, the obvious question, as it always must be with such high-budget revitalization efforts, is will it be successful?

Leaving that unanswered for the moment, it’s important to remember that in spite of this being the branded year of culture in Limerick, many of the organizations, festivals, and institutions that received funding from City of Culture have been around long before. It’s not that this isn’t a zeitgeist for contemporary Limerick’s image, but it would be inaccurate to say this event is a pure renaissance – Limerick’s comeback has been in utero for over a decade.

The Limerick Jazz Festival is now in its third year as well as the Frank McCourt Museum. The Hunt Museum has a small but impressive range of art dating from the bronze age to the contemporary (my favorite was a video installation called “Lunch to Last Call” by a Swedish artist who cut audio-less CCTV footage of a local Limerick pub into nine 90-minute clips – both humorous and haunting). The Irish Chamber Orchestra is based in Limerick at the University of Limerick’s World Continued on page 78 76 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

How to get there Limerick is just 12 miles east of Shannon Airport and roughly 2 hours by train, bus, or car from Dublin.

Located almost exactly halfway between Cork and Galway, it is an hour and a half by bus, train, or car from both.

Where to stay

Limerick City Gallery

There are many centrally-located hotels in Limerick for all budgets. Adam Farley stayed at No. 1 Pery Square, a hotel, spa, and brasserie wrapped into one where the rooms are named after famous Irish figures. It is located across the street from People’s Park and the Limerick City Gallery of Art, a contemporary art museum with local and international shows. Rates from $137/night, with full breakfast included. For more options, visit Tourism Ireland’s Limerick page at discoverireland.com.

What to see

•

St. Mary’s Cathedral, this Church of Ireland house of worship is the city’s oldest standing structure. Though it has been extensively expanded since 1168, remnants of the original church can still be seen on the west façade.

St. Mary’s Cathedral

John’s Castle, dating from the 13th-century, the castle recently under•wentKing a major renovation and the addition of a modern visitor center.

The Treaty Stone, where the Treaty of Limerick was signed in 1691, is •located just across the bridge from King John’s Castle on Clancys Strand.

The Milk Market, an all-week panoply of artisanal food, drink, and local •music, is one of Ireland’s best open air markets. They even claim it’s better than Cork’s English Market.

The Limerick Boat Club, whose 137-year-old roof was blown off in last •winter’s storms, doesn’t rent out kayaks anymore, but NevSail Watersports does.

As does the University of Limerick.

For the most up-to-date information on these and the other sites in and around Limerick, visit Tourism Ireland at ireland.com.

Pride in heritage.

Strength in leadership.

CBRE celebrates this year’s Wall Street 50 honorees and keynote speaker, Kathleen B. Lynch. Their accomplishments are a testament to the impact and inspiration our Irish and Irish-American leaders create within the financial industry and throughout our community.

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Urban Rebranding continued from page 76

Academy of Music and Dance, and the EVA International art biennial has been staged in Limerick since 1977.

But the City of Culture is also only a part of the revival effort, looking to the city and its citizens.

The other part of revitalization is increasing the profile of Limerick across Ireland and abroad. For its part, the University of Limerick is working to effect that shift.

Dave Mahedy, the director of sport at the Uni-

versity of Limerick, says that the aim of the center is to make the college Ireland’s Sports Campus, and create an environment suitable for a training destination. The Munster rugby teams all practice there, it’s the training facility for the Irish paraolympic team, and it hosts tournaments throughout the year.

When I spoke with Mahedy, the Kennedy Cup was underway in boys under 14 soccer, with European scouts already there.

In terms of Limerick city too, Mahedy says, “We’ve made a huge impact in the number of people who use the facility. We have more than 600,000 visits a year. And while a percentage of that is students, the majority are community visits. Schools come in and do [swim lessons] every morning.”

When I asked him about how City of Culture has affected the center, he became a little reflective, remembering that even building the center in the first place was “a bit of a gamble.”

“It was a ‘build it and they will come’ situation,” he says, echoing some of the skepticism about how the City of Culture initiative would fare. “But they have. They’ve come in by the thousands and the events keep coming too. We’ve had an event here every weekend since January.”

Across the River Shannon, which cuts through campus, is another expansion project. The World Academy of Music and Dance is the only academy of its kind that mixes performance and academic rigor in Ireland, along with requiring a strong community outreach component, says director Sandra Joyce.

One project the Academy is heavily involved in, in partnership with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, is Sing Out with Strings, which provides weekly workshops in song-writing and violin tuition for 300 children across Limerick.

78 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

FAR LEFT: UL President Don Barry; Former Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan T.D.; Dr Catherine Foley; Dr Sandra Joyce, Director, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. TOP: “Granny” strolls Limerick. LEFT: The Crescent, one of the best-preserved streets for Limerick’s Georgian architecture.

The Academy also offers an M.A. in music education and an M.A. in festive arts, both of which have been quite popular because they are community-based programs that insert students into the culture of the city to plan, organize, and curate events in the center.

“It’s about teaching empowerment, outreach, and a sense of community,” Joyce says. “We’re not in the heart of the city, we’re on the outskirts, so we have to make a special effort. It’s needed to help revitalize the city.”

President of UL Don Barry agrees, and so does the Limerick City Council, who are in the planning stages of moving some university dorms and some departments to the center to give it a jolt of youthful energy.

“One of the challenges to the city is that due to bad urban planning, people have been sucked out of the city center into shopping centers that have grown up on the outskirts of the city… and students are a really strong regenerating force because they drink a lot of coffee and a lot of beer and they socialize more,” he says.

That youthful enthusiasm is a good analogy for the energy in Limerick at the moment. Visiting, you can get your bearings in an afternoon (the city center is laid out on an easy north-south grid), but what City of Culture has shown is that there are scores of local artists and organizations that are committed to expanding the city’s cultural profile and rethinking urban space. There’s always the question of legacy, but for now the impact has been an emotional one, rather than structural – change the city’s own perception of IA itself, and the rest of the county will too.

Saluting those who inspire For over 25 years, Irish America Magazine has been highlighting the best political and business leaders, organizations, artists, writers and community figures among the Irish in America. We are proud to support their efforts and congratulate this year’s honorees for the magazine’s Annual Wall Street 50, including Martin Kehoe, PwC Partner.

www.pwc.com

© 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership. All rights reserved.

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Whatever Happened to

Launt Thompson?

How one of the most important post-Civil War sculptors died in obscurity and is buried in an unmarked grave. By Michael Burke

L

ancelot (Launt) Thompson was born in the town of Abbeyleix, in what was then Queens County and is now County Laois, on February 8, 1833. He came to the United States in 1847 with his recently widowed mother who had no means of support in Ireland. They settled in the Albany, New York area. Soon the 14-year-old was working as an office boy for James H. Armsby, surgeon and professor at Albany Medical College, with the hope of eventually becoming a doctor himself.

Albany at that time was a center for visual arts. Several painters and sculptors in year-round residence and more swelling their ranks from New York City and Boston during the summer took advantage of the beautiful scenery of the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the Hudson River.

Having always possessed a talent for art, Launt, while in the early stages of studying anatomy, developed an interest in the human form and decided to specialize in anatomical drawing. A well-known sculptor living in Albany, Erastus Dow Palmer, saw potential in his work and hired him as a studio boy. He would spend the next nine years apprenticing with Palmer and developing his own unique style in sculpture.

Thompson and Palmer became friends, and the senior artist helped his protégé early in his career, getting his work exhibited and sold. The center of the art world in America at that time, as now, was New York City, upon which the young man set his sights.

In 1858 he moved there, sharing an apartment with his friend, the young artist James Pinchot, who would later become very successful in the wallpaper business.

Thompson rented workspace in the Tenth Street Studio Building, an artistic and social center for the burgeoning New York art scene.

He was soon working steadily, turning out cameos and marble relief portraits, some of which were entered into an exhibition at the National Academy of Design, and received favorable mention in the fledging art magazine Crayon.

Rose Madder, reviewing his cameos in 1859 for Irish America Weekly wrote that they were “unrivalled in the delicacy of their execution.”

What first brought Thompson to the attention of the general public, however, was his marble portrait of James Capon Adams, known familiarly as “Grizzly Adams,” the legendary woodsman.

Adams, who bonded with nature and refused to harm any animal, later became the subject of books, a movie, and a television series.

Thompson’s star was now rising, with more work and lucrative 80 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

ABOVE: An undated portrait of Launt Thompson.

commissions coming his way. The Century Association, of which he was a member, commissioned him to do a portrait of another member, his close friend, the poet, journalist, and lawyer William Cullen Bryant, which is currently in the permanent collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another commission came about in an unusual way – via his roommate’s family. Cyrille Pinchot, father of James, had served in Napoleon’s army before moving to the United States, where he took part in establishing the town of Milford, Pennsylvania. He wanted a bronze statue of his commanding officer placed in the town square.

Of course, by this time Napoleon was no longer an emperor, and Thompson’s sculpture, though considered by many to be an excellent work of art, for various reasons (mostly political) was never installed and remained at the Metropolitan Museum in Washington,

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D.C. for some time before finding a home at the Smithsonian.

The statue was unique in that it depicted the defeated Napoleon, with his head down. It was an unusual interpretation of an unusual commission, that of a defeated leader, especially one destined for a place of honor in a town square. However, this work led to other commissions, including an important one from the United States Military Academy at West Point, depicting Civil War Major General John Sedgwick, who was killed in the Battle of Spotsylvania in Virginia. In addition to the standing general, Thompson included a bas-relief on the base of the statue depicting Sedgwick’s death in the battle.

During his early years in New York City, Thompson cultivated an active social life. He frequented the famous Pfaff’s Cellar restaurant and bar and was considered one of the new avant-garde artists and writers referred to as “bohemians.” Among whom were the writers, Fitz-James O’Brien, William Winter, Thomas Bailey Aldrich and the artists Frank Bellew and Sol Etynge, Jr. who illustrated the work of Charles Dickens.

Two members of the assemblage who later rose to prominence were poet Walt Whitman and France’s Premier Georges Clemenceau. Lola Montez (see article in June/July issue on this Irish lady), sometimes dropped into Pfaff’s, as the guest of her friend Walt Whitman.

RIGHT: Napoleon I (1866), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. BELOW LEFT: Portrait bust of Charles Loring Elliott (1870). BELOW RIGHT: Portrait bust of William C. Bryant (1864). Both busts are owned by Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Thompson joined the Lotos Club and the Union League Club. He became a wellknown host himself. A quote from the wife of his close friend, the poet and journalist Thomas Bailey Aldrich, may have hinted at problems to come: “Mr. Launt Thompson’s studio was one of the largest, and as he was always a great favorite, choice spirits were to be met there day and night.”

By “spirits” she was probably referring to interesting people but there may have been a pun intended with regard to the alcohol served. At any rate, it indicated Thompson’s outgoing personality – and perhaps his aversion to being alone.

Thompson was now doing so well financially that he could afford to take some time off to do a “Grand Tour” of Europe, so popular with well-to-do and up-and-coming young Americans of the time. His tour, however, was more than a vacation. He went to see firsthand, and study the great works of sculpture throughout Europe.

In 1868, he left for Paris with his friend and fellow artist, the landscape painter and student of Frederick Edwin Church, Jervis McEntee. After a brief stay in the city of lights, the pair traveled to Rome and joined up with Church and another member of the Hudson River School, John Ferguson Weir.

Thompson then went on to Venice, where he met up again with McEntee, who had preceded him and had rented an apartment with his wife. He stayed with them for a while, one floor above the poet Robert Browning, before venturing on to Florence, where he visited the famous Irish-American sculptor in residence there, Hiram Powers.

Thompson then returned to Paris where he was received by the American illustrator Gustave Dore. He finished the grand tour in London, spending time at the Royal Academy, the British Museum and Windsor Castle.

After what proved a valuable and highly educational tour, Thompson returned to New York City in 1869, and embarked upon what was to become the most productive phase of his career. After completing a bronze portrait bust of Sanford Robinson Gifford, leader of the Hudson River School, he was selected to create a statue for the town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts depicting a Union Army color-bearer. He then produced a life-size statue of Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, which was placed in front of the Old Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C., of which Scott was a co-founder. The statue faces the Capitol Building. For this work Thompson was paid the then formidable sum of $15,000. While he was completing this work he also executed a bronze statue of the Reverend Abraham Pierson, the first rector of Yale University, done posthumously.

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It was during this time, flushed with success, that Thompson married Maria Louisa Potter. She was the daughter of Alonzo Potter, Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, in St. George’s Church, a beautiful church in Troy, New York, which still has an active parish today.

Maria was the youngest of nine children of Alonzo Potter and Sarah Maria Nott. Her mother died giving birth to her and she was not raised with her father and siblings but with her strict, religious godmother, Mary Garretson. Her life improved when Eliphalet Nott, her maternal grandfather took over her care.

It is not clear how the couple met. Her grandfather lived in Schenectady, New York, not far from where Thompson lived in his youth, so they may have met as young adults, their difference in age being six years.

Thompson, while working on a commission of a portrait bust of Union College professor and Civil War officer Isaac W. Jackson in Schenectady, visited Maria as often as possible at her grandparents’ home, her grandfather was serving at the time as president of Union College.

The couple married, and in 1871, shortly after the birth of their first child, Lancelot Clarkson, they moved to Florence, Italy, where Thompson could find better access to stone and bronze and also a supply of inexpensive labor for his work. He flourished in Italy doing many commissioned portraits. But if Thompson did well, it was Maria who truly came into her own.

Italy became her adopted country where she would stay for the rest of her life. She became fluent in Italian. She became a gracious hostess to visiting family members, and Americans who passed through Florence. This period is described in a history of the Potter family written by her half-brother, Frank Hunter Potter in 1923: “Her apartment in Florence [109 via de Serragli, next door to what was the studio of the by then belated Hiram Powers] was a Mecca for the whole Potter tribe. To say that we were welcome when we went to Florence is to understate it.

I had the good fortune to spend many months practically in her household, and I never was happier.” He went on to say, “Her house became a resort of what was most distinguished and dignified in Florentine society. Her weekly receptions were delightful affairs.”

While in Florence, the Thompsons had two more children, both daughters, Marriette Benedict and Florence Howard. The sculptor kept busy with commissions from home and also turning out portraits of visiting Americans, such as Eliza Cross Pinchot, mother of his former roommate. He also kept up correspondence with his friends back home, especially the now very successful and famous actor Edwin Booth, who wrote regularly, keeping Thompson appraised of the cultural life in America.

It was during this time that Thompson finished his only nude sculpture, entitled “Unconsciousness” (1881) which he worked on for many years, and was one of his few works that was not commissioned, but done for his own satisfaction. It was based on a classic story of an American settler child kidnapped by Indians who was later found by her family but decided to stay with her adoptive tribe and marry its chief.

After six years in Florence, Thompson returned to New York City in 1881 by himself. There seems to be no record of why he left his family in Italy, but the demand for art and sculpture was skyrocketing among nouveau riche Americans and Thompson may 82 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

ABOVE: Unconsciousness also knows as The Chief’s Bride (1881) Albany Institute of History and Art. LEFT: Bronze plaque depicting bust length portrait of Antoinette Eno Pinchot, signed Launt Thompson 1883.

have felt the need to be physically there to effectively compete. He probably planned to stay for a while, as long as necessary to re-establish himself and his reputation, and then return to his family in Florence. In addition, Maria loved her life in Florence and it was the only home their children had ever known.

Monuments dedicated to the memory of the Civil War were very popular in the 1880s, and Thompson was responsible for several: “The Eagle On The Globe” for the United States Regulars Monument in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and a statue of Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont, commissioned by Congress and first placed in Washington’s Dupont Circle but later moved to Rockford Park in Wilmington, Delaware. The most important one, however, was his only equestrian statue, that of General Ambrose Everett Burnside, ceremoniously unveiled in Kennedy Plaza, Providence, Rhode Island, on July 4, 1887.

After 1887 an inexplicable decline seems to have occurred in the life of Thompson. It could have been a combination of loneliness and overwork. From what little we know of Thompson’s personality, he seems to have thrived best while in the company of others, but the work of an artist is often a solitary affair. Without his wife and her active social circle, he retreated into himself. His commissions were not declining, which may have been a source of the problem: too much solitary work. At one point during this period he did a self-portrait, probably one of his only ones, in which he Continued on page 84

We salute the Irish and Irish-American financial leaders recognized for their extraordinary accomplishments.

Congratulations to our own Kathleen Murphy on her selection as one of this year’s honorees.

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Irish America magazine’s Wall Street 50

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His excessive use of alcohol before his arrest may have, as is often the case, led to some sort of permanent, irreversible brain damage.

What Ever Happened to Launt Thompson continued from page 82

depicted himself as a kind of devil. This may have been an indication of his mental deterioration, if anyone was perceptive enough to spot it. Apparently no one was.

Things rapidly came to the surface, however, when he was arrested on December 2, 1890, at the behest of the artist John Snedecor, with whom he was sharing lodgings. Apparently, after a ten-day drinking binge, Thompson proceeded to wreck the premises, or as it would be termed today, “trash the place.” While being arrested, his behavior became even more erratic and there was an

Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside (1887), City Hall, Providence, Rhode Island.

indication that he was suffering from delirium tremors. He was brought to the Jefferson Market Courthouse, accused of disturbing the peace.

Thompson’s arrest was covered by The New York Herald in an article entitled “Arrest of a Sculptor,” subtitled: “Liquor Drives Launt Thompson Crazy and a Policeman Has to Take Care of Him.” In fact, his arrest made just about every newspaper in the country, from big cities to small towns, as this piece from the December 11, 1890 edition of Michigan’s Bay City Times attests, “A few years ago Launt Thompson, the sculptor, was the lion of New 84 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

York Society. He was the style, and while in the swim married a daughter of Bishop Potter. But social position, artistic ambition, success and a large income were thrown to the winds in the gratification of his appetite for strong drink, and a few days ago he was arrested for vagrancy and committed for a month to Blackwell’s Island, at the end of which time a commission will enquire concerning his sanity.”

While The Bay City Times article may have been rather unflattering, it indicates the fame that Thompson had throughout the country. While we don’t have the minutes of this commission’s meeting, we do know the results. Upon completion of his sentence he was transferred to Central Valley Hospital of Orange County, New York, a private sanatorium. It is unlikely that he could have continued to drink in jail, so his decline at this point may have been due to progressive mental illness. His excessive use of alcohol before his arrest may have, as is often the case, led to some sort of permanent, irreversible brain damage. For unexplained reasons he was then transferred to the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane in Middletown, New York.

Apparently, Thompson was still creating art while confined because a newspaper published by the asylum mentioned: “The wellknown and distinguished sculptor Launt Thompson has been sojourning among us for several months. He has finished a basrelief profile of Supervisor Cook’s son, little Talcott. This is an admirable piece of work, and shows for the artist, that his brain is still active in conception and that his right hand has not forgot its cunning.”

This amateur entry seems to be the last thing written about Thompson while he was alive. He had now fallen completely out of sight. The psychiatric records of his stay at the asylum are restricted due to privacy and confidentiality laws, so it may be impossible to find out what exactly what went on there.

The next news of Thompson was his obituary in The New York Times, September 27, 1894. The brief article covers only the highlights of his professional life: “In 1858 he went to New York, and having shown a remarkable talent for medallion portraits, he found ample employment. He became an associate of the Academy of Design in 1859, and three years later his bust of The Trapper secured his election as an academician. . . . Yale conferred upon him the honorary degree of M.A. in 1874.”

The Times discreetly makes no mention of the circumstances of Thompson’s death, which was attributed to throat cancer, heavy smoking being another one of his vices. His passing was also covered by practically every major newspaper in America.

Thompson’s decline leaves many questions unanswered. Was his wife kept informed of his condition? Did his family and friends try to help him? Had his antisocial and erratic behavior alienated them, or had he just become an embarrassment? Or was it simply that there was nothing which could be done. These and the other questions regarding his final days may remain a mystery forever.

Maria Louisa Thompson chose to spend the rest of her life in Italy. She became a writer of magazine articles with one book to her credit, The Legend of St. Gwendoline.

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What Ever Happened to Launt Thompson continued from page 84

Maria Louisa may have become a bit eccentric. When she died on July 17, 1916, in Florence, her death was covered by The New York Times, which called attention to the strangeness of her will, executed in 1910. The article, entitled “Feared Burial Alive” bore the subtitle: “Mrs. Launt Thompson Asked for Cremation in Her Will.” The writer goes on to describe “an unusual will executed

by Mrs. Launt Thompson, who died recently at Florence, Italy.

One clause of the will says: ‘As I die a member of the Roman Catholic Church, if the permission of the church can by any possibility be obtained, I wish my body to be cremated as soon as possible after my death. If this cannot be done, I request that it be opened in such a way as to prevent my being buried alive, and that quick-lime be thrown upon it to consume it absolutely, and that my ashes be placed near the graves of my children.”

It is unclear when or why Maria Louisa, the daughter of an Episcopal bishop, converted to the Roman Catholic Church, and if Thompson, who never seemed to express any interest in any church, though most likely born into the Church of Ireland, had anything to do with it.

Launt and Maria’s only son, Lancelot, although born in America, considered himself a thorough Italian, and during World War I he volunteered to fight for the Italian Army. He worked as a bookkeeper and when he was rejected for health reasons offered his services as such to the local regiment. Every night after his day job he would work into the night doing their paperwork. This took a toll on his frail constitution and he soon died. His death was attributed to overwork for the cause of the war. He had written a book in Italian on the history of Florence, Il Trentino, la Venezia Giulia e la Dalmazia nel Risorgimento Italiano, which his mother translated into English after his death.

The oldest daughter Mariette Benedict worked as a nurse in France throughout the war. Surviving numerous attacks and bombardments. She received the Croix de Guerre in 1919 for her courageous work, and later became a successful sculptor in her own right, exhibiting in Paris and New York. She moved to the United States, married American businessman Lawrence Hayworth Mills, Jr., and settled in Morristown, New Jersey. They later moved to Paris, where they became friends with many writers and artists, especially Marcel Duchamp and Constantin Brancusi.

Younger daughter Florence Howard used her fluency in four languages to assist displaced soldiers and families during and after the war. She married an Italian count, Gian-Luigi Perticucci de Guidici and remained in Italy. Not much is known of her marriage except that it was not a financially successful one, as Maria wrote in her will: “I have left more to my dear daughter Florence than to my beloved Launt and Mariette because Flossie has married into wretched hopeless poverty, and I have 86 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

ABOVE: Sanford Robinson Gifford by Launt Thompson, bronze (1871) Albany Institute of Art. LEFT: John Sedgwick Monument (1868), United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.

wished to lessen so far as possible her hard privations.” It seems she was not a happy mother-in-law.

When he died on September 26, 1894 at the age of sixty-one, Launt Thompson was a resident of the New York State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane in Middletown. His grave, in Middletown’s Hillside Cemetery, Section 13, lot 1610, Grave 1, remains to this day unmarked. It was purchased by a Maurice Thompson, who was probably his brother. No one attended his funeral.

There may come a time when more light will be shed on his last, unhappy days, but his sad death in no way diminishes the triumphs of his life and the contributions he made to the development of nineteenth-century American sculpture.

The works mentioned here are only a portion of his voluminous output. He joins the ranks of so many Irish-born artists and writers who grew, developed and prospered after arrival on our shores. Hopefully, his work will become more well-known and recognized by the contemporary American art public. IA

VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY SALUTES

The 2014 Irish American Wall Street 50 Villanova Honorees Colleen Casey ’92

Managing Director at Angelo, Gordon & Co.

Catherine Keating ’84

CEO of US Institutional Asset Management at JP Morgan, Chair, Villanova University Board of Trustees

Daniel O’Connell ’83

Managing Director of Wealth Management at Merrill Lynch

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{roots}

By Adam Farley

Lynch ne of the 100 most common surnames in Ireland, the Lynch name derives from several independent clans who inhabited just about everywhere from Ulster to Cork. The most notorious of the Irish Lynches, though not the largest clan, comes from the Norman de Lench, who were the most powerful of the 14 “Tribes of Galway,” Norman clans who ruled the medieval city. These Lynches were an important, landowning, merchant family among the Tribes who maintained loyalty to the British crown in the western outpost. Today, Lynch Castle still stands in Galway, now, appropriately, a bank.

In 1485, Peirce Lynch was elected the first mayor of Galway beginning a 170year reign of the Lynch family in the city.

But their influence extends even farther back. Peirce’s grandfather Edmond was Sovereign of Galway in 1434, and the family’s earliest known ancestor, Thomas de Lynch, was provost of Galway in 1274.

Their influence ended in 1654 when the English barred Catholics from holding public office. Indeed, no Lynch would hold the mayoral office until 1989, when Angela Lynch (d. 2007) was elected to the position.

But by far the best remembered of the numerous Galway Lynch mayors was James Lynch fitz Stephen, who was elected in 1493. Soon afterwards he visited Spain and returned with a young man named Gomez, the son of his Spanish host. Lynch’s son Walter became friends with Gomez but he killed him one night in a jealous rage over a local girl. Despite protestations from the citizens of the city, James Lynch, who was also the magistrate, felt compelled to distribute justice evenly. After spending the night in jail comforting his son, he took him to his own house next door and hanged him from an upstairs window. Justice was served but Lynch never got over the incident and became a recluse.

Of the many Gaelic origins of the Lynch name, the most common derives from the Irish O’Loinseach, related to the Irish word for “mariner.” Unsurprisingly, a number of Lynches have made their living as seamen and explorers.

The first two of these Lynch marines were brothers: Henry Blosse Lynch and Thomas Kerr Lynch. Henry Blosse

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Lynch (1807 – 1873) joined the Royal Indian Navy at the age of 16 and quickly rose in ranks owing to his fluency in Persian and Arabic languages, eventually becoming the official interpreter for the Gulf Squadron. He made significant contributions to the exploration and surveying of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, as well as the greater Mesopotamia region, establishing with his brother Thomas a postal route between Baghdad and Damascus.

His brother, Thomas Kerr Lynch (1818 – 1891), was also a prolific explorer of the Near East and was responsible for the first

Thomas Lynch, Jr., who signed the Declaration of Independence for South Carolina.

steamer services between Baghdad and India. He also extensively traveled in Persia, building relationships with the Shah, eventually serving as ConsulGeneral for Persia in London.

Halfway around the world, another Lynch sailor was making a name for himself as the “Red Prince.” Patricio Lynch (1825 – 1886) was born in Chile and served in the British Royal Navy and later became a Rear Admiral in the Chilean Navy, where he achieved heroic status as a liberator of Chinese slave laborers in Peru during the South American War of the Pacific. His great-grandfather, Patrick Lynch, had emigrated from Galway to Buenos Aires, another of whose descendants was Ernesto Guevara Lynch, the father of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara (1928 – 1967).

Another South American Lynch connection is the Cork-born French courtesan Eliza Lynch (1835 – 1886), who eventual-

ly became the partner of Francisco Solano López, president of Paraguay (see page 70).

In the U.S. too there’s a naval Lynch of note: William F. Lynch (1801 – 1865), a Virginian who served both in the U.S. Navy and the Confederate Navy when the Civil War began. While in the U.S. Navy he led the American expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, and attempted to explore the interior of west Africa for purposes of colonization, but was unable to do so because of illness (for which we should probably be thankful).

One of the oldest American Lynches was Thomas Lynch (1727 – 1776), a South Carolina statesman and member of the Continental Congress. When he died, his son, Thomas Lynch Jr. (1747 – 1779) took his place and signed the Declaration of Independence. The last Southern gentleman Lynch of significance is Charles Lynch (1739 – 1796), who established Lynch courts during the Revolutionary War, and from which we have the term “lynching,” originally a more general term to refer to extra-judicial justice.

Among contemporary Irish-born Lynches, there is Jack Lynch (1917 – 1999) the former Taoiseach of Ireland, and star Gaelic football and Hurley player, and Evanna Lynch (b. 1991), the actress best known for her role as Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film series.

David Lynch (b. 1946), the cockatoocoiffed surrealist director famed for Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, and “Twin Peaks,” and yet another Thomas Lynch (b. 1948), the poet, critic, and undertaker.

The Lynches also made a name for themselves in the financial industry. Born in Baltimore, MD, Edmund Calvert Lynch (May 19, 1885 – May 12, 1938) and his friend, Charles E. Merrill, formed the famous Wall Street company Merrill Lynch in 1915. One of the best-known U.S.-born Lynches is Peter Lynch (1944), the stockbroker who managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990 and grew it from $20 million to $20 billion.

Lynch was born in Newton, MA, and is a graduate of Boston College. And last, but not least, is another Lynch who has achieved great success in the financial industry, Kathleen Lynch of UBS, feaIA tured on this issue’s cover.

We are proud to support Irish America at its 17th Annual Wall Street 50 Awards Dinner.

We are proud to support Steven Eckhaus, Shirazi We areIrish proud to support America atRay its 17th Annual We are proud to support and America the of the Firm Irish at its Annual WallPartners Street 5017th Awards Dinner.

Irish America this at itsevening’s 17th Annual congratulate Wall Street 50 Awards Dinner. honoree, Eckhaus, RayDinner.

Shirazi Kathleen Lynch, Chief Operating Wall Steven Street 50 Awards and theUBS Partners of the Americas Firm Officer for Group Steven Eckhaus, Ray Shirazi Steven Eckhaus, Rayevening’s Shirazi honoree, congratulate and Wealth Management and the Partners ofthis the Firm Americas.

Kathleen Lynch, Chief Operating and the Partners of the Firm congratulate this evening’s honoree, Cadwalader, Wickersham &evening’s TaftGroup LLP Officer for UBS Americas congratulate this honoree, Kathleen Lynch, Chief Operating www.cadwalader.com and Wealth Americas.

Kathleen Lynch, Management Chief Operating

Officer for UBS Group Americas Officer for UBS Group Americas and Wealth Management Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP Americas. www.cadwalader.com and Wealth Management Americas.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP www.cadwalader.com Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP www.cadwalader.com

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Le Centre Culturel Irlandais à Paris

Just around the corner from the Pantheon in Paris’s 5th Arrondissement is the former Collège des Irlandais, now the Irish Cultural Center.

Matthew Skwiat explores its storied past and current revival.

enry Miller once said “to know Paris is to know a great deal.”

His words seemed to take on a whole new meaning once one has traveled to France. One of the many things I learned while in Paris, besides a new appreciation for travel and the overwhelming wonder that Parisian food and art can inspire, was a great deal about the Irish in Paris.

It was, in fact, an Irishman who brought me to Paris. Oscar Wilde the subversive wit and playwright, like many Irish before him and since, fell in love with Paris. He was a fixture of the bohemian artistic circle, wrote his play Salome there, and after his fall from grace following his trial in 1895, he called Paris home. It was there where he died in 1900 (he’s buried in Pere Lachaise), but not before quipping of his ill-furnished room, “this wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do.” Go indeed he did, but the hotel has survived him and is still standing, now as a five-star hotel. The conference I attended, “Wilde Days in

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Paris,” was due to take place at the Centre Cultural Irlandais in Paris to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Wilde’s birth.

It was here at the Irish Cultural Center where I stayed in Paris for just under a week, and while the conference was a success, I ended up learning more about the historic roots of the Irish college in Paris and the ties that continue to Ireland and France together.

The center itself is perfectly situated in the heart of Paris at 5 Rue des Irlandais, a few blocks away from the Pantheon and within walking distance to the Metro. Its presence is at once charming and bursting with history. The rooms are quaint, dormitory style, and reflect the former priestly roots of the past while offering lovely views of the center’s courtyard. It has just enough amenities, like free breakfast, to make it feel like you’re on vacation, but enough hospitality to make you feel at home. Besides the conference attendees, the center houses Irish students and scholars who want to study in Paris. The many rooms available for classes

and the Old Library which was built in 1775 and houses over 8,000 volumes of manuscripts and printed books, intensify the intellectual foundations of the college and cultural center.

The history of the Irish cultural center and college is a unique story of knowledge, perseverance, war, and the centuries-old bonds between France and Ireland. The origins of a college in Paris originated in the 16th century during the turmoil of the Wars of Religion and the Reformation. While Henry VIII was converting England to Protestantism, Ireland along with France remained steadfastly committed to Catholicism. In 1578, an Irish priest, John Lee of Waterford, along

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OPPOSITE PAGE, FAR LEFT: Only one block long, Rue des Irlandais is just off the southeast corner of the Place du Panthéon. TOP: The inside courtyard of the Cultural Center.

BOTTOM: Though officially neutral, Irish priests aided Americans here during WWII. THIS PAGE TOP: The author atop Notre Dame. The Tour Montparnasse can be seen in the background. ABOVE: Inside St. Patrick’s Chapel at the Irish Cultural Center. RIGHT: The main gate at 5 Rue des Irlandais.

with many other Irish Catholic priests, set up one of the first communities of Irish students and the beginnings of an Irish college in Paris at the College de Montaigu. Financial problems and inner struggles hampered the group initially, but recognition by Louis XIII in 1623 allowed Irish priests and scholars the right to receive and possess property. The University of Paris recognized the Irish college as a seminary in 1624, but the growing student body needed a larger and more permanent residence.

In 1672, Dr. John O’ Mollony, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, along with other Irish bishops, set about establishing an Irish college. Louis XIV allowed them to obtain the College des Lombards, a derelict Italian college dating back to 1333. Once it was renovated and rebuilt, the Irish students finally had an official home in Paris.

As the 17th century passed into the 18th , the college continued to grow. By 1764, it had over 160 students, with Ireland sending many priests already ordained or those looking to take on holy orders. In 1769 a second

college was built where the current Irish Cultural Center and College now sits. The two colleges became a beacon of Irish culture and knowledge that reflected the intellectual and cultural landscape of Paris. The colleges excelled in areas of theology and and the arts, but it was renowned as a center devoted to the Irish language with two IrishEnglish dictionaries published in 1732 and 1768 and an Irish language catechism in 1742.

This golden age of enlightenment did not last as war disrupted the stability of the two Irish colleges. The French Revolution fractured the connection between France and Ireland. Irish clergy members found it difficult to decide which side to support during the Revolution, either the state-sponsored government religion or the underground church which refused to accept the revolutionary changes. In 1792, both colleges were closed due to outbreak of the French Revolution and war with Britain. Many clergy who stayed behind were jailed in the Irish Cultural Center, but eventually set free. As

the Napoleonic Wars continued, the clergy in Ireland refused to send any students to France, and in an effort to educate their clergy at home they petitioned the British government for the establishment of a college in Ireland. Maynooth College was born in 1795 following this petition.

A period of restoration followed in the 19th century, but the college was plagued by poor leadership, financial difficulties, and a dwindling student body. At this time the college was largely controlled by the French government, which displeased many of the Irish clergy. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1 the college was closed and turned into a field hospital. Once reopened it again became an important center of knowledge and was instrumental in providing priests to Ireland in the pre and post-Famine years.

The 20th century brought with it new troubles to the Irish college as a law of the separation of church and state in 1905 in France all but closed the college. Two world wars saw the college close once again and the Irish clergy continue to dwindle. After 1945, the Irish clergy no longer showed interest in continuing an Irish seminary and granted permission to a group of Polish clerics to open a seminary. As a Polish seminary it had a number of impressive visitors, one of them being Karol Jósef Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II. In 1997, the Polish community moved to new premises and the building was once again a cultural center for the Irish. A new restoration and renovation took place and it is now home to scholars and students alike looking for a quiet place to study or rest during their stay in Paris.

For me, the intersecting histories and voices of the college itself was something truly astonishing and memorable. While I would go on to visit the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sacre Coeur, and Pere Lachaise, it was knowing I had a place just as historical to go back to that made it all the more magical. So not only did I get to know Paris, but I left knowing a great deal about IA the Irish as well.

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After Kells

REPRODUCED WITH KIND PERMISSION FROM THE BOARD OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Art and Architecture

The Book of Kells is often thought of as the epitome of the Irish visual style, but a new publication promises to change the way we look at art and architecture in Ireland. Sharon Ní Chonchúir investigates the breadth of new five-volume tome, which covers 1,600 years of visual and structural art in Ireland.

92 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

IRISH ARCHITECTURAL ARCHIVE

very self-respecting person of Irish origin is able to list the names of Ireland’s greatest writers. Master wordsmiths such as Joyce, Yeats and Beckett are lauded throughout the English-speaking world.

Less is known about our visual artists.

So seldom are they mentioned that one might think Irish people had achieved little in this artistic sphere. But to think so would be a mistake.

To think so would be to ignore Irishborn architect James Hoban who drew up the plans for the White House. It would be to neglect Dublin man Cedric Gibbons who designed the Oscar statuette. And it would be to delegate illustrious twentieth century artists such as Dorothy Cross, Francis Bacon, Pauline Bewick and Louis le Brocquy to undeserved obscurity.

An important new publication aims to redress this imbalance by showcasing the achievements of Irish artists and architects throughout history. Art and Architecture of Ireland is a five-volume work which will be launched this November. Produced by the Royal Irish Academy in collaboration with the Noughton Foundation, the Irish Government, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and Yale University Press, it surveys 1,600 years of Irish art and architecture.

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“It aims to be the most important art book ever produced in Ireland,” says Mary E. Daly, President of the Royal Irish Academy. “While our pedigree in literature and poetry is known the world over, the quality and strength of our art and architecture has at times not received the recognition it deserves. Featuring more than one million words, 250 contributors from around the world and 3,000 images, these volumes tell the untold story of Irish art.”

Two historians at University College Dublin came up with the idea. Nicola Figgis and Paula Murphy thought that Walter Strickland’s celebrated 1913 book A Dictionary of Irish Artists needed updating. They approached the Royal Irish Academy in 2007 and seven years of scholarship later; this overview of Irish artists

© PAUL TIERNEY

FAR LEFT:Symbols of the four Evangelists from the Book of Kells.

LEFT: Thatched house, Brewel Hill, Co. Kildare.

BELOW: Interior of nave, St Thomas’s, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin, Frederick Hicks 1932, with a 21stcentury insertion by Clancy Moore Architects.

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© HELEN COMERFORD

from medieval to modern times is ready for publication.

The first volume looks at the medieval era from 400 to 1600. Its editor Rachel Moss uses the Book of Kells as a starting point because it represents the period for many. Stolen in 1007 and hidden once its precious cover was removed, it survived Cromwell in the mid-seventeenth century when a general in his army saved it from flames and delivered it to Trinity College.

“The result is that the intricate illuminations of the Book of Kells or the silhouette of a high cross are images that suggest ‘Irishness’ far beyond Irish shores,” says Rachel Moss, President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture in Trinity College Dublin. “But the extended history of Irish art is far more rich and complex as is the nature of the Irishness it represents.”

These volumes aim to expand our understanding of both Irish art and Irishness. The first volume does so by looking at the architecture of the time, mostly focussing on the surviving forty-five thousand or so ring forts. It also looks at how the coastal nature of Irish settlements created a sea-faring people that established colonies in Scotland, Wales and England and along river arteries of continental Europe.

“In the late fourth century, Irish opportunists took to the Irish Sea,” says Rachel Moss. “Traces of them can still be seen in the Ogham stones they erected to demarcate their territories. They also captured slaves and it is likely that these slaves – of which the Welshman Patrick, later Saint Patrick, is the best known – formed the earliest Christian communities in Ireland.”

These communities thrived, creating a church that was a key player in the Irish art world of the time. Craftsmen created gospels, service books and liturgical vessels for the church and patrons commissioned stone crosses and chalices for it.

The church spread Irish artistic influence too. Irish missionaries established settlements in Britain, France, Switzerland and Italy and these centres produced works of art such as the Lindisfarne Gospels which were created in Northumberland by Irish monks.

The volume also looks at the Viking influence, the Norman introduction of castles, and how Ireland moved from being 94 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

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medieval visual expression.”

The following volumes are more specialised. Volume two looks at painting from 1600 to 2000. It features biographies of the major painters from that time and essays across a range of related subjects. These vary from an essay about the Dublin Society which ran an influential drawing school to a piece about the history of graphic satire and another about the painting of heraldic coats of arms. There is even menThomas Roberts, A Wooded River Landscape with a tion of Henrietta Dering who ruined abbey by a bridge and a travelling family resting, moved to South Carolina and beoil on canvas, 48.3 x 67.3 cm, private collection. came the first female in America a country that was influenced by Scotland, who was paid to paint portraits. continental Europe and England to one that Volume three looks at sculpture during was almost completely in thrall to England. the same period. Its definition of sculpture There’s more too. The volume examines includes crosses, grave markers and emhow sacred pre-Christian sites were assim- bellishments on buildings such as the ilated by the church. Kildare is an example. Casino at Marino as well as classical busts, Its name comes from Cill Dara or the church monuments, nudes and war memochurch of the oak, implying that the tree rials. was once worshipped there.

There are essays about all of these and There are essays on Celtic art; high more. Whether you’re interested in the Arts crosses; specific works such as the Tara and Crafts Society of Ireland, Irish coins, Brooch and Ardagh Chalice; the sexually sculptures of Saint Patrick or nationalist explicit sheela-na-gigs; planned towns; the sculptures such as the 1798 memorial in development of glassmaking in Ireland; the Enniscorthy in Wexford, you’ll find them effects of the Plantations; the codification mentioned here. of clothes and jewellery; and much more.

Due attention is paid to the sculptors too.

Essentially, this first volume draws to- Biographies of all the major figures of the gether diverse scholarship across a range time are given, including Irish-American of topics to give a comprehensive overview sculptors. One of these was Thomas Crawof the art of the Middle Ages. “Most of Ire- ford who was born to immigrant parents and land’s medieval buildings, manuscripts and went on to create the “Progress of Civilisafine metalwork that have come down to us tion” for the pediment of the east façade of are mere skeletons of their former selves,” the U.S. Capitol Building, and “Freedom” says Rachel Moss. “It is the aim of this vol- for the dome, and “Justice and History” for ume to gather the morsels and crumbs and the main façade. provide some insight into the various Volume four looks at architecture from courses that constituted the feast of Irish 1600 to 2000 and in so doing, reveals a great deal about the politics of the time. “Architecture is a question of function but it’s also a reflection of national identity,” say the authors of this volume Rolf Loeber and Hugh Campbell. “It can be conscious when it’s chosen to promote a specific political agenda or moral code but it can also be an unconscious echo of who we were or were trying to be.”

Helen Comerford, Circle, 1983.

Installation in papier mâché.

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RIGHT: Stucco detail, the staircase hall, 20 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, by an unknown stuccodore, c. 1758.

If other volumes were wide ranging, this is more wide ranging still. There are essays about the feudalistic structure of Irish society until the late nineteenth century. The fact that there were 6,500 landowners and 1.5 million tenants in the 1870s inevitably had an impact on our architecture, or the paucity of it.

Historical essays tell how single storey cabins were replaced by two-storey farmhouses following the land laws of the 1880s. The volume charts the decline of the Irish country house. There are even essays about the boom and bust of the recent property crash.

And there’s more. There’s information about the building materials used to build farmhouses, including details on how to thatch a roof. There’s a piece on property taxes, which once included residential,

RICHARD IRELAND

BELOW: The room housing the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, 1978, Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates, Architects.

hearth, window and glass tax – many more than the much-maligned property tax of today. There’s an essay on the different styles used in dry stone walls, including those used in North America by the Irish who first emigrated there.

There are sections on slum clearance in Dublin; the rebuilding of O’Connell Street after 1916, the War of Independence and the Civil War; traditional Irish shop fronts; Martello towers; and Ardnacrusha power station, the first big infrastructure project undertaken by the new Irish State.

There is mention too of the Irish-born and American Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kevin Roche. His designs span the second half of the twentieth century, beginning with the Oakland Museum in California in 1966 and continuing up to the present day. They include the Layfayette

Tower, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, 1100 New York Avenue, the John Deere World Headquarters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Convention Centre in Dublin.

Finally, the fifth volume looks at visual art in the twentieth century. It covers everything from abstraction and aesthetics to photography, printmaking and more. It takes us up to the present day, introducing us to everything from book art in the twentieth century to the Tory Island School of painters.

This is a hugely impressive work. It’s not something you’ll consume in an evening.

It’s much more scholarly than that. Its authors aim for it to be “the most comprehensive and ambitious undertaking of its kind ever attempted.”

Lest you feel daunted by such scholarship, rest assured that it rewards leisurely perusing too. It’s a work to dip in and out of, choosing a theme at random here or a particular piece of art or architecture there.

It’s a great way of preparing for a trip to Ireland by learning more about the buildings, streetscapes, cities, towns and villages you’ll encounter once you get there.

And in reading about the art that’s been created on the island over the centuries, you’ll learn more about who we were and IA are as people too.

The five-volume Art and Architecture of Ireland is available for €400 from www.rai.ie. Orders made before the publication date of November 1st will be dispatched with free postage.

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By Adam Farley

Glenn Keogh

Actor Glenn Keogh takes our questions and talks about his favorite places, missing home, and the time he forgot the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

lenn Keogh is quickly rising to prominence in Hollywood. This past summer, he made the press rounds for Michael Bay’s latest installment of the Transformers series. Keogh plays an Arctic scientist who makes a world-changing discovery in Transformers: Age of Extinction, a role that continues the departing trend from his first Hollywood acting jobs playing the tough guy.

It’s easy to see how a man like Keogh, 40, with a brogue, square jaw, and a mean fiveo’clock shadow came to the attention of casting directors who were looking for antagonists in some of the most popular crime dramas out there. He’s had roles in “Castle,” “Criminal Minds,” “Undercovers,” and “Ray Donovan,” with recurring parts in the FX hit “Sons of Anarchy,” and “General Hospital,” where he played both a mercenary and bartender in different story arcs. But while it’s true that Keogh’s threatening biceps and torso are benefited by a tight black t-shirt, a favorite of costume departments when outfitting enforcers everywhere, he actually got his start doing comedy in Australia, and has been slowly drifting back to it, or at least away from brute drama. He’s been in a number of children’s shorts, will appear in this fall’s CBS pilot of “Scorpion,” and has taken on a part as a compassionate priest counseling a younger priest who has broken his vows in “Days of Our Lives.”

All this Keogh takes in stride and doesn’t mind being cast as a typical Irish trope. It’s more work for him, he says. And the more work there is, the less likely he is to go back to Australia where he left a sales job to pursue acting fulltime in L.A. He was good at selling Microsoft Solutions

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and is a CPA, but now that he’s on the up-and-coming radar, we don’t expect to see Keogh back in a cubicle any time soon. (Or, maybe very soon, if that’s where his next director tells him to go.)

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What is your current state of mind?

Really good actually, I just came back from a brilliant trip home, where I got to spend some quality time with my family and friends, and soak up a little bit of the fine Irish summer! Feeling refreshed and looking forward to seeing how the rest of the year unfolds.

What is your typical day like?

Non-stop! I’m an early riser and typically chase the day, never enough hours in it for me. Early work-out followed by a day of work, some creative work of some sort and then time to catchup with friends and family, even if it’s over the phone.

Describe your perfect day.

From sunrise to sunset, surrounded by my nieces and nephews and other family members, the activity or location doesn’t matter. I simply don’t see enough of them and treasure every minute of it. Once the sun sets, of course, I’m off for a few pints and some great craic with my close mates and some of my family – can’t beat the Irish for banter and a great night out!

What is your earliest memory?

Eating sweets out of a bowl (the size of my head!) with my sister – I believe we were three at the time; I have a photo to remind me of that lovely memory.

What was your first job?

Delivering newspapers when I was nine years of age, loved that job, always felt like I was reading the news before the rest of the world got to hear about it.

If you weren’t an actor, what would you be doing?

Time! Kidding… Even though I’m a qualified CPA, I don’t believe I would have carved out a long-term career in that field, just not for me. Like to tell myself I’d be playing for Liverpool!

Honest answer, selling – which is what I’m best at.

Your most embarrassing moment or memory?

There are many! Too many to compete for the most embarrassing. The most recent would have to be my attempt at the

American national anthem at a fund-raiser, with a microphone, in front of a packed room, many of whom were war veterans who had served this fine country… its rare I am stuck for words… and what a time to flunk my lines! I’ll never forget that.

On long plane rides, do you stay to yourself or do you strike up conversations?

It varies, I fly home a couple of times a year and it all depends on the time of the flight and if the person beside me is any craic! Had a great chat with a fellow paddy on my last flight home. Love to hear the excitement in people’s voices when they are visiting Ireland for the first time, makes me very proud to be Irish.

How do you stay up-to-date with the industry?

Living in Los Angeles you can’t escape it – everyone is in the know! The challenge I have is trying to escape it.

Do you remember the first movie you saw?

Superman, and what a movie. Still one of my favorites and a classic. Magical.

Do you read about yourself on the internet?

I do when I’m lucky enough to have some press, I get a great kick out of how I am sometimes quoted, which sometimes is nothing like what I actually said.

Have had a fair bit recently, some of which made me laugh out loud.

What is the most surprising thing you’ve been told about yourself?

Nothing surprises me now.

What is on your nightstand?

Typically a book to put me to sleep and a photo of my family. I am currently reading The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari.

Terrific read.

Favorite quote?

“Everything in moderation, everything” – from a former school teacher of mine.

Do you have a hidden talent?

Ability to wake at any time and almost tell the exact time!

What is your greatest extravagance?

Can’t beat a well-tailored suit for a special occasion. I’ve had a couple.

Who is your hero?

My mammy.

Ideal superpower?

Ability to teleport myself home at a moment’s notice.

What trait do you deplore most in others?

Begrudgery and negativity.

Best quality in a friend?

Ability to listen, really listen.

What historical figure (or Transformer) do you identify with the most?

Michael Collins.

Where is your favorite place in Ireland?

Would have to say Galway, brilliant city.

Real Ireland.

Where do you go to think?

For a good cycle along the ocean.

What is your most prizedpossession?

Gifts from family, particularly from nieces and nephews – it’s the small things that count. I wouldn’t trade a scribbled picture from a kid for a Porsche.

Anything you would do over?

Honestly no. This has been my journey, all by choice.

What’s next for you?

A few projects airing on American TV very soon, and I have a couple of others tentatively in the works, nothing confirmed at the moment. In the meantime I’ll be pitching a TV show that a few partners and I have worked on for the past couple of years.

Finally, what is one question you wish someone would ask you?

Can I see your ID please!

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We Are Not Ourselves Matthew Thomas, whose debut novel is receiving rave reviews, talks to Tom Deignan efore he became a celebrated debut novelist, Matthew Thomas was an English teacher, so he could surely spot the flaw in the following item from The New York Post’s infamous “Page Six” gossip column.

“Matthew Thomas is the toast of the publishing world overnight after We Are Not Ourselves — a novel he took 10 years to write — sparked a bidding war. Sources say it got more than a $1 million advance in North America, and closed a six-figure UK deal at the London Book Fair.”

To characterize Thomas’s success as “overnight,” while also noting that he’d been working on his book for a decade, is an inconsistency any teacher would surely take a red pen to.

But that’s a minor point in what has turned out to be the publishing industry’s best Irish feel-good story since another former English teacher wrote a little memoir about growing up in Limerick and Brooklyn. “[Angela’s Ashes] has been a blessing, I’m hugely grateful for it,” Thomas said recently of Frank McCourt’s memoir.

It’s a warm August morning, and we are seated outside a bakery in Montclair, New Jersey, just up the road from where he now lives with his wife and twin three-year-olds.

Thomas – bearded and bespectacled, thoughtful, admirably humble – spoke at length over coffee and muffins about his family’s deep connection to Ireland, the “pervasive” influence of National Book Award winner Alice McDermott (who was Thomas’s creative writing teacher), and the degree to which We Are Not Ourselves is autobiographical

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“Two things I wanted to avoid,” he said, “were sentimentality, and the kind of solipsism that emerges when you’re writing about something close to yourself. I wanted to spare the reader a lot of that.”

Critical Raves

We Are Not Ourselves is about a New York Irish American family and weighs in at over 600 pages, but critics have been wowed by how swiftly the story flies by.

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Entertainment Weekly noted: “If you took a stroll around the EW offices, you’ll see a curious brick of a book on all our desks. We Are Not Ourselves has made quite the stir and it seems we’re all reading for it, talking about it or begging those who have read it and won’t stop talking about it for their copy. Why? Because it’s amazing.”

Publisher’s Weekly added: “Thomas’s emotional truthfulness combines with the novel’s texture and scope to create an unforgettable narrative.”

We Are Not Ourselves revolves around Eileen Tumulty, the daughter of Irish immigrants born in Queens in 1941. The first page announces the centrality of the Irish-American experience to the Tumulty family, as well as to Thomas’s vision.

Eileen’s mother hadn’t let go of Ireland entirely. She wasn’t a citizen yet. Her father liked to tout that he’d applied for his citizenship on the first day he was eligible to. The framed Certificate of Citizenship, dated May 3, 1938, hung in the living room across from a watercolor painting of St. Patrick banishing the snakes, the only artwork in the apartment unless you counted the carved-wood Celtic cross in the kitchen.

The novel follows Eileen for her entire life, from her love for her gregarious yet mysterious father to caring (foreshadowing a nursing career) for her alcoholic mother, through courtship with her husband, to the birth of the son she never thought she’d have, to the diagnosis of a disease which tries the family unmercifully.

In short, the “tumult” in Eileen’s name is no lie.

Class Divisions

Thomas’s book focuses closely on Eileen’s budding ambitions to achieve the IrishAmerican dream to rise above her immigrant working class origins. “[Eileen] never dreamed of being a nurse,” writes Thomas. “She would’ve preferred to be a lawyer or doctor but she saw these professions as the purview of the privileged.”

Indeed, the early sections of the book dissect the intricacies of class and culture so painfully familiar to generations of New York Irish Americans. More broadly, Thomas’s treatment of the theme of striving for status rivals F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton, albeit within a more modest milieu. Eileen, though, is never emptily materialistic or shallow. She simply wants a better marriage than her parents had and a better life for her children.

What can occasionally seem like self-hatred is actually a genuine, even reasonable wish to have access to the kind of comfort and privilege others take for granted. “[Eileen] began to look forward to the day when she would take another man’s name. It was the thoroughgoing Irishness of Tumulty that bothered her, the redolence of peat bogs and sloppy rebel songs… She wanted a name that sounded like no name at all, one of those decorous placeholders that suggested an unbroken line of WASP restraint. If the name came with pedigree to match it, she wasn’t going to complain.”

Instead, Eileen meets and marries Ed Leary (another revealing name), from a similarly humble background, but an educated man, a college professor. Eileen sees in her husband a chance to grasp the kind of respectability so elusive for the working class.

Ed is honorable, respectful and hardworking, but principled to a fault, or possibly himself intimidated by advancement.

He passes up several promotions for under-

standable, even noble reasons. This, nevertheless, draws Eileen’s ire. (Thomas’s eye for the small battles of marriage is amazing.)

Depicted with similarly stunning emotional accuracy are Eileen’s difficulties becoming pregnant. But a son, Connell, soon comes along. Ed proves to be a warm, loving father, sharing a passion with Connell for baseball and the New York Mets. But Ed soon begins behaving unpredictably, even erratically. The family eventually learns he has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. What follows is, according to a rave review by New Yorker magazine critic Stefan Merrill Block, “the truest and most harrowing account of a descent into dementia that I have ever read.”

The sadness of Ed’s sickness, however, never cloaks We Are Not Ourselves in gloom. Ed and Eileen’s marriage is a loving, even sensual one, and they are flawed (sometimes deeply) but loving parents. A highlight of the book is an astonishing letter from Ed to Connell that is not only bound to make any human being cry, but would also sell millions of copies, if it were sold separately to parents who struggle to express their love to their children.

Fact Vs. Fiction

“The book’s roots are autobiographical in the sense that I’m from an Irish American family and I grew up in Jackson Heights [Queens],” notes the 39-year-old Thomas, whose maternal grandparents came from Cavan and Galway.

Other broad details of the book are also rooted in Thomas’s own life. His father was a professor who indeed, suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s. (His father died in 2002.) Thomas’s mother was also a nurse, and Thomas (like Connell in the book) attended Regis High School in Manhattan.

However, Thomas said earlier versions of the book revolved around a character similar to Connell. A key artistic decision for Thomas was deciding to make Eileen – her determination, her disappointments, her heroic strength in the face of adversity – the central character.

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“Out of love and concern she was worried about me.

One generation in, she just wanted me to do better than she did.

And I love her for it. It was pretty smart.”

“Eileen was just such as interesting character to me…. I grew up seeing these amazing women who were trying to remake the world,” Thomas said of his mother’s generation, who were moving into the work force but also handling the vast majority of home-making and childrearing duties.

Family Trips to Ireland

Though born in the Bronx, Thomas moved to Queens at an early age. The Irish influence was powerful, from his first trip to Ireland as a baby to the step dancing classes he took.

“I was surrounded by my mother’s family…close cousins, aunts and uncles. It was a very Irish environment,” he said, adding: “I was taken [to Ireland] when I was seven months old. I like to think that the experience of being there informed my subconscious mind.”

Another trip to Ireland, when Thomas was 20, allowed him to see much of the entire country, before staying with family outside of Dublin.

“I love Cork. It really appeals to me.

Because it’s slightly smaller but still has all of the attractions of a larger city.”

There was, however, a sad edge to that trip.

“It was the last trip (my father) ever made. He wasn’t in a good way.”

Alice McDermott’s Influence

After high school, Thomas flew off to the midwest to study English at the University of Chicago. By then he was a devoted student of literature and had the transformative experience of reading the novels of Alice McDermott, whose beautiful novels Charming Billy, That Night, and (most recently) Someone explore terrain similar to Thomas’s.

“She is one of our great living, working writers. It wouldn’t surprise me if she won the Nobel Prize someday,” Thomas said, becoming animated.

No surprise, then, that he wanted to at100 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

tend John Hopkins University in Baltimore, where McDermott teaches creative writing. Thomas said McDermott was not only an amazing teacher, but an even better person.

“There’s no way to exaggerate what a decent human being she is. I get choked up thinking about it.”

Thomas later received a Master of Fine Arts degree from U.C. Irvine and he admits his mother was skeptical – though ultimately supportive – about his career choice.

“Her reaction was a very Irish one – practical, pragmatic.”

He adds: “Out of love and concern she was worried about me. One generation in, she just wanted me to do better than she did. And I love her for it. It was pretty smart.”

A teaching job at Xavier High School in Manhattan provided much-needed stability – especially after he married and had children – but took a tremendous amount of time away from his writing.

That’s when Thomas and his wife took the ultimate leap of faith.

He took an unpaid year off from teaching to finish We Are Not Ourselves, the title of which comes from Shakespeare’s King Lear.

“You have distinct fears that nothing will come of this thing,” said Thomas.

Suffice to say, things turned out for the best.

What’s Next?

Thomas’s mother, who now lives in Westchester, New York, finally had the opportunity recently to read the novel her son spent a decade writing. Thomas asked his mother what she thought about the book.

“Her response was quick,” he says with a smile. ‘It’s good. Very good.’ And then we moved on to talking about something else.”

This fall will be a whirlwind of publicity for Thomas, who adds that, at least thus far , there has been no talk of selling the TV or movie rights to We Are Not Ourselves.

(This will likely change now that the book is out and praise has been gushing forth in

The New Yorker, The New York Times and other respected outlets.)

Thomas has begun writing a second novel which he describes as a “family drama” about twin sisters. Again, he will explore the New York Irish.

“I think I’ll end up writing about the Irish a lot. I have so much respect and admiration for the Irish in New York. There’s such an unbelievable amount of vitality.

Even several generations in they retain this identity. It’s not even about Ireland, it’s about Irish America, which is its own world. The number of characters you meet over the course of a life spent in the Irish American milieu…its incredible.”

In the end, We Are Not Alone stands with the giants of Irish American literature, from McDermott and William Kennedy to the family dramas of Eugene O’Neill. The penultimate scene in the book is one of the most eloquent – and important – in Irish American writing. Eileen is drawn back to the house she and her husband had purchased, a home that, to her, had become a symbol of the American dream. Of course, things didn’t turn out so dreamily. (Indeed, Thomas even manages to make household financial decisions compelling.)

A family from India eventually purchased the home. Though herself the daughter of immigrants, Eileen had struggled – as generations of previous New York immigrants had – with changes in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, here’s Eileen, in the home that had been such a towering presence in her life, being asked to sit for dinner by an Indian Catholic family bearing the unusual last name (get this) Thomas.

This unsentimental, even awkward scene reminds us of the simple yet powerful bonds that unite yesterday’s immigrants and today’s, a bond easily forgotten by many people – not a few of them Irish American, like Eileen herself.

“The world is full of mysteries,” Eileen thinks to herself at one point early in We Are Not Ourselves. Matthew Thomas has taken those many mysteries – birth, family, love, the frailty of our bodies – and transformed them into a lasting work of art. IA

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The Anne Rice and Michael Connelly spoke to Mary Pat Kelly at the Ninth Annual Thriller Fest a gathering of writers, editors, publishers, literary agents and fans held this summer in New York. nne O’Brien Rice, the megabestselling (a hundred million books) author who created a genre with her Interview with a Vampire has never been to Ireland but wants to go. Michael Connelly, whose books, whether they feature Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch, newspaper reporter Jack McEvoy, FBI agent Terry McCaleb, or Mickey Haller, the Lincoln lawyer, consistently hit the New York Times bestseller list and have been translated into 39 languages, says he has had some of his most fulfilling experiences as a writer in Ireland. And both trace their storytelling gifts to their Irish heritage.

The two were part of a high quotient of Irish-American writers at the Ninth Annual Thriller Fest, sponsored by the International Thrill Writers organization, and held in New York this past July.

Why this concentration? Is there something particularly Irish about thrillers?

Maybe. In his keynote address, Jonathan Karp, head of Simon & Schuster, hailed Irish American Mary Higgins Clark as “The Queen of Suspense.” And certainly the old sagas had plenty of action and mystery. And the Irish seanachai looking at the faces gathered around the fire knew he had to keep the story exciting and moving forward.

“I connect to the tradition of Irish storytelling,” Connelly says. “And I think there is something; I can’t put my finger on it, something genetic there. Maybe just a need to tell stories.”

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Michael Connelly and Anne Rice at the New York Thriller Fest.

Anne Rice agrees. “I grew up in a big Irish-American family. I don’t know what it means to hear a family story that isn’t a rip-roaring tale with a beginning, middle and an end and a lot of suspense. That was what was in my blood. I’m from New Orleans and people don’t realize how Irish New Orleans is. My whole family dramatized events in a beautiful and good way just in normal conversation.”

Yet like many Irish Americans, neither Rice nor Connelly have visited the exact place in Ireland where their ancestors began.

“I’m one hundred percent Irish,” Connelly says, “and I’m very proud that I’m Irish American though I don’t know exactly where my ancestors came from. I just know County Cork. I have siblings who have gone back to more specific places, but I love that

Ireland’s so welcoming. I’ve had some of my favorite times and biggest turnouts for events in Ireland. One in particular comes to mind. I read in Belfast and was just shocked by this huge crowd of people that came to hear me talk about a detective who is all the way over in Los Angeles. They were willing to try to make sense of his world. For my stories to intrigue and touch people so far away, who are also the people I somehow come from, was amazingly fulfilling. I recognized names from my family. We’ve Scahans, McEvoys, McGraths and Connellys.

My grandparents were all born in the U.S., but their parents came from Ireland. So this reception really moved me. There was a ‘Welcome Home, Son’ feeling to it.”

Connelly smiled at the memory and then recalled his first time in Ireland. He was to

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do a book signing at Eason’s in Dublin.

“Now, no writer wants to go to an event where no one shows up. I didn’t think I was very well known in Ireland. So I said, ‘Can’t I just stop by the store around eleven on a weekday and sign whatever stock they have?’ But Eason’s had spread the word that I was going to be there, and there was a long line of people waiting for me. Then I felt bad and thought I should have scheduled something more formal. But I talked to each person as they came through the line. Even met the writer John Connelly’s mom. A real shocking and obviously wonderful experience.”

It is an experience awaiting Anne O’Brien Rice, though her family history seems lost in a distant past.

“My people were working people and history tended to disappear pretty fast. I remember once asking about my great-grandfather John Curry, what had his parents done for a living? There wasn’t a single living relative who had any idea. I heard stories about various things. But I could never pin it down,” she remembers. “I don’t even know what counties they came from. I heard that some of my people sailed on ‘coffin ships’ and they came down through Canada. Others came directly to New Orleans. But these were all people who came to work at hard labor. So a lot of them died young. There was a high infant mortality rate. Their history just disappeared as if it was written in water.”

Connelly preserved a bit of his family history by giving one character, Jack McEvoy, his mother’s maiden name.

“There are just tons of McEvoy cousins including Jack McEvoys in my family. I also used McCaleb, my wife’s maiden name, and Michael Haller is called Mickey or Mick a lot.”

Another Irish-American influence for Connelly was Mickey Spillane. Connelly’s family moved from Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale, Florida when he was twelve.

He discovered that the boys left the baseball field during the hottest part of the afternoon to go to the air conditioned library. The more traditional books did not interest him, but there was a rack of Mickey Spillane crime novels that caught his attention.

“I was mesmerized,” he remembers.

Both Connelly, who attended St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, and Rice received their early education in Catholic schools. She has helped restore her

alma mater St. Alphonsus School and Church as a kind of thank you.

“I think being a Catholic is a really a deep cultural thing,” she says. “I was born Catholic from a long line of Catholics and I grew up in an intensely Catholic city, in an intensely Catholic neighborhood. We were always talking about Rome and wanting to go to Italy. And people we knew went on pilgrimages. To this day people from New Orleans go to Medjugorje to see the place where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared. And of course when I was little, the mass was still in Latin. I loved having the Latin-English missal, following the mass in Latin and learning the Latin of the main body of the mass. That was a wonderful thing.

“The saints that we talked about in school, whose lives we read – were Europeans and because of that, I always felt connected to Europe. Later when I became a writer, I responded to those writers in America who had been influenced by European voices. Writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, say, as opposed to Mark Twain. I responded to that kind of influence.

Anne Rice’s books Christ The Lord: Out Of Egypt and Christ The Lord: The Road to Cana directly expressed her interest in religion. Though she says she also imbibed a certain anti-clerical spirit in New Orleans too. “I’m fascinated by Celtic spirituality,” she says. “Another reason why, though I’ve never been to Ireland, I would love to go.”

She pauses. “I owe a debt to the cosmos that I was born Irish Catholic in New Orleans. It’s contributed so much to whoever I am, whatever I’ve done and whatever I’ve written,” she concludes.

For Connelly going to Ireland had many dimensions. “Beyond whether I’m Irish or not, when I go to Ireland it underlines for me the power and importance of storytelling and how we need it. On the one hand I write entertainment. I write puzzles and mysteries.

Nothing too highfalutin. But then if you go to a place thousands of miles across an ocean and you have a room full of people who express concern for your characters or what’s going to happen to Harry Bosch next, it really bangs home the strength and need of storytelling forces as a society and as a world society. And so that’s been part of the most fulfilling stuff that has happened to me.

And a lot of it comes from my trips to Ireland.”

Perhaps the last word on the Irish-American/Thriller Fest connection comes from Thomas Patrick Doherty, founder and publisher of Tom Doherty Associates, now part of Macmillan, who publishes books with the Tor/Forge imprints, and Robert Gleason, his senior editor and author.

Under his Forge imprint, Doherty publishes Irish-themed books by Andrew Greeley, Morgan Llewelyn, Patrick Taylor and this writer. He chose the Forge name to echo the Irish blacksmith, pounding away, opening a “door in the dark” to quote Seamus Heaney. His Tor books have been publishing science fiction for a generation. “These stories are meant to stir the imagination,” Doherty says.

Robert Gleason, whose own books End of Days and Nuclear Terrorist certainly force readers to think about the unthinkable has seen firsthand the effects science fiction can have on the imagination.

“We have astronauts and NASA scientists that arrive in our office as if they were pilgrims coming to a sacred site. They tell us a book published by Tor first led them to imagine themselves in space.”

Tom Doherty describes how NASA approached him and asked if they could pair a NASA scientist with a Tor writer to produce science fiction that might inspire young people today to make the impossible, possible.

“We recently released our first NASAinspired work of fiction, Pillar to the Sky

by William Forstchen,” Doherty says.

“Two NASA scientists, a married couple, figure out a way to build an elevator to space. The science is there. With such an elevator, we could hook up solar panels that could provide limitless energy to our planet. Possibly end global warming.

Maybe some young person will read this book and end up leading the team that launches the space elevator.”

I left Thriller Fest convinced that IrishAmerican storytellers not only thrill and entertain but they might just be able to save the planet. Too highfalutin? Maybe not. Never underestimate the power of the Irish imagiIA nation.

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{review of books}

Recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest.

Non-Fiction

The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses

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By Kevin Birmingham

ith the publication of Kevin Birmingham’s The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses some people may be asking: do we really need another book about James Joyce? The answer after reading Birmingham’s debut novel is an enthusiastic yes! Much more than just a book about the life of James Joyce, Birmingham’s book tackles the famous, if little studied, 1933 trial that freed Ulysses from censorship and established a precedent of laxed censorship laws for the rest of the 20th century.

Woven into this rich tapestry is a biography of the book Ulysses, a study of the man who endured exile, poverty, and near blindness to complete it, and the resiliency of a group of supporters who rallied behind Joyce’s work and welcomed it as the dawn of a new era in literature.

During a conversation with Arthur Power, author of Conversations with James Joyce, the Ulysses author reflected on the importance of a writer saying:

The important thing is not what we write, but how we write, and in my opinion the modern writer must be an adventurer above all, willing to take every risk, and be prepared to founder in his effort if need be. In other words we must write dangerously.

Ulysses is evidence of Joyce’s lexical gambles, but Birmingham makes the case that the reason it survives today is as much, if not more so, due to a group of Joycean supporters who subversively fought through censors and jail time to see that his books were printed.

Chief among them was Ezra Pound, the eccentric American expatriate who trumpeted the arrival of James Joyce while securing serialization of Ulysses in the Little Review. There was also Sylvia Beach who published the first copies of 104 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Fiction

Ulysses in Paris, and Dora Marsden, a first-wave feminist and suffragist, who issued Joyce’s work in her magazine The Egoist in London. Birmingham also recreates the lives of those on the other side of the fence who suppressed the distribution of indecent materials like John Sumner, leader of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, who oversaw the burning of obscene books like Ulysses.

Birmingham has a born storyteller’s heart and mind and he effortlessly brings these characters and their world to life while managing to tell a thrilling and at times, hard to put down, story.

Birmingham, a lecturer in history and literature at Harvard University, showcases a deep respect and awareness for Joyce and his famous novel. Perhaps the strongest moments of the book are the personal touches in Joyce’s life like his love for Nora Barnacle and their very explicit and risqué love letters, or his days writing and drinking in Paris with Ernest Hemingway while he battled poor eyesight – a result of advanced syphilis. Nestled into the story are little anecdotes of people who read Ulysses for the first time and the interesting ways it changed their lives.

Birmingham writes of how Virginia Woolf initially found the novel repugnant, but upon re-reading found “the undoubted occasional beauty of his phrases,” and upon completion embarked on Mrs. Dalloway, a novel which bears clear influences from Ulysses.

Even more impressive, Birmingham, uses Joyce’s Ulysses to delve into the fundamentals of the modernist movement by examining the importance of art in a society reeling from WWI and the dissident power it can carry. Margaret Anderson, founder of The Little Review and supporter of Joyce, declared, “the ultimate reason for life is art. And revolution? Revolution is Art.” Birmingham’s book stands as a testament to the importance of Ulysses and the power that great literature can have on all of us.

– Matthew Skwiat

tephen Talty is best known for his well-researched and immensely consuming historical narratives, including A Captain’s Duty, which he co-wrote with Richard Phillips and was turned into the 2013 Tom Hanks film Captain Philips.

It’s no surprise then that when Talty turned his ink to crime fiction, he was able to conjure the same sense of narrative mystery and excitement around his protagonist.

Hangman is the second book in what promises to be a compelling series of novels that follow Detective Absalom “Abbie” Kearney through the post-industrial streets of Buffalo. That town is Talty’s own and, as was the case with Black Irish (reviewed in these pages last year), its geo-social divisions are on full display. Abbie is the adopted daughter of a former police detective and was raised in “The County,” a euphemism for Buffalo’s south end, playing on the idea of the 27th county, where clan logic and tribal affiliations dominate not only neighborhood politics but the primarily Irish American police force as well. An outsider to begin with, Abbie is even more at odds with her adopted community, having only recently returned to Buffalo with a Harvard degree and a stint at Miami Metro. She’s too fancy for the County, but too County for the North, Buffalo’s oldmoney neighborhood where a serial killer, escaped from prison, is once again hunting and hanging teenage girls.

In Hangman, Talty challenges the arbiters of class and kinship as bases for loyalty, but doesn’t necessarily offer new insights, not that it should. Like any readable crime fiction, the book lets these themes seep in between its neo-noir lines and procedural breakthroughs. It is about coming to psychological terms with the way the world operates and using the genre of thriller and catharsis in catching the killer to question the world as it is, in full, complex color.

– Adam Farley

(Penguin / 432 pages / 29.95)

(Ballantine / 320 pages / $26)

Hangman

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By Stephen Talty

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Poetry

When the World Was Rear-Wheel Drive

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By Timothy Walsh

vetlana Boym, a professor of comparative literature at Harvard, has argued that there are two types of nostalgia: “restorative nostalgia” which reconstructs “rituals of… homeland,” and “reflexive nostalgia” which “cherishes shattered fragments of memory,” but accepts the necessity of social and technological change. Timothy Walsh’s new collection of poetry, When the World Was Rear-Wheel Drive and a finalist for the 2013 Main Street Rag Poetry Book

HISTORY

Award, is clearly influenced by both.

Walsh grew up in New Jersey in the early 1970s and the collection, subtitled “New Jersey Poems,” is an exceptionally personal study of discrete events of his Garden State adolescence.

He treats that time like a jalopy, carefully restoring each part of his history, from cruising the 95 in the shadow of Bruce Springsteen to family trips to his Irish grandmother’s neighborhood in Queens.

The poems in this collection bear the marks of being raised in a devout, suburban, middle-class, Catholic family, as Walsh was – the importance of visiting relatives, a sometimes critical sense of his-

East In Eden: William Niblo and his Pleasure Garden of Yore

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By Benjamin Feldman

enjamin Feldman’s career has been focused on the lives of nineteenth century Irish born who had made a significant contribution to American culture – whether through the arts, the military, business, or politics – but subsequently fell below the radar and are today virtually unknown. With the publication of East In Eden, Feldman brings long overdue attention to one of the most interesting and accomplished members of this group Born in Ireland in 1790, William Niblo arrived in New York at the age of 16. He quickly found work in a local restaurant. He soon worked his way up the corporate ladder and then did the smartest thing any up and coming young man could do – he married the boss’s daughter. Niblo, however, worked hard and made the most of his good fortune. Apparently he was a natural “people person” who simply loved feeding and entertaining people. What started as an innovative restaurant, with what Feldman describes as an incredibly creative menu, soon morphed into New York City’s largest entertainment center. Niblo worked with many distinguished theater people, some of them Irish born, including John Brougham, Matilda Heron, Dion Boucicault and even Lola Montez.

Feldman has done extensive research into the complex personality of William Niblo. On the one hand, he was a likeable host and benevolent employer (instituting pensions for his many loyal employees, almost unheard of in that pre-labor-union time), a generous philanthropist, and an active member of his church, but on the other hand, the litigious Niblo was frequently a plaintiff or defendant in numerous lawsuits and not above physically ejecting undesirables from his various establishments, as on one occasion when he took a fireplace poker to several British Army officers he felt were behaving badly. Niblo had a policy of keeping his prices relatively high in order to attract the genteel crowd and at the

torical resilience, playing stickball in the street, and making soda bread all command installments in the volume. Indeed, Walsh’s own loss of innocence is indelibly bound with what he perceives as the loss of mid-century American exceptionalism.

But even as Walsh attempts to reconstruct that period in his life through language, he embellishes, flourishes, and romanticizes. To paraphrase the writer Bill Morris, we all come of age in a vanished world. Walsh’s accomplishment here is that he doesn’t fall into what we might call pejorative nostalgia. Instead, he celebrates his own constructed memories of what is gone and creates a parallel, at times almost dreamlike, narrative to his own biography.

– Adam Farley (Main Street Rag / 80 pages / $14)

same time keep the “riff-raff” out. The Irish-born writer Fitz-James O’Brien, who perhaps could be considered a member of both groups, was attacked in Niblo’s saloon by thugs hired by a rival writer. While O’Brien managed to escape unscathed, the incident was recorded in The New York Tribune as “A Ruckus Among Distinguished Journalists.”

Niblo was leasing the Astor Place Theatre when the notorious Shakespeare riots occurred, sparked by rival gangs over the merits of an American Shakespeare actor as opposed to a British one. It was one of the few times that nativist gangs and Irish gangs banded together against a common enemy – the British. He also staged shows from around the country and from around the world, including the first of P.T. Barnum’s many events. The gamut ran from Italian opera and French ballet to comic theater, and everything in between. Shortly after his retirement from active participation in the theater Niblo’s Gardens had the distinction of presenting the first musical comedy in New York City, “The Black Crook” which was reviewed by none other than Mark Twain. Until his death in 1878 Niblo was an active member of the New York Chapter of The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and for many years hosted their annual St Patrick’s Day dinner, along with other Irish functions, at his various establishments.

This volume is concise at a mere 99 pages, but lavishly illustrated, thoroughly researched, and an enjoyable, pleasant read. It covers the details of Niblo’s fascinating and complex career and encompasses not only his life but the mid-nineteenth-century New York theater and restaurant world in which he flourished. I feel that this book would be a welcome addition to the library of anyone interested in Irish American history as well as those interested in the IA history of the American theatre.

The book is available on Amazon but best quality copies are available for $20 tax and shipping included by emailing the author at feldman_benjamin@hotmail.com OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 IRISH AMERICA 105

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{crossword}

By Darina Molloy

ACROSS 1 Irish Celtic rock band formed in 1970 (8) 5 Maureen O’Hara film: ____ the Lonely (4) 8 Gaelic pre-Christian festival celebrated on October 31 which gave rise to modern Halloween (7) 10 See 34 down (10) 12 (& 25 down, & 23 across) 1997 movie that won Robin Williams an Oscar for best supporting actor (4) 14 (& 30 down) Ireland’s national GAA stadium (5) 15 New play from Enda Walsh, starring Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea (9) 16 ____ Burton: Irish Tanaiste (4) 17 (& 11 down) NY-based author of bestsellers like A Walk Among the Tombstones (8) 19 See 27 across (7) 21 (& 48 across) This cardinal will lead next year’s NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade (7) 23 See 12 across (7) 24 (& 2 down) They opened their 2014 season in Dublin in August (4) 27 (& 19 across) Much to the pundits’ surprise, the teams contesting this year’s All Ireland football final were not Mayo and Dublin, but these two (5) 28 Before pumpkins were readily available in Ireland, these vegetables were hollowed out at Halloween (6) 31 Traditional sailing boat in Achill, County Mayo (4) 32 An advertisement, in short (2) 35 The ____: Dennis Lehane book-tomovie starring James Gandolfini (4) 37 Fermented grape juice (4) 39 (& 14 down) First female commander of a space shuttle (6) 40 ____ Chameleon: Culture Club anthem from the 1980s (5) 43 To praise or speak highly of (4) 44 See 9 down (7) 46 (& 23 down) Former Mayo football boss who stepped down after semi-final defeat (5) 47 Anseo (4) 48 See 21 across (5)

DOWN 2 See 24 across (5) 3 Where 41 down now lives and works (12)

4 A Titanic memorial in this tiny Mayo village commemorates the 14 lives lost from the area (9) 5 Not off (2) 6 Front garden or lawn in the U.S. (4) 7 Just beaten by 24 across in the first game of the season (1, 1, 1) 9 (& 44 across) Detective created by 17 across and played by Liam Neeson in the movie adaptation (4) 11 See 17 across (5) 13 See 26 down (1, 6) 14 See 39 across (7) 18 To become over-ripe (3) 19 Fall fruit that resembles a miniature plum (6) 20 A giant, mechanically-propelled one of these visited Limerick in September (6) 22 The ____: Colm Meaney film shot on location in Cleveland and Clare (4) 23 See 46 across (5) 25 See 12 across (4) 26 (& 13 down) St. Louis attorney set to be appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ireland (5)

Win a subscription to Irish America magazine Please send your completed crossword puzzle to Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001, to arrive no later than Nov. 1, 2014. A winner will be drawn from among all correct entries. If there are no correct solutions, the prize will be awarded for the completed puzzle which comes closest in the opinion of our staff. Winner’s name will be published along with the solution in our next issue. Xerox copies are acceptable.Winner of the Aug./Sept. Crossword: Anne Sullivan Miscoski, Blountville, TN. 106 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

29 See 42 down (6) 30 See 14 across (4) 33 Not alive when transported to hospital (1, 1, 1) 34 (& 10 across) New mystery novel written by, among others, the late Maeve Binchy (6) 36. Acronym for Ireland’s electoral system (1, 1) 37 See 41 down (5) 38 Opposite of beginning (3) 41 (& 37 down) Winner of this year’s Rose of Tralee contest (5) 42 (& 29 down) This outspoken comedian died in September (4) 45 Defective or broken down (3)

August / September Solution

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By Rosemary Rodgers

Eliza Lynch

The Uncrowned Queen of Paraguay The Cork-born beauty who was the mistress of Francisco Solano López, president of Paraguay, and is today revered in Paraguay as a national heroine.

reland’s Potato Famine forced 10year-old Eliza from her native Cork to France, then to Algeria where she endured a bad but brief marriage to a French doctor whom she later dismissed as “a minor beast.”

She left her husband for Paris where the voluptuous Irish girl, reinvented herself as La Lincha and attracted rich and generous lovers. Refusing to be defined as a courtesan, she termed herself a “Grande Horizontale” and became a popular fixture in the salon of Mathilde Bonaparte.

Eliza was 18 years old.

When she met Francisco Solano López, a somewhat trollish dictator from a country no one had ever heard of – Paraguay – Eliza found eternal love. The glamorous redhead captivated López with her green eyes and what was termed a “Junoesque” body. Eliza, in turn, was captivated by… something only she could see.

López was in France buying armaments and scandalizing the French with his garish wardrobe and bad breath. Fancying himself the South American Napoleon, he ordered replicas of Napoleon’s crown to wear when he was anointed Emperor. Unfortunately, the dictator, unlike his idol, had no military training or strategic skills, a failing that became tragically evident 16 years later when López – and Paraguay – both lay dying, their insides gutted out by the Brazilian army.

In the beginning of their lives together he took his paramour, heavily pregnant with their first child, home to Paraguay. When

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her common-law mother-in-law met Eliza for the first time she shrieked and grabbed her heart while López’s sisters went for the smelling salts. Undaunted, Eliza began her new life as La Lincha (or the less flattering La Concubina Irlandesa), a trendsetter who alternately horrified and captivated her new country. The aristocracy, like the López family, continued to snub her, behavior that they would come to regret when, in later years, López had them all (his mother included) tortured and executed.

Though they never married, she bore him seven children, became the country’s largest landowner and amassed a fortune in gems including those she appropriated from the Virgin of Caapucú. This earned her a new and particularly nasty epithet, the Paraguayan Pompadour.

Eliza, always prone to putting on airs, found Asunción a provincial backwater and was determined to bring Paris culture to the capital. But even after introducing theatre, opera, French cuisine and education for women, she was still considered a common Irish whore in too much silk with too many out-of-wedlock children.

While her style made her a much-imitated fashionista, her influence over López – who was quickly becoming more demented, paranoid and huffy (it was illegal for anyone to turn their back on him) – made her a much-feared consort. It was said that when the carriage carrying the now doublechinned Eliza (she blamed the French food) passed the Cathedral of Asunción, real tears streamed from the statue of the Madonna.

For years historians accused Eliza of feeding López’s delusionary dreams of empire, convincing him to declare war on Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay (the War of the Triple Alliance, 1864-1870). She was now called the Lady Macbeth of Paraguay, a nod to her supposed role in the struggle that still remains the bloodiest in South America’s history: it was landlocked, pipsqueak Paraguay against three much larger powers. Within six years, 90 percent of the men and boys of

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mourning, though there were rumors she was seen driving around in Paris in a lacquered carriage, her hair (and that of her poodle) dyed an unbecoming red.

Revisionist history has been kind to both Eliza and López: sometime in the 1930s they made a seamless transition from tyrants to patriots. López became the icon of Paraguayan pride, a hero who resisted imperialism and fought to keep his country’s access to the sea. His body was moved to a shrine in Asunción and today his picture still hangs in the President’s office. Eliza, too, has emerged as a symbol of Paraguay’s fighting spirit. (Ironically, then-actress Eva Perón once played her on South American radio. Eva went on to be “Evita” and Eliza, the “Irish Evita.”) Her body was brought back to Paraguay where it now lies in the country’s largest and most lavish mausoleum. On top stands a statue of Eliza, holding two crosses against her bosom. In 1961, Eliza was officially declared the Joan of Arc of Paraguay, a name that, hopefully, IA will stick.

TOP: Eliza’s tomb. RIGHT: Last picture of Francisco Solano López, c. 1870.

FAR RIGHT: Lynch, “the uncrowned queen,” around age 20, c.1855.

Paraguay (and 50 percent of its women) were dead.

The country barely survived and a century later, Brazil apologized to Paraguay for genocide.

Ever loyal to her lover, she went into battle with him. Often pregnant, always dressed in finery, Eliza played her grand piano during battles. The music didn’t help. At the end of the war, López’s army was mostly naked child soldiers in false beards carrying sticks.

He was killed along with their teen-age son.

When their bodies were brought to Eliza, a Brazilian general ordered her to bury them both in the mud…with her bare hands. Several times she circled the dead bodies and, with the crowd looking on, she spat at the Brazilian officers.

Because she was a British citizen Eliza’s life was spared, but the provisional government took away all her property and shipped her back to France. It is generally believed she spent her final days secluded in deep OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 IRISH AMERICA 109

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{sláinte}

I Love Pie!

By Edythe Preet

n one of my favorite movies – Michael, a tale of Michael the Archangel visiting earth to help a few folk find their way in life – a particularly sweet scene shows the central characters all enjoying slices of pie in a small-town eatery. When Scots-Irish Andie MacDowell’s character is revealed to love pie, Michael (John Travolta) insists she sing her “pie” song.

It goes like this: “Pie, pie, me oh my! Nothing tastes sweet, wet, salty and dry, all at once, so well as pie. Apple! Pumpkin! Minced an’ wet bottom! I’ll come to your place every day if you’ve got ’em! Pie, me oh my, I love pie!”

I couldn’t agree more. Give me a slice of pie, savory or sweet, any time, any day, and I am one happy gal.

Mom gets the credit for my appreciation – okay, love – of all foods Italian, but pie as we know its myriad versions simply isn’t an Italian specialty, and my love of pie is yet another blessing from my Irish dad. In fact, making an apple pie was the first nonItalian culinary skill my mother learned.

Dad’s favorite dessert was apple pie. It was only a few years ago that I realized his penchant for the dish could be traced back to the foods prepared by his Irish mother.

I

very popular, as records differentiate a pastry cook from a baker.

As with many other things adopted from their neighbors across the Aegean Sea, the Romans improved on Greek pastry. In his 1st century cookbook, Apicius includes recipes that required wrapping ‘pastry’ around meat to seal in the juices during cooking. The practice of cooking food in pastry spread through Western Europe with the expansion of the Roman Empire.

By the Middle Ages, no feast was complete without a course featuring pastry, some of which boggle the imagination. Called a soteltie (subtlety), these masterpieces were created to surprise and delight. Remember the nursery rhyme containing the line ‘four and twenty black birds baked in a pie’? That the birds in this beloved kiddies’ jingle flew forth and began to sing once the pastry was opened may seem a contrived bit of fiction, but it’s not. How this trick was engineered is quite simple: a cooked blackbird (or magpie) pastry was placed inside a much larger pre-baked pastry shell.

Just before serving, live birds were placed in between the two pastry walls and a pre-baked lid was set on top.

In a Medieval noble’s home, the main meal was the principal event. This was especially true when royalty came to call. With lit-

Walter Crane (1845-1915) illustrations for the popular nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” Crane was born in Liverpool.

We’ve all heard the phrase “as American as Apple Pie.” Turns out, neither apples nor pie are American in origin. Both are English to the core. And as both the United States and Ireland have long histories of English settlement, both countries adopted numerous English foodways.

The Brits win the prize for creating what we know as “pie.” They even came up with the word. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

Culinary historians theorize that enclosing food inside dough has been going on since the Egyptian New Stone Age around 9500 BC when humans began to gather and grind seeds into a flour-like substance. It took a few millennia to get the method down pat. Drawings of nuts, fruit and honey wrapped in bread dough were found on the tomb walls of King Ramses II who ruled Egypt from 1304-1237 BC. The Greeks get the credit for inventing pastry by adding fat to a flour-water paste. In his plays, Aristophanes (5thc. BC) mentions sweetmeat pastries filled with fruit. They must have been 110 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

tle more amusement than perhaps a morning spent hunting, dining was the chief entertainment. Strolling lute players and singers, meat carvers wielding knives as deftly as jugglers, and elaborate edible fantasies – like live birds springing at first cut from a humongous pastry – marked a household’s sophistication and wealth.

Curiously, it is the nursery rhyme bird that gave us the very word “pie.” At one time a Magpie Pastry was as ubiquitous as a modern chicken pot pie. It appeared at meals so frequently that the dish was simply referred to as “pie” since everyone already knew what bird the pastry contained. Eventually all crust-encased dishes were called ‘pie’ as well, regardless of their contents, The Oxford English Dictionary records the first use of the word pie in 1303AD and gives this additional explanation: “The origin for the word pie is uncertain and no other related word is known outside English.” It suggests that the word is identical in form to the same word meaning “magpie.” The connection is that a pie containing mixed fruit, vegetables and/or meat is similar to the

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colorful odds and ends that a Magpie picks to adorn its nest.

When the English invaded Ireland, the Anglo landlords brought their love of pie with them. Not a population to let a good thing go uneaten, the Irish embraced pies wholeheartedly, adding their own favorite ingredients to the mix. From spring through fall, rhubarb is baked into so many pies that it is called “the pie plant.”

Blackberries found abundantly on the hedgerows lining most country roads make a fabulous late summer pie filling. When autumn arrives and ancient apple orchards that date from the days of the Druids are bowed down with fruit, the aroma of freshly baked apple pies wafts from kitchens throughout the island.

Lemons are not native to Ireland, but there is scarcely a pub in the land that doesn’t offer a tangy lemon meringue pie on its menu.

And in the savory department, Ireland’s ubiquitous Cottage Pie or Shepherd’s Pie has used mashed potatoes instead of pastry to cover a mix of minced roast meat, gravy and veggies since the mid-eighteenth century.

Similarly, when English emigrants settled the early American colonies, they added New World foods to the long list of items that could be baked in a pastry. Tart cranberries could be mixed with maple syrup and baked alone or added to a traditional apple pie. But one particular indigenous plant – pumpkin – was eaten so often that it spawned a witty ditty: “We have pumpkin at breakfast and pumpkin at noon; we eat so much pumpkin we shall be undone.”

On the great plantations of the Old South, many owned by industrious Irish Americans like the O’Haras in the epic novel Gone With The Wind, another native plant found its way into a pastry crust – sweet potatoes. Mixed up with eggs, spices and a bit of rum, it made a fine finish to a celebration dinner.

Without doubt pie will be the grand finale to the Thanksgiving feast in every home come November, and whether the choice is ‘apple, pumpkin, minced or wet bottom’ it’s a fair bet that everyone at the table will be saying “I love pie!” Sláinte!

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RECIPES NOTE: What makes a pie is the pastry, which is basically just flour and water bound together by a fat, and every cook has a favorite. Some bakers swear that lard produces the flakiest crust. Others will only use a solid vegetable shortening, and still others insist on butter. Recently, I began using olive oil. The resulting pastry is more crisp than flaky. Plus it’s much healthier than the other options, and is vegan to boot.

OLIVE OIL PASTRY (personal recipe)

2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder 1 ⁄4 cup olive oil 1 ⁄4 cup ice cold water Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then set aside.

Stir the olive oil and water together in a small bowl, then pour into the flour mixture. Using a fork combine the wet and dry ingredients. Divide into two equal portions, wrap each in waxed paper and refrigerate for one hour. While the pastry is chilling, prepare the pie filling. When the filling is ready, remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll as you would any other pastry. Makes a top and bottom full crust. Alternatively, you can cut the second pastry into strips for a decorative lattice top crust.

APPLE PIE (personal recipe) 3 ⁄2 1 1 ⁄4 2

pounds mixed Gala, Fuji and Granny Smith apples cup sugar teaspoon cinnamon teaspoon powdered cloves tablespoons lemon juice butter 1 egg yolk 1 tablespoon cream extra sugar Peel, core and slice the apples (I prefer chunks rather than thin slices). Mix sugar and spices, and combine with the apples in a large bowl. Drizzle with lemon juice and toss together. Set aside while you roll out the pastry. Preheat oven to 450F. Make two pastry circles, each approximately 2-inches larger than the diameter of your 8-inch pie pan. Place one circle in the pie pan and dust with a bit of flour (this will absorb some of the fruit juices and prevent the bottom crust from becoming soggy). Pour the apples into the pastry shell, dot with bits of butter and place the second circle on top. Tuck the overhanging top crust under the edge of the bottom crust and pinch all around to seal. Make a few slits in 1

the top crust to let some of the steam escape. Mix egg yolk with cream and ‘paint’ the crust all over. Sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Place pie on a rimmed cookie sheet (to keep any overflowing juice from dripping on the oven floor) and bake at 450ºF for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350ºF and continue baking for approximately 30 minutes until the crust is golden and the apples can be easily pierced with a testing wire or knife. Remove pie from oven and cool for several hours before serving. Makes one 8-inch pie.

SOUTHERN SWEET POTATO PIE

(personal recipe – I like this Old South specialty much better than Pumpkin Pie) 1 pre-baked pastry shell 2 tablespoons orange marmalade (optional) 4 med yams/sweets, pre-baked until sugar oozes, peeled & mashed 3 eggs, beaten 1 stick unsalted butter, melted 1 ⁄2 cup light brown sugar cinnamon nutmeg 1 ⁄4 cup dark rum 1 tsp grated orange peel 1 pint eggnog (maybe a bit less) Line an 8-inch pie pan with one 10-inch circle of pastry, turn under excess and crimp edges. Fill with dry rice and ‘blind bake’ at 350ºF for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, pour out rice, place on a wire rack and cool completely. Glaze cooled pie shell with orange marmalade. Set aside while you prepare the filling.

Mix all the remaining ingredients thoroughly adding light brown sugar and spices to taste. Pour into pre-baked pastry shell.

Place on a rimmed cookie sheet and bake 30-40 minutes in a preheated 375ºF oven on the top shelf (pastry browns slower). Test w/ a knife to see if filling is done (when knife is removed, it should not have any filling bits clinging to the blade). Remove pie from oven, place on a wire rack until completely cool before serving. Makes one 8-inch pie.

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Those We Lost

Jeremy Ullick Brown 1939 – 2014

Jeremy Ullick Browne, the 11th Marquess of Sligo and heir of Grace O’Malley of Westport House, passed away on July 22. He was 75. Brown helped to reinvigorate his family’s dwindling fortunes and Westport House itself when he opened it up to tourists in 1960, making Westport House one of the most widely known and visited tourist attractions in Ireland.

The building, located in County Mayo, is itself a marvel of beauty and architecture with a fascinating library, James Watt dining room, family portraits by Joshua Reynolds, and a stunning landscape that any Downton Abbey fan would be jealous of.

The Marquess of Sligo was born in London, England on June 4, 1939 to Denis Edward Browne and Jose Gauche, spending his early childhood in Suffolk.

Denis Browne was a grandson of the fifth son of the 5th Marquess of Sligo, but a number of sons were either childless or had lost their children during the World Wars. The estate passed to Denis in 1953 who together with his son Jeremy opened Westport House to tourists in 1960. It was one of the first estate homes to do so.

Jeremy Brown went on to attend St. Columba’s College near Dublin and took a full time interest in Westport House. He introduced a children’s zoo and miniature railway and by the 1970s saw Westport House attendance expand to over 30,000 per year.

A wealth tax in 1976 almost saw the demolition of Westport House, but the move was later abandoned. In 1981, a group of IRA supporters invaded the house, waving black flags from the window in support of the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland.

In 1991, upon the death of his father, Jeremy Brown succeeded as 11th Marquess of Sligo. He had previously introduced a bill into the Irish parliament that would allow his five daughters to inherit Westport House; up until then it had only gone to the closest living male relative.

Today, Westport House has over 100,000 visitors a year and is an impor112 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

tant tourist attraction for Ireland. Brown is survived by his wife of more than fifty years, Jennifer, and five daughters. – M.S.

Jeremiah Healy 1948 – 2014

Jeremiah Healy, the Irish-American mystery writer of the popular Cuddy private eye novels, has died at 66. His fiancée Sandra Balzo said that Healy committed suicide after years of depression.

Healy broke into the literary world in 1984 when his first novel Blunt Darts was nominated for the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Healy’s creation, John Cuddy, was a detective who explored the cavernous hideaways of Boston’s underbelly. Cuddy, an Irish widower and Vietnam veteran, was the heir of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. Another Cuddy novel, The Staked Goat did win the Shamus Award and Healy would go on to receive fifteen more nominations throughout his career. The Chicago Sun Times dubbed the Cuddy books “one of today’s best mystery series.”

Jeremiah Healy was born in Teaneck, New Jersey on May 15, 1948. He attended Rutgers University and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1973. Healy then worked for the New England School of Law in Boston where he taught from 1978 to 1996. Besides his Cuddy novels, Healy wrote the Mairead O’Clare thrillers under the pseudonym Terry Devane. In later years, Healy became a noted short story writer with his last book of stories, Cuddy Plus One published in 2003. More than just a crime writer, Healy tackled serious issues throughout his work including date rape, racism, AIDS, and assisted suicide.

Healy was a past president of Private Eye Writers of America and secured his status as a crime writing fixture when he became president of the International Association of Crime Writers in 2000. In 2003, he survived a battle with prostate cancer, but remained active, giving a number of lectures at the Boston Globe Book Festival, the Sorbonne in Paris, and the World Mystery Convention.

Healy is survived by his fiancée Sandra Balzo and a sister, Pat Pinches. – M.S.

Eroni Kumana Unknown – 2014

Eroni Kumana, the last surviving man who helped rescue Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy and a group of PT-109 crew members from a shipwreck in the Solomon Islands, passed away August 3, he was 96.

On the night of August 2, 1943 Kennedy and the crew of Patrol Torpedo 109 were instructed to intercept a flotilla of resupply ships from the Japanese near the area of Kolobangara in the U.S controlled Solomon Islands. A Japanese destroyer spotted them and sunk the vessel in a blaze of fire, resulting in the death of two crewmen and numerous injuries amongst the 10 remaining passengers, including Kennedy.

The future president along with his crew floated on debris from the wreck and swam for hours until reaching an island. They subsisted on coconuts for six days until Kumana and Biuku Gasa, a fellow Solomon Islander, came upon them, giving whatever food and drink they had. Kennedy etched a message in a green coconut and instructed the two to bring it to an Allied base miles away. Once the message was delivered, a rescue mission was sent, and Kennedy and his crew were saved.

Thomas Putnam, director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, said after Kumana’s passing that he “was the last connection to this pivotal moment in history.”

Kumana was born and spent his whole life on a tiny pacific island called Rannoga near New Guinea. Virtually cut off from the rest of the world, Kumana worked as a fisherman, canoe maker, and subsistence farmer. It wasn’t until 1942, when war broke out in the Pacific, that the British

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authorities enlisted the support of the local natives. Kumana and Gasa signed up and worked as coastwatchers to track the Japanese presence on the islands. It was while on patrol that they found Kennedy and his crew.

Kumana’s rescue of Kennedy remained a highlight of his life, one he cherished closely. Max Kennedy, nephew of JFK and son of Robert Kennedy, said, “Jack was an extraordinary man, and I think in the short amount of time they got to know each other, I think Eroni picked up on how Jack was. And I think people feel a particular connection to the person they save.”

Kenney was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his heroic efforts.

He kept the coconut shell from the fateful rescue all his life, placing it on his desk in the Oval Office.

Kumana lived the rest of his life on Rannoga giving a few interviews while always speaking fondly of his brush with history. Kumana is survived by 9 children, 50 grandchildren, and 75 great-grandchildren. – M.S.

James Murphy-O’Connor 1925 – 2014

Known universally as Jim, James Murphy-O’Connor was an Irish rugby kicker whose technical influence is still in effect. He died in early September at the age of 89, having changed inestimably the style of kicking now ubiquitous in international rugby.

Born June 6, 1925 to Dr. George and Ellen Murphy-O’Conner, he was the eldest of six children in a devout Catholic household that emphasized public service. Three of his brothers became priests and one of his cousins was the prominent biblical scholar Jerome Murphy-O’Connor. James himself would eventually earn his living in Slough, England as a senior partner in his uncle’s medical practice, but not before making a name for himself boosting the morale of the sports-loving Irish populace.

At 6 ft. 6 in., Murphy-O’Connor was the tallest player ever to play for Ireland when he started his rugby career in 1954. But it was a then-questionable kicking technique that led to his success at more than five different teams during his professional years.

In lieu of kicking the ball with the toe cap, Murphy-O’Connor booted the ball with the instep of his cleat, which many observers at the time believed could lead to

broken ankles. They were wrong.

He continued to play throughout his medical training at St. Mary’s Paddington and at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, where his decision to represent Leinster, according to The Irish Times, led to a “mild rebuke from his father and uncle, who had both captained Munster, as the family had its origins in the city of Cork.”

After retiring from professional rugby, Murphy-O’Connor continued to follow sports of all kinds closely, and even became an accomplished golfer, competing in the Irish Amateur Open in 1955, and co-owned a series of race horses. He is survived by his wife of 57 years Anne O’Neill, their six children, and 20 grandchildren. – A.F.

Desmond O’Grady 1935 – 2014

The famed Irish poet and translator Desmond O’Grady died on August 24. He was 78. O’Grady had lived the life of a man of the world, hobnobbing with the likes of Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell, Pablo Picasso and Federico Fellini, whose film La Dolce Vita, featured a young O’Grady.

The late Seamus Heaney once said that O’Grady was “one of the senior figures in Irish literary life, exemplary in the way he has committed himself over the decades to the vocation of poetry and has lived selflessly for the art.”

O’Grady was born in Limerick in 1935.

He attended boarding school in Tipperary and, against his parents’ wishes, decided against attending university, opting instead for the life of a poet. O’Grady had loved poetry from an early age and was immensely influenced by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. He attended a number of meetings at the Limerick Poetry Circle and at age 19 moved to Paris where he worked in the Shakespeare and Company Bookshop and taught English at the Berlitz School. While there, he published his first book, Chords and Orchestrations

and became enmeshed in the city’s artistic circles, meeting Samuel Beckett and carousing with friends of James Joyce.

Emboldened with poetic zeal, O’Grady sent a poem to Ezra Pound who took him on as his secretary in Italy. During this time O’Grady became infatuated with translation and would eventually translate a number of poems from Irish, Welsh, Arabic, and Greek. O’Grady continued to travel all over the world, becoming a teaching fellow at Harvard where he received an MA and PhD while also striking up a friendship with Robert Lowell.

He returned to Ireland in the 1980s, settling in Kinsale where he resided for the rest of his life. He published over 12 collections of translated poetry, and his own poetry includes The Wandering Celt and The Road Taken: 1956-1996. O’Grady was a member of Aosdána, an Irish association of artists, and was a founding member of the European Community of Writers. He received the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh fellowship in 2004.

An outpouring of remembrances, from politicians to intellectuals, have honored the late O’Grady. President Michael D. Higgins said that “he established a fine reputation as a translator of literary works from various languages into English. He leaves a fine collection of work, reflecting both his migrant experience and his affection for his homeland, that will be studied and cherished by future generations.”

Adding that “from wherever he was writing, be it Cairo or Kinsale, his work invoked a sense of what was Irish in both heritage and contemporary life.” – M.S.

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014 IRISH AMERICA 113

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{those we lost} Albert Reynolds 1932 – 2014

Maureen O’Looney 1922 – 2014

Chicago has lost one if its most prominent Irish figures. Maureen O’Looney, who died in late August at the age of 92, had been a generous, passionate, politicking, paragon of Irish America since she left Ireland and fell for Chicago’s Northside after visiting a family member there in 1953.

She stayed put, and her house became a halfway home for Irish immigrants to the neighborhood. She fed them, lent to them, sought employment for them, and let them use her address to set up bank accounts.

When she opened Shamrock Imports in 1967, a self-descriptive store on Belmont and Laramie in Chicago, Irish and Irish Americans ploughed there by the droves.

“She was always smiling and always willing to help,” said John Devitt, president and co-founder, along with O’Looney, of the Gaelic Park cultural center in Oak Forest, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

That might be a bit of an understatement. O’Looney devoted her life to bettering the circumstances of her fellow countrymen.

In 1991, she flew to Virginia to handdeliver visa applications, the same year she organized a group of protesters against Margaret Thatcher’s visit to the Windy City. She was a life-long and vocal Irish nationalist, and her store was lined with photographs of her with national figures, including Pope John Paul II, Senator Ted Kennedy, Cardinal Francis George, and actor Chuck Connors.

“She had her hand in everything,” John Gorski, president of the Irish American Heritage Center, told the Sun-Times. “She could gather more volunteers for a cause than anyone.” If it seems like O’Looney knew everybody, she did. Even former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daly was on her call list. “He’d always say, ‘Maureen, put a loaf aside for me,’” she once said.

Born Maureen Staunton in Bohola, Co. Mayo, she is survived by her daughter Theresa and four grandsons. – A.F. 114 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Albert Reynolds, the former Taoiseach of Ireland and one of the leading peacemakers in the 1994 IRA ceasefire, died August 21 after a battle with Alzheimer’s.

He was 81. He is survived by his wife Kathleen and seven children. Reynolds legacy is one that will not be quickly forgotten in Ireland and around the world.

Niall O’Dowd, publisher of Irish America and founder of Irish Central, said after his passing that he “was the greatest leader of my lifetime” and that “he turned peace in Northern Ireland from an impossible dream to a startling reality.” Reynolds was a shrewd businessman who brought his many years of experience into the political arena, and while he only served as leader from 1992 to 1994, his indomitable and steadfast adherence for peace and the ending of the Troubles forever changed the course of Irish history.

Albert Reynolds was born on November 3, 1932 in Roosky in Co. Roscommon. He attended Summerhill College in Sligo and later began working for CIE. In his early business career he started a number of ventures including a newspaper and a pet food company while creating contacts on both sides of Ireland which would prove beneficial when he later ran for office. Reynolds first foray into politics began in 1977 when he was elected to the Dail for Fianna Fail in the Longford-Westmeath constituency.

Throughout the years he served in areas of finance, industry, and transport but was later booted out by Taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1991 for supporting a vote of

no confidence. He returned to politics the following year when he succeeded Haughey as Taoiseach, beating out Mary O’Rourke and Michael Woods.

A series of scandals marred Reynolds’ two years in office beginning with his firing of a number of Haughey supporters from their minister roles and becoming further weakened by a poor turnout of Fianna Fail in the elections. However, Reynolds accomplished more in two years than most Taoiseaches, and his fearless determination to bring about peace in the Downing Street Declaration in 1993 will keep his legacy alive for generations to come.

Reynolds’ life and work are being mourned on both sides of the Atlantic. He came to power during a decisive moment in Irish and American history. Former President Bill Clinton who worked alongside Reynolds offered his condolences saying of Reynolds, “His leadership alongside British Prime Minister John Major was instrumental in laying the foundation for the Good Friday Agreement, and our world owes him a profound debt of gratitude.” Flags are being flown at half mast on all government buildings in Ireland and the outpowering from many Irish politicians and businessmen are overwhelming. William Flynn, business leader and progressive in the Northern Ireland peace agreement, said of Reynolds, “Without any question, Albert Reynolds was the finest Irish gentleman ever to become Taoiseach. Without him and his lovely Kathleen, the beautiful Reynolds family would have never come to be.

Without him, the savage civil warfare in Northern Ireland would have continued on and the Good Friday Agreement would have never come to be. Taoiseach Albert Reynolds was especially loved and honored as a man of peace in Ireland, in America, and in the world, generally.”

President Michael D. Higgins said Reynolds will be remembered as “a most dynamic Cabinet minister and Taoiseach with courage.” Current Taoiseach Enda Kenny said that “he played an important part in bringing together different strands of political opinion in Northern ireland.”

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness both tweeted condolences to Reynolds, Adams saying “Albert acted on the North when it mattered” and McGuinness added, “Albert was a peaceIA maker.” – M.S.

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{photo album}

By Maureen Haugh Farley

Holy Name Weddings: An Irish-American Family Tradition Lives On

N

ow, one might think that getting married for the first time at the age of 54, I would have wanted to have a small, intimate affair like my husband first suggested, but I had never imagined anything other than marrying in Holy Name of Jesus Church.

Like most little girls growing up in the 1960s in Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Brooklyn, I dreamed of one day marrying in Holy Name Church, just as my classmates and best friend, Eileen O’Brien had. Baptized in this church, making my First Holy Communion, First Penance and Confirmation here and graduating from Holy Name Elementary School, my vision was not

home. In those days, we did not identify ourselves by our neighborhood as much as we did by our parish – we were “from Holy Name.”

Both of my Irish immigrant great-grandparents on my maternal grandmother’s side, John Molloy and Margaret Shea, had met at the wedding of Margaret’s brother John, and John Molloy’s first cousin Mary. The wedding was at Holy Name, where John and Margaret would also marry on April 12, 1891. When my maternal grandmother, Mary Molloy, was born, she was baptized there, received her Sacraments there, and attended the attached Holy Name School.

When she married, she married Cavan-born

LEFT: Maureen

much different than any of my Haugh Farley’s Jim Maloney on September 8, friends’. After all, largely com- parents and their 1921 at Holy Name too. prised of Irish-American, Ger- wedding party, Once they married, their home 23, 1951, on man-American and Italian- June became a sort of boarding house the steps of Holy American families, in a six- Name. RIGHT: for the younger Maloneys who square-block hamlet tucked away Maureen’s best immigrated to the States. The between Greenwood Cemetery friend Eileen oldest of my great-uncles, O’Brien Tlamsa’s and Prospect Park in the Windsor wedding with Packie, met his Irish-born wife, Terrace section of Brooklyn, this Maureen as Maid Annie from Derry in Brooklyn, parish was a veritable melting pot of Honor (top row married on Easter Monday of of European emigrants marrying left), June 1, 1991.

1934, of course, in Holy Name Americans, but all sharing in the Church, where two of their chilCatholic faith. dren would enter religious Orders – John P. My family was deeply rooted in this Maloney, “Father Jack,” and Maureen Malparish, dating back to around the time the oney, my namesake, who became a Sister of church was built in 1878. For my mother’s St. Joseph.

Irish family, the Molloys, Sheas, Maloneys, And, of course, when my mother and faMulvaneys and Reillys, Holy Name was ther married in 1951, it was at Holy Name 116 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

Church, the third generation of women to marry in this home of their faith. And even though I traveled from East to West and back again over the years living in California and Virginia and Nebraska and Washington State and now South Carolina, there was never any doubt in my mind that if I were ever to find my “God-match” before I died, I would marry in Holy Name Church.

However, this came as a great surprise to my husband when he proposed last June and asked me to marry the following weekend on the Fourth of July on the Battery in Charleston, one of the premier destination wedding locations of the U.S., with just a few friends as witnesses. While he thought

this was a very romantic idea and expected gleeful affirmation, never could he have imagined that tears would start streaming down my face and I would simultaneously say a resounding “yes” to his proposal, but a barely audible tear-filled “no” to marrying in Charleston. It was then that I shared this childhood dream with him of marrying in this now-136-year-old Gothic Revival family church with all of my large Irish-Catholic family witnessing the Sacrament of our marriage with Father Jack presiding as he had for my older brothers’ weddings and second cousins’ weddings in the 1980s and our parents’ and oldest brother’s funerals in the first decade of this millennium.

And little did I know that day in June of 2013, when my Love popped the question

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{photo album} that the church was about to undergo a major facelift. Holy Name had been “modernized” back in the early 1980s in an attempt to attract a younger population back to the church, much to the dismay (and, more often than not, outright anger) of the majority of the multi-generational parishioners. The original altar had been discarded, the chancel was turned into a carpeted stage, the frescos were painted over with a Pepto-Bismol pink, and almost all of the iconography was destroyed.

The restoration project was led by Father Jim Cunningham, present Pastor of Holy Name Church. With the support of the Holy Name of Jesus Parish Family, in less than a few months he had received pledges to the tune of over 1 million dollars which allowed him to bid on and obtain a historic altar designed by

LEFT: Maureen’s wedding party with Eileen serving as Matron of Honor, May 25, 2014. ABOVE: The bride and groom in the restored church, May 25, 2014.

the renowned architect James Renwick.

Originally intended as a side altar at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, but found to be too large for the space, it had found its home in St. Vincent de Paul Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where it remained for many years. After that church closed about five years ago, the altar was disassembled into 1,400 pieces and stored in a warehouse until it came time to auction it off.

I was astonished and thrilled to see that the church was going to be restored to a likeness similar to what bore witness to the three prior generations of family weddings dating back 125 years. The restoration project to begin in late July and was expected to be completed by Christmas last year, but delays because of the enormity of the project, including fortifying the floor on which this 118 IRISH AMERICA OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2014

multi-ton altar would rest, required placement of a foundation strong enough to support skyscrapers, which resulted in a couple of extended deadlines.

And in spite of all the work, set-backs and difficult winter faced by the Holy Name parishioners, the restored church was ready just one week before our May 25th wedding, making me the fourth generation bride in the Molloy, Maloney, Haugh family line to marry in this beautiful, sacred House of God. A testament to the success of the project is that while there were only five weddings in Holy Name in 2013, 25 were scheduled in the second half of 2014 alone.

While nerves were a bit frayed with all the planning, traveling and nail-biting in which I engaged for the many months leading up to the wedding, worried that the

Ccurch may not be ready on time, praying novenas and leaving more than a few anxious messages on Father Jim’s voicemail, my prayers were answered. I suspected this was not just due to my prayers, or those of my family and friends, but also had more than a little something to do with the influence of all of my Holy Name ancestors who had gone before me, especially those strong Molloy women, including Margaret Shea Molloy with whom I shared a birthday, who had married in Holy Name and who had died on the steps of Holy Name at age 79 as she exited from mass.

All of the living family members who had married in Holy Name Church over the years had been praying as well and they were all so excited to be there in the newly restored church, but also to be seeing me carry on the family tradition, including my cousin Peggy Reilly Sullivan and her husband Pat, who unbeknownst to me until the evening of my wedding, had also married on May 25th in Holy Name, but 51 years earlier in 1963.

And, of course, there was my Matron of Honor, Eileen O’Brien Tlamsa, the sister we each were to the other growing up with just brothers, who had married in the modernized Holy Name back in June of 1991, with me at her side serving as her Maid of Honor.

Eileen walked ahead of me and stood beside me as I married, fulfilling our shared dream as little girls so long ago.

When I walked that same center aisle that Margaret Shea, Mary Molloy and Mary Maloney all walked beginning 125 years ago, escorted by my two brothers, John and Gerard, and joined hands with my handsome groom, Norm, at this exquisite Renwick altar, the first bride of many who will walk down the new aisle in this completely renovated breathtaking Holy Name of Jesus Church, I knew my childhood dream was realized, and my Irish-American Holy Name Family tradition lived on, marrying in the presence of God, family and friends and the spirits of my maternal ancestors who had all married in this church called “home.”

And after the ceremony, we all stood on the steps of Holy Name Church joined by four Chinese-American photographers who led this jubilant group in “God Bless America,” all while waving American flags and being cheered on by the horns of passing cars and MTA buses, all seeming to signal their approval of this celebration of Marriage, America, Family and Tradition. IA

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