Irish America September / October 2018 by Irish America Magazine

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» HISTORY » NEWS » GENEALOGY

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

CANADA $4.95 / U.S. $3.95

AN AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY

EILEEN MURRAY » HOW

WENT FROM GROWING UP IN PUBLIC HOUSING TO CO-CEO OF THE LARGEST HEDGE FUND IN THE WORLD

THE

WALL

STREET Celebrating the Irish in Finance

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Vol. 33 No. 5 September / October 2018

Features

Galway Bay

HIGHLIGHTS

34 Glorious Galway

County Galway has glorious scenery, great food and entertainment, and a rich cultural heritage. By Sharon Ní Chonchúir

FIRST WORD

Celebrating how far we have come. p. 6

News From Ireland

40 Cover Story: Eileen Murray

Bridgewater Associates co-CEO Eileen Murray is an American success story; one that began in public housing and ended on the top world. By Patricia Harty

An old henge appears; economy updates; a remedy for arthritis; and an Irish European of the Year. p. 26

46 21st Anniversary Wall Street 50

Hibernia

Celebrating 50 of the best and brightest, who share in common a love of their Irish heritage.

N.Y.C.’s old hero John Wolfe Ambrose has a new monument; Jean Butler’s latest dance project; a U.S. pipe band are champs in Ireland; and five new Power Women are inducted. p. 18

68 Roots: The Murray Clan

The origins of the Murray surname, and the clan’s historic ties to Scotland. By Mary Gallagher

KEVIN MCGONVILLE

64 Wild Irish Women

In the latest in a series on female mavericks, the focus is on Sinead O’Connor. By Rosemary Rogers

Frank & Al

70 Frederick Douglass in Ireland

The American abolitionist and the influences of the Irish liberator, Daniel O’Connell. By Christine Kinealy

A beloved teacher, a sports hero, a designer, an aspiring actor, two politicians, and a couple of corporate chieftains who became peacemakers.

p. 92

Last Word

The pope’s visit.

78 Jiggs & Maggie & More

p. 96

The funny and not-so funny comics of today and yesteryear, and their creators. By Tom Deignan

82 The Brooklyn Fire Chaser

The life of Fire Detective Thomas P. Brophy and his lasting legacy on the F.D.N.Y. By Ray Cavanaugh

Terry Golway’s new book on the unlikely alliance of Al Smith and F.D.R. p. 86

Those We Lost

74 O’Carolan: The 18th-Century Rock Star

The blind Irish musicial genius and celebrity of his day, Turlough O’Carolan, and his musical legacy. By Geoffrey Cobb

DEPARTMENTS 70

Irish America Magazine ISSN 0884-4240) © 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: submit@irishamerica.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.

8 88 90 98 Statue of Frederick Douglass

Letters Books Crossword Photo Album Cover Photo: Bridgewater Assoc.

TOURISM IRELAND

contents |

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Eileen Murray The term ‘role model’ has been overused and misused to the point of cliché; but when the real deal comes along, it’s very recognizable. Eileen Murray is the real deal. From her early years with her beloved family in Upper Manhattan’s Dyckman Housing Project, into her early and increasingly successful career and through her formative years at Bridgewater, Eileen has always been generous and supportive of her colleagues. She is a natural leader because she is confident of her own abilities, while encouraging others to be the best they can be. We in the Irish American community have been beneficiaries of Eileen’s deep generosity in so many areas intrinsic to the well being of all.

So it is in keeping with the high standards set by Trish Harty and Niall O’Dowd for over 30 years, Irish America Magazine has chosen Eileen Murray as one of this year’s Wall Street 50 and the 2018 Keynote Speaker.

Loretta Brennan Glucksman

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Vol. 33 No. 5 September / October 2018

IRISH AMERICA

the first word | By Patricia Harty

Mórtas Cine

Pride In Our Heritage

Founding Publisher: Niall O’Dowd

Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief: Patricia Harty Vice President of Marketing Kate Overbeck Art Director: Marian Fairweather

Assistant Editor / Social Media Coordinator Dave Lewis Assistant Editor / Sales and Events Coordinator Mary Gallagher

Financial Controller: Kevin M. Mangan Editorial Assistants: Maggie Holland Kelly Anne Reynolds

IRISH AMERICA 875 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 1606 New York NY 10001 TEL: 212-725-2993 FAX: 212-244-3344

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submit@irishamerica.com www.irishamerica.com Irish America Magazine ISSN 0884-4240) © 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: Submit@irishamerica.com. Subscription rate is $21.95 for one year. Subscription orders: 1-800-582-6642. Subscription queries: 1-800-582-6642, (212) 7252993, 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.

6 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

Celebrate! You’ve Come a Long Way

“No pessimist ever set foot on Ellis Island. No pessimist ever crossed the prairies, no pessimist ever built cities from one end of the continent to another. These things were done by people with vision and hope.” – William J. Flynn.

his issue celebrates the 21st running of our Wall Sreet 50 list. Our honorees, from fourthgeneration to Irish-born, represent a range of financial power houses, and as well as having achieved great sucess in business, they all share in common a love of their Irish heritage. In 1997, when we first published this list, there were just two Wall Street women profiled. But great strides have been made, and this year there are 22 women, and one of those amazing honorees is Eileen Murray, the co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world. As far back as 1869, when John Kiernan founded his financial news agency, the Irish have had a presence on Wall Street. Kiernan, the son of Irish immigrants, gave Charles Dow and Edward Jones their start. And using all they learned at Kiernan’s, they went on to form the Dow & Jones company, and the Wall Street Journal. Pretty heady stuff. But hold the applause! While men have been enjoying the view from the top of the corporate ladder for a long time now, not so much the women. In the 150 years since Kiernan was doing his news-gathering, rowing his boat out into New York Harbor, fishing for financial news from incoming ships from Europe, women, until recently, were still on the lower rungs of the financial ladder. When you read our cover story on Eileen Murray, you will understand why she was one of the first in her field to break through the glass ceiling. One of nine kids, she grew up in public housing. Her family were not rich, but they took pleasure in small things. On Friday nights her mother’s Uncle Pete would arrive with his accordion, and all the neighbors would come over to join in the fun. Her parents pushed her to do well in school, and she did. After graduating with a B.S. degree from Manhattan College, she headed to Wall Street, unfazed by the fact that only 0.5 percent of senior positions in the financial industry were held by women. She had grown up with parents who treated their offspring with parity, especially when it came to chores – the boy washed the dishes as often as the girls, so it never occurred to her that you would be judged on anything other than your effort. Armed with a quick brain, a wonderful sense of humor, and a deep desire to do well by her family, she overcame obstacles and prejudices by working twice as hard. There is still room for more equality in the workplace, Eileen notes, especially when it comes to women and minorities, but she likes to focus on what has been achieved. “We need to celebrate how far we have come,” she said when we met at her Bridgewater office in Stamford, C.T. She reminded me that earlier immigrants had to deal with “No Irish Need Apply” signs. And her own mother had been turned down for a job at the phone company because of her Irish accent. And so, taking Eileen’s lead, we will celebrate. And as we do, we will remember those early immigrants who, through thick and thin, into the mining camps and beyond, carried the music with them, celebrating the very fact that they were alive. We lost many great Irish Americans these past months (pages 92-95), and we celebrate their lives too. They all knew the beauty and tragedy of Ireland that is in our DNA and – like so many of our honorees – they used it well, to make the world a better place. Mórtas Cine.

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letters | readers forum

It’s the Accent & Moral Courage

“I came to your website after hearing John Brennan speak on MSNBC. As soon as I heard his sibilant ‘T,’ I realized that he must have grown up listening to an actual Irish accent, so I wanted to learn more. Reading this article is utterly heartwarming, especially the part about him bringing his father back to Ireland. But knowing that you’ve come from rela-

In Memoriam: Tom Moran

“Ireland has lost a great supporter. His passion and genuine sincerity for Ireland was unmatched. Tom R.I.P., you deserve it.”

– Peter Casey, submitted online

tive hardship and poverty to the amazing opportunities afforded in the U.S.A. is the epitome of the American Dream. Learning Arabic and heading up the CIA, imagine what other immigrants can bring to the U.S.! The moral courage implicit in the stance Mr. Brennan is taking now is in stark relief to the Republican leaders of the G.O.P. How humiliating for the U.S.A., to fall so far in world esteem in such a short period of time, it’s staggering.”

Duty, Honor, Country

“In the article online regarding Senator John McCain, it says that the McCains arrived in America after independence. I am a descendant of Hugh McCain, and he and his four sons all fought in the American Revolution. They were with General Washington at Valley Forge in the North Carolina regiment. They were from Terza, North Carolina and are buried there. The article is fantastic and accurate other than that.”

– Jacqueline Joyce, submitted online

– Laurie Ann Frank, submitted online.

The People Spoke in 2016!

Reflections on the Good Friday Agreement

“When we discuss the Good Friday Agreement, we are reminded of Padraig Pearse’s words at the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa, ‘Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.’ Since Pearse made that comment over a century ago, he has been proven right continuously.”

– Sean Curtin, submitted online

Going Places

“It was so exciting to win a world medal for the U.S.A. [in Irish dance], but then for my little girl to see her picture and name in a maga-

What Are You Like? Loretta Brennan Glucksman

“Nice article. Great to see Irish Americans who have given so much put in the limelight.”

– Proinsias Mag Fhionnghaile, submitted online

America was founded as a constitutional republic, which means a federal government that has set, but limited powers, over each state with each state controlling their own destinies based on their individual state constitutions. It’s the Democrat party in the last 100 years who has whittled away the constructs of our constitution and grown the size and centralization of the federal government…to the detriment of the states and the American people. The people spoke in 2016 and constitutionally elected the current president…he is America’s best hope at restoring American exceptionalism…not perfect, but greater than anything past or current.

– Stephen Brazell, submitted online

zine was big stuff. Thank you so much for making my little girl’s success and hard work even more exciting! Peyton and I were so thrilled and forever grateful. We plan to frame the article with her world medal for the rest of her life.”

– Kimberly Slack Clemons, submitted via Facebook

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.

8 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

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contributors | Geoffrey Cobb

Christine Kinealy is the Director of

Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University. Prof. Kinealy is also curator of the “Frederick Douglass in Ireland: ‘The Black O’Connell’” exhibit, at Quinnipiac. Her major new publication Frederick Douglass and Ireland: In His Own Words was published in July 2018. She has published several groundbreaking books on Ireland’s Great Hunger.

Ray Cavanaugh

is a freelance scribe from Massachusetts. His mother comes from Kerry, and his father is a few generations removed from Wexford.

is a teacher of social studies and English as a second language at the High School for Service and Learning in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He has written three books on Brooklyn history as well as articles for Irish America, The New York Irish History Roundtable and The Irish Echo.

Tom Deignan

who is the author of Coming to America: Irish Americans, has served as contributing writer for books such as Nine Irish Lives: The Fighters, Thinkers, and Artists Who Helped Build America and The Irish American Chronicle. His writing has appeared in newspapers such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Star Ledger and Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as magazines such as America, Commonweal, and Brooklyn Rail.

Sharon Ní Chonchúir lives and

works in west County Kerry, and much of her writing is concerned with the changing face of modern Irish culture. She is a fluent Irish speaker.

Rosemary Rogers

is an author and former music producer whose eight books have been published by Random House, Villard, St. Martin’s Press, Hearst, Barnes & Noble, and City Lights. Her articles have appeared in, among others, the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Oprah: Live Your Best Life, Time Out New York and for five years Irish America has been running her series, “Wild Irish Women.” Currently she’s working on a TV project with Sean Kelly about saints, and collaborating with her husband, Robert Downey, Sr. on a series about makeup artists – today’s shapeshifters.

Create change. Create hope. Citi recognizes the work of Irish America Inc. and those who work together to build a better tomorrow.

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hibernia | news Suffragette Sheehy Skeffington Honored

n Thursday, June 13, 1912, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, and a group of suffragettes, smashed windows in Dublin Castle to highlight the “woman’s right to vote” cause. It was an offense for which she would spent a month in prison. 106 years later to the day, near to the windows that were smashed, President Michael D. Higgins unveiled a plaque honoring Sheehy Skeffington’s efforts in the struggle for Irish independence, and women’s suffrage. Sheehy Skeffington also co-founded the Irish Women’s Franchise League, and fought for justice after her ABOVE: The Irish husband, Francis Sheehy Skeff- president and first lady unveil a plaque to Hanna ington, was shot and killed dur- Sheehy Skeffington, Irish ing the 1916 Easter Rising by a suffragette on June 13, 2018 at Dublin Castle. British Army patrol. CENTER: Plaque to Hanna President Higgins, in recog- Sheehy Skeffington. nizing Skeffington, also pointed BOTTOM: Hanna out that the role of Irish women Sheehy Skeffington in 1916.

PHOTO: WIKEPEDIA

News-in-Brief

EXPORT SALES HITTING NEW RECORD.

Pictured at the announcement of Enterprise Ireland’s Export Results 2017 are from left, David Moffitt from Kayfoam, an Enterprise Ireland client company, with, Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland, Terence O’Rourke, Chairman, Enterprise Ireland and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys T.D.

Enterprise Ireland, the state agency responsible for helping Irish companies export to international markets, announced on June 12 that its clients recorded export sales of €22.71 billion in 2017, representing a sevenpercent increase since 2016. This is the highest level of export sales recorded in the history of the agency, and the eighth consecutive year of clients’ export growth. In 2017, Enterprise Ireland clients achieved total sales of €44.4 billion, up eight percent over 2016. Exports to the Eurozone region, which account for 20 percent of all exports, saw strong growth of nine percent to €4.61 12 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

in nation-building has often been ignored. “For far too long, the historical contribution of Irish women in the struggle for emancipation, independence, and equality, and to our social life, has been overlooked,” he said. The request for placement of the plaque had been submitted by Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, whose recent lecture tour of the United States, recreating her grandmother’s 1917 journey to promote Irish independence, was recorded in a documentary entitled Hanna and Me: Passing on the Flame. – D.L.

billion in 2017. Exports to the U.K., the largest market for Irish exports, representing 34 percent of exports, delivered growth of four percent to €7.62 billion. In tandem with the export results, Enterprise Ireland also released findings of a recent Brexit survey of over 2,400 clients, which found that 85 percent of clients are taking Brexit-related actions; diversifying their export markets, improving operational competitiveness, strengthening their business in the U.K., developing strategic partnerships, improving financial management, and investing in R&D.

NEW JOBS FOR KERRY

Irish fintech company Fexco is creating 175 jobs over the next three years at its headquarters in Killorglin, County Kerry. The jobs will be in the areas of information, Pictured at announcement on July 4, (l to r) communication technolwere Founder of FEXCO, Brian McCarthy, ogy, software developChief Executive FEXCO Denis McCarthy and ment, and sales as part of Enterprise Ireland CEO Julie Sinnamon. the payment firm’s expansion strategy. The 175 new jobs will add to the existing staff of 2,300 working across Fexco’s Irish and international operations span-

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An Old Henge Emerges at Newgrange

hile Ireland’s early summer heatwave brought some misery, it brought archaeologists and history enthusiasts great joy. The drought revealed an Neolithic wonder called a henge near the ancient site of Newgrange in County Meath. Hidden to the naked eye for centuries, the henge’s location was captured by a drone flown over the Boyne Valley by Anthony Murphy. It’s something the historian and author does on a regular basis Murphy explained, in an RTÉ report, that moisture lodges in the archaeological features, probably timber posts, making the crop greener than that grown in the surrounding soil. The henge is believed to have been built 500 years after Newgrange, which is 5000 years old, a thousand years older than Stonehenge, and older than the Egyptian pyramids by 400 years. Six days later, also in the area, archaeologists discovered a Megalithic passage tomb. Given that the henge is on private property, all surface traces of the historic site will vanish and its secrets won’t be revealed. “We may not see this it again for two or three decades, depending on when we get another prolonged dry spell like this,” Murphy Crop marks on a field in the Boyne Valley indicate the concluded. – D.L. presence of a buried archaeological “henge.”

PHOTO: ANTHONY MURPHY

An Education In Restoration

ver 70 volunteers took part in a three-day training course in County Clare in August to learn methods of preserving historic ruins. The program – the first of its kind – was hosted by the Irish branch of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Clare County Council, and the Killinaboy Heritage and History Group. The main site of the project was Killinaboy’s An Cabhail Mhór (The Great Ruin), a ruined castle that was a homestead of the Blood family in the 1600s. Volunteers were taught, among other things, how to reinforce the structure’s walls using hot-lime mortar, and “soft” wall capping, which decreases water damage by applying a mixture of local clay and plants, and a hands-on lesson in medieval craft, including joinery (frame-building) and roof-thatching. Architectural Conservation Officer and archaeologist Risteard UaCroinin, who helped orchestrate the program and gave a presentation on architectural history in the region, said “plans are already afoot to make this an annual event.” – M.G.

ning 29 countries, making it one of the world’s longest-established financial technology companies, with expertise in the area of foreign exchange expanding into dynamic currency conversion, multi-currency pricing and tax-free shopping.

GALWAY START-UP OFFERS NEW REMEDY FOR ARTHRITIS

Loci Orthopaedics, a Galway-based medical devices startup that has developed a new joint implant to treat arthritis, announced on July 7 that it has raised €2.75 million in a seed round. The company, a spin-off from NUI Galway and KU Leuven in Belgium, said it intended to use the financing to commercialize the “InDx” device to treat what is a common but crippling joint condition, arthritis of the thumb base joint, which affects at least five percent of the global population, causes significant functional impairment of the hand. The funding has been provided by Enterprise Ireland, the Western Development Commission, the investment arm of KU Leuven University, and a number of unGerry Clarke and Dr. Brendan Boland, named industry veterans. co-founders of Loci Orthopaedics.

FUNDS FOR MARINE TECHNOLOGY & AGRITECH

Joe Healy, Divisional Manager for High Potential Start-ups, Enterprise Ireland with Minister for Agriculture, Food & the Marine, Michael Creed, T.D.

Enterprise Ireland launched a €500,000 Competitive Start Fund for entrepreneurs in marine technology and agritech sectors on June 29. The fund was launched by Minister for Agriculture, Food, and the Marine, Michael Creed, T.D., at Our Ocean Wealth Summit at Seafest 2018 in Galway. The Competitive Start Fund provides entrepreneurs and start-ups with the critical early-stage funding to test the market for their products and services and progress their business plans for the global marketplace. The fund, designed to enable those companies to progress key technical and commercial milestones, will provide up to €50,000 in equity funding for each successful applicant. – I.A. SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018 IRISH AMERICA 13

hibernia | news European of the Year

ormer Taoiseach Enda Kenny T.D. was named European of the Year by European Movement Ireland (EM Ireland) at Noelle O Connell, executive director of EM Ireland, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar T.D., an event sponsored by Enda Kenny T.D., and Maurice Pratt, chairman of EM Ireland. Uniphar in Dublin on June 11. strengthening Ireland’s ties with the European Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, in presenting the Union, especially in light of the fact that its award, reflected on the state of the nation nearest neighbor, Britain, has broken away when Enda Kenny became Taoiseach in 2011, from the Union. Speaking at the event, Mauwhen the G.D.P. had plummeted, unemploy- rice Pratt, Chairman of EM Ireland and of ment had soared, and Ireland’s international Uniphar, said: “In many ways, Enda Kenny reputation was in tatters. epitomizes EM Ireland’s mission statement to “Under his patient and determined leader- encourage active Irish engagement at all levels ship, he steered the country on a path to regain of our European relationship. what was lost. In accepting the award, Kenny credited the “He had to fight for our national interests, E.U., which Ireland joined in 1973, with but guiding his work at all times was his gen- bringing Ireland into the modern day “The uine appreciation of and commitment to Eu- E.U. transformed our country, from being rope,” Varadkar said. backward, introverted, and protectionist to The former Taoiseach, who left office in outward-looking, export-oriented, with a glob2017, has been an outspoken advocate for ally confident people,” he said. – D.L.

The Great Famine Online

niversity College Cork, and the Irish Department of Culture, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht, collaborated to create the Great Irish Famine Online. The project displays detailed information on the famine’s effects and enables users to visually analyze pre-and post-famine statistics for their locality, charting changes in the human and social landscape across Ireland. The database is comprised of over twenty categories, from population to education, for all civil parishes and towns of Ireland. The mapping of the famine at this level reveals the complex local and regional disparities, which raises questions about the diverse social conditions and relief responses in the various localities. – M.H.

Man Booker Opens up to Irish Publishers he Man Booker Prize, a prestigious literary award with a cash prize of £50,000, which each year honors the best original novel written in English and published in the U.K., has expanded its parameters to include books by Irish publishers. Until this year, Irish publishers were not allowed to enter books for this prestigious prize. The new rules were instituted following a hue and cry over Mike McCormack’s critically acclaimed novel Solar Bones, which originally did not qualify for the prize, having been released by Tramp Press, a small independent Dublin publisher, which does not have a division in the U.K. Solar Bones was later added to the Booker Prize 2017 longlist when it was co-published

Above: A famine hut, “An Bothàn,” created on the UCC campus.

by the Scottish company Canongate, but the near omission sparked successful motions by Publishing Ireland to amend the prerequisites. “We’re delighted to support Irish publishers and the writers whose work they bring into the world,” said Booker Foundation literary director Gaby Wood in a statement. “We felt it was only right to acknowledge and honor that.” Tramp Press’s co-founders Lisa Coen and Sarah Davis-Goff commented on the rule changes, saying, “Irish publishers can now compete for authors on a more level playing field with our colleagues in the U.K.” The two met when they were interns at Lilliput Press in Dublin, where Davis-Goff discovered and pushed for the acquisition of Tipperary writer Donal Ryan’s debut novel, The Spinning Heart, which went on to be nominated for a Booker, but only because it was co-published by Doubleday Ireland, part of the international publishing company. Since the prize was first awarded in 1969, Irish authors have been shortlisted for the award 34 times, with four winners, Roddy Doyle (1993), John Banville (2005), Anne Enright (2007), and Iris Murdoch, who was shortlisted five times before her 1978 triumph. – M.G.

Lisa Coen and Sarah Davis-Goff, founders of Tramp Press. 14 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

PHOTO: CONOR MCCABE PHOTOGRAPHY.

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Behind the refined exterior of four lovingly restored Georgian townhouses, Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most luxurious 5 star hotel has revived a 200 year old tradition of gracious living amidst elegant surroundings. At The Merrion, the spirit of hospitality is as unquenchable as it was when Lord Monck entertained in these great rooms two centuries ago. Expect a welcome as warm as its roaring log fires. And attentive service as detailed as the exquisite Rococo plasterwork above you. A stay here redefines relaxation with the shimmering infinity pool and state-of-the-art gym as well as the treatment rooms of The Merrion Spa. And as home to the renowned Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, overlooking authentic 18th century formal gardens, and Irelandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest, private contemporary art collection, at every turn, The Merrion exudes the unmistakable air of timeless excellence.

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hibernia | irish eye on hollywood Irish Women Can Stand the Heat

rom the 1990 Sean Penn movie State of Grace to the bygone NBC drama The Black Donnellys (which introduced the entertainment world to a young Olivia Wilde), the Irish gangs of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen have provided plenty of entertainment material. But a forthcoming, star-studded movie will put a new focus on this rough terrain – the wives of Irish-American bad boys. Based on the gritty D.C. / Vertigo comic book of the same title, The Kitchen is slated to star Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, Handmaid’s Tale), Irish American Melissa McCarthy, as well as up-and-coming comic actress Tiffany Haddish. In addition, Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson is expected to join The Kitchen cast. Gleeson would likely play Gabriel O’Malley, a Vietnam veteran who works as a hitman for the neighborhood gangsters, the most famous of whom were the notorious Westies. As The Hollywood Reporter noted: “Straight Outta Compton co-writer From Andrea Berloff is making her directotop: Moss, rial debut on the film, which is set in McCarthy, and Hell’s Kitchen, New York, in the 1970s Haddish. and follows the wives of Irish mobsters who end up taking over the criminal enterprise after their husbands are arrested and jailed. The women turn out to be more vicious than the men.” Until The Kitchen hits screens, look for Melissa McCarthy in the controversial August movie The Happytime Murders, which blends R-rated humor with characters who bear more than a striking resemblance to cuddly Muppets. (In fact, the current producers of Sesame Street took the Happyland creators to court for trademark infringement, only to end up losing.) Before The Kitchen hits screens, also look for Domhnall Gleeson in the August supernatural thriller, The Little Stranger, to be directed by Irishman Lenny Abrahamson.

Post-Twitter Chaos: The Kids Are in Play ots of headlines, rumors, and rage were generated when ABC cancelled the reboot of Roseanne Barr’s classic sitcom, which had generated high ratings for the network. The controversial star – a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, which was evident in the politicallycharged show – had sent racist material out on social media. ABC ultimately yanked Barr’s new program from the air. Forgotten amidst all of this is that former Roseanne TV writer and Irish-American show biz veteran Tim Doyle had landed a coveted spot

16 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

By Tom Deignan

Where the Irish Boys Are

ther Irish stars to look out for this summer are Pierce Brosnan, who will be appearing in the much-anticipated July song-and-dance sequel Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, alongside Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, as well as show biz legend Cher. Brosnan recently told GQ magazine: “She was just everything that you could wish for and hope for. The voice, the eyes, the whole kitand-caboodle of Cher was just beautiful. We had the most glorious time. It was a wonderful reunion for all of us, after 10 years. Above, Brosnan; … It was criminal, how below, much fun we had.” Reynor. Also, there is Chris O’Dowd in the August romantic comedy Juliet, Naked, a love triangle featuring quirky musicians, obsessed music fans, and based on the book by celebrated novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy). Also in August, there’s American-born, Wicklow-reared actor Jack Reynor, in Kin. This sci-fi thriller looks at two brothers being chased by ruthless criminals, and also stars Dennis Quaid and Carrie Coon. Later this year, Reynor will also appear in the films Mowgli (based on Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book) and On the Basis of Sex, which (despite its spicy title) is a biopic about the life of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Reynor will also appear in what is currently being described as a “web television series” for CBS entitled Strange Angel.

on ABC’s fall schedule with his new sitcom The Kids Are Alright, about a big Irish-Catholic family in the 1970s. Doyle’s show was supposed to follow Barr’s, and was expected to maintain a big chunk of the lead-in audience. “This ensemble comedy follows a traditional Irish-Catholic family, the Clearys, as they navigate changes big and small during one of America’s most turbulent decades,” ABC’s press release notes. “In a workingclass neighborhood outside Los Angeles, Mike (strong, silent dad played by Michael

Cudlitz) and Peggy (overbearing mom played by Mary McCormack) raise eight boisterous boys who live out their days with little supervision.” Published reports suggest ABC execs have been meeting to decide if, and how, to reshuffle their schedule, though it is likely The Kids Are Alright will still be featured prominently, given Doyle’s credentials and the positive buzz the show has thus far garnered.

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Kelly on the Silver Screen

scar winner Charlize Theron will reportedly star as Irish American TV personality Megyn Kelly in an upcoming film about big egos and allegations of sexual misconduct at Fox News. At the center of the film are allegations against Fox CEO and chairman Roger Ailes, who as The Hollywood Reporter put it, “was forced to resign in 2016 when a host of accusations of sexual misconKelly duct surfaced, with pictured above her (Gretchen) Carlson and film incarna(Megyn) Kelly’s the most tion. high-profile.” As for the movie, expect to see other top Hollywood talent step up up to play the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Greta Van Susteren and Irish American Bill O’Reilly, who himself was the subject of sexual misconduct allegations.

The Donovans’ Return

n other TV news, Showtime’s Ray Donovan – starring Liev Schreiber as a South Boston Irish fixer relocated to the West

Coast – will soon begin filming its sixth season. The show will actually be returning to its roots, in a way, with the Donovan clan heading back east, setting up shop in New York City – specifically Staten Island, though some filming will actually take place in sections of upstate New York, including a local Irish pub, called O’Donoghue’s Tavern (known affectionately as OD’s to locals). If you’ve not yet binge-watched Ray Donovan, it is definitely worth your time, mixing dark comedy and family drama in a way that makes it a kind of Boston Irish Sopranos.

Seaver on parade for Baseball Hall of Fame.

A Bet on the Right Horse

nother gritty New York story which has begun filming puts a modern twist on the Irish immigrant experience. Entitled Misty Button, this dark comedy was written and directed by Kerry-born Seanie Sugrue, with fellow Kerry native Bertie Brosnan producing. The film follows two Bronx Irish immigrants who make a big mistake: when asked to place a lucrative bet on the horse that gives the film its title, they instead keep the money, only to watch the horse actually win. Filming in the Bronx should wrap in August, Bertie Brosnan told the Irish Film & Television Network, adding: “We have a diverse cast and crew already in place featuring an eclectic mix of Irish and American actors. We believe the film will be enjoyed on both sides of the pond as it takes on much of the untold stories of the Irish immigrants interacting with the local New Yorkers, funnily and uniquely.”

On the set of Misty Button

Burns Pitches Tom Seaver

t looks like baseball is making yet another cinematic comeback. Irish American writer / director / actor Ed Burns (The Brothers McMullen, She’s the One) is slated to direct a documentary about baseball Hall of Famer Tom Seaver. Burns, the son of Irish immigrants, was born in the New York Mets’ home borough of Queens, so it is only fitting he would direct a movie about the pitcher who had some of his best years with the Mets. Seaver won a World Series with the Amazin’s in 1969 and made a trip to another with them in 1973. The documentary, The New York Daily News noted, is “expected to be released next year to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the Miracle Mets of 1969,” and “will detail the triumphs and controversies of Seaver’s 20-year career, including that improbable championship season of 1969 when Tom Terrific led the charge with a league-leading 25 wins, the Midnight Massacre that saw a tearful Seaver sent packing to Cincinnati in 1977, and his heroic return in 1983.”

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hibernia | events

The Women of Concern Annual Luncheon was held

Fitzpatrick Memorial Golf Tournament

he Eithne & Paddy Fitzpatrick Memorial Fund held its 25th Annual Golf Tournament in May at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club, one of the United States’ most prestigious golf courses, located in Scarborough, NY. Well-known hotelier John Fitzpatrick, pictured third from left in the above photo, founded the Eithne & Paddy Fitzpatrick Memorial Fund in 1993 in memory of his late parents to honor the charitable spirit they demonstrated throughout their lives. Since its inception, the fund has raised $4 million for a variety of worthy causes in both Ireland and the United States. Some of these include the Barretstown Camp, the Integrated Education Fund, the Mary Robinson Library, and the New York Irish Center. The fund’s latest project was the O’Hanlon Park Boxing Club in Dundalk, which just reopened in a spacious new facility that will be used by over 200 children and adults daily. This is just the latest of the fund’s accomplishments in its 25 years of working together to help those in need. This year’s event raised over $380,000 and was attended by a variety of Irish public figures, including the Irish Ambassador to the United Nations Geraldine Byrne Nason, former Irish Soccer manager, Mick McCarthy, actor Matt McCoy, and Irish golf pro Eamonn Darcy. – M.H.

on Thursday, June 21 at the Pierre Hotel, with two very worthy honorees, Aine Brazil, Vice Chairman of Thornton Tomasetti, and William Moore, Executive Director of the Eleanor Crook Foundation. Aine, who was born in County Galway, is a leading structural engineer on such projects as the Hudson Yards development on the west side of Manhattan. William is stewarding the rapid growth of the Eleanor Crook foundation’s resources through nutrition advocacy in numerous countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, and Nigeria. This year’s event was particularly special, marking Concern’s 50th year as an organization tackling extreme poverty on a global level. – I.A.

ABOVE: Concern board member, and guest speaker, Jumana Culligan with her family.

Irish Rep. Theatre Gala Honors

he Irish Repertory Theatre began its 30th-anniversary season honoring Tina Sainti Flaherty, the author, philanthropist, and businesswoman, at its annual gala on June 4 at the Town Hall in N.Y.C. Broadway stars, such as Jeremy Irons and Melissa Errico, backed by a live orchestra and a full chorus, celebrated the life and music of Alan Jay Lerner on the centenary of his birth, with long time favorites from Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, Gigi, My Fair Lady, and other hit shows. The performance was followed by dinner at Bryant Park Grill. The Irish Repertory Theatre, located at 132 W 22nd St, New York, N.Y., was founded by Charlotte Moore and Ciaran O’Reilly in 1988. – I.A.

Tina Sainti Flaherty, who was honored by the Irish Rep., and actor Jeremy Irons, who participated in the evening’s entertainment.

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TOP: Concern Board Member Ed Kenney, Honoree Aine Brazil of Thornton Tomasetti, Concern CEO Colleen Kelly, Honoree Will Moore of Eleanor Crook Foundation, and Concern Board Member Page Thompson.

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John Wolfe Ambrose Monument is Restored

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“To me the monument represents the Irish immigrant, community which had a huge impact on the city of New York and how, once here, Ambrose himself had an enormous impact on his adopted city,” he said. Ambrose’s monument was restored as part of a Battery-wide refurbishment project that also saw 10 other monuments repaired and is part of a decadeslong park-wide revitalization effort. The restored monuments, which also include the Giovanni da Verrazzano memorial and the statue of John Ericsson, have been relocated to the newly-christened Hero’s Walk, depicting significant figures of New York City history along the perimeter of the Battery on the south side of State Street. The original monument was erected after Ambrose’s death in 1899, when friends presented his family with a bust sculpted by Andrew O’Connor Jr, an influential Irish-American sculptor. In the early 1930s, the Ambrose family donated the bust to the city and on June 3rd 1936, a monument to house the bust made of Stony Creek granite with a relief map of lower New York Harbor was dedicated by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the Aquarium in Castle Clinton. In 1950, the stele was relocated to the southern wall of the concession building where it stood in peace for almost 40 years, until 1990, when the bust was stolen. O’Connor’s bronze bust of Ambrose was recreated by a sculptor based on photographs of the IA original. – By Dave Lewis

BELOW: The unveiling of the newly-restored Ambrose monument on “Hero’s Walk,” which stands on the perimeter of Battery Park on the south side of State Street in lower Manhattan.

PHOTO: PATRICIA HARTY

early 30 years after the bust of John Wolfe Ambrose, the Irishman who helped New York become one of the greatest sea ports in the world, was stolen from his memorial, a new bust was unveiled and rededicated on May 15, the anniversary of Ambrose’s death in 1899. The event was attended by Ambrose’s relatives from Ireland and the U.S. as well as local dignitaries, including Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, the Battery Conservancy president Warrie Price, South Street Seaport CEO Jonathan Boulware, and Vice Consul General of Ireland Kerry O’Sullivan. Ambrose was born in Newcastle West, Limerick in 1838 and emigrated to the United States in 1851 with his family. After settling in he attended the University of the City of New York (now N.Y.U.) where he studied mathematics. Ambrose had a brief stint in the newspaper business but soon came under the tutelage of a contractor named John Brown. His learning experiences with Brown led him to develop a more efficient street cleaning plan. He laid the first eight miles of pneumatic tubes in the United States, and was also responsible for the dredging of New York Harbor’s inner channels, deepening and widening them to handle the top-of-the-line transatlantic ships of the day, leading to an economic boom that is still felt today. It was a humid and windy morning as the ceremony began with a musical prelude by piper Robert Patrick Lynch, who set the atmosphere admist the hum of the traffic along the perimeter of the Battery on the south side of State Street in lower Manhattan. Speakers, including Marian Betancourt, who wrote a piece on Ambrose last April for Irish America, talked about Ambrose’s influence on city he revolutionized; his niece Linda Cruise, several generations removed, spoke on the family’s behalf. She paid tribute to the man she called her uncle by not only telling the story of Ambrose’s life but also giving the the historical big picture that influenced the inner workings of his industrious brain. By experiencing the hardships of the Great Hunger and Landlordism, Cruise said that “Having survived the Famine during his critical, formative years filled him with a fierce work ethic and insatiable ambition. He was a survivor. That, coupled with his superior intellect and the Ambrose strength of will, helped John overcome tremendous obstacles.” Jonathan Zuhn, director of art and antiquities for New York City Parks, also commented on Ambrose’s immigrant past, speaking to me after the service.

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Congratulations 2018 Irish America Wall Street 50 Honorees MetLife is particularly proud to honor: Bill O’Donnell, Executive Vice President & Chief Accounting Officer Hugh Dineen, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for the U.S. Meredith Ryan-Reid, Senior Vice President, Group Benefits

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PHOTO: WM. NOTMAN & SON.

hibernia | events

Irish Landmark in Montreal in Danger

Native Americans and The Irish

he Irish Consulate in New York City hosted a discussion of Irish-Native American relations in June. Titled, “Native Americans and the Irish: Historic and Continuing Connections,” it touched on interactions between the two groups over the past centuries that have been both friendly and confrontational. The conversation covered the Choctaw nation’s gift of $170 towards Irish famine relief in 1847, which took place just 13 years after the Choctaw’s own “Trail of Tears” forced resettle-

ment, and the sad fact that many of the Irish who joined the Army after the Civil War were party to the effort to drive the Native Americans from their ancestral lands. Consul General Ciarán Madden said he hoped that the meeting was as “a starting point which would lead to further exploration of the complexity, diversity, and richness of Irish America.” – M.G. Steven McSloy and Carol Lone Eagle Fowlkes with Deputy Principal Chief Darius Two Bears Ross, and guests.

Berkeley Tragedy Remembered

he preservation of Montreal’s rich history of Irish settlement is once again in peril. After plans to build a park and preserve the Black Rock Irish Famine memorial erected in 1859 were put on hold, another landmark of Montreal’s Irish heritage is in danger. The Université de Montréal unveiled plans to begin construction in January over the foundation of St. Bridget’s Refuge. Built in 1869 under the fundraising and supervision of Father Patrick Dowd, pastor of St. Patrick’s Basilica, St. Bridget’s was a place for the aging and infirm to find care, and for out-of-work women and homeless to find shelter. The home rescued many in need, particularily Irish still suffering the trauma of fleeing Ireland’s Great Hunger. After falling into disrepair in the 1970s, the building was torn down, but the grounds still served as a place solace to Montreal citizens – some of whom are fighting the loss of their unofficial park. “This is too important a part of the history of the Irish in Montreal,” Fergus Keyes, director of the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation. “A city that forgets its history has no soul.” Director of HEC campus development Loretta Cianci has disclosed plans to incorporate the outline of the old foundation into the new building, and have seating made from its stone walls, but many argue that this is not enough. – M.G.

n July 21, Irish Ambassador Dan Mulhall and the mayor of the City of Berkeley, Jesse Arreguin, family members, and representatives of the Irish community unveiled a memorial plaque honoring the six students who perished when an apartment balcony collapsed underneath them in June 2015. The students, five of whom were from Dublin, Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Lorcán Miller, Niccolai Schuster, Eimear Walsh, and Ashley Donohue, an American cousin of Oliva Burke, were attending a 21st birthday party when the fatal incident occurred. Seven others were injured. Fr. Brendan McBride of San Francisco’s Irish Immigration Pastoral Center, who had given comfort to the families of the victims following the tragedy, blessed the memorial stone. Ambassador Mulhall spoke on the tragic event and its enormous effect on Ireland. “The depth of grief, shock and sorrow was immense – six young lives so tragically and prematurely ended, and serious injury inflicted on so many.” Mulhall also paid tribute to the first responders and other medical staff, the Irish Consulate, Fr. Brendan, and the Irish of the Bay Area who supported the family during their grief. The plaque is located at the southwest corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Park where President Michael D. Higgins planted strawberry trees in October 2015 in the victims’ honor. The stone plaque bears a quote from James Joyce: “They lived and laughed and loved and left,”along with the Fr. Brendan McBride of the Irish Irish phrase: Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine / “We Immigration Pastoral Center in San Francisco, blessing the all live in each other’s shadow.” – D.L. 22 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

St. Bridget’s Refuge, Montreal, circa,1896.

plaque. Pictured are the victims’ family members and Ambassador Dan Mulhall (far left)..

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hibernia | news The Hoboken Guards Take Senior Hurling Trophy

he Hoboken Guards of Hoboken, New Jersey won their first New York Senior Hurling Championship in August in New York’s Gaelic Park. They beat Tipperary New York by two goals and 29 points (2-29) to Tipperary’s two goals and 24 points (2-24.) (Each goal counts for three points. A point is scored over the bar.) The match, which was part of the New York Senior Hurling Club championship, was fast-paced, and competition was fierce as points were scored from all over the pitch, one after the other, tit for tat throughout the whole game. The first half ended with just a point between the teams, with Hoboken at 108, and Tipperary at 1-09. During the second half, Tipperary took the lead and scored a goal, but Paul Loughnane came back on the pitch for Hoboken after a short rest and started scoring impressive points from a distance. Tipperary continued to score tying the game in the last seconds. Cathal Barrett, who, ironically, is from Tipperary, scored Hoboken’s second goal just after Tipperary had taken the lead in overtime. Two more points were scored by Hoboken, and then the famous hooter at Gaelic Park blew, and the Hoboken Guards, formed in 2010, were New York’s Senior Hurling champions! – D.L.

Guinness with a Baltimore Twist

uinness, the most famous of Irish brew masters, has taken notice of the brewing movement in the U.S., where Americans all over the country are brewing and creating beer labels with much success, and decided it would like to get in on the action. The Guinness Open Gate Brewery & Barrel House, opened on August 3, is just 10 miles from downtown Baltimore. The distillery, originally called the Maryland Distilling Company, was the first distillery opened after Prohibition in Maryland in 1933. It is the first Guinness brewery in the U.S. in 63 years (the company briefly had a plant in Long Island, New York from 19491954), and it is already a hit with Guinness fans.

The site is 62 acres St. Patrick’s in size and it has a Day celebrations at the long history, integral test taproom. to the local area. Just off the Civil War trail, it has a protected pre-Civil War graveyard on its grounds. Just as you can at St. James’ Gate in Dublin, you can tour the facility, learn the history of Guinness, and sample a the products. Already the facility is visited by over 1,000 visitors each weekend, and is estimating that it will bring around 300,000 people to Baltimore County annually. – D.L.

U.S. Pipe Band Win All-Ireland Title

he St. Columcille United Gaelic Pipe Band from the Scots-Irish stronghold of Kearny, New Jersey made history when they became the first band outside of Ireland or the U.K. to win an All-Ireland Pipe Band Championship. In early July, the band competed in New Ross, County Wexford, against the best of the best in the 73rd annual AllIreland Pipe Band Championship, and won out in multiple divisions. The 40-member band earned two first places in piping, a first in ensemble, and a fourth place finish in drumming, as well as ending the championship as first-time All-Ireland winners. – D.L.

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ILLUSTRATION BY CATY BARTHOLOMEW.

hibernia | history

Wall Street’s Forgotten Financial News Genius All but forgotten today, John J. Kiernan, was a pioneer in the financial news industry and the inventor of ticker tape news.

John J. Kiernan TOP: John J. Kiernan would row ship to ship in New York Harbor gathering international financial news for his innovative news service.

tched against the burgeoning lower Manhattan skyline, a lone figure rowed his tiny skiff toward the white-capped inner port. This was no fitness buff; his dark suit and bowler hat rose and dipped rhythmically from one ship to another, visits to each brief and businesslike. The year was 1868. The solitary oarsman was John J. Kiernan, an innovative pioneer in the field of financial news gathering. Today he is remembered for hiring Wall Street Journal founders Charles Henry Dow and William Davis Jones as early leg-men in his growing financial news bureau. Kiernan’s daily rowing missions allowed him to scavenge days-old newspapers from ships newly arrived from London and other distant ports. This information would be distilled into news items, then relayed by Kiernan and his messengers to Wall Street Financial News Bureau subscribers. Besides scanning news from overseas papers, Kiernan interviewed ship’s officers and well-informed businessmen on board. His office, soon known as “Kiernan’s Corner,” was located fittingly at Wall and Broad Street, site of today’s New York Stock Exchange. Hiring Dow and Jones in 1880 was at once a stroke of genius, and a source of future regret, for the 35-year-old Brooklyn-born entrepreneur. The eldest of six children of Irish immigrants Frank and Ellen Kiernan, John J. was born in Brooklyn on February 1, 1845. Armed with only a grade school education, he found work as a lad of 12 running errands for the Magnetic Telegraph Company, later becoming a Western Union messenger. While delivering dispatches in the financial district, Kiernan quickly saw the value businessmen put upon his service. They snapped up Kiernan’s messages and offered money for other news coming across the wires. Using his own small savings and borrowing from friends and family, Kiernan decided to launch his own news business in 1869. Subscribers to Kiernan’s News Agency paid $300 per month for late-breaking news items in the shipping, rail-road and construction fields, as well as other financial information. Bell Telephone would not be created until 1877, a dozen years after the Civil War. Thus news-gathering was conducted largely on a face-to-face basis. Shoe leather and salesmanship were often key to coaxing items from often reluctant financiers, shipping and manufacturing moguls. As his financial news agency prospered, thanks, in part, to hard work and long hours from Dow and

Jones, Kiernan was free to turn his attention to politics. As a Democrat, he won two terms as a state senator, beginning in 1881, and is credited with authoring bills to improve New York Harbor and its ferry service. Kiernan’s proudest moment may have come in 1880 during Charles Stewart Parnell’s visit to America. The senator-to-be escorted Ireland’s leading home-rule advocate through Wall Street and into the Stock Exchange. There, Parnell was introduced to financial movers and shakers, many of whom were friends of Kiernan. His plea for “subscriptions” to improve living conditions among Ireland’s distressed tenant farmers won great support. While their employer turned his attention to politics, Dow and Jones saw their chance. They abandoned “Kiernan’s Corner,” and launched their own financial sheet in 1882. In the basement of a candy store at 15 Wall Street, they began publishing a Customer’s Afternoon Letter. In little more than a year, they had 1,000 customers. Eventually, the newsletter became the Wall Street Journal. Kiernan saw his news bureau slowly decline. He brought in William P. Sullivan as a partner, but they quarreled privately, in print, and finally in court. In 1888 Sullivan bought the Kiernan News Agency for what the New York Times said was “a few thousand dollars.” No longer a senator and stripped of his agency, Kiernan, was anxious to regain a measure of his old political clout. He was honored by leading political figures, from ward through federal levels, at a testimonial dinner in July, 1883. “The illustrious senator,” wrote the New York Times, “has earned the applause of his Democratic supporters by his uniform sobriety and good behavior. It was never reported of him, as it has been of some of his associates, that he has been addicted to the flowing bowl… So shining an example…should not pass without recognition.” When Kiernan’s supporters nominated him to fill a post as surveyor for the Port of New York, the Times had new praise: “He is very popular, and has many friends who would be very glad to see him get this job.” However, Kiernan’s dreams of future glory weren’t to be. What the doctors had said was a heavy cold developed into pneumonia and heart failure. On November 29, 1893, John J. Kiernan, at the young age of 48, died on his Brooklyn home. More than a century after his death, New York State archives turned up only a one-page, 252-word account of Senator Kiernan’s accomplishments. – By Paul M. McCarthy SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018 IRISH AMERICA 25

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hibernia | arts Our Steps, Our Story: An Irish Dance Legacy

or 10 days in July, the New York Public Library (N.Y.P.L.) partnered with choreographer and original Riverdance star dancer Jean Butler to lead a workshop celebrating the history and variety of Irish dance. Titled “Our Steps, Our Story: An Irish Dance Legacy,” the program took the form of live discussion and performanc, and was filmed in what will be the first of four installments in a documentary series named The Stepping Fields. The series will explore the lineage of teachers and influencers and the evolution of Irish dance in the U.S. and around the world. Butler, a dedicated scholar of Irish dance for over four decades, spearheaded the project to preserve the tradition of Irish dance in

a visual medium. The final product, which will be released in 2020, will be accompanied by an oral history of Irish dance in the U.S. descending from the McNiff dancers of the 1950s-60s to the work of Butler herself. Archivists Cori Olinghouse, Siobhan Burke, and Kristyn Fontanella worked with Butler on the progam, which was sponsored by N.Y.U.’s Glucksman Ireland House, University College Dublin, the N.Y.P.L., and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, who embraced the venture with enthusiasm. “Jean Butler is one of the most accomplished Irish dance artists of the last century and a pioneer in the field, expanding and reimagining the vocabulary and boundaries of Irish step dance,” said Linda Murray, curator

of the Dance Division. “We were honored to serve as partners on this project.” Contact info@ourstepsfoundation.org for more information. To donate to the cause, go to ourstepsfoundation.org. – M.G.

Bringing it All Back Home

our new festivals, intended to embrace the diaspora, some 70 million, and entice them back to Ireland, were announced in August. The Global Irish Festival Series is part of a partnership effort between the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and its tourism body, Fáilte Ireland. The first in the festival series “I.NY” will kick off in Limerick City on October 7 with a wide range of art, music, and historical discussions focusing on the close relationship between Ireland and New York City, over centuries of cultural interchange. The second of the festivals is in Donegal from October 20-21, where the main theme will be the long tradition of Donegal people who sought work in Scotland over the centuries, often as migrant workers doing seasonal work like picking Richard Harris potatoes. It’s back to Limerick in The Field, based on the for the Richard Harris play by John B. International Film FesKeane. tival, which will be held October 25-29. In addition to celebrating the star of stage and screen, filmmakers of the diaspora will have the opportunity to screen their work.

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Last year’s Best Overall Short was The Observer Effect, by Garret Walsh. Donegal closes out the series with the Intergenerational Sporting Weekend, October 27-28, boasting a youth kayaking competition, a senior hurling match, and a tour of Glenveagh National Park. Ciara Sugrue, executive of Fáilte Ireland’s international publicity and trade marketing, says the event will rejuvenate Ireland’s tourism economy. “The festivals and events supported through the series will help drive tourism to specific locations,” she noted, “including regional areas outside of current hotspots, creating new economic benefits for local communities.” Ireland’s Diaspora Minister Ciaran Cannon, in his announcement of the event this past August, said, “Engaging with the diaspora through new channels, we are able to reaffirm the value of the global Irish diaspora, and reconnect them to the country of their heritage.” Meanwhile, County Wexford’s New Ross is hosting its own Oktoberfest, which has been in the planning stages for sometime. The first annual Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre is planned for October 11-14. Following Danville, California’s O’Neill festival, which ran the entire month of September, the festival will showcase three of the playwright’s works and a screening of the 1913 silent film The Count of Monte Cristo, starring O’Neill’s father James. – M.G.

Poets-Patriots Concert Now on CD

an Francisco-based DW Productions is releasing a 2-CD set of Ireland’s Poet-Patriots, A Musical History, commemorating the 1916 rebellion, which was recorded live in concert at the Washington National Cathedral late last year. Conductor Scott Tucker helmed the production that combined classical and traditional Irish music. Irish and Irish-American leaders also acted as narrators including Ambassador Dan Mulhall, Chris Matthews, and Irish America editor Patricia Harty. These narrators and musicians brought new life to the words of Ireland’s patriot poets, including Padraig Pearse, Robert Emmet, and more. The two-disc set will not only feature the performance in its entirety but it will also include a 12-page booklet that consists of composer and writer, Richard B. Evans’ complete libretto fully stocked with all of the poems, writings, and narration as well as information on the concert itself, and six additional musical tracks not heard at the concert. To order a copy of this two-disc set, please email info@IrelandsPoetPatriots.com or go to the website, IrelandsPoetPatriots.com. – D.L.

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Power Women Meet Designing Irish

Power Women inductees: Deirdre Quinn, Audrey Hendley, Anne Keating, Jenny Rooney, Kathy Hochul, and Vonnie Quinn. Below: Margaret Molloy

Irish America celebrated its 2018 Power Women in New York this spring with the induction of six phenomenal leaders of business, journalism, and politics.

rish America inducted six amazing women – three Irish-born and three Irish-Americans – into the magazine’s Power Women group on the morning of May 17. The gathering, at the Bank of Ireland Startlab in New York City, was co-hosted by #WearingIrish, a movement founded in 2016 by Margaret Molloy that connects Irish designers with American entrepreneurs, clients, and potential partners. Power Woman and Bloomberg TV anchor Vonnie Quinn, a native of County Limerick, has her own Irish connection to fashion in that her cousin Vonnie Reynolds, was one of Ireland’s foremost designers. She noted that the very dress she was wearing was, in fact, a Vonnie Reynolds creation from the 1980s. Quinn said that she was most proud of the fact that Ireland, “despite it’s conservative past, has now shown itself to be at the forefront of everything that’s inclusive and transnational.” Audrey Hendley, also an Irish immigrant, who is the president of American Express Travel and Lifestyle Services, focused on the Irish drive and ability to overcome and hearkened “back to those early days, when it took a lot of brute force determination, to get things over the line, and to achieve your goals, and to actually articulate your goals to yourself.” She also talked about the Irish tradition of hospitality which is key factor in the travel industry, saying: “I have access to a worldwide network Irish 28 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

people, who open up their hearts, their minds, and even their homes to each other.” Irish American Jenny Rooney, who has been editor of the CMO Network at Forbes for seven years and counting, went into the important influence Irish writers had on her intellectual growth. “The rich tradition of storytelling that’s so core to Irish culture formed the foundation of, certainly my education, and then, as a journalist, my career,” she reflected. “I was an English literature and creative writing major in college, and that found me poring over the tomes of the likes of Joyce and Wilde and Beckett, even Faulkner and O’Neill.” New York State Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, also an Irish American, remarked, “I constantly find reasons to talk about – almost on a daily basis – the trials and tribulations faced by my grandparents when they made that journey from Ireland, fleeing poverty like so many millions did, coming here with nothing but the shirts on their backs, and starting as domestics in Chicago.” Hochul also discussed her own family’s role in keeping the tradition of Irish apparel alive, through her mother’s small business selling exclusively, authentically Irish textiles. “She sold fisherman’s sweaters, and she sold the beautiful capes, and fabrics,”

she elaborated, “so this was part of our opportunity to showcase – probably 35 to 40 years ago – the work of Irish designers.” Inductee Anne Keating, who joined the WearingIrish initiative after retiring from her position as a senior vice president at Bloomingdale’s, asserted that her Tyroneborn great-grandfather, Patrick Short, established her family’s connection to the fashion industry. “He immigrated to America and went on to have a successful business as a shirt maker. The New York tax records for 1864 says his business was listed at 692 Broadway, and he had an inventory of 117 shirts with a value of $439. I guess that was the beginning of my retail career.” Inductee Deirdre Quinn, who is the founder and CEO of Lafayette 148, a women’s fashion company, recalled her experience as a first-generation Irish American. “My parents were born in Northern Ireland,” she told the group. “And they certainly made sure that as we grew up, we spent our summers in Ireland, so that we would remember where we came from, and I always will appreciate that. My parents lived the American Dream – the ability to come here, to work hard, and to have a better life. And my dad absolutely didn’t want me to be in the fashion business. He told me that Irish people don’t belong in the fashion business, but I had to follow my own IA dream.” Margaret Molloy, CMO of Siegel+Gale, founder of #Wearingirish and co-host of the PW event.

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hibernia | Hall of Fame

Kerry Kennedy Visits New Ross

ans of Ireland, the U.S., and international politics descended upon the ancestral hometown of President John F. Kennedy, New Ross in County Wexford on September 6, as American human rights activist and daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, officially opened the sixth annual Kennedy Summer School, and was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame. The Irish America Hall of Fame was founded in 2010 by this magazine in conjunction with the Dunbrody Famine Ship Experience, and Kennedy made a point of visiting the ship, which is an exact replica of an actual sailing ship of the same name that ferried thousands of Irish from the port of New Ross to the New World in the 1840s. In 1849 Patrick Kennedy left New Ross for Boston. The Kennedy Homestead is based in Dunganstown, just a few miles away. 112 years after Patrick’s departure, his great-grandson John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected president of the United States The Kennedy Summer school, which was started just six years ago, has already gained an international reputation. More than 40 guest speakers, including Irish America’s Hall of Famer, historian Christine Kinealy, participated in debates on a wide range of subjects with current U.S. politics, the final phase of Brexit negotiations, and the recent referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment at the Summer School, which ran from September 68.

Highlights included audiences with American presidential campaign strategist for the late John McCain, John Kasich, and a special screening of Greg Barker’s fly-onthe-wall documentary about Barack Obama’s final year in office, which was followed by a Skype interview with Samantha Power, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Events closed with a special event to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Arboretum and Memorial Park with President Higgins. The Kennedy Summer School and Festival is run in association with the John F. Kennedy Trust, New Ross and Wexford County Council. For further details see kennedysummerschool.ie

ABOVE: Kerry Kennedy joins her fellow Kennedys in our Hall of Fame. LEFT: Kerry smiles as she takes the wheel of the Dunbrody Famine Ship. BELOW: Kerry Kennedy, the Lord Mayor of New Ross, and Sean Connick, CEO of the Dunbrody Famine Ship Experience.

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hibernia | legacy

Ripple of Hope

50 YEARS OF RFK’S HUMAN RIGHTS LEGACY.

obert F. Kennedy Human Rights celebrates 50 years at its annual Ripple of Hope dinner on December 12 in New York. Every year it’s a gathering of activists, business leaders, policymakers, and celebrities to honor individuals who are advancing Robert F. Kennedy’s vision of a more just and peaceful world. The 2018 Ripple of Hope laureates, announced on August 6, are 44th President of the United States Barack Obama, Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, and Humana CEO Bruce D. Broussard, who were selected for their exceptional work toward a more just and peaceful world. “My father believed; ‘Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,” said Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights President Kerry Kennedy. “On the 50th anniversary of his historic campaign for the White House, we honor laureates who have sent forth countless ripples of hope to millions of people inspired by their example.” Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights founder Ethel Kennedy will award the laureates at the annual Ripple of Hope Gala at the New York Hilton Midtown on Wednesday, December 12, 2018. Tickets are very limited, and this event will reach capacity! For more information or to reserve tickets, please visit www.rfkgala.com.

Robert Kennedy Jr., at Arlington.

Ambassador Dan Mulhall with Ethel Kennedy

Alec Baldwin at the 2017 Ripple of Hope dinner with Ethel Kennedy

28 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

On the 50th anniversary of his death, family and friends of Robert F. Kennedy visited his grave in Arlington. Irish Ambassador Dan Mulhall and his wife, Greta (pictured above with Mrs. Kennedy), held a reception for the Kennedy family following the memorial. ABOVE: Robert Kennedy, Jr. speaking at the Ambassador’s residence. FAR LEFT: Ambassador Mulhall with Nancy Pelosi and the Trinitones a cappella group from Trinity College, who performed at the Residence.

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“My grandmother was an immigrant from a very famous part of Europe called County Kerry. She used to look at me and say, ‘Joe, I never figured you for a priest. But I guess it’s better than honest work.’ I’m still trying to prove her wrong.”

– Newark Archbishop and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, on his family’s reaction to his vocation. New Jersey Monthly, August 13.

– Eamonn Maille, IrishCentral.

I’ve always been aware that we were one generation away from a crippled Boston motorman, my grandfather. I have a lot of lestwe-forget pictures.” – Brian P. Burns, whose vast collection of Irish art goes on sale at Sotheby’s London on November 2. Unlike some collectors, Burns was not put off by images of Irish poverty and human suffering, which are a principal theme of the collection.

“Building on our intertwined history, and learning from our shared mistakes and responsibilities, it can be one in which religion is no longer at the center of our society, but one in which it continues to have an important place,”

PHOTO: FLICKR

– Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on the future of Catholicism in Ireland, at Dublin Castle introducing Pope Francis. USA Today, August 25.

“It is my hope that the gravity of the abuse scandals, which have cast a light on the failings of many, will serve to emphasize the importance of the protection of minors and vulnerable adults on the part of society as a whole.”

– Pope Francis on the revelations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, in his opening remarks upon his arrival in Ireland on the first papal visit in 40 years, and the second in Irish history. Irish Times, August 25 32 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

“Mourning the death today of Tom Moran. Nobody would be more uncomfortable with eulogies – nor more deserving. He was the underdog’s fierce champion – a humanitarian and a rebel. The best of company and the most loyal of friends. Ar dheis Dé.”

– Niall Burgess, secretary-general of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and former Irish consul general in New York, tweeted on learning of Tom Moran’s death.

“Senator McCain cherished his Scots-Irish heritage, as evidenced by his request for his favorite ballad, ‘Danny Boy,’ to be sung at his funeral. The Senator was a great ally and friend of Ireland both on immigration reform and on the Northern Ireland peace process. He leaves behind a remarkable legacy and his contribution in both the U.S. Senate and around the world will be missed.”

– Irish Ambassador Dan Mulhall on the passing of Senator John McCain. Irish Echo, August 31.

PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

“U.S. businessman Bill Flynn has died. He was one of the good guys. The 92year-old played a significant role in driving the Peace Process. He was present when the Loyalists called their October 13 1994 ceasefire. Ar lámh dheis go raibh anam, Bill.”

– Jane Delgado on her former boss, Margaret Heckler, U.S. ambassador to Ireland 1987-1989. Ms. Delgado is now the president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health. Boston Globe, August 6.

PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS,

PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, AUTHOR ADSDERRICK

“She was very, very special… She was a force, and I have to say that we need people like her now more than ever.”

“One thing that we do have in common is it’s actually really human to find some levity in something that’s heavy… Something always happens to balance out emotions. That’s how we stay human.” – Cork native stand-up comedienne and author Maeve Higgins on the transcendence of humor in a polarized world. HelloGiggles, August 8.

PHOTO: CITY OF BOSTON ARCHIVES

hibernia | quote unquote

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Giant’s Causeway, Co. Antrim

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Home to some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, County Galway also features an ancient city with ties to Spain that doubles as a modern-day thriving university town.

Story by Sharon Ní Chonchúir Photographs: Fáilte Ireland

o Hell or to Connaught, roared Cromwell’s troops. At the time, it was the direst of punishments, but if you were banished to this Irish province today and ended up in County Galway, you would probably think there had been some mistake. How could this county be seen as an alternative to Hell when it seems so much like Heaven? The City of Galway, at the heart of this county, is my favorite in Ireland. Its medieval center is small, which means everything is within walking distance. Its university and institute of technology give it a youthful energy. It hosts some of the country’s best festivals such as the Galway Arts Festival and the Galway Races – and needless to say, it’s also very pretty.

34 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

I’d recommend starting any tour of Galway in the place where the city itself first started – the western seaside edge of the city called the Claddagh. A fishing village stood here as far back as the fifth century, and with its colorful houses facing out onto the River Corrib, it retains a sense of that to this day. The area is also famous for the Claddagh ring. Legend has it that Richard Joyce was kidnapped by pirates on his way to the West Indies. They taught him the craft of jewelry and when he escaped their clutches, he returned to Galway and set up his trade. His design of two clasped hands holding a crowned heart symbolizes love, friendship and loyalty and has long been popular with both locals and visitors to the city. The Spanish Arch is right beside the Claddagh.

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DEREK CULLEN/FÁILTE IRELAND

PHOTO: PIOTR DYBOWSKI/TOURISM IRELAND

It was built in 1584 as an extension of the 12thcentury Norman-era town wall and it used to house soldiers who kept watch and manned cannons on its roof. It’s thought to be named in memory of the commercial links that once existed between Galway and Spain. You’ll find out more about this in the Galway City Museum, which is just behind the arch. It tells the story of Galway from its beginnings as a fishing village to a thriving medieval seaport of wine, spices, and fish in the Middle Ages and its later period of decline following the arrival of Cromwell in the region in the 1650s. From the Spanish Arch, venture to the Latin Quarter. The cobbled Quay Street, Cross Street, and Middle Street are home to colorful shops and lots of cafés

Clockwise from far left: Connemara landscape; Shoppers on William Street in Galway’s City Centre; street perfomer in Galway City Centre; The Claddagh, a former fishing village near Galway City, where the River Corrib meets Galway Bay; the Spanish Arch, one of two in Galway City, constructed in 1584 to protect the city’s quays.

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and bars. Be sure to call in to Neachtain’s for a quick drink and a taste of the real Galway. As you make your way past the buskers and street performers who are so much a part of life in Galway, keep an eye out for Lynch’s Castle on the corner of Shop Street and Abbeygate Street. It’s currently a bank but it’s a great example of a medieval fortified house with its carved windows, gargoyles, and ornamental mouldings and cornices. Further on, you’ll arrive on Eyre Square. The square dates to medieval times when markets took place on the green in front of the town gates. Its green area remains a popular gathering place today and is often packed on sunny days. There are interesting things to see in the park, including the Browne family mansion doorway dating from 1627. There are lots of shopping opportunities around the park too and the city’s main tourist office is also located nearby. You might also like to visit Galway’s National University. Its quadrangle dates from when it first opened in 1849 and makes a great place for a stroll. On your way back into the city, you could pause to take a look at Galway Cathedral. Your sightseeing over for the day, you could then treat yourself to a meal followed by some traditional music in the Crane Bar.

Once you’ve explored Galway City, the seaside resort of Salthill is next. Almost two miles to the west of the city, it’s been a traditional holiday destination for decades and its promenade, amusement arcades, casinos, and pubs are testament to this. If you’re feeling brave, you might even consider diving off the iconic Blackrock Diving Tower, like some of the hardy locals. Further west is the charming village of Barna. It’s got an excellent beach where you can swim safely. Beyond Barna, things begin to change. You now enter the Irish-speaking part of Galway, where the traditional culture of Ireland is still dominant. The fishing village of Spiddal is one of the largest Irish-speaking settlements and you’ll hear lots of Irish spoken in its shops, pubs, and restaurants. Lo36 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

cals might even teach you a cúpla focal (a few words) if you ask nicely. The village has two beaches and piers which are used for shore angling. It’s also home to a fantastic craft center where you can watch craftspeople weaving and making candles, pottery, jewelry, and bodhráns (a traditional percussion instrument). Further along the coastline, you’ll find Carraroe. This village is closely associated with Galway Hookers, a distinctive form of native Irish boat. They’re immediately identifiable thanks to their unmistakeable rust-colored sails and if you keep your eyes peeled, you are likely to see one or two out at sea.

While in Carraroe, ask the locals if any boats are currently being made in the area. Who knows? You might get to see a boat maker at work. Make sure you visit the beach too. It’s one of just two coral beaches on the west coast of Ireland, offering excellent scuba diving and snorkeling opportunities. Your next stop is Lettermore where the landscape becomes even more barren and wild. The entire area is actually a series of small islands linked by a road which twists and turns between rocky outcrops that stretch out into the Atlantic. Watch out for Connemara Ponies, a hardy species that has evolved to thrive in this harsh environment. A trip to the Aran Islands offers an opportunity to step even further out of time. These three islands about 30 miles off the coast of Galway have a culture, heritage, and beauty all of their own and can in some ways claim to be the real Gaelic Ireland. Inish Mór is the largest. It has a population of 900 people and more than 50 important historical

FAR LEFT: Salthill Promenade. CENTER: Silver Strand in Barna County Galway. ABOVE: Saint Caomhan's church with Caomhan's grave at Inis Oirr, one of the Aran islands, Ireland.

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monuments. The most impressive is the prehistoric fort of Dun Aengus. Thought to be more than 2000 years old, it’s built at the top of a 100-foot-high cliff and has three stone enclosures to defend against attack by enemies. Inish Meáin is the least visited of the three and offers breath-taking views of the Cliffs of Moher and fantastic diving opportunities in its crystal-clear waters. Only 200 people live here and those that do depend on fishing and on rearing the sheep, whose wool is used to make world-famous Aran jumpers. Inish Oírr is the smallest island. It’s got one pub and it’s said to be a great place to hear traditional Irish music sessions. The best way of getting around these islands is by bike or by horse and cart. You can rent these once you arrive. Back on the mainland, there’s the region of Carna and Kilkieran. It’s famous for its turf and the woven baskets known as creels that were used to transport it. Padraig Pearse’s summer cottage is located nearby.

It’s open to visitors and gives a unique insight into the life of this revolutionary man. The picturesque village of Roundstone is on the next headland to the north. This fishing village is built around its harbor which is still home to trawlers and traditional currachs. You can even charter a boat of your own. Traveling further north, you’ll arrive at a town right at the foot of the Twelve Pins Mountains. This is Clifden, the largest town in Connemara. Its great claim to fame is that it was where Alcock and Brown landed in 1919 after travelling for 16 hours and 1,800 miles across the Atlantic. Today, it’s a lively town of boutique, gift shops, cafés, restaurants, and lots of great pubs. There’s a lot to do nearby. The Connemara National Park offers an unspoiled landscape of mountains, bogs, grasslands, rivers, and waterfalls. Connemara ponies run wild there and you’ll feel as though you’re wandering in a forgotten land. Kylemore Abbey’s lakeside setting offers fabu-

TOP: Scenic drive from Cashel to Roundstone, LEFT: Dungraire castle. ABOVE: Delphi Lodge near Doolough Pass, County Galway.

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SOME THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT GALWAY

It’s long been said that Christopher Columbus visited Galway. According to a note made in his copy of Imago Mundi, he visited in 1477.

The Galway Races, held at Ballybrit Racecourse, start on the last Monday of July every year, run for 7 days, and draw up to 150,000 spectators. The most popular days are Wednesday, when the Galway Plate is held, and Thursday, when the Galway Hurdle and Ladies Day take place, when women compete for the title of Best Dressed Lady, and Most Elegant Hat.

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Lynch’s Castle in Galway City is the oldest building in Ireland in daily commercial use.

lous photo opportunities. Its walks, Victorian-era walled gardens, and its Gothic chapel merit exploration too. From here, you should venture inland to the part of Galway associated with The Quiet Man. All around the shores of Lough Corrib, you’ll find destinations linked to this film. Oughterard is worth a pit stop of its own. There’s a drive around the lake which starts and finishes here, taking in stunning scenery of mountains and valleys along the way. The west of Galway always grabs the tourist headlines but there are places worth visiting to the east too. Claregalway and the beautiful ruins of its Franciscan abbey built in 1290 is one. Ballinasloe is another. It’s got ruined churches and abbeys, old forts and castles and the nearby battlefield of Aughrim. The visitor center at Aughrim tells the story of the fight against William of Orange. Irish and Anglo-Irish families united against the Protestant invader but they were defeated and the course of Irish history changed forever. Kinvara is located to the south of the county and is a lively fishing village. Its pubs are known for their welcome throughout Ireland. It’s also home to Dunguaire Castle. Dating from 1520 and guarding the entrance to the bay, this is one of the most picture-perfect castles in the west of Ireland and it holds nightly banquets throughout the summer. These banquets recreate the feasts that were served here by the O’Heynes, Shaughnessy, and Martyn clans, who were once lords of this castle. In the candlelit medieval chamber, guests are served extravagant courses of food accompanied by locally-brewed mead. They are entertained by costumed storytellers who recount the history of the castle as well as tales of local folklore. In Cromwell’s time, a visit to Galway may have been a curse but this is no longer the case today. From its rugged coastline to the stone-walled fields of Connemara; from the vibrant streets of Galway City to fishing villages, castles, and ancient battlegrounds; you’ll find the best of the west IA in County Galway. 38 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

Galway was ruled by 14 merchant families in medieval times. These tribes are where it gets the nickname of “City of the Tribes.” They include Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D’Arcy, Deane, Ffont, Ffrench, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martyn, Morris, and Skerrett.

After the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell ordered the execution of Charles I. He looked for volunteers to carry out the execution. Two Galway soldiers called Gunning and Dear offered their services and Gunning carried out the deed on the 30th of January 1649. He was given property as a reward and that property is where the King’s Head pub now stands in the city.

Galway was one of the counties most affected by the Great Famine, with one fifth of the population dying. Relief works included the construction of Dyke Road and Threadneedle Road. The Irish name for the latter – Bóthar na Mine – translates as the Meal Road, telling the real story of why it was built.

“The Fields of Athenry” is a folk ballad set during the famine and it tells the story of Michael from Athenry, Co. Galway, who is sent to a penal colony in Australia for stealing food to feed his family. It’s widely sung at Irish rugby games, and Glasgow Celtics football games.

Galway is known as the festival capital of Ireland, hosting on average 122 festivals and events every year.

Galway’s Eyre Square (seen here at Christmas time), is officially known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, marking the fact that he made a speech to approximately 100,000 people here on his visit in 1963.

UBS Honorees celebrate Irish America on their 21st Anniversary of the Wall Street 50 Dennis McCann Managing Director Head of WM USA Communications and Solutions Marketing Weehawken, NJ Kathleen Lynch Chief Operating Officer UBS Americas and Wealth Management Americas New York, NY

Sean Kilduff Managing Director Wealth Management Private Wealth Management New York, NY Sharon Sager Managing Director Wealth Management Private Wealth Management New York, NY

ubs.com/fs

Irish America’s Annual Wall Street 50 recognizes the outstanding accomplishments and success of the best and the brightest Irish-American and Irish-born leaders of the financial industry. Accolades are independently determined and awarded by the publication. For more information on the award, visit the publication’s 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 2018. All rights reserved. UBS Financial Services Inc. is a subsidiary of UBS AG. Member FINRA/SIPC. 170922-2432

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An American Success Story

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21st AnnuAl WAll street 50

» is the AmericAn dreAm still AttAinABle? EILEEN MURRAY thinKs so. she herself is A prime exAmple thAt hArd WorK, A sense of humor, And perseverAnce cAn get you there.

very inspiring story has a starting point. And Eileen Murray’s story begins in the Dyckman Housing project in Inwood, a neighborhood on the northernmost tip of Manhattan. These were not the projects of gang-controlled stairwells where drug deals went down, at least not in 1958 when Eileen was born, one of nine children to Irish-American parents. There was a sense of pride and community, well-kept apartments and grounds. There was a chain-link fence to keep kids off the grass, and you adhered to the rules or you got a clip on the ear from an adult, any adult who happened to be passing.

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Far from it being a tough beginning, Eileen remembers Dyckman Housing as a wonderful place to live. It was a place where people didn’t lock their doors. On Thursday nights the neighbor down the hall – “she was like a grandmother” – would host a Pokeno game and people would come and play. And on Friday nights, when Uncle Pete came over with his accordion, neighbors and friends would gather in the Murrays’ apartment. “It was fun,” Eileen remembers. All that changed when drugs overtook the neighborhood in the late 60s- early 70s. The neighbors stuck together, but they no longer left their doors open. Eileen’s father, a former serviceman, headed

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» Keynote speAKer » co-ceo At BridgeWAter AssociAtes the tenants’ association, and he and others would sit in the lobby and keep watch for intruders. It wasn’t so much fun anymore, and it didn’t feel safe. The park across the street, where Eileen and her friends and siblings used to sled down Snake Hill when it snowed, became a no-go area. But still the family stayed on, until... Late one night, returning home from her job at Grand Union, having stayed behind stacking shelves, Eileen found her neighbor, Mr. Angrisano, lying on the lobby floor in front of the elevator. He was dead from a gunshot wound to the head, his pockets pulled out and emptied of cash. “I think it was about five dollars,” Eileen recalled, pointing to the exact spot on the floor. This was during a visit this summer to her old apartment building. The memory, 40 years old, as vivid as it was on that night. It after Mr. Angrisano’s murder (no one was ever convicted of the crime) that Eileen’s mother finally agreed to leave Dyckman Housing, moving the family to Riverdale in the Bronx. At 93, Eileen’s mother is healthy and hearty, and still an inspiration to Eileen. “If I never met another person in my life, I’d have learned enough just being around my mother,” she says.

chores were shared equally between brothers and sisters, so it didn’t occur to her that “hard work wouldn’t be rewarded for what it was.” It was later, as she began to climb the corporate ladder, that she noticed the disparity. Eileen’s solution was to work twice as hard. She was armed with a wonderful sense of humor. When one of her Ivy League colleagues would say, “‘Manhattan College,’ never heard of it!” She would quip right back, “Harvard, never heard of it.” Her family ethic was one of hard work. All through high school and college, she worked at Grand Union, but if she needed any extra motivation, she says it came from watching her father die, at just 58, of congestive heart disease in a hospital “that didn’t have an oxygen tank.” That, and wanting to get her family away from what had become “a war zone,” fueled her ambition. Her first accounting job was with Peat Marwick (later K.P.M.G.), where she started out making less money than she had been making at Grand Union. Four years later, in 1984, she joined Morgan Stanley (M.S.) as an analyst in the controller’s office. Ten years later she was running the controller’s office. And when M.S. merged with Dean Witter, she was named the Controller and Chief Accounting Officer BREAKING THE GLASS CEILING for the firm. In 1980, fresh out of Manhattan College with a B.S. Anyone else might have been content to sit back in Accounting, Eileen struck out for Wall Street. Back and rest on their laurels, but Eileen was ready for then, in her own words, “only 0.5 percent of women something new. In 2002, in a move that surprised held senior positions in the financial industry.” But many at M.S., she joined Credit Suisse First Eileen was unfazed by the statisBoston (C.S.F.B.), to head up its tics. As a student she’d been dis- Eileen Murray revisits Dyckman global technology, operations couraged from pursuing math as a Housing Project after 40 years and product control division. subject and finance as a career. absence. In the background of the She became the first woman main photo. (left), you can see the Didn’t she want to study nursing elevated #1 train that runs past what ever to serve on C.S.F.B.’s Execor become a teacher? No! utive Board. used to be the Murray apartment. The fact that she was a woman Below: Eileen takes a photo of the M.S. enticed her back with the her brother painted white outdidn’t strike her as a disadvantage. brick elevated position of Managing side their 9th floor bedroom window, She was used to the rough-and- which is still visable some 45 years Director, Head of Global Techtumble of a large family where later; Meeting with an old neighbor, nology and Operations, and Raoul; Taking the stairs. As a child member of the firm’s manageshe used to run up and down the ment committee, supervising nine floors instead of waiting for the elevator, which tended to get stuck between floors. It still does.

Photos: Kieran McConville

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018 IRISH AMERICA 41

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“Eileen is refreshingly candid, objective, results-driven, extremely down-toearth, wonderfully familyoriented, and someone who has a terrific sense of humor.” I have so enjoyed working with her – she stands as a role model for successful women in business and as a wonderful leader from this IrishAmerican community.” — Kathleen A. Murphy is the President of Fidelity Personal Investing.

10,000 employees and a $5.5 billion budget. She would stay at M.S. for another two years, retiring in 2007. For Murray, who had worked hard all her life, retirement didn’t sit well. Soon she joined Duff Capital, as co-CEO, president, and partner. In 2009, Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, came calling and made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Two years later, she was named co-CEO. Kathleen Murphy of Fidelity, who knows Eileen through their shared service on the FINRA Board of Governors, recently said: “Eileen is refreshingly candid, objective, results-driven, extremely down-to earth, wonderfully family-oriented and someone who has a terrific sense of humor.” The following is an excerpt from our recent interview with Eileen, which took place at her Bridgewater office in Stamford, Connecticut.

GROWING UP: I grew up in Dyckman Housing project. I am one of nine. I have five brothers and three sisters. I lost one brother, Jim, to cancer in 2012. My dad was a serviceman. My mom worked for the phone company. I am number six. I am the oldest of the second batch, and my mother always says, “Make sure you tell people – from the same parents!” I have a sibling who says, “We grew up poor,” but I never felt poor at all. I really didn’t. The neighborhood was wonderful. It was truly a melting pot. The people who lived there came from all over the world – from Tanzania, Greece, Lithuania, Puerto Rico… We lived in 9C. Right across from us was a couple from Cuba with their daughter. Across the hall from them was a woman from Italy. Then down the hall there were people from Germany who had survived the Holocaust. There was really a lot of diversity, both in nationalities and culture as well as in color. We never locked our door – we didn’t need to back then. People looked out for each other. You minded your Ps and Qs because someone always had their eyes on you. My mother’s Uncle Pete played the accordion, so he would come over and play on Friday nights and people would come by and listen... The lady who lived next door to us was like a grandmother. She held a Pokeno game on Thursday nights. It was fun.

CHANGING TIMES: And then drugs came to the neighborhood in 1968-1970. And the neighborhood changed. People had to lock their doors. It became a very different place. People do crazy things when they are looking for drug money. It wasn’t just adults, drugs infiltrated the schools. And then two guys from our building died in Vietnam; Carlos, who was 19 years old, and then Raymond, who was a Marine who went for his second stint in Vietnam – there was a sadness that started to permeate the place. My two older brothers were in Vietnam. I remember we had one of those big old tape recorders – and we would speak into it. “Oh, hi Kevin! How are you?” My mother would get us all on the tape, and

42 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

send them packages. I think it was hard for her to have her sons over there. James was shot down in a helicopter at one point and Kevin was a scout. They were young when they went… 18 and 19. What the heck did they know at that age, going into that? My third brother Tom – my brothers are all pretty tall – and my brother Tom is six foot six inches and he doesn’t have great eyesight so they said they were not going to take him and my father said, “I’ll get you in.” My mother said, “You get him in, don’t come home. Go with him.”

PATRIOTISM: My dad was in WWII, and Korea. He wanted to go to Vietnam, but did not. He was a very big supporter of the country. He felt that when the country needed you, you better stand up and go serve it, and he was heartbroken by what happened in WWII to people in the concentration camps. He never really talked about it at all to me, but I think war impacts young people. He earned three purple hearts, one bronze star, and one silver star. My dad was a great guy. He was a very, very wellread man, and he was a doer. When things started to change in Dyckman Houses, he did what he could. They had the tenants’ council and my dad served on it with other people and they would sit at a table downstairs and watch who was coming in and out.

IRISH CONNECTIONS: My dad’s ancestors came from Cork during the potato famine, they were glassblowers, and they settled out in Long Island and then in Brooklyn, so he was from Brooklyn. We didn’t know his family that well, to tell you the truth, because there were so many of us that we tended not to be invited to occasions. My mother was born in the States but raised in County Galway by her grandparents. It was the time of the Black and Tans. And they were pretty brutal to her grandparents. She came over here when she was 14 after her grandparents died. If you ask her she will tell you. “Yes, I was on this boat and I was 14. I didn’t want to leave Ireland – the last thing I wanted to do was leave Ireland. And this Afro-American woman and I had dinner every night and people would look at us and I couldn’t understand for the life of me what the problem was. I had a toothache and this woman took such good care of me and I wish had her name now so I could thank her.”

LOVE STORY: My mother met my father when she was 16 at an Irish dance. My father used to always say, “Thank God your mother married me.” He would tell us that my mother got him drunk – he had thought he was going to be a priest – but he married her anyway. He had a great sense of humor. He was young when he joined the service, I think 16. My mom says, “Young and good looking.” When my dad was in the service my parents traveled the country so they were in California, Indiana, Alabama, and Alaska and my mom, after the fifth child, said, “I can’t do this anymore. We’ve got to

Derry~Londonderry

DETERMINED

PRODUCTIVE

RESOURCEFUL

SKILLED

Invest Northern Ireland congratulates all honorees on the occasion of the 21st Anniversary Celebration of the Wall Street 50 Awards. Companies including Citi, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, Baker McKenzie, Fidessa and Proofpoint are all capitalizing on the talent, competitive costs and track record of excellence available in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland. Altogether more.

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“Eileen is one of the smartest and most downto-earth people you will ever meet. Her love of her parents and her Irish upbringing is evident any time she chats about her childhood. She is a unique and very special person.” – Pauline Turley, Vice Chair of the Irish Arts Center.

move back to New York and pitch a tent somewhere.” So that’s how we ended up in Inwood, in Dyckman Housing, which was built in 1951. My parents loved each other. I mean they argued, but they loved each other and that was enough. We were always a tight-knit family and watched out for one another.

EDUCATION: We went to Catholic school. I went to St. Jude. I attended Cardinal Spellman High School, and then I went to Manhattan College. My mother was very much, “Just do your best!” But my father – I remember I was in Cardinal Spellman High School and I had a 98 average and I was number two or three in the school and my father said, “Who is ahead of you?” I said,”I’ll tell you who is ahead of me. Kids who are not working at Grand Union x number of hours.” He said, “I never asked you that. What does that have to do with what I asked you?” And that is how my dad was. He was very much, “You better do well in school.” My mother would say, “As long as I know you did your best, what more can I ask for?”

MOVING AWAY: I was about 20. There was a guy, his name was Augie Angrisano. He and his wife Connie and his daughter Celeste lived straight down the hall from us. I was usually a little late coming in from Grand Union because we had to stack the shelves and this and that – and I came in and he was lying in front of the elevator on the ground floor. Someone had shot him in the head and emptied his pockets. I was very sorry for his wife and his daughter. They were lovely people, but I wasn’t frightened for me – probably because I was too stupid – but my mother was like, “We have got to move now.” So we moved up to Riverdale. My father had died at that time. He was only 58. My father died from congestive heart disease in a hospital that didn’t have an oxygen tank. I don’t want that for my family. I didn’t want them living in a place that had become a war zone. To me, it was, how do we make sure, through education and jobs, to never be in that position again.

MENTOR: If I never met another person in my life, I’d have learned enough just being around my mother. She is a good person. She had a very tough life. She came over here on her own at 13. I remember when she worked at the phone company and she had these heels... I remember her putting cardboard in her shoes because she had holes in them and it was raining outside. She would always buy us something new, and she never complained.

HERITAGE: When I was in grammar school I thought I was Irish and I remember coming home from school one day, I don’t know if I was in third grade or fourth grade, and I had this revelation. I said, “Mom, we are Americans!” and she said, “Who told you that? You are Irish!” 44 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

IRISH ARTS CENTER BOARD: I knew right away when I joined the board that I’d found a home, and a group of people that I have a lot in common with. What I love about the Irish Arts Center is that it has never wavered from the idea that Irish culture isn’t just for Irish people, it’s for everybody. If that’s not hospitality shining through I don’t know what is.

SIBLINGS: I not only like my siblings, I love them, and I never felt as though I came from a big or small family – I just came from where I came from. Everybody had their thing, you know? I think what helps coming from a big family is that it is not all about you and you better get over yourself and have some selfdeprecation or you are going to end up in some psychiatrist’s office.

SENSE OF HUMOR: I think I have a good sense of humor in terms of “C’mon, get over yourself – no one died.” Someone said to me one time, “That is not a high enough standard.” I said, “No, your standard is too low.” I think it is good to laugh. I think it is healthy; I think it makes you feel good… And I sometimes say things that just come to me and I don’t really mean to say them and I probably shouldn’t say them, but there you go. PERSPECTIVE: I have lost people and it breaks your heart but I‘ve never seen anything so senseless, so terrible as 9/11. We lost eleven people from Morgan Stanley. There were kids who lost both of their parents. It gave me such perspective, 9/11. EARLY LESSONS ON BEING A CEO: One thing I learned as a young manager, every night, I’d say to myself, “If it were me, would I want to be

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how far we have come. Until 1963, a woman couldn’t have a credit card without her husband signing on for it. My mother couldn’t get job at the phone company when she first came here because she had an Irish accent. In this country there were signs posted, “Irish need not apply,” so how long did that take to change? It took quite a bit of time, right?

THE CULTURE AT BRIDGEWATER: The founder is very focused on radical truth and radical transparency. I think that’s great and I certainly believe in it. I am pretty straightforward. Certain people though – it is hard for them to hear things. To me, the most important thing is that we are having a conversation. I want to transmit something to you. What’s most important to me is that you receive the message.

around me?” And I have to tell you, on some days – not really. What a schmuck I was! [on that day]. But then I will go and apologize. And they can either accept it or not. If you are going to accept me on my good days, you’ve got to take me on my bad days. That said, it doesn’t mean that I should be allowed to get away with my bad days…

FIRST JOB: Peat Marwick was a public accounting firm. I was there for four years, and then I went to Morgan Stanley which was an interesting place back then. I remember someone saying, “Ah, I never heard of Manhattan College!”(Harvard people!) And then I’d say, “Well, I never heard of your school either.” I was at Morgan Stanley for eighteen years. I kind of grew up there. I had never been much further than Jersey and when I joined Morgan Stanley, I traveled Europe and the world. I remember the first time I went to the Churchill bar in London with this guy Ross who was in treasury and worked with me, actually worked for me. He went on ahead, but I was told, “Madam, women are not allowed in the bar.” I was like “Is this guy for real?” And he was for real! And so I’ve always really appreciated being here in the U.S.

CHANGING TIMES: When I first started working, the number of senior women on Wall Street was, I think, 0.5 percent and now it is maybe 17-18 percent. I am not saying we should be satisfied with where we are – we should continue to plow ahead and it should be 50-50. I think we are on the verge of a lot of things changing. But I also want to make sure we celebrate

ADVICE FOR THOSE STARTING OUT: Work hard. Don’t expect anything for nothing. Ask for help. Find someone who is good at what you are not and see if they will help you.

THE AMERICAN DREAM: I think it’s still achieveable. At least it has been my experience – you may be in a bad neighborhood and you may be tempted to do drugs and this and that, but if you work really hard, you can climb out of it.

PRIORITY AS CO-CEO: For me, success is not about money. Developing other people, giving them the opportunity to succeed. My biggest priority as the CEO is to make sure there is someone behind me that can get on the horse and win the race. SUMMING UP: It has been a great journey thus far and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. IA

PHOTOS: KIERAN MCCONVILLE

EQUAL TREATMENT: I have five brothers and three sisters and we were all treated the same. There was never an issue. I had to do dishes and so did my brothers, so this notion of gender difference was like, “Are you kidding me?” It was not in my consciousness that someone would make a decision based on anything other than your performance, which was probably naïve on my part. I started to understand that people were having problems with color and gender when I became more senior, then I started seeing a little bit more of “Hey, these people play golf together or do this and that,” but I’ve always found that if you work twice as hard you’ll get there …

WHAT SHE LOOKS FOR IN A HIRE: Curiosity, respect, a mutual understanding that we can learn from each other. I have no tolerance for knowit-alls.

FAR LEFT: Liam Neeson presents Eileen with the Irish Arts Center’s Spirit of Ireland Award, in October 2015. LEFT: Eileen with jazz singer Cassandra Wilson and actress Roma Downey, who were also honored by the Irish Arts Center.

“I think what helps coming from a big family is that it is not all about you, and you better get over yourself and have some selfdeprecation, or you are going to end up in some psychiatrist’s office. ” – Eileen Murray on the benefits of growing up in a big family.

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“MY IRISH HERITAGE INGRAINED IN ME THE UNFAILING BELIEF THAT WITH HARD WORK AND A SOLID EDUCATION EDUCATION THE POSSIBILITIES OF WHAT COULD BE ACHIEVED WERE LIMITLESS.” – Dawn Fitzpatrick

“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 P. Kelly

IRISH AMERICA’S

ANNUAL

WALLSTREET 50 This year’s Wall Street 50 marks the 21st running of the list. The honorees, many the descendants of those who came here with nothing, represent some of the largest finance companies around the globe, two-thirds of the U.S. GDP with $12.8 trillion in revenues, $1.0 trillion in profits, $21.6 trillion in market value, and employ 28.2 million people worldwide.

The Generations: 1ST GENERATION

34%

2ND GENERATION

16%

3RD GENERATION

20%

IRISH BORN

6% “MY IRISH FAMILY IS A BIG, LOVING, WARM FAMILY WHO IS THERE IN GOOD AND DIFFICULT TIMES.” – Margaret Keane “MY GRANDFATHER DID NOT ADVANCE PAST THE EIGHTH GRADE. HE WENT TO WORK TO HELP SUPPORT HIS PARENTS AND SIBLINGS, PUTTING FAMILY BEFORE HIMSELF. I THINK THIS DEEPLY SHAPED HOW I WORK AND LIVE.” – Dan Kennedy

46 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

“MY IRISH HERITAGE AND ITS CATHOLIC VALUES ARE PART OF MY EVERYDAY LIFE. I ONLY HOPE THAT OUR STRONG VALUES ARE PASSED ON FOR MANY GENERATIONS TO COME.” – Paul Durnan

“MY HERITAGE HAS GIVEN ME A DEEP COMMITMENT TO FAMILY AND FAITH, A STRONG WORK ETHIC, AND A SENSE OF HUMOR.” – Kathleen McCabe

16%

4TH GENERATION

Most Mentioned Schools

St. John’s University Boston College University College Dublin University of Pennsylvania NUI Galway Counties of Origin

Cork Donegal Mayo Dublin Galway Tipperary Kerry

26% 17% 15% 13% 11% 9% 9%

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WALLSTREET 50 Jennifer a. aBate Lazard Asset Management LLC

Jennifer Abate co-leads the Financial Institutions Group at Lazard Asset Management which is focused on creating and fostering business development at an enterprise level inclusive of sub-advised, mutual fund, separately managed accounts; defined contribution and alternative investment vehicles with financial institutions such as wirehouses, national and regional broker dealers, mutual fund companies, third-party platforms, and banks. She began her investment experience in 1995 upon joining Lazard. Jennifer received her M.B.A. from New York University and her B.A. from Fairfield University. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Money Management Institute, is on the board of the Project YESS (Young Executives Supporting Schools) Leadership Committee of Inner-City Scholarship Fund, and is a member of the Sales Force Marketing Committee of the Investment Company Institute. Within her family, a sense that all things are possible and that chance is worth taking when paired with hard work. This was the legacy handed down by her Irish great grandparents.

Cathy Boyle Wells Fargo & Company

Cathy Boyle is a managing director and senior relationship manager with Wells Fargo’s Financial Institutions Group, responsible for alternative asset manager relationships. In 2016, she left BNY Mellon as a managing director, after 16 years of establishing herself as a leader on the hedge fund / private equity and nonprofit coverage teams. Prior to 2000, Cathy spent over a decade with Citibank, N.A., and Citicorp Securities, Inc. Cathy earned a B.S. in computer science and a minor in business from St. John’s University, and an M.B.A. in finance from Fordham University. Cathy graduated from Citibank’s Credit Training Program and holds FINRA Series 7 and 63 securities licenses. A first-generation Irish American, Cathy’s mother Maura was born and raised in Ballsbridge, County Dublin, while her father, Pat, was born in New York and raised in Cooley, County Louth. She spends many holidays with family in Ireland and credits her parents with instilling in her a strong work ethic, deep love of and respect for her Irish heritage, and keen interest in supporting educational and other nonprofit initiatives as a way to “pay it forward” in gratitude. Cathy lives in New York and is a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland.

Sinead Colton Grant Mellon Capital

Sinead Colton Grant is a Managing Director and Head of Investment Strategy for Mellon Capital, the Boston Company and Standish, brands of BNY Mellon Asset Management North America. The firm’s expertise spans active equity, active fixed income, index, multifactor and multiasset investment strategies, with assets under management of $550 billion as of June 30, 2018. Sinead has over two decades of asset management experience. Prior to joining the firm in 2012, she served as Managing Director of Investment Strategy in the Multi-Asset Solutions group at BlackRock, which also included several years with Barclays Global Investors, where she partnered with institutional clients in EMEA to design tailored investment solutions. Previous roles also include Head of Currency at Invesco, where she was responsible for active currency strategies across the global fixed income team, Head of Portfolio Management at Lee Overlay Partners, and Currency Portfolio Manager at JP Morgan Investment Management. Sinead earned an M.Sc. in Finance from London Business School and a B.B.S. in Finance from Dublin City University. A first-generation Dubliner, with family roots in Kildare town on her father’s side and Castlefin, Donegal on her mother’s side, Sinead and her husband Alex, a fellow Dubliner, emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2013. Sinead has since been a keen contributor to the Ireland Funds and recently attended their annual gala dinner in San Francisco.

Kay ryan Booth Trinity Private Equity Group

Kay Ryan Booth has been a highly successful senior executive on Wall Street for 40 years. At Trinity Private Equity Group, Kay is the co-manager of its Fund II and Fund III and is in the process of closing Fund IV. Since January 2013, Kay serves as a Director and Trustee of the Prudential Insurance Funds Board that oversees more than $160 billion in investment portfolios of Prudential Financial’s annuity products. Prior to her involvement in private equities and corporate boards, she served on various financial advisory boards such as the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council for the F.A.S.B. and served on the Board of Governors at the C.F.A. Institute, chairing its Audit and Risk Committee and on the Nominating Committee. At Indiana University she serves on three boards and became the university’s first female chair for the Foundation’s Investment Committee. Ms. Booth is also a board member and committee chair for other not-forprofit organizations. Married with two children, Booth traces her heritage to counties Kerry and Kilkenny.

Kieran Claffey PwC

Kieran Claffey is a partner at PwC. He has extensive diversified experience serving multinational clients and dealing with litigation, risk management, and regulatory issues. He is chairman of the global board of PwC’s business trust and is a vice president and director of Madison Indemnity of N.Y. Kieran represents PwC on the technical standards committee of the A.I.C.P.A. Kieran, born in Dublin, was a founding member and director of the Ireland Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. and a director of the European-American Chamber of Commerce. He is the national treasurer, executive committee member, and a board member of the IrelandU.S. Council. He is chairman of the finance committee, member of the executive committee, and on the board of trustees of the Gateway Schools, which helps children with learning disabilities. SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018 IRISH AMERICA 47

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WALLSTREET 50 JOHN CURRAN LibreMax Capital

John Curran is a partner and head of investor relations and marketing at LibreMax Capital, a structured credit asset manager based in New York. Prior to joining LibreMax in October 2010, he was responsible for business development and investor relations at Restoration Capital Management L.L.C., and was also a member of the Institutional Equity Sales team at Bear Stearns. Born in Dungarvan, County Waterford, John resides in Westport, C.T. with his wife, son, and daughter Heidi, Jack, and Clara. John graduated with an M.B.A. from University College Dublin in 1998 and holds a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland. John is on the board of Barrettstown USA, the U.S. affiliate of Barrettstown Serious Fun camp. Barrettstown runs residential camps and programs in Ireland for children and their families affected by cancer and serious illness.

MICHAEL H. DEVLIN II Curragh Capital Partners

Michael Devlin is co-founder and managing director of Curragh Capital Partners, a private investment firm in New York, where he is responsible for overseeing firm investments across multiple industries. Michael has served on a number of corporate boards and currently is Chairman of the Board of Directors of ClearPoint Federal Bank & Trust. Devlin also oversees Orchard View Sports & Entertainment. Michael is a fourth-generation Irish American and continues to research his family’s genealogy. While he hasn’t tracked down his blood relatives from his many trips to Ireland, he has formed deep kinship with Irish friends spanning from Dublin to Kerry to Killybegs. He enjoys long walks on the Irish coast, mostly with a golf club in hand. Michael is a graduate of Boston College where he serves as a university trustee. He also serves on the executive committee of the Boston College Wall Street Council and on the advisory board of the Woods College of Advancing Studies.

HUGH DINEEN MetLife, Inc.

Hugh Dineen is the chief marketing officer for MetLife U.S. He heads up all of U.S. marketing and is responsible for leading marketing transformation, ensuring the company drives best-in-class practices across the region. He has over 25 years of experience in driving business and marketing growth in major multinational corporations including Avon, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble. Hugh joined MetLife in late 2015 from Avon Products, Inc., where he was the Global Vice President for Brand Marketing and Global Head of Beauty. He holds a B.A. in economics from Boston College and an M.B.A. in finance and marketing from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He sits on Michel Khalaf’s U.S. Senior Leadership Team (SLT), Esther Lee’s GBM SLT and leads the USM SLT. He is also on the Board of Directors for the Ad Council. A first-generation Irish American, Hugh’s father, Patrick, was born in County Cork and his mother, Kathleen, was born in County Monaghan.

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ELIZABETH B. DATER Angelo, Gordon & Co.

Elizabeth “Beth” Dater is a Managing Director of Angelo, Gordon & Co., a firm specializing in debt, real estate, private equity, and multi-strategy absolute return strategies. Beth’s career in investment management spans nearly 40 years and began at the Fiduciary Trust Company of New York in 1970. In 1978 she joined EM Warburg Pincus and Co. as a portfolio manager and research analyst. She became a managing director at Warburg Pincus Asset Management (WPAM) in 1981 and was named director of research in 1987. By 1999 WPAM was the leader in the business with over $8 billion in AUM. As a member of the WPAM Operating Committee, Beth was active through the firm’s sale and merger into Credit Suisse Asset Management. She was appointed to CSAM’s Americas Management Committee in 1999, where she served until 2003. She joined ForstmannLeff which was subsequently acquired and reorganized as AG Asset Management, along with several members of her Small Cap Growth team in 2004. At AG Asset Management, a subsidiary of Angelo, Gordon & Co., Beth served as Chief Investment Officer. Beth is a graduate of Boston University and serves as chairman of the Irish Georgian Society’s American chapter, and is a board member of its Irish headquarters. Beth attributes much of her success to her Irish American heritage, including determination, management skills, and, importantly, her sense of humor.

HELEN DOODY Kepos Capital L.P.

Helen Doody is a senior client advisor at Kepos Capital L.P., founded in 2010 by Mark Carhart, Giorgio De Santis, and Bob Litterman, former leaders of the Goldman Sachs Quantitative Investment Strategies group. Kepos has approximately $3 billion in assets under management. Helen joined Kepos in January 2018 and is responsible for asset raising in Europe, the U.S. East Coast and across the southern states to Texas. Prior to joining Kepos, Helen opened her own boutique broker dealer Celtic Advisors L.L.C. before becoming head of Abbey Capital’s U.S. business between 2010 and 2017 with responsibility for building, overseeing, and growing the U.S. business. Prior to 2008, Helen spent ten years in equity markets, in Dublin and London, and worked as a European Equity Trader for the U.S. Equity Long Short manager, Chilton Investments. Born in Dublin, Helen has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from UCD. She moved to the U.S. with her husband, Derek in 2006. They have three sons, Gavin (seven), Jefferson (five) and Christian (three), and live in Connecticut. Helen is a supporter of the arts, education, particularly for young girls, and various charities to do with children’s health.

Bridgewater Associates congratulates our co-CEO

Eileen Murray and the outstanding leaders named to this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Irish America Wall Street 50

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WALLSTREET 50 PAUL DURNAN RBC Capital Markets

Paul Durnan is a managing director on the Institutional Equity Research Sales desk at RBC Capital Markets. Prior to joining RBC Capital Markets he worked at Morgan Stanley, Fulcrum Global Partners, and Soundview Technology Group. He is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross with a bachelor’s degree in economics. A third-generation Irish American with roots in County Cork on his father’s side, Paul speaks fondly of his Irish ancestry. “My Irish heritage and its Catholic values have been, and continue to be, a central part of my everyday life. I only hope that our strong values are passed on for many generations to come.” Paul and his wife, Anne, live in Rockville Centre, New York, with their four sons: Paul, Jack, and twins Justin and Joseph.

PATRICK DWYER Merrill Lynch

Pat joined Merrill Lynch in 1993 after receiving his M.B.A. from the University of Miami, and clients have been able to reach him at the same telephone number for more than 23 years. His first year at the firm was spent in the Merrill Lynch M.B.A. Analyst Program at company headquarters. After his training was complete, Pat moved back to Miami to begin his career as a financial advisor. In 1999, he became one of the first advisors to join a new division established to serve the needs of ultra-high-net-worth families, the Private Banking and Investment Group at Merrill Lynch. Pat was named number five on Forbes’ list of America’s Top Wealth Advisors for 2017, and he has been recognized by Barron’s as one of America’s Top 100 Financial Advisors from 2007 through 2017. He has also been recognized by the Financial Times in its Top 400 Advisors List in 2016, ranked in WealthManagement magazine’s “Top 100 Wirehouse Advisors” from 2010 through 2016 – and quoted in Fortune, Barron’s, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal and other financial publications. He is a regular guest speaker at Providence College in Rhode Island, where he received his bachelor’s degree, as well as the University of Miami. He is the chairman of the Key Biscayne Community Foundation and on the board of trustees at the Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, the Telluride Science Research Center, and the Neuroscience Centers of Florida Foundation. He resides in Key Biscayne, Florida, with his wife, Marisa, and four children. His hobbies include paddle-boarding, hiking, and cooking with his children.

DAWN FITZPATRICK Soros

Dawn Fitzpatrick joined Soros Fund Management L.L.C. as the Chief Investment Officer in April 2017. Prior to joining SFM, Ms. Fitzpatrick was the Head of Investments for UBS Asset Management, where she managed active, passive, and systematic equities and fixed income portfolios, its investment solutions, and the O’Connor hedge fund business, and served as a member of the UBS Wealth Management Global Investment Committee. During her tenure at UBS, she served as head of various teams within O’Connor and specialized in investing in equities, convertible bond arbitrage and merger arbitrage as well as derivatives across asset classes. Ms. Fitzpatrick received her B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Dawn traces her Irish roots back to Kilkenny and Cork and counts her grandparents, who immigrated from Ireland as her role models who “ingrained in me the unfailing belief that with hard work and a solid education there were limitless possibilities as to what could be achieved”.

DANIEL KEEGAN Citigroup

Daniel Keegan is co-head of Global Equities at Citigroup. Keegan, who was appointed co-head of the group in May, previously served for three years as head of Equities Americas at Citi and joined Citi in 2007 as part of the bank’s purchase of ADT 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. A third-generation Irish American with ancestors from County 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. “When you think about the Irish and the ancestry, front and center in that consideration is a generation after generation of people who distinguish themselves by working hard,” Keegan, who was the Wall Street Keynote Speaker in 2016, said. 50 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

MARGARET KEANE Synchrony Financial

Margaret Keane is president and chief executive officer of Synchrony Financial, one of the nation’s premier consumer financial services companies. Margaret’s passion for emerging technology and employee development has solidified her reputation as a leader in the field. Prior to her current role, she was president and CEO of GE’s North American retail finance business and led the retail card platform at GE Capital as president and CEO. She held additional leadership roles during her 18 years at GE Capital and began her career at Citibank. Margaret earned her M.B.A. and a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University. She is consistently ranked among the most powerful women in her field by American Banker and Fortune and serves on the board of directors for the Financial Services Roundtable and the youth-services non-profit buildOn. She is also a member of the board of trustees for St. John’s University and the Connecticut chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. A second-generation Irish American with roots in Cork and Clare, Margaret finds in her heritage “a big, loving, warm family who is there in good and difficult times.”

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WALLSTREET 50 MARTIN KEHOE PwC

Martin Kehoe is a partner with PwC in New York. He has over 30 years of experience serving multinational clients across a variety of industries. Martin was born and raised in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, where he attended the Christian Brothers School and played Gaelic football, hurling and rugby as a young man. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with an honors degree in business and joined PwC after graduation where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. Martin subsequently moved to New York City with PwC, becoming a partner with the firm in 1996. He says, “It is great to be part of the US business environment and the Irish community in this inclusive and vibrant city.” Martin is married to Mary Kelly from Bree, County Wexford, with whom he has two daughters, Allison and Laura. Martin is active in the community where he serves on the board of Young People’s Chorus of N.Y.C., recently named “Choir of the World”. He is also an active supporter of the Gaelic Players Association and the American Ireland Fund. Martin is a member of the A.I.C.P.A., the New York and California State Societies of Public Accountants, and a Fellow of the Insitute of Chartered Accountants.

SEAN P. KELLY Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Sean Kelly is a managing director at Nomura Securities International, Inc., where he manages the Capital Commitments team for the Acquisition and Leveraged Finance business in the Americas. 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. Outside of work, Sean serves on the Advisory Board of Glucksman Ireland House NYU and is a member of the Gaelic American Club in Fairfield, C.T. and the Irish Arts Center. He lives in Connecticut with his wife Deirdre and their children Aisling and Liam.

SEAN KELLEHER Wall Street Access

As president of Wall Street Access, the financial services organization founded by his father Denis Kelleher, Sean has helped guide the firm through successful ventures in online brokerage, institutional research, global execution services and trading, fixed income, and asset management. In 1992, Kelleher joined the firm as a clerk and now manages a team of more than 50 analysts, traders, and salespeople. A graduate of Wagner College, Kelleher now serves on the college’s alumni board. He also served as co-chairman of the Staten Island Film Festival, served on the board of the Staten Island Zoo and co-founded the Gerry Red Wilson Foundation to support spinal meningitis research. He is actively involved in New World Preparatory charter school, Camp Good Grief and Project Hospitality. Kelleher, who spent the summers of his youth in Ireland working in the bog, says the catalysts behind his love for Irish culture are his family and playing Gaelic football in his father’s village in County Kerry. He lives on Staten Island, New York with his wife Wendy and their three children, Maggie, Jack, and Denis.

SHAUN KELLY KPMG

Shaun is the global chief operating officer for KPMG International. In this position, he manages the day-to-day operational aspects of KPMG’s global strategy and oversees the delivery of the firm’s global initiatives. 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. Shaun earned a bachelor’s degree in comm. with first class honors from University College Dublin, is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland, and a CPA. Shaun is co-chair of KPMG’s Disabilities Network, and a member of KPMG’s diversity advisory board. He is treasurer and member of the executive committee of Enactus. He also serves as chairman of the North American advisory board of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business and is on the boards of the American Ireland Fund and the Irish Arts Center in New York. Shaun and his wife, Mary, who is from Donegal, live in New York City.

CHRISTEL KENNEDY Santander Bank, N.A.

Christel Kennedy is the Chief Operating Officer for Santander Bank, N.A. and the U.S. Head of Change Management for Santander Holdings USA, Inc. In these roles, she oversees the ongoing business operations within the bank, including call center and back office functions, and she is responsible for driving project management disciplines across the U.S. and execution of many large U.S. programs. Chris is a member of the Santander US Leadership Team, the Santander US Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee, and the executive sponsor of the Women’s Network across the US entities. She resides in Boston and is an active member of her community. Chris received her B.S. in Financial Management from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and has 30+ years’ experience in the Financial Services industry. Chris is a third-generation Irish American on her father’s side. The first Kennedy to immigrate to the U.S. in 1883 was Edward Martin Kennedy and his wife Sarah Walsh from County Tipperary, who settled in Philadelphia. The Kennedy clan were primarily laborers with strong work ethics and great family values. These traits have been passed down through the generations. SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018 IRISH AMERICA 51

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WALLSTREET 50 dan Kennedy Corvil

Dan Kennedy serves as Vice President and General Manager at Corvil, where he leads sales, sales engineering, client engagement, and all operations for the Americas. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Corvil is a network data analytics company which serves the majority of the world’s largest global banks, exchanges, and other financial services clients. Prior to Corvil, he built and led the Major Client Program at Silicon Valley tech company, Riverbed. Dan started his career at AT&T, having earned a B.A. in communication studies and an M.B.A. from West Chester University. He is a third-generation Irish American whose family immigrated from counties Cork and Donegal, and says he owes much of his success to heeding his grandfather’s advice that “you can gain an education just by listening to people. “My grandfather did not advance past the eighth grade. He went to work to help support their parents and siblings, putting family before himself. “I think this deeply shaped how I work and live.” Dan has served as mentor for at-risk youth with Proverbs Mentoring Basketball League in Chester, P.A., and is on the Business Advisory Council for West Chester University. He lives in Malvern, PA with his wife Danielle, and two children, Abby and Owen.

Sean lane Morgan Stanley

Sean Kilduff UBS Private Wealth Management

Sean Kilduff is a certified financial planner and managing director 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. Sean was named to the Financial Times Top 400 Financial Advisors 2015 to 2018. 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, Declan, Kate, Brendan, and Caroline. Barbara G. Koster is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Prudential Financial, and head of the Global Business and Technology Solutions Department. She is also Chairman of the Board of Pramerica Systems Ireland, founding member of Prudential Systems Japan, and oversees the company’s Veteran’s Initiatives Office. Barbara joined Prudential in 1995 as the CIO of Individual Life Insurance and previously held several positions with Chase Manhattan Bank, including President of Chase Access Services, a wholly owned subsidiary providing technology services. In 2017, Barbara received the Tip O‘Neill Irish Diaspora Award and she was named to STEMConnector’s list of 100 Corporate Diverse Leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. She was inducted into Junior Achievement’s New Jersey Business Hall of Fame. NJ Biz newspaper named her one of the Best 50 Women in Business. She is a member of Executive Women of NJ and the Research Board. 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. She and her husband, Robert, have two daughters, Kathryn and Diana, and three grandsons, Zachary, Connor, and Aidan.

Sean Lane is a senior vice president and financial advisor at Morgan Stanley with over 23 years of experience in the industry. He is responsible for providing expert financial planning, risk management, and investment advice to ultra-high net-worth individuals, families, endowments, and foundations. 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. Born in New York, Sean is Vice Chairman of the N.Y.C. St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the St. Patrick’s Day Foundation. He is also on the board of the 69th Regimental Trust, the Abbey Theatre Advisory board, and the leadership circle for the NorthWell Health Department of Medicine. 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. 52 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

BarBara G. KoSter Prudential Financial

Kathleen lynch UBS

Kathleen Lynch is Chief Operating Officer Americas and Wealth Management Americas (WMA), UBS. She is also a member of the Americas and WMA Executive Committees. As WMA COO, Kathleen supports the execution of the business division’s strategy, while also ensuring operational efficiency and effectiveness to make WMA a better place to be a client and an employee. Kathleen joined UBS in June 2012 as an advisor to senior management on a number of key initiatives, including the strengthening of UBS’s regulatory and operating framework. Born and raised in the U.S., Kathleen’s mother’s roots in Burtonport, County Donegal have greatly influenced her interest and appreciation for Irish culture. She was the keynote speaker at Irish America’s 2014 Wall Street 50 awards dinner. Married with three children, Kathleen and her husband Tim are actively involved in their local community of Madison, N.J. Kathleen has her undergraduate degree from Bucknell University and holds a master’s in business administration from N.Y.U. Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Making Irish eyes smile. BNY Mellon honors those who take positive action and make a difference in their communities. It is our great pleasure to support Irish America and salute the 2018 Irish America Wall Street 50 honorees, including our very own: Briane Ruane Chief Executive Officer, BNY Mellon Government Securities Services Corp.

Nancy Reyda Chief Operating Officer, Technology and Head of Technology Risk and Control

Sinead Colton Grant Head of Investment Strategy, Mellon Capital, The Boston Company and Standish

bnymellon.com ÂŠ2018 The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation.

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WALLSTREET 50 FRANCIS C. MAHONEY Ernst & Young

Frank Mahoney currently serves as EY America’s Assurance Vice Chair, heading a staff of more than 20,000 finance professionals. Frank was appointed to this position in 2014, after more than 30 years of increasing management titles at the company. Born and raised in Boston (his first job was a hot dog vendor at Fenway Park), he is a fourth-generation Irish American with roots in Cork on both sides. “When I think about my Irish heritage,” he says, “I feel connected to a group of people who are widely known for an indefatigable work ethic, an openness to take on challenges, and a tenacity that helps them see those challenges through.” Frank holds a B.A. from Boston College and has served on several boards in the Boston area, including Catholic Charities and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves as a trustee of Xaverian Brothers High School and the Newton Country Day School. He and his wife Mary have four children, Sarah, Frankie, Lindsey, and Jack.

TARA MCCABE Morgan Stanley

Tara McCabe is a managing director of Morgan Stanley and chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Tara worked at the Permal Group, where she oversaw product strategy, marketing, and investor relations for institutional and high net-worth clients. At Morgan Stanley, her earlier roles included chief administrative officer for investment products and client solutions, chief administrative officer for alternative investment. She began her career at Prudential in marketing. A first-generation Irish American, Tara is proud of her heritage and that both her parents are from lovely Leitrim. Tara is a board director of the American Ireland Fund and was instrumental in developing their Young Leaders program. She is an active supporter of the Irish Arts Center and Cristo Rey High School. Tara graduated from the College of the Holy Cross and studied at the National University of Ireland Galway.

KATHLEEN MCCABE Morgan Stanley

Kathleen McCabe is a managing director at Morgan Stanley and is head of marketing and business development for the Investment Banking Division. Prior to this role, Kathleen was the firm’s Global Head of Investor Relations. Over her 20 years at Morgan Stanley, Kathleen has advised private and public companies on a broad range of transactions including leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, financings, and recapitalizations. Kathleen serves on the Board of Trustees for the Morgan Stanley Foundation and is coPresident of the Board of Youth INC. She has a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University and lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters. Both of Kathleen’s parents are from County Leitrim and she is an active supporter of the American Ireland Fund and the Irish Arts Center in New York City. She says her heritage has given her “a deep commitment to family and faith, a strong work ethic, and a sense of humor.”

DENNIS MCCANN Managing Director, UBS

Dennis McCann is Managing Director and head of Communications, Content, and Solutions Marketing for the UBS Wealth Management business in the U.S. In this role, Dennis is responsible for the strategic positioning and execution of internal and client communications, editorial content delivered across UBS’s various online platforms, and the marketing programs for wealth management solutions. Dennis joined PaineWebber in October 1992, which was subsequently purchased by UBS. He has held a range of positions in both firms, including serving as Chief of Staff for the President of the Wealth Management U.S. business. He serves as the chairman of the New York chapter of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce and is co-Chair of the UBS Americas Pride Committee. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics with honors from the State University of New York at Binghamton, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and a Masters of Business Administration in finance and marketing from New York University, Stern School of Business. His mother’s family hailed from counties Sligo, Mayo, and Waterford. Her grandparents came to the States in the late 1800s. His father’s family immigrated in the late 1800s from Donegal. Both families settled in Brooklyn. Dennis resides with his partner Chris in Manhattan, and they spend as much off time as possible in Kismet, Fire Island, N.Y., enjoying family and friends, the beach, and water sports.

GREGORY A. MCCRICKARD CFA

Gregory A. McCrickard was the lead portfolio manager for the firm’s U.S. Small-Cap Core Equity Strategy and chairman of the strategy’s Investment Advisory Committee. He also served on the Investment Advisory Committees for the Firm’s Mid-Cap Value, Small-Cap Stock, and Small-Cap Value strategies. Greg is a vice president of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. and was previously a member of the firm’s U.S. Equity Steering Committee. Greg currently serves in an advisory role mentoring younger investors. Greg has 34 years of investment experience, 32 of which have been at T. Rowe Price. Prior to joining T. Rowe Price, he was a trust officer at Wachovia Bank. He is a member of the board of directors for Trout Unlimited, the Frank J. Battaglia Signal 13 Foundation and St. Ignatius Loyola Academy – Baltimore. He earned a B.A., with distinction, from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where he was an Edward Tuck Scholar. He also has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Greg is a fifth-generation Irish American on his father’s side. John McCrickard immigrated to Virginia from County Down, Northern Ireland late in the 18th century. “I’m descended from a long line of tobacco farmers in southern Virginia. Hard work and personal accountability was the norm. These traits have served me well in my financial career.”

54 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

S:7”

TALENT. INTEGRITY. TENACITY. YOU’RE PROOF YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL.

S:9.875”

Prudential is proud that

BARBARA KOSTER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, HAS BEEN NAMED ONE OF IRISH AMERICA MAGAZINE’S 2018 WALL STREET 50! Congratulations to Barbara and all of this year’s honorees.

©2018. 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. 0307132-00002-00

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WALLSTREET 50 JEANMARIE MCFADDEN MetLife

Jeanmarie McFadden is the executive vice president and chief communications officer at MetLife, where she leads all internal and external communications and manages a team of over 60 global communications professionals. She has over 25 years of experience in strategic and crisis communications. Born in New York, Jeanmarie acquired her degree in psychology at the College of New Jersey. Prior to joining MetLife in 2014, she served as managing director and head of global corporate affairs at Morgan Stanley, and sat on the board of the Morgan Stanley Foundation. A second-generation Irish American on her father’s side (rooted in Falcarragh, County Donegal) and a fifth-generation on her mother’s (the O’Malleys of County Cork), Jeanmarie treasures the memory of her Irish grandfather, Daniel. “Every St. Patrick’s Day growing up, we heard him sing along to ‘Danny Boy’ with tears in his eyes,” she recalls. “He was a determined and strong man, forced to leave home and come to America at age 14. He helped build many of New York’s bridges and tunnels during his life.” Jeanmarie lives in Rumson, New Jersey, with her children, Hayden, Maggie, and Grace.

KATHLEEN MURPHY Fidelity Investments

CONALL MCGONAGLE KBC Bank USA.

Conall McGonagle is a Managing Director and COO/CFO in KBC Bank USA. He also is the CFO & Treasurer of the New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Conall is the President of the New York Chapter of the Association of Chartered Accountants in the USA (ACAUS).He is the ACAUS Home Institute Board Member Representative for Chartered Accountants Ireland in the USA.Born in Galway, he studied Business with French at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He has a Master of Accounting degree from the Smurfit Business School. He runs the New York marathon each year for Fred’s Team (fundraising for cancer research). Conall is married with three children and lives in New York.

CONOR MURPHY Brighthouse Financial

Conor Murphy is executive vice president and chief operating officer at Brighthouse Financial, a $220 billion start-up recently established by MetLife that is already one of the largest U.S. life insurance companies. Previously, Conor was senior vice president at MetLife, where he held several leadership positions including LatAm CFO, head of International Strategy and M&A, head of investor relations and Investments CFO. He previously spent seven years with PwC in New York and five years with Grant Thornton in Dublin. He is a founding trustee of Cristo Rey New York High School in Harlem and has been a proud sponsor of the school’s work-internship program for over 10 years. He is a past president of the Association of Chartered Accountants in the U.S., a member of the Massachusetts Society of CPAs and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. Conor is a native of Donegal, where the third and fourth generations of Murphys run the family store, Murphy of Ireland, which is now in its 79th year exporting the finest Donegal products to the rest of the world. Conor and his wife, Ani, have two sons, Jack and Aidan, and have recently moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Kathleen Murphy is President of Fidelity Personal Investing. She assumed her position in January 2009 and oversees a business with more than $2.2 trillion in client assets under administration, 18.3 million customer accounts, and over 15,000 employees. Her business is the nation’s number one provider of individual retirement accounts (I.R.A.s), one of the largest brokerage businesses, one of the largest providers of investment advisory programs, and one of the leading providers of 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 has consistently 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. 56 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

DEIRDRE O’CONNOR BlackRock

Deirdre O’Connor is a managing director at BlackRock. Previously, she was a managing director in the Investment Management Division at Goldman Sachs. Deirdre is on the board of directors for the Women’s Bond Club, Concern Worldwide, and the Irish Repertory Theatre. Deirdre was the international member of the Irish Financial Services Industry Advisory Committee. She is a founding member of New York Digital Irish and Digital Irish Angels. A fellow at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and a member of the Chartered Global Management Accountants, she studied accounting at the Cork Institute of Technology. Born in Cobh, County 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.”

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WALLSTREET 50 BILL O’DONNELL MetLife

Bill O’Donnell is Executive Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer for Metlife. He oversees all the accounting and financial reporting, including the reporting of MetLife’s financial results on both a U.S. GAAP and Statutory basis; has oversight of the company’s financial reporting internal controls; and is responsible for driving the corporate planning, projection, and budgeting processes. Bill joined MetLife in 1989 and spent 15 years in the Internal Audit department. In 2010, he joined the International CFO organization, where he led International Financial Planning & Analysis for MetLife’s international segment. Bill graduated from St. John's University where he received a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Accounting in 1989. In 1997, he obtained a Masters of Business Administration (M.B.A.) in Finance also from St. John’s University. Bill is a third-generation Irish American.

JAMES O’DONNELL Citibank

Jim O’Donnell is a managing director and global head of investor sales and relationship management at Citi Markets and Banking. In this role, Jim is responsible for client distribution for equities, fixed income, currencies, and commodities. Jim was appointed to this position in August 2008. Prior to that, he was co-Head of Global Investor Sales, appointed in November 2007. He joined the firm in July 1999 as Head of Equities, EMEA. Prior to joining Citi, Jim was President and CEO of HSBC Securities Inc. in New York. He was responsible for all equity, debt, futures, and investment banking operations for HSBC in the U.S. and was CEO of HSBC James Capel, HSBC’s Global Equity business. Prior to HSBC, he held various roles at NatWest Securities, and Drexel Burnham Lambert. Jim holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Religion from Princeton University. 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.

MICHAEL O’GRADY Northern Trust

Michael O’Grady is CEO, president and a member of the board of Northern Trust. Previously, he served as president of the corporate & institutional services business unit. Northern Trust’s C&IS business unit is a leading provider of asset servicing, investment management, banking and related services to institutional clients worldwide. Prior to becoming president of C&IS, Mike served as executive vice president & chief financial officer of Northern Trust. Mike joined Northern Trust in 2011 from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he served as a managing director in the firm’s Investment Banking Group and head of the Depository Institutions Group for the Americas. He joined Merrill Lynch in 1992 as an associate. Prior to Merrill Lynch, Mike worked for Price Waterhouse. He holds a B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business. A board member of the Field Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Catholic Charities, Mike is third-generation Irish on both his father and mother’s sides. The O’Gradys are from County Mayo and the Kileys are from County Clare.

JAMES W. REID MetLife

James W. Reid is the executive vice president for MetLife’s Global Employee Benefits (GEB) business, and is Chairman of the board for MAXIS Global Benefits Network. He is responsible for expanding MetLife’s employee benefits business in 40 countries across the globe. James received his B.S. from Ohio State University and completed executive programs at Columbia and Harvard Business Schools. Prior to joining MetLife in 2012, James held various senior executive positions during a 20-year career with Aetna, which included serving as the president of Voluntary Plans and Consumer Services. James was the recipient of Aetna’s 2001 Chairman’s Award, and has been named to both Business Insurance and Crain’s New York “40 Under 40” lists. Descended from the Reids of County Cork and the Ryans of County Tipperary, James is a fourth-generation Irish American and is married to Allyson, with whom he has four children, Jackson, Hunter, Tucker, and Tristan. They live in Rumson, New Jersey.

58 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

JIM O’SULLIVAN High Frequency Economics

Jim O’Sullivan is chief economist at High Frequency Economics, an independent economics research firm. He forecasts and analyzes macroeconomic developments and policy actions driving financial markets. According to MarketWatch, he is “the best high-frequency economic forecaster in America.” He has been MarketWatch Forecaster of the Year in 10 of the 14 years since the award was created, including each of the last seven. Ranking is based on accuracy in projecting U.S. economic indicators. Jim began his career at JP Morgan and has also worked at UBS and MF Global. Born in New York, Jim grew up in County Offaly. His father is from Abbeyfeale in Limerick and his mother from Drimoleague in Cork. Jim holds a B.A. in economics from Trinity College Dublin, where he earned the distinction of scholar. He also earned an M.A. in economics from Queen’s University in Ontario. He lives in Manhattan with his Offaly-born wife, Margaret Molloy, a marketing executive, and their sons, Finn and Emmet. On Twitter he is @OSullivanEcon.

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WALLSTREET 50 DAVID REILLY Bank of America

David Reilly is the chief information officer for global banking and markets at Bank of America. He leads a global team of employees who provide end-to-end technology solutions and support for the Global Banking and Global Markets businesses including Equities, Electronic Trading, Rates and Currencies, Credit and Structured Products, Commodities, Sales and Capital Markets, Wholesale Banking and Research. Most recently, David was Bank of America’s Chief Technology Officer responsible for the company’s technology networks, product engineering, desktop and electronic communications, application hosting and data storage, operations management, support services and data centers. David is a second generation Irish-American as his father is from Cavan and his mother is from Clare. On his heritage, David said that “It has made me more resilient and more able to deal with adversity– there is no feeling sorry for yourself in that culture, unless of course you are singing about it.”

BRIAN RUANE BNY Mellon

Brian is the chief executive officer of BNY Mellon Government Securities Services and a member of BNY Mellon’s Executive Committee. Government Securities Services is a subsidiary of BNY Mellon designed to enhance the capabilities, governance and resiliency of U.S. government securities clearance & U.S. tri-party repo markets. Born in the U.S. and raised in Ireland, Brian attended Colaiste Eanna, Dublin before admission to the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, and received his M.B.A. from Hofstra University, New York. Brian is a member of the Board of Directors of Promontory Interfinancial Network, a Washington D.C. based financial technology firm. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business, Dublin and the Zarb School of Business, New York. Brian’s father Anthony is from County Mayo and his mother Rose is from County Longford. Brian is married to Anna Lynch and they have four children, Sarah, Emma, Jack and Ellie. Brian was the Wall Street 50 keynote speaker in 2011. 60 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

NANCY REYDA BNY Mellon

Nancy Reyda is the chief operating officer for global technology at BNY Mellon, where she leads technology strategy, drives operating model simplification, manages the portfolio of technology investments, oversees third party governance, and is responsible for the technology risk and control framework. Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Reyda was the chief operating officer of global banking and markets technology at Bank of America, having spent over 20 years at Chevron where she started in engineering research and ultimately moved into business management positions, serving as the president and COO of RetailersMarketExchange.com. Nancy also managed the operational integration of Chevron and Texaco during the merger. Nancy’s family comes from the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal. Her mother’s family immigrated in the late 1920s and her father’s family immigrated a generation earlier. Reyda graduated from Clarkson University as a chemical engineer. She now serves on the board of trustees. She and her husband Steve live in Manhattan and the San Francisco Bay Area, and have two sons, Steve and Thomas.

TERENCE REYNOLDS Morgan Stanley

Terence Reynolds is a wealth advisor at Morgan Stanley. His practice focuses on creating comprehensive, institutional financial wellness programs as well as providing wealth-planning advice to families, business owners, and non-profits. Born and raised in New York, Terence graduated from St. John’s University with a B.S. in finance. He has led sales, trading, portfolio management, and investment advisory businesses at industry leading firms, serving the ultra-high net worth and institutional client segments. Terence serves on the board of La Salle Academy in N.Y.C. and works closely with the Viscardi School for the disabled in Albertson, N.Y. Terence is a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland whose family lineage includes the Reynoldses of Leitrim as well as the Lyons, Healy, and Ferguson clans of Sligo. “My grandparents lived in our home during my formative years where we shared meals, stories, music, song and laughter. Arriving to signs of Irish need not apply, I am ever grateful for the sacrifices my grandparents made to give us the opportunities that so many take for granted. In their honor I am passionate about providing quality education and jobs to the underprivileged and disabled.” Terence lives in Point Lookout, N.Y. with his wife, Kerri and their three children, Kelly, Briana, and Christopher.

MEREDITH RYAN-REID MetLife

Meredith Ryan-Reid is a senior vice president in MetLife’s Group Benefits division leading distribution development. Responsibilities include broker strategy and relationship management, third party distribution, private exchanges, worksite strategy, and voluntary benefits delivery. Previously, she led the Accident and Health group and the Product Specialist organization. Meredith received her B.A. from the University of Richmond and M.B.A. from Cornell University, where she serves as her alumni class president and member of the Johnson School advisory council. Though Meredith says much information about her Irish ancestors prior to her paternal great-grandparents, who settled in Somerville, M.A., is lost, she completed a DNA test that found she is 83 percent Irish, with Ryan roots in Tipperary. In America, her family made their living as boxers, police officers, domestics, and factory and railway workers. “I am proud of my heritage,” she says, “and never more so than when I had the honor of marching in the St. Patrick’s Day parade with Grand Marshall Alfred Smith in 2013 when I was eight months pregnant with my second child, Madeline.” Meredith lives in Connecticut with her husband and two daughters.

joins

IRISH AMERICA in congratulating alumna and honorary degree recipient

EILEEN MURRAY ’80, ’15 Co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates

for being selected as its

KEYNOTE HONOREE at the

21ST ANNUAL WALL STREET 50 Wednesday, September 26, 2018 Brennan O’Donnell, President Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY manhattan.edu

CONGRATULATIONS GREG WE CELEBRATE YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO T. ROWE PRICE AND OUR INDUSTRY. We applaud Greg McCrickard for this prestigious award recognizing his 32 years of outstanding work with T. Rowe Price. Greg was the lead portfolio manager for the U.S. Small-Cap Core Equity Strategy and chairman of the strategy’s Investment Advisory Committee for 24 years. In addition to his stellar investment accomplishments, Greg has shared his wisdom while mentoring a new generation of investment professionals. His dedication and collaborative spirit make him an indispensable member of our team. © 2018 T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. T. ROWE PRICE, INVEST WITH CONFIDENCE, and the Bighorn Sheep design are, collectively and/or apart, trademarks of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. CXFUIEMQY

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WALLSTREET 50 TIM RYAN PwC US

Tim Ryan is US Chairman and Senior Partner of PwC. He has over 28 years of diversified experience serving clients in the financial services industry in the U.S. and internationally. Tim also serves on PwC’s U.S. Board of Partners and Principals, and its Global Board. Tim previously served as Vice Chair, having responsibility for PwC’s strategy function and stakeholder relationships including investor relations, regulatory affairs, public policy, corporate responsibility, and human capital. He plays an active role in the Center for Audit Quality, a non-partisan, non-profit group dedicated to enhancing investor confidence and public trust in the global capital markets. Over the past year, Tim worked with a small group of CEOs to launch the CEO Action For Diversity & Inclusion™, the largest ever CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Tim is a certified public accountant in Massachusetts and New York and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is a trustee of the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society and the Children’s Aid Society. He graduated from Babson College where he studied accounting and communications. Tim is a Boston native, marathon runner, and proud father of six children. He is a first-generation Irish American, with roots in Counties Galway and Cork.

KEVIN M. SHERLOCK Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Kevin M. Sherlock is Managing Director and co-head of the Global Financial Sponsor Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Kevin assumed this role in 2018 following his role as co-head of the bank’s Global Leveraged Finance business. Prior to joining Bank of America, he headed Loan and High Yield Capital Markets at Deutsche Bank AG. He is a chartered financial analyst and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. A native of Queens, N.Y., Kevin graduated from SUNY Albany with a bachelor’s degree in finance and management information systems, earning his master’s degree in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Kevin is a second-generation Irish American with roots in Sligo on his father’s side and in Mayo and Roscommon on his mother’s. He serves on the board of Archbishop Molloy High School. Kevin and his wife, Amy, have three children, Erin, Timothy, and Meghan.

ELLEN WALSH PricewaterhouseCoopers

Ellen is a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers and is the U.S. Insurance Sector Leader for the PwC’s Advisory Practice. In this role, Ellen leads a group of partners and staff members who advise leading insurance companies with their most pressing needs, including enterprise strategy, digital experience, deals, and technology transformation. Ellen has served the insurance industry for over 25 years, across all sub-sectors including life and annuity, property and casualty and reinsurance. As a third-generation Irish American, Ellen is the granddaughter of Bartley Walsh, a proud Irish immigrant from Mayo who settled in New York City. She and her family have had the pleasure of visiting the Walsh family’s farm and home in Loughanemon, Claremorris, where several family members currently reside. Ellen continues to be inspired by her grandfather’s courage and appetite to make his journey to America, while always staying close to his beloved siblings in Ireland. Ellen graduated from Fordham University with a B.A. in American Studies and earned an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Ellen resides in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. 62 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

SHARON T. SAGER UBS Private Wealth Management

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. Sharon is one of only 16 women to be named to Barron’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors each year since the list’s inception in 2006, and was also featured in Barron’s “Best Advice” column. In addition, Sharon has appeared on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street and Closing Bell. Sharon was named to the 2017 Financial Times Top 400 Advisors and Forbes Top Women Advisors 2017, as well as to REP Magazine and WealthManagement.com’s Top 50 Wirehouse Women list 2012-2015. In 2016, UBS presented Sharon with the “Aspire” award, a recognition that she serves as a role model for other advisors and as a culture carrier for the firm. 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 Long Island.

STEPHANIE WHITTIER Morgan Stanley

Stephanie Whittier co-heads the Foundation & Endowment Services team at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, offering specialized investment management solutions that range from the creation of Investment Policy Statements to asset allocation and consolidated reporting advice. She joined Morgan Stanley in 1975 after graduating from Boston College Carroll School of Management with a B.S. in Accounting. Since then, she has held positions in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking, Real Estate, Institutional Equity, and Private Wealth Management, authored articles on issues relating to family office management, and has a wide range of expertise in product development, business administration, risk management, finance, and personal wealth management. A second-generation Irish American with roots in Mayo and Tipperary, Stephanie serves on the boards of Grace Outreach, Hand in Hand and National Executive Services Corps, and is a former board member of Good Shepherd Services. She is actively involved with Student Sponsored Partners and Christo Rey Schools, which recruits at-risk students who are motivated to take advantage of the opportunity for a quality high school education.

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Sinéad O’Connor

Touched by Fire

Sinéad rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra. She will release a new album under a new name, Magda Davitt, in 2019. In between she has battled mental illness and controversy – she was one of the first to speak out about the abuses by the Catholic Church – but hers remains one of the purest voices in music.

PHOTOFEST

By Rosemary Rogers

henever her name comes up these days, a momentary panic sets in: she must be dead, she must have committed the suicide she’s been threatening for years. Relief comes with the realization Sinéad O’Connor is still alive. Alive, but in pain so palpable it seems to echo the suffering of the Sacred Heart tattooed across her chest. The Sinéad O’Connor deathwatch then resumes. She flew too close to the sun until she flamed out in a most public and notorious way, especially as her downward spiral collided with social media. Her 2017 Facebook rant posted from a $75-a-night Travelodge in the “arse-end of New Jersey” showed a woman who bore little resemblance to the waifish vision of 1992. The singer who “didn’t want to be pretty” has finally gotten her wish – her beauty is destroyed. But even as the now-bloated tattooed matron cries into her iPad about her suicide attempts, divorces, lost children, and mental illness, the fire and fury that made her a transcendent artist are still there. When Sinéad O’Connor first came on the scene in 1987, bald women were objects of pity (and often revulsion), assumed to be tragic victims of cancer or some other horrid disease. Sinéad, in a business where everyone does their best to look their best, was the first

64 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

singer to perform with a shaved head because she didn’t want to be defined by her looks. Her rebellion backfired. Sinéad’s outré look set off an eerie loveliness and complemented her voice, a perfect instrument – both powerful and hypnotic that could range from a whisper to a frightening roar, a “banshee howl.” A gifted songwriter, song interpreter, producer, guitarist, and bassist, she could even act, once doing a turn as the Blessed Virgin Mary. Born in 1966, in Dublin, her family was musical and creative but tumultuous, especially after the parents separated. The father, knowing the mother to be unstable, alcoholic, and addicted to drugs, tried to get custody of the five children but failed. Life became a nightmare for the O’Connor kids who suffered under a mother daily assaulting them with brooms and hockey sticks while spewing curses. The eldest child, Joseph O’Connor, an award-winning novelist and Ireland’s Literary Ambassador, confirmed their mother, who died in a car crash in 1985, was indeed violent, but defended the father. Joseph insisted Sinéad has always had the support of her siblings and asks privacy for the O’Connor family, something impossible given his sister’s compulsion to broadcast everything, private or not. By the age of 14 Sinéad was a truant, troublemaker, and deft shoplifter, a skill she learned from her mother who would “go to hospitals and nick the crucifixes off the wall.” After running afoul of the Gardai too many times, Social Services sent her to a Magdalene Asylum run by the local church. Although charged with washing priests’ underpants, the stint put her in contact with a nun who changed her life – for the better. So moved by her singing, the nun bought Sinéad her first guitar, an instrument she learned instinctively. Once released, the teen landed a gig delivering Kiss-o-Grams, then began busking on the streets of Dublin looking to join a band. After forming a group, Ton Ton Macoute, she se-

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PHOTO: BRYAN LEDGARD / SOURCE: WIKI COMMONS

cured a record contract and a manager; by the time she was 20, Sinéad was a new mother writing songs with U2’s The Edge. The following year her first album, one that she produced alone, The Lion and the Cobra, was released. Record executives took her to lunch to mandate a new image: she needed to “sex up,” wear tight jeans, short skirts, high-heeled boots and let her mid-length hair grow long. The defiant singer saw it as an attempt to “make me look like their mistresses.” Midway through lunch, without saying a word, she walked out and went straight to the local barbershop, demanding her head be shaved. The barber complied, crying the entire time. 1987’s The Lion and the Cobra introduced Sinéad O’Connor, an indie singer before there was indie rock; the record got lot of play on alternative stations and college campuses. She followed with 1990’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, a breakout hit, selling five million records, winning three MTV video awards, four Grammy nominations and sweeping the Rolling Stone Readers and Critics Polls. She was an instant icon, an artist described by Rolling Stone as “a mystic, writing songs about desire, God, history, loss, revolt, damnation, and independence, all with equal passion.” On I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got she mastered musical genres from hip hop to Irish folk to punk and it was a song from this album, Prince’s

“Nothing Compares 2 U” (one that Prince had not yet recorded) that rose to the top of the charts and stayed there. The emotion she delivered in the song and the one perfect tear she shed in the video made her an international star. She was 21 and had the #1 song in the world. Immediately after this success, the icon turned into an iconoclast who spouted abrasive and uninformed opinions, making enemies along the way. Her first career-busting move was refusing to accept her Grammy award for “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a statement against “materialism in the music industry.” Gangsta rappers NWA, the “World’s Most Dangerous Group,” joined her boycott and she, in turn, wore their logo on her shaved head. Sheoutraged Frank Sinatra by refusing to sing the U.S. National Anthem at a concert, withdrew from her first Saturday Night Live appearance since misogynist Andrew Dice Clay was host, got into a fist fight with Prince because he objected to her language. She even made Mr. Blackwell’s worst-dressed list. It was her second appearance on SNL in 1992 that gave her the notoriety that shot around the world, a performance that will undoubtedly be the first line in her obituary. After singing Bob Marley’s “War,” she protested the sexual and physical abuse of children by clergymen and shredded a picture of Pope John Paul II, shouting, “Fight the real enemy.” The

ABOVE: Cambridge Folk Festival 50th Anniversary August 1, 2014. LEFT: “Behind the Music” publicity shot of Sinéad.

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Sinéad O’Connor

PHOTOFEST

PHOTOFES T

ABOVE AND RIGHT: Sinéad O’Connor in 1990. TOP RIGHT: Sinéad ripping up a photograph of the Pope on SNL in 1992.

audience froze, unable to clap or boo. Another O’Connor, the Archbishop of New York, was horrified, seeing voodoo and Satan behind the gesture, NBC banned her for life, and Madonna, an unlikely figure of righteous fury, announced she was shocked, shocked by Sinéad’s behavior. It should be mentioned that Madonna had recently posed naked, saving some elaborate bondage gear, to promote her new album Erotica and book Sex. A pop-up anti-Sinéad movement declared the USA a “Sinéad-O’Connor-free zone.” Today, what’s notable about this act of career suicide was how prophetic she was, the first celebrity to openly denounce pedophilia in the Catholic Church. When the floodgates finally opened, stories of the sexual abuse of children by priests were everywhere and billions paid to survivors. Years later, Sinéad said that night was “her proudest night ever, an artistic gesture made by an Irish female Catholic survivor of child abuse.” Not long after the SNL incident, she was a guest at a Madison Square Garden concert honoring Bob Dylan and his 30 years of protest music. Kris Kristofferson introduced Sinéad, saying, “Her name has become synonymous with courage and integrity,” but ironically, the audience of aging pro-

66 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

testors and hippies booed her off the stage. Kristofferson went to hug her, “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” Her response was instant, “I’m not down.” And she wasn’t. She had, as Joan Baez put it, “the courage to screw up.” After spending nine years dividing her time between London and Los Angeles, Sinéad returned to Dublin in 1992 to be with her son, Jake. But as her mental illness took on a life of its own, her personal life proved as shambolic as her professional. There were three more children, three more failed marriages, albums that performed poorly, and multiple suicide attempts. At different intervals she would announce a bipolar diagnosis (later redacted), PTSD, ADHD, homosexuality (later redacted), fibromyalgia, kidney stones, and had a devastating hysterectomy. It was getting exhausting reading about her and uncomfortable just looking at her. She continued to rail against the Catholic Church and the control it had over her country but, seemingly overnight, she forgave her childhood religion. In 1999, affirming her belief in the Holy Spirit, she became a Roman Catholic priest, ordained by Bishop Michael Cox, leader of the dissident Catholic Latin Tridentine Church. Her name was now Mother Bernadette Maria and she climbed up

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the church’s tiny ranks to become an Archdeacon. But she left the priesthood after declaring herself a Rasta. This, as it turned out, was a bad fit: Rastafarianism demand members let their hair grow long forever, no baldies need apply. They ban tattoos too, so even the large Lion of Judah on her arm was forbidden. As Sinéad kept spinning, the tabloids kept feasting. She began sporting a grey crewcut, branded the letters “B” and “Q” on her face, and had the effrontery to get fat. Her lawsuits were legion,as were open feuds with ex-husbands, ex-boyfriends, and ex-managers. She managed to resurrect Arsenio Hall, claiming he fed drugs to Prince. She sparred with Miley Cyrus, accusing the singer of debasing her music with overt sexuality. She immersed herself in social media, not a good move for one so disturbed and so devoid of filters. She announced on Twitter, Facebook, and her website that she was looking for a “sweet sex-starved man,” who, among the specs, had to be employed, hairy and not named Nigel. One tweet brought forth Husband #4, Barry Herridge, a Vegas marriage, divorce after 16 days, and another breakdown. The ongoing Sinéad spectacle eclipsed the memory of her genius until 2014 and a successful album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss, with great songs and Sinéad’s new and, yes, sexy look. One song about her flirtation with suicide, “Eight Good Reasons,” has these painful and autographical lyrics,

hospital she first raved about but, after 23 days, ranted against (“lax suicide watch”), both reviews landing, of course, on Facebook. What’s important to note about her psychotic episodes is that they weren’t fueled by drink (“I’m allergic to alcohol”), or drugs. Whether she was “born that way” – inheritor of her mother’s insanity – or irrevocably damaged by her mother’s abuse, is almost irrelevant. She is a great artist, a profound spirit, whose survival seems doubtful. Stephen Spender’s lines in “The Truly Great” seem to be written about her, Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

By way of a new start, she changed her name, “Sinéad is dead…free of the patriarchal slave

You know I’m not from this place I’m from a different time, different space And it’s real uncomfortable To be stuck somewhere you don’t belong.

The comeback didn’t last. A series of surgeries, including one in California when her liver was accidently sliced, left her in continual pain. Suicidal and very alone, she somehow arrived at the New Jersey Travelodge, iPad in hand, to post the infamous video on August 8, 2017. It’s heartbreaking to watch, as tearful Sinéad admits, “My entire life revolves around just not dying and that’s not living.” The video went viral and overnight, she became a symbol for the many millions who suffer from mental illness, “the most vulnerable people on Earth,” deserted by society and family. Her cry, “You’ve got to take care of us…we’re not like everyone else,” inspired fans and fellow artists to offer her love and support. She was heard, too, by America’s avuncular shrink, Dr. Phil McGraw, who put her on his talk show in September 2017. On Dr. Phil she blamed much of her sickness on her mother who ran a “torture chamber” at home, refused to wash, and “smelled of evil.” Dr. Phil sent her to his rehab, a

PHOTO: GRUSSWORTE / WIKI COMMONS

names. Free of the parental curses.” Her new name, Magda Davitt, is heavy with biblical references. Magda is the German form of Magdalene and Davitt derived from the Irish Gaelic “meaning son of David.” This is the name she will use to tour, the name she will use to advocate for the mentally ill, the name she will use to destigmatize the disease. Let’s hope this crusade will be her legacy, not her decades of bizarre behavior. Let’s hope Magda Davitt finds the peace Sinéad O’ConIA nor could not.

ABOVE: Sinéad O’Connor, November 7, 2014, in Lugano, Switzerland.

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by Mary Gallagher

The Murray T

17th-century Protestant farmer from Derry, he surname Murray rewho enlisted in the Protestant Army in the flects the historic ties between 1689 War of the Two Kings. His strategy Ireland and Scotland, and sigand courage are credited with keeping nifies the bearer’s roots in the the Protestant side in the fight during early kingdom of Moray. the early years, and he was apLocated in the northeast of the pointed commander of his country, with coastline on the hometown’s cavalry regiment Moray Firth, the area took its after he and his men kept it name from the native Scottish from being taken by the JacoGaelic word moireabh, meaning bites. Murray even turned “seaboard settlement.” down the role of governor to Murray’s strong base in remain in active service. Ireland is partially due to an Sir Terence Aubrey Murray influx of Scottish immigrants (1810–1873) was a 19th-century into Ulster during the medieval PHOTO: ARALTAS.COM Australian farmer, native to period. However, Co. RoscomCounty Limerick. He served in Australia’s fledgling mon also lays claim to original Murrays, dating parliament as the Speaker of the New South Wales back to the early 700s and the Siol MuireadLegislative Assembly from 1860–1862. Known as haigh (Silmurray) family, whose seat was in a diligent and fair leader, Murray was made presiAthlone. In Irish, the name is spelled Muireaddent of the Legislative Council, the upper house of haigh, and is translated to mean “lord and masthe governing body, which position he retained until ter,” with derivatives Gilmore and Kilmore his death. (from Irish Giolla Mhuire) contradictorily sigMurray’s sons carved out their own niches, with nifying “servant of the Virgin Mary.” the eldest, Sir Hubert Murray (1861–1940), servThe name was first anglicized to O’Murry, ing as a judge and then Lieutenant Governor in ultimately shifting to Murray in the 1600s, but British-owned New Guinea. The younger son, still owns variants in the names Murry, MacGilbert Murray (1866–1957), was a professor at Murry, MacIlmurray, Morrow, MacMorrow, Glasgow and then Oxford University, where he was and Mac Murchadha, the clan descended from renowned for his translations of Greek drama and Dermot McMurrough (1110-d.1171), the depoetry, particularly for his dedication to preserving posed Irish king of Leinster and Dublin who PH0TO: WIKIPEDIA rhyme schemes where predecessors had failed. will be forever blamed for inviting the English Thomas Cornelius Murray (1873–1959) was a into Ireland in his effort to recover his throne. Cork playwright whose bleak dramas, mainly cenWhether the Murray clan truly originated in tered on the family unit and oppressive social norms Ireland, or not, the name took a firm hold in Ireland, made up an integral portion of the Irish there. Counting among the 20 most common Literary Revival. Murray co-founded the Little Irish names around the world, it has been Theatre in Cork, where he produced an early verworn proudly by a number of prominent figsion of his play Sovereign Love, and his plays were ures, dotting both history and pop culture. Bishop Donogh O’Murry (b. 1501), of the a regular feature of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Roscommon faction, served as the archbishop founded by fellow Revivalists including Lady Greof Tuam for 26 years, starting in 1548. He was gory and William Butler Yeats. responsible for establishing the In the world of business, one of the early episcopate of Galway (then FROM TOP: early Murrays to make his mark was Robert Murray (1721-1786), who immiknown as the “Wardenship of Gal- The Murray Coat grated from County Armagh to Pennsylway,”) permitting the province’s of Arms. photo of vania in 1732, and went on to establish severance from Tuam, and oversee- Publicity Fred MacMurray himself as a merchant and shipping maging its Church of Saint Nicholas el- from the 1930s. nate in New York City. Today the Murray evated to the status of collegiate Canadian singer Anne Murray in Hill neighborhood in midtown Manhatchurch. PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE FRASER the 1970s. Adam Murray (d. 1700) was a tan, where Murray had a great house and MACPHERSON ESTATE /WIKIPEDIA. 68 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

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Clan

country, Murray brought the surname of her Irish and Scottish grandfather, Daniel, to the forefront of the music industry. Actor Bill Murray (b. 1950) is best known for his memorable comedic performances in movies such as Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), and Groundhog Day (1993). First gaining note when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1976 in its second season, his roots are undoubtedly in comedy, but Murray has definitely shown significant prowess in drama as well, earning an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe win for his starring role in 2004’s Lost in Translation. Proud of his Irish heritage, Murray sat down for an interview with Irish America in 1988. And finally there is Irish America’s cover story on Eileen Murray, who has attained incredible success in the financial world, and today acts as co-CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. The Murrays’ long tradition of being movers and shakers has seen several dominate in various industries, including entertainment and finance, and strongly echoes their diverse origins. Wherever they come from, and whatever their field, they make their presence known, and can only be expected to produce more Murrays of note in the IA future. PH0TO: WIKIPEDIA

farm, is a reminder of his success. Though he was not born to it, ballroom dancer and instructor Arthur Murray (1895–1991) made the appellation a household name throughout the United States, offering dance lessons under his franchise, Arthur Murray Studios. The chain was founded in 1938 and is still in operation today, years after his death in 1991. Born Moses Teichman in Austria-Hungary, he adopted the name he would use for the rest of his life in 1914, due to negative reception of names that sounded even remotely German after the start of World War I. Ruby Murray (1935–1996) was a singer from Belfast who started performing publicly at the age of 12 in 1947, and continued until her death. Her trademark husky voice, a result of surgery on her glands as an infant, would eventually make her an international sensation: Murray goes down in history the first of a select few performers to have five songs ranked in the British Top Twenty simultaneously, in March of 1955. Her name alone became a British colloquialism as a rhyming synonym for curry, and Murray herself remains an iconic symbol of innocent, soulful ballads of the early 1950s, long after being ushered out by the introduction of rock and roll. Don Murray (b. 1929) is an American actor who was most active during the 1950s–80s. He was best known for his breakout film role in Bus Stop in 1956, in which he played opposite Marilyn Monroe, and was nominated for an Oscar. Murray also starred alongside James Cagney in 1959’s Shake Hands with the Devil, playing a Irish-American student in 1921 Dublin who gets caught up in the Irish War for Independence. Frederick Martin MacMurray (1908–1991) was an American actor, best known for his role in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder, in which he starred with Barbara Stanwyck. He appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series; he played the widowed father on My Three Sons, from 1960 to 1972. Canadian singer Anne Murray (b. 1945) is a pioneer in the music business in many respects. Touted as “Canada’s Songbird” during her career of thirty-plus years, Murray became the first female Canadian vocalist to have a number one hit in the United States. She was also both the first woman and the first Canadian to be awarded “Album of the Year” by the Country Music Association. With a career spanning multiple genres, including pop and

FROM TOP: Gravestone at Ferns Cathedral. This is said to be the gravestone of Diarmait Mac Murchada (Dermot McMurrough). Bill Murray at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con International in San Diego, California.

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and Irish Home Rule Born a slave, Frederick Douglass died as a champion of human rights, and Ireland played an important role in his political awakening. By Christine Kinealy

n 1845, Ireland provided a safe refuge to Frederick Douglass, a 27-year-old “fugitive” slave from America. Douglass described his four months in the country as the “happiest times” in his life and the Irish people as the most “ardent” abolitionists that he had ever encountered. His stay in Ireland also proved to be “transformative” because, for the first time in his life, Douglass felt that he was being treated “like a man and not a color.” Douglass never forgot his sojourn in Ireland and the kindness shown to him. Moreover, his Irish experiences and encounters helped to shape his subsequent political development, including his support for Irish independence. What steps led Douglass to Ireland and to his involvement in the so-called “Irish Question” ? Frederick Bailey was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818 although, as was common amongst slaves, he never knew his actual birthday. When only a teenager, he determined to escape from bondage, finally doing so when aged 20. Upon arrival in New York in 1838, he married Anna Murray, a free black woman who had helped him to escape. Shortly afterwards, he changed his surname to Douglass. Unlike thousands of other runaway slaves who chose to migrate to Canada, Frederick and Anna settled in the Quaker port of New Bedford. This decision was based on Douglass’s determination to give his support to the abolitionist movement in America. This was not without risk. Even though he was residing in one of the so-called Free States, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 meant that Douglass was in constant danger of being seized and returned to his “master.” In 1841, Douglass spoke at an abolitionist meeting in Nantucket, where he was heard by the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, William Lloyd Garrison. Like the rest of the audience, Garrison was mesmerized by the runaway slave’s compelling life-story and his powerful oratory. He offered Douglass a position as a lecturer with his organization. Douglass accepted although he knew the danger of being in the public eye. The publication of Douglass’s best-selling lifestory, the “Narrative” in May 1845 propelled him to the forefront of the abolitionist movement. It also greatly increased the likelihood of his

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being captured. Douglass was persuaded to travel to Britain, where he would be safe and where he could promote the work of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He agreed reluctantly, leaving his wife and four small children behind while he made a journey into the unknown. Douglass sailed from Boston to Liverpool in August 1845. Because of his color, he was forced to travel in steerage, despite the purchase of a first-class ticket. Two days following his arrival in Liverpool, Douglass sailed to Dublin to meet with a Quaker printer, Richard Webb, who had offered to print an Irish version of his “Narrative.” Upon landing in Ireland, Douglass immediately wrote to his mentor, Garrison, that he was now “safe in old Ireland.” He intended to spend only four days in the country, but the warmth of the welcome meant that he stayed for four months, lecturing on abolition in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Youghal, Cork, Limerick, and Belfast. Douglass’s visit coincided with a struggle for Irish independence taking place. Even before arriving in Ireland, Douglass knew of Daniel O’Connell and of his role in winning Catholic Emancipation. More significantly, he was also aware of O’Connell’s vociferous championing of abolition and his unequivocal defense of black people as being the equal of whites. On September 29, 1845, Douglass attended a Repeal meeting in Dublin. At the end of the meeting, Douglass was invited on stage by O’Connell, who asked him to address the audience. It was during this impromptu speech that Douglass stated that his people needed a “Black O’Connell” to lead them to freedom. His comment was to prove prophetic. Douglass was aware that Ireland, its poverty, its people, and their passionate defence of abolition had changed him, writing to Garrison: I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but

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that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over. He who really and only feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart of the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith. Douglass left Ireland in January 1846 and from there he traveled to Scotland and then on to England to continue with what was increasingly his “lonely pilgrimage”. Douglass finally returned to the U.S. in April 1847, and as a free man, his “freedom” having been purchased by women abolitionists in England. The agency and independence that Douglass had experienced while in exile were immediately evident as soon after arriving home, he moved his

family to Rochester and launched his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star. Garrison disapproved of both actions. In 1848, Douglass attended the Seneca Falls Convention where he was one of a handful of men, and the only black man, to sign the Declaration of Sentiments. Over the subsequent decades, Douglass would continue to agitate for abolition, and, following the Civil War, for equality for his people. But, as he had realized in Ireland, the cause of his people was part of his larger quest for social justice for all. In 1886, Douglass decided to return to Europe, to revisit the people and places that had welcomed him forty years earlier. Unlike then, he now travelled as an American citizen who was allowed to sail in first class. At the end of his one-year journey, Douglass travelled to Ireland. He did so because he wished “to once more look into the faces and hear the voices of the few remaining friends who gave me sympathy and support during my visit 41 years ago.” Sadly, all of his Irish hosts were now dead. He met with their children, however, and in Dublin stayed with Alfred Webb, son of Richard and a Quaker nationalist. Douglass’s second visit to Ireland coincided with another struggle for independence taking place, the constitutional Repeal movement of the 1840s having been succeeded by another peaceful political movement known as Home Rule. Widespread agitation, spearheaded by Charles Stewart Parnell, had resulted in the introduction of the Government of Ireland Bill, more popularly known as the First Home Rule Bill, in April 1886. It was introduced by the Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone, but it failed to be passed by the Westminster Parliament. To oppose the Home Rule movement, the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union had been founded in Dublin in 1885. The intrepid Douglass inserted himself into this political cauldron. Douglass would have encountered the Home Rule movement and its supporters in America. The Irish demand for independence divided AfricanAmerican opinion in the 1880s. This was largely due to the fact that the Irish in America had been weak on, or opposed to, abolition before the Civil War, and a number were racists, as the New York Draft Riots of 1863 had demonstrated. Douglass, however, had always made a distinction between the Irish in Ireland and the Irish in America. In 1886, he had written to the Boston Pilot stating that he had “never allowed the unfriendly attitude of Irish men in this country toward colored people to dim my vision as to the just rights of Irishmen at home.” Before sailing to Europe, Douglass publicly demonstrated his sympathy with the Home Rule

LEFT: Statue of Frederick Douglass by sculptor Andrew Edwards. It depicts F.D. when he was in Ireland, aged 27, and wearing Daniel O’Connell’s cloak and Abraham Lincoln’s waistcoat. In his left hand, Douglass is holding his “Narrative.” The statue is located in College Park, at the University of Maryland.

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RIGHT: Daniel O’Connell who greatly influenced Frederick Douglass.

Professor Christine Kinealy is Director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University. She is curator of the“Frederick Douglass in Ireland: ‘The Black O’Connell’” exhibit, at Quinnipiac University, which is open to the public, and her major publication Frederick Douglass and Ireland: In his own words (2 vols) was published by Routledge in July 2018 and provides a full, annotated transcript of every speech that Douglass made while he was in Ireland in 1845, in addition to his subsequent major speeches on Ireland.

agitation in Ireland and with William Gladstone, the English politician who was giving support to it, at an abolitionist dinner in Boston, he told his audience: I shall remember your injunction to extend your sympathy to all men oppressed; and I shall not hesitate to declare my own entire sympathy with that grand old man, Mr. Gladstone, in his endeavors to remove the reproach of oppression from England and to extend the desired liberty to Ireland. In 1886 also, Douglass published an 18-page article entitled “Thoughts and Recollections on Ireland.” In it, he reflected on his first visit to the country and on Ireland’s continuing poverty and colonial status. He described the country as “the land of Burke and Sheridan, of Grattan and Curran, of O’Connell and Father Matthew [sic]; a land renowned in song and story for its statesmen, orators, patriots, and heroes, but alas! a land which has been for ages the scene of misrule and social misery….”Again, Douglass praised Gladstone for being the first British statesman who had attempted to resolve the issue. Pointing to the success of the Irish overseas, he stated, “Irishmen are said to rule everywhere except in Ireland.” Douglass concluded the article by saying: I have favored ‘Home Rule’ for Ireland for two reasons: First, because Ireland wants ‘Home Rule,’ and Secondly, because it will free England from the charge of continued oppression of Ireland… I am for fair play for the Irishman, the negro, the Chinaman, and for all men of whatever country or clime, and for allowing them to work out their own destiny without outside interference. Douglass’s support for Home Rule continued following his return to the U.S. In December 1887, only months after his visit to Ireland, Douglass attended a meeting in Washington in support of Irish independence. Sir Thomas Grattan Esmonde and the Hon. Arthur O’Connor, two Home Rule MPs, attended, as did eight senators and 52 members of Congress. Twenty thousand people had accompanied the speakers to the hall. Douglass, who was part of the platform party, was the final speaker. When he rose to speak, he received “great applause.” Douglass commenced his speech with typical humor, making fun of the fact that he was the only black speaker present and saying he had attended “to give color” to the proceedings. He continued

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by reminiscing on his first time in Ireland, telling the audience: More than forty years ago I had the pleasure and the privilege of standing on the banks of the Liffey, side by side with the great Daniel O’Connell (great applause) and at that time I declared, before a vast audience in Conciliation Hall, my conviction of the justice, the wisdom, the necessity, and the final triumph of the repeal of the Union. I heard something of the breadth and comprehensiveness of the Irish heart from that great and good man and I am, therefore, with every other American, of whatever color or class, an out and out Home Ruler for Ireland and an out-and-out Home Ruler for every man in this Republic. Douglass concluded his speech by linking the rights of black people with those of the Irish saying, “I am here advocating my rights as well as the rights of Ireland.” One of Douglass’s final public roles was to serve as Consul General to Haiti from 1889 to 1891. His defense and support for the first Black Republic was absolute, refusing to let the US recolonize part of the island for strategic reasons – so instead, they set their sights on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. In 1893, in a speech defending Haiti, the influence of Ireland was evident, as it had been in so many junctures in Douglass’s life: It was once said by the great Daniel O’Connell, that the history of Ireland might be traced, like a wounded man through a crowd, by the blood. The same may be said of the history of Haiti as a free state. Her liberty was born in blood, cradled in misfortune, and has lived more or less in a storm of revolutionary turbulence. Douglass died in February 1895. He was 77 years old, although he passed away without knowing the day or year of his birth. Poignantly, he died following his attendance at a conference for women’s suffrage – a cause that he had championed his whole life. Newspapers in Ireland from the Cork Examiner to the Belfast News-Letter reported his death. Douglass had been born a slave but he died as a champion of international human rights. Ireland had played an important role in his political awakening and just as Douglass never forgot Ireland, Ireland and IA Irish America have not forgotten Douglass.

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music |

by geoffrey Cobb

Turlough o’Carolan

The blind Irish minstrel who became the 18thcentury equivalent of a rock star.

BELOW: O’Carolan’s harp, Clonalis House, Castlerea, County Roscommon.

n 1691, a poor, blind, twenty-one year old son of a blacksmith and his guide set out on a journey from a backwater estate, Alderford, near the town of Balyfarnon, County Roscommon, hoping to make a living as an itinerant harper. He seemed an unlikely figure to leave a lasting stamp on Ireland’s musical culture, yet Turlough O’Carolan would become a great composer, creating some of the most hauntingly melodies that ever came out of Ireland. His music is even said to have inspired the “Star Spangled Banner.” O’Carolan’s achievements are even more amazing when you consider the backstory. Born in 1670 on a farm in Nobber, County Meath, at a time when Ireland was still suffering the reverberations of Oliver Cromwell’s “To Hell or Connaught” land confiscations, the family moved, first to Carrig-on-Shannon in County Leitrim, and then, in 1684, to Ballyfarnon, a village in what is now Northern Roscommon. His father, Hugh, found employment on the estate of the McDermott Roes, a leading Irish family of the old Gaelic order who, despite being Catholic, had managed to retain substantial landholding. The lady of the house, Mary McDermott Roe, took a liking to 14-year-old Turlough, and saw to it that he got some schooling. He proved himself adept at

poetry and verse, yet any dreams he may have had of scholarly pursuits were not to be. The plan was that he would follow his father into the blacksmithing trade but fate intervened. At 18, O’Carolan was stricken with smallpox and nearly died. He survived, but the disease left him permanently blind. Again, Mrs. McDermott Roe rose to the occasion, arranging for Turlough to have lessons on the harp. In those days, music was often the only possible livelihood for the blind. It was learned by repetition and transmitted from teacher to student orally. Also, for centuries, the harper, like the poets enjoyed an elevated social position in Ireland, and were welcomed in the houses of wealthy landowners, in exchange for compositions and verse that praised their hosts. The harp was a symbol of Irish nationalism, and harpists were often the political commentators of the day, feared for their satirical verses. So much so, that during Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland, harpists were hunted down and killed, their instruments destroyed. By 1691, the courts of Irish chieftains who had once patronized the harpists were long gone. Nonetheless, there were still, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, enough Irish families with the means to support O’Carolan in his travels as an itinerant musician. There were also the more recently arrived Protestant gentry who, curious about the ancient folk culture of the land they dominated, welcomed O’Carolan into their homes as a living vestige of Gaelic Ireland.

o’Carolan’s FirsT DisappoinTing gig

PHOTO: COURTESY OF FÁILTE IRELAND

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O’Carolan’s first stop on his journey away from the McDermott Roe estate was at the landed property of Squire George Reynolds. Legend has it that the squire, who was himself a harpist and a poet, did not think much of the young harpist’s talent. “You might make a better hand of your tongue than of your fingers,” the Squire is reputed to have said. He suggested that O’Carolan compose a tune about a legendary battle between the fairies that took place in the nearby hills. O’Carolan complied and his “Sheebeg” is still played today. O’Carolan had found a niche. He would match the

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LEFT: The only known image of O’Carolan created during his lifetime. BELOW: O‘Carolan’s grave in County Roscommon.

music he played and wrote to the taste of his hosts. He might play traditional Gaelic airs for one patron, and an Italian-influenced melody for another. He typically came up with the tune first, riding on horseback while composing. He then added words to the melody. Often his tunes were joyful “planxties” – a word that he is said to have invented. They were akin to jigs for the harp. The blind bard toured Ireland for more than four decades. As his fame spread weddings, even funerals, were sometimes delayed until he arrived to perform. Unlike many tormented musical geniuses who lived on the fringes, O’Carolan’s music gained him entrée into the most elite circles of Irish society. He dined at the tables of lords, high churchmen and university professors. At the homes of the elite, O’Carolan discovered the Italian Baroque style of Corelli, Vivaldi, and Geminiani, whom he greatly admired. He began incorporating Baroque elements into his own music, skillfully weaving continental rhythms into a distinctively Gaelic musical language. He incorporated Italian concerto and giga, the French menuette and gigue, the Renaissance branle and the medieval estampie, combining them with subtly irregular phrase lengths, which are a distinctive feature of his compositions. One of his patrons, perhaps the greatest Irish genius of the age, was Dean Jonathon Swift. Legend has it that O’Carolan met up with a group of Italian musicians at a party in Swift’s home and challenged the violinist and music teacher Francesco Geminiani to a test of musical skill. The Italian accepted and played from Vivaldi’s Fifth Violin Concerto. Hoping to have some fun at O’Carolan’s expense, he made deliberate mistakes. The bard was not to be fooled. “It limps and stumbles,” O’Carolan exclaimed in Irish, when Geminiani finished. He then played the same piece on his harp, without error. The amazed

Italians declared him a musical genius. He followed this with the first performance of “Mrs. Powers,” known now as “O’Carolan’s Concerto.” A marriage of the Irish tradition with the Baroque, the concerto was said to be a favorite of all his compositions. He fashioned it in honor of Elizabeth Keating, a patron, who became Mrs. Power of Coorheen, County Galway.

O’CAROLAN’S LOVES

O’Carolan’s first great love was a girl who lived near his birthplace in Nobber, County Meath. As a boy, he attended a school that was run by a wealthy landowning family and fell in love with the daughter of the house, Bridget Cruise. Bridget’s parents would never have allowed a romance between their daughter and a peasant like O’Carolan to blossom. And in any case, Turlough’s family were uprooted when he was 14 and he left Nobber. Still, his affection for Bridget remained lifelong, and he composed four airs in her honor. Legend has it that after many years had passed, the blind bard went on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s purgatory in Lough Derg, County Donegal. Returning to the shore, O’Carolan began assisting his fellow pilgrims out of the boat. Upon taking the hand one woman, he is said to have exclaimed in a loud voice, “This is the hand of Bridget Cruise,” and it was. O’Carolan did marry, but not to Bridget. He married Mary Maguire, who is said to have been from County Fermanagh, and of higher birth than the harpist. There is some disagreement about the year of their marriage; some records state it was in 1720 when O’Carolan was 50 years old, others say he marSEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018 IRISH AMERICA 75

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music | the irish vivaldi ried younger. The couple had seven children, six girls and a boy. They lived on a farm in Mohill, County Leitrim until Mary’s death in 1733. We know far too little about Turlough O’Carolan, but much of the lore around the great harpist relates to his love of drinking. It’s said that a doctor advised him to abstain for the good of his health, and he did, but as a result, he became depressed and his harp lay “neglected and unstrung.” Another physician, Dr. John Stafford of Elphin, County Roscommon, who happened to be a friend, convinced the bard to take up the drink again. He immediately felt better and composed a stanza in Irish that comes down to us as:

lifted, and to thank his doctor friend, he composed a celebratory tune, ever after known as “Carolan’s Receipt to Stafford.” In 1738, at the age of 68, O’Carolan sensed that the end was nigh. He made his way back to the home of Mrs. McDermott Roe, and wrote these touching lines in praise of his patroness who had changed his life: Mary Fitzgerald, dear heart, Love of my breast and my friend, Alas, that I am parting from you, O Lady who succored me at every stage.

In his final days, O’Carolan requested his harp and played the hauntingly beautiful “Farewell to Music,” a tune in the old Gaelic tradition. His remains were laid out in the greatest style and news of his death spread across the country. He was waked for four days and buried on the fifth in the MacDermott Roe family crypt in Kilronan graveyard near Ballyfarnon, County Roscommon. Ten harpers attended night and day. They followed the funeral procession and played a dirge over his grave. His great friend and fellow harper, Charles MacCabe, however, was absent from the funeral and distraught to have missed it, he wrote the most beautiful elegy to O’Carolan in Gaelic about visiting the bard’s grave, that in part reads: Alas, that I am not buried along with Turlough! O tombstone, what joy it were to be laid with him, With the world’s music to be with one for company.

Mohill, Co. Leitrim: Sculpture of O’Carolan by the Irish artist Oisin Kelly

He’s a fool who gives up the liquor, It softens the skinflint at once, It urges the slow coach on quicker, Gives spirit and brains to the dunce. The man who is dumb as a rule Discovers a great deal to say, While he who is bashful since Yule Will talk in an amorous way. It’s drink that uplifts the coward To give battle in France and in Spain, Now here is an end of my turn And fill me that bumper again!

O’Carolan drank freely after that, his depression 76 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

O’Carolan left some two hundred tunes. Most of his compositions were not published or even written down in his lifetime. They survived in the repertoires of fiddlers, pipers, and the last of the old Irish harper/singers. They were collected and published during the late 18th century and beyond, largely beginning with the work of Edward Bunting and his assistants in 1792. For many years, though his music was not widely known, even in Ireland. In 1967, Seán O’Riada helped revive the music of O’Carolan with his solo recordings and his recordings with Ceoltóirí Chualann of O’Carolan’s Concerto, which was recorded on the disc Ceol na Nuasal. Much of the popularity of O’Carolan’s music is thanks to Derek Bell of the Chieftains who helped present it to a worldwide audience. The annual O’Carolan Harp Festival and Summer School commemorates his life and work in Keadue, IA County Roscommon. Geoffrey Cobb is writing a performance piece on the life and music of O’Carolan.

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Jiggs and Maggie The impact Irish creators and their characters had on the funny, and not-so funny, papers is examined by Tom Deignan

ater this year, Hollywood funnyman Seth Rogen (This is 40, Knocked Up) and his regular collaborator, Evan Goldberg, will begin overseeing production of a new Amazon series called The Boys, a kind of next-generation comicbook drama set in a world where superheroes have become so famous they have actually started to abuse their powers. The Boys is based on a comic book series written by County Down-born Garth Ennis, who is also the creative force behind the comic book series Preacher, which has been turned into a celebrated AMC series with the same title, starring Dominic Cooper and Ireland-raised, Academy Award nominee, Ruth Negga. Ennis has been a successful comics writer for decades, beginning with his late-1980s Northern Ireland series Troubled Souls, a collaboration with Belfast-born artist John McRea. Ennis and McRea are merely the latest in a long line of Irish and Irish American artists who have left an indelible mark on the comic book industry, which, in many ways, has revolutionized the 21st-century world of entertainment. Stretching back to the urchins who yukked it up on the first Sunday funny pages, through radio programs inspired by comic books, right up to longer, darker works like Preacher and The Road to Perdition, Irish comic characters and creators have played a central role in this massively popular art form. It was a non-Irishman, however, who created one of the most popular “Irish Kid” comic characters of all time. Richard Felton Outcault was born in 1863 in Lancaster, Ohio, far from the crowded New York slums that housed Irish Famine immigrants and their children. Yet Outcault, who moved to New York in 1890, would go on to become a newspaper artist and – for better or worse – create one of the most influential images of the Irish in America, reflecting both the negative stereotypes and harsh realities of immigrant life. In the mid-1890s he created the comic figure Mickey Dugan, known to millions simply as “The Yellow Kid.” Dugan lived in a fictional place called Hogan’s Alley. But his real home was the wildly popular Sunday newspaper comics pages which were

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first introduced in the 1890s. Clad in a yellow pajama shirt, bald so that he could fend off pervasive lice, Mickey Dugan is the source of the infamous term “yellow journalism,” and changed the media landscape forever. Outcault is credited with not only creating memorable characters, but also popularizing key staples of the comics form, including using word balloons for dialogue. “The Yellow Kid was not an individual but a type,” Outcault once said. “When I used to go about the slums on newspaper assignments I would encounter him often, wandering out of doorways or sitting down on dirty doorsteps. I always loved the Kid. He had a sweet character and a sunny disposition, and was generous to a fault. Malice, envy, or selfishness were not traits of his, and he never lost his temper.” (The reality of Irish youth on the streets was a lot more harsh. Famous social reformer Jacob Riis once noted that nearly one of every five people charged with unlawful begging in New York in 1889 were Irish.) The first full-color Yellow Kid comic ran in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World newspaper in February, 1895. The Kid proved so popular that in 1896, William Randolph Hearst lavished money on Outcault, convincing the artist to bring his Irish characters to the rival New York Journal-American.

Jiggs and Maggie

The Kid started a movement and soon most national newspapers had full-color comics pages, and they were bursting with all aspects of immigrant life. “By the early 20th century, a new wave of immigration had greatly increased the ethnic populations of the United States, and this demographic change was reflected in the comics,” a fact noted in the book Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas. Among the most popular was The Katzenjammer Kids, a strip which reflected German-American life. But there was also the Irish-American married couple Jiggs and Maggie in the comic strip Bringing Up Father, which debuted in 1913 and – astonishingly – ran in different versions with different writers and artists all the way up until 2000. Bringing Up Father was created by St. Louis-born Irish American George McManus, who found humor not

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only in immigrant life, but the clash of Maggie’s “lace curtain” aspirations and George’s “shanty” roots. Jiggs and Maggie proved so popular with early 20th century audiences that they would appear on Broadway stages throughout the 1920s in shows which placed the family in Florida and even Ireland. Bringing Up Father would later inspire a radio series, silent films, and talkies, with Hollywood veteran Agnes Moorehead in the role of Maggie. In later movies such as Jiggs and Maggie in Society and Jiggs and Maggie Out West, Jiggs was portrayed by Joe Yule, whose son, also named Joseph, would become better known by his stage name, Mickey Rooney.

Famous Irish Roots

Meanwhile, another media revolution was unleashed in 1938, when a flying hero called Superman appeared on the cover of Action Comics #1 – a copy of which sold a few years back for over $3 million. For all of their fantasy and futuristic touches, old-world immigrants were central to the so-called “Golden Age” of comics. As a recent Religious News Service feature put it, “the very origins of the superhero industry in the United States… was a Jewish business.” Superman was created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel. Stan Lee created Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four. Batman was the brainchild of Bob Kane, born Robert Kahn in New York City in 1915. For the Irish there was Steve Rogers – better known as Captain America, who debuted in 1941, and is at the center of Avengers: Infinity War, the latest blockbuster from Disney’s Marvel Studios. It’s widely acknowledged that Captain America is the

son of immigrants from Ireland who settled in New York’s Lower East Side. Two decades later, 1961, another iconic Marvel character with Irish roots, Hell’s Kitchen native Matt Murdock, “a redhaired Irish Catholic ...raised in poverty,” made his debut as Daredevil, as the recent book Working-Class Comic Book Heroes notes. Ben Affleck played Daredevil in the 2003 movie and Netflix is currently in Season 3 of a Daredevil series. Meanwhile, the fabled X-Men series debuted Dublin bad boy (cousin of another character named Banshee) Black Tom Cassidy in 1976. The Irish and other ethnicities were so central to the Golden Age of comics that in Michael Chabon’s celebrated novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, the author made sure that three of his

ABOVE LEFT: Captain America’s debut had him knocking out Hitler in 1941. ABOVE RIGHT: Jiggs getting himself into trouble again over breakfast. ABOVE: One of the earliest depictions of the Irish in American comics “The Yellow Kid”. FAR LEFT TOP: County Down’s Garth Ennis’ debut of The Boys. FAR LEFT BOTTOM: Another Ennis creation, Preacher is enjoying great success as it is one of the latest comic book to T.V. adaptations.

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Just before that, Murphy’s son writes, “our family relocated to Ireland” for two years, while Murphy was also writing and drawing a boxing strip called Big Ben Bolt. A subsequent Bank of Ireland strike provided Murphy with an opportunity to both dazzle his children and put his art to more practical use. “We had finally run out of cash,” Cullen Murphy writes. “How could we get cash? My father went to his drawing board.” John Cullen Murphy proceeds to create his own artful Bank of Ireland checks, complete with “his own fanciful version of the bank’s great seal.” Local shopkeepers never questioned Murphy’s fiscal art. “The character Harold in Crockett Johnson’s famous children’s book uses a purple crayon to draw his own reality wherever he goes,” writes Murphy. “My father apparently possessed this same power. Every cartoonist did.”

The New Generation

John Cullen Murphy worked on the medieval fantasy comic strip, Prince Valiant from 1970 until his retirement in 2004.

striving young comic creators were Irish, Italian, and Jewish kids from New York’s ethnic enclaves. Like Daredevil, one of Chabon’s aspiring artists is Davy O’Dowd, “born in Hell’s Kitchen,” having “lost part of an ear in a fight when he was 12.”

Pogo and the Prince

As for popular real-life, Irish-American artists, there was Walt Kelly (1913-1973), a Philadelphia native best known for his strip Pogo, an absurdist take on modern life featuring animals debating various issues of the day. At the height of its popularity, Pogo was widely syndicated, and ran in various forms from the 1940s to the 1990s. Then there was the cartoonist and illustrator, John Cullen Murphy, the subject of a new book called Cartoon County: My Father and his Friends in the Golden Age of Make-Believe. Written by Murphy’s son, Cullen Murphy (an author and former editor at the Atlantic Monthly), Cartoon County is about a collection of cartoonists who all lived in one Connecticut town, but also about the eight Murphy children, and time they spent in Ireland. John Cullen Murphy is best known for his decades of work on the popular adventure comic Prince Valiant, which he took over as illustrator from the comic’s creator Hal Foster in 1970, with his son, Cullen taking over as the writer of the series in 1979. 80 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

Even as Prince Valiant and Pogo continued running in newspapers, comics – and the entire entertainment industry – underwent a radical evolution in the late 1980s, beginning with Irish-American actor Michael Keaton’s star turn as Batman in director Tim Burton’s dark new take on Gotham’s caped crusader. Suddenly, superheroes were complicated, and comic books – and longer so-called “graphic novels” – became equally complex. One of the most interesting of the 1990s was The Road to Perdition, about an Irish-American gangster named Michael O’Sullivan, (based loosely on the real-life criminal John Patrick Looney). In 2002, The Road to Perdition was turned into an acclaimed movie starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, and directed by Academy Award-winner Sam Mendes. The Irish in comics and graphic novels have become only more prominent in the 21st century, with artists like Derek McCulloch exploring 100 years of the Irish immigrant experience in Gone to Amerikay, Christine Kinealy and John Walsh recounting the Great Hunger in The Bad Times: An Drochshaol, and Irish-born Gerry Hunt releasing an entire series of graphic novels about Irish history. Meanwhile, a recent mini-series entitled The Brave and the Bold placed Batman and Wonder Woman in the mythical Irish land of Tir na Nog. As for the movies, all of Hollywood seems to revolve around comic characters these days. Having earned two billion dollars, of course, Captain America will be back next May, in the second part of the Avengers: Infinity War saga. And with studios mining every aspect of a comic character’s backstory these days, could a movie about Captain America’s Irish IA roots really be that far behind?

We salute the Irish and Irish-American financial leaders recognized for their extraordinary accomplishments.

Leaders take us to places Congratulations to our own we would never Kathleen Murphy have gone for receiving this honor.



We are very pleased to be part of Irish America’s Wall Street 50, and congratulate all of the individuals honored tonight. PwC honorees Ellen Walsh, Martin Kehoe, Kieran Claffey, andFidelity Tim Ryan are humbled®and honored be a part of this Investments is proud totosponsor: distinguished group of leaders.

Irish America magazine’s Wall Street 50 www.pwc.com

Fidelity, Fidelity Investments, and the Fidelity Investments and pyramid design logo are registered service marks of FMR LLC. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC, 900 Salem Street, Smithfield, RI 02917 © 2017 FMR LLC. All rights reserved. 773853.1.0

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Leaders take us to places we would never have gone

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We are very pleased to be part of Irish America’s Wall Street 50, and congratulate all of the individuals honored tonight. PwC honorees Ellen Walsh, Martin Kehoe, Kieran Claffey, and Tim Ryan are humbled and honored to be a part of this distinguished group of leaders. www.pwc.com

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PHOTOS: WWW.FIREENGINEERING.COM

window on the past |

by Ray Cavanaugh

The Brooklyn Fire H

Single-Mindedly Brilliant: The life of Fire Detective Thomas P. Brophy and his

TOP: Thomas P. Brophy riding on a fire truck in Brooklyn. RIGHT: Mr. Brophy as a young man. FAR RIGHT: At the scene of a fire, see News Report opposite.

e never married, had no hobbies, and often needed reminding just to eat. Thomas Patrick Brophy seemed to live for one thing: catching arsonists. Tirelessly stalking New York streets for leads, he would proceed to secure more arson convictions than any other investigator in the nation. So uncanny was his ability that he sometimes caught suspects trying to start the fire. The son of a police lieutenant, Brophy was born in Brooklyn in 1880. As a young man, he worked as a newspaper reporter before joining the fire department in Brooklyn as a deputy fire marshal in 1907. It was a time when the crime of arson “usually fell halfway between the Police and Fire Departments, and lay there indefinitely, unsolved,” as written by St. Clair McKelway, author of True Tales from the Annals of Crime and Rascality. Buying a motorcycle with his own money, Brophy would speed off to fires when the alarm came in and typically arrived before the fire engines. He spent his free time taking long walks and talking with people in various communities, trying to get a sense of anything suspicious taking place. His ability to catch professional arsonists surfaced almost immediately and saw him appointed as Brooklyn’s

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head fire marshal in 1910. Two years later, he garnered much public acclaim for foiling an arson plot that entailed burning horses for their insurance money. He had reached out to auctioneers and obtained the names of men who were making a habit of purchasing “worthless horses,” which an arsonist might use as substitutes for more valuable (and heavily-insured) horses. Among the names that surfaced, he discovered one individual who had no legitimate business. Brophy then shadowed this man, right until he lit the match. In 1915, Brophy became the chief fire marshal of all New York City. In fact, the very position had been created to accommodate his talents. The city also provided him with 28 deputies to assist his investigations. These deputies also assisted Brophy when he neglected to eat. Many times, they had to physically place him in a restaurant, order him a meal, and put the knife and fork in his hands. After putting in a 36-hour shift, he might indulge in six hours of sleep before returning to the office. Though he still had to rely on policemen to make a formal arrest, he essentially operated like a detective instead of a fireman. McKelway describes Brophy as a devout Catholic

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Chaser lasting legacy on the FDNY.

and “one of those Irishmen whose eyes glisten perceptibly” with the utterance of the words “mother” or “little child.” He pursued his life of ceaseless investigation with “a grim, almost morbid determination,” as opposed to a fiery zeal. He typically slept little and often spent the night hours prowling locations that were troubling him and jotting down observations in his trusty notebook. Aside from tracking down arsonists-for-hire, he maintained an index of 400 known pyromaniacs and many other suspected pyros from every borough. He had scant use for any psychoanalytic theories about their motives but regarded them as a “strange bunch” and felt they should serve time in asylums instead of prisons. When he caught these incendiary maniacs, he tended to treat them gently and feign admiration for their exploits so as to elicit a more detailed confession. Once, while observing a crowd watching a fire, Brophy decided that one spectator was suspicious. So he asked him for a match. When the man forcefully denied possessing matches, Brophy coaxed him into coming to his office, where a search of the man’s pockets turned up matches. Confronted with this simple lie, the suspect folded and confessed to having set multiple fires.

Because arsonists – be they pros or pyros – often changed their locations, Brophy urged different investigative departments to exchange records of suspicious fires. On this topic, he wrote an article for the January 1922 edition of The National Police Journal. Brophy took information from whoever would give it to him, even if the tipsters belonged to the underworld. Such tips, in fact, once led him to set up surveillance from a church steeple and bust an arson gang trying to set a hotel ablaze, as related by the July 1933 issue of Popular Science Monthly. The same article points out how Brophy sometimes had to allow the fire to start in order to obtain enough evidence to secure a conviction. For example, he once let a fire ignite in a building where people slept, but he did so after making extensive preparations – such as 300 feet of firehose stashed inside a vegetable wagon and a crew of ace firemen disguised as streetcleaners – to extinguish any flames. When the two arsonists darted out the building’s front door, Brophy emerged to knock one unconscious with a “right to the jaw.” Sometimes, Brophy was the one who received physical punishment: He was injured at fires on several occasions and “had to wear steel braces on his back as a result of one accident,” according to F.D.N.Y. historian Gary Urbanowicz, writing for findagrave.com. Brophy lived in a Brooklyn brownstone residence with his mother and two sisters (his father was long since deceased). His few close friends were people he had known his whole life. Though clearly not much of an epicurean, he lightened up towards the end of his career and would treat himself to a few drinks during meals. He continued to serve as Chief Fire Marshal until 1948, when he left the F.D.N.Y. after more than four decades of service. In his semiretirement, he worked as an arson consultant for insurance companies. Other cities also sought his expertise on their major cases of fire. Information on Brophy’s later years has proven quite difficult to obtain. On March 23, 1962, when he was either age 81 or 82, he succumbed to a stroke in Brooklyn – the borough whose suspicious fires IA had sparked a life’s work and obsession.

News Report 05/17/11: Thomas P. Brophy has been appointed fire marshal for Brooklyn and Queens by Fire Commissioner Waldo. He has been in charge of the two boroughs as acting fire marshal since February, 1910, and has been an assistant fire marshal for the last four years. In the course of his term of office he has caused the arrest and conviction of 36 pyromaniacs, the largest number on record in the department. He was instrumental in securing the conviction of Mrs. Anna Ackerly, who set fire to her home in Wyckoff street, in Brooklyn, in 1908, and was sentenced for 14 years in state’s prison. She was the first woman to be convicted of arson in a Brooklyn court.

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Ahoy, me Hearties! R Celebrate “Talk Like a Pirate Day” on September 19 by upping your knowledge of these Irish buccaneers of yonder years.

By Edythe Preet

ABOVE: “Anne Bonny Firing Upon the Crew,” from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes RIGHT TOP: Mark Summers “Cap’n Slappy” and John Baur “Ol’ Chumbucket”, the founders of Talk Like a Pirate Day.

ead on and ye’ll discover the Irish men and women who sailed the high seas as pirates, buccaneers, and privateers. Some lived to a ripe old age. Some were cut down in their prime. All left their mark on the pages of history.

Grace O’Malley (Grainne Ni Mhaille)

Many think Grace O’Malley was merely the leader of a 16th-century band of cutthroats that pillaged and plundered any ship they encountered on the Irish seas. That’s a classic example of “alternative facts”. Grace really was an Irish Queen. The O’Malleys, one of the noble seafaring families of Connacht, had ruled the land surrounding County Mayo’s Clew Bay for centuries. Grace’s father, Eoghan Dubhdara Ni Mhaille, was an O’Malley chieftain, and when he died, Grace became lord of the clan. She managed the family’s landholdings, directed operations of its fleet, collected tariffs from ships fishing local waters, traded with ports as far distant as Spain, and crushed any who challenged O’Malley territory. Married twice to heirs of other noble Connacht families, both unions increased the O’Malley landholdings and the clan’s importance in the West. Mother of four children, the youngest was born at sea on a trading voyage. The next day, when Grace’s ship was attacked by Turkish pirates, she led the counter assault and captured the Turk’s vessel. Ireland’s Pirate Queen (1530-1603)

As chieftain of the O’Malleys, Grace’s battles had primarily been with feuding Irish clans, but the tide shifted as England expanded its domination of Ireland. Gradually, the Irish lords pledged loyalty to the Crown, save for those in the North and the West. In 1584, Elizabeth I named Sir Richard Bingham as Governor of Connacht. Determined to destroy the Irish way of life, he called Grace “nurse to all rebellions in the province.” As the Irish fought against

84 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

their fate, Grace’s fleet attacked Bingham’s troops, disrupted trade, ferried fighters to the rebels, and raided seaports. In 1593, Grace wrote to Elizabeth petitioning that the O’Malley lands Bingham had seized be returned to her, and pledging to support the Crown. The Queen sent back 18 interrogatories that Grace answered, but before Elizabeth could respond, Bingham imprisoned Grace’s half-brother and her youngest son. Grace immediately sailed to England and demanded a royal audience. On September 6, 1593 the two Queens negotiated for several hours, with Elizabeth agreeing to release Grace’s family members and restore the O’Malley lands, and Grace pledging to fight for the Crown rather than against it. When Bingham released her kinsmen but refused to restore the O’Malley property, Grace resumed aiding the Irish rebels until she retired to Rockfleet, her favorite property on Clew Bay, where she died in 1603.

Anne Bonny

Born in County Cork, Anne Bonny was the illegitimate daughter of a married lawyer named William Cormac and his maidservant Mary Brennan. Little is known of Anne’s youth except her father dressed her as a boy and hoped she would become a law clerk. When the news got out about his daughter, Cormac was disgraced and fled to the Carolinas where he became a successful merchant, amassed a fortune, and bought a plantation. When Anne married a “wannabe” pirate named James Bonny who had eyes on William Cormac’s estate, her father disowned her. With access to her father’s fortune cut off, James and Anne moved to New Providence Island in the Bahamas that locals called “The Republic of Pirates.” There James came up with the “easy money” scheme of accusing men he didn’t like of being pirates and turning them in to the authorities for the reward. Anne, meanwhile, had fallen for a real buccaneer, “Calico Jack” Rackham, and they sailed off to Jamaica to pursue a life of piracy together. Anne had fiery red hair plus a red-hot temper to match, and was thought to have murdered a servant who crossed her while still a girl in Ireland. She and Calico Jack stole a fast ship and spent several years plundering galleons on the Spanish Main for treasure. In October 1720, their ship was attacked by a Jamaican naval patrol and all aboard were captured. Calico Jack, Anne, and the whole crew were tried and sentenced to death. As she was pregnant at the time, Anne pleaded for the court’s temporary clemency, which was granted. Then one night while awaiting execution, she disappeared from her cell. People assumed Anne’s father Caribbean Buccaneer (1692-1787)

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sláinte | good cheer

RECIPES

had bought off her jailers but it could not be proven. She was never seen again.

Luke Ryan

If prodigy were a term applied to piracy, Luke Ryan would be a candidate. Born in a coastal village of County Dublin, his youth was spent working in shipyards and at sea. At age 16, he abandoned a ship’s carpenter apprenticeship and joined a regiment of Ireland’s Wild Geese that fought for France on the Continent. But the sea inexorably called him. When the American Revolution erupted, England began issuing letters of marque to Irish smugglers, raising them to the status of “privateers” empowered to attack enemy ships and seize their cargoes. Seduced by the lure of legal piracy, Ryan who had returned to the sea and been doing well as a smuggler, signed on. Soon realizing that American ships were few locally whereas British merchantmen loaded with goods were plentiful, Ryan acquired letters of marque from France that was both at war with England and allied with the Americans. In May 1779, Ryan’s ship, loaded with contraband, was seized by British revenue agents, his crew was captured, but Ryan escaped. What ensued could have been a scene out of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Ryan freed his men, reclaimed his ship, and sailed for France where his agent Jean Francois Torris introduced him to Benjamin Franklin who had been searching for swift ships and canny captains to help the Revolution. At age 25, Ryan began sailing under American colors in the ship he renamed The Black Prince with a loyal crew he had rescued from certain death, and carrying letters of marque from three nations. America and France might look aside at Ryan’s triple commissions, but capture by the British meant death. In just the first two years of his agreement with Franklin, Ryan and his group of ships, known as The Black Fleet, captured more than 114 ships and were the most successful of all the American privateers that wreaked havoc on the British. One American naval officer observed, “I have sailed with many brave men, but none the equal to this Captain Luke Ryan for skill and bravery.” Just as England began negotiations to end the American Revolution, Ryan was captured. Since he had never been granted American citizenship, he was tried as an Irish traitor to the Crown and condemned to death. Three appeals repeated the sentence, but on the fourth Ryan was pardoned. He tried to claim 70,000 pounds his French agent had been holding, but was told it had been stolen. Because he could not pay a doctor for inoculating his family against smallpox, Ryan was thrown in Debtor’s Prison where he died from an infected wound. He was only 39 years old. Sláinte! Privateer & Captain of The Black Fleet (1750-1789)

PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA

September 19 - International Talk Like A Pirate Day Back in 1995, John Baur and Mark Summers were playing racquetball when Mark missed a shot and hollered “Aaargh!”. Naturally, they finished the game hurling volleys of pirate jargon at each other. It was such a hoot, they decided to dress like pirates and talk like pirates every year on September 19th. Friends joined in the fun, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Dave Barry published an article about the farce, and social media spread the word. Unlike real pirate life which was grim, this celebration is all in fun. There’s even a group of swashbuckling gals in Florida that call themselves Ye Loyal Krewe of Grace O’Malley!

Salmagundi

For a brief time after leaving port or capturing a well-provisioned ship, pirate grub was tasty, but it quickly turned terrible. Meat spoiled, fruits and vegetables rotted, and hardtack biscuits developed weevils. While vittles were fresh, the galley produced large platters of Salmagundi, a layered “salad” of meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit, easily grabbed with fingers or plucked from the plate with a dagger. INGREDIENTS & METHOD Chop into small chunks turtle meat, chicken, pork, beef, ham, pigeon, and fish. Marinate with spiced wine and roast. Add the meats to boiled chopped cabbage, anchovies, pickled herring, mango, hard-boiled eggs, palm-hearts, onions, olives, and grapes. Add pickled chopped vegetables and garlic, chili pepper, mustard, salt, and pepper. Serve in a mound upon a large dish.

(Recipe: National Geographic Magazine 8/19/2014, “Eat Like a Pirate” by Rebecca Rupp).

Spiced Rum

On long sea voyages, kegs of water quickly turned stagnant and slimy. That didn’t happen with alcohol. Thirst quenchers on a pirate ship were usually beer, wine and rum (often flavored with spices). Over-indulging could have dire consequences as when “Captain Jack” Rackham, Anne Bonny, and the whole crew were so intoxicated they were easily captured by authorities. INGREDIENTS & METHOD 1 750 mL bottle decent aged rum 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise 3 whole cloves 1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces 5 whole allspice berries 5 whole black peppercorns 1 ⁄2 piece star anise 1 ⁄8 tsp fresh-grated nutmeg 3 quarter-size pieces fresh ginger 2 3-inch strips fresh orange zest, white pith removed

Combine everything in a large jar and seal. Keep in a cool, dark place for a couple of days, shaking it once a day to distribute the ingredients. Start tasting it after 48 hours; adjust ingredients if necessary, and when it tastes just right (probably no longer than 4 days total), strain and bottle.

(Recipe: Paul Clarke, serious eats.com)

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book review |

by Dave Lewis

Frank & Al

A new book by Terry Golway on the developing Democratic party through the lens of F.D.R. and Al Smith. Review by Dave Lewis

Frank & Al, by Terry Golway (St. Martins / 304 pp. / $29.99)

rank and Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance and Epic Feud that Created the Modern Democratic Party by Terry Golway allows readers to see the massive change to the Democratic party that both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Al Smith ushered in during the mid- 20th century. While these men came from complete opposite sides of the spectrum, Roosevelt from the Protestant rich upper echelon of New York and Smith from the Catholic working class saw the corruption and mistakes that the New York political establishment Tammany Hall created, and knew that it needed to change if the Democratic party wanted to survive. Golway, who works as a senior editor at POLITICO, has written on various aspects of American life, more specifically on Irish-American life, from his study on the famous IrishAmerican institution that was Tammany Hall in Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics to his exploration of Irish-American assistance in Irish rebellions with Irish Rebel: John Devoy and America’s Fight for Ireland’s Freedom. Known for his colorful descriptions of New York City and its people’s political and philosophical ideas, he enables the reader to become fully immersed in the subjects’ world. At the beginning of Frank & Al, Golway delves into the early lives of the two men, comparing and contrasting their upbringings to establish the differences between them. Smith grew up and lived amongst the Irish and Italian working-class tenements while Roosevelt was reared amongst the rich upper echelon of the old New York families. As the reader follows the men’s introductions into New York politics, we see how their political philosophies develop and eventually change. Al Smith was

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ushered into politics under the political wing that was Tammany Hall and Roosevelt, whose cousin had been recently president, stuck his nose up at men like Al Smith due to the corrupt dealings Tammany Hall was known for. While in the beginning of their careers they were often at odds, they came together eventually to pursue progressive and compassionate ideals that would usher in a united and newly formed Democratic party as well as a lasting friendship. Golway enables the reader to understand these developments through the lenses of famous historical events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and others such as the Malbone Street Wreck, Prohibition, and the two world wars. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire had a lasting impact on Al Smith as he saw the effects of the terrible working conditions that thousands of New Yorkers had to endure on a daily basis, especially the women (many of whom were members of Smith’s district) that were forced to jump out of factory windows to escape the fires. Smith soon acted after visiting the morgues and the victims’ families and enabled massive employment reform, with the help of unlikely political figures for the time, Belle Moskowitz and Frances Perkins. These amazing women made massive impacts on not only New York politics but national politics as well, as they helped to develop and run the Factory Investigating Commission and the Reconstruction Committee, both of which sought to solve issues of the American working classes. These issues ranged from poor housing and chronic unemployment to public health. If these committees and their actions sound familiar, they are often considered precursors to Roosevelt’s New Deal that was enacted almost 20 years later. In this book, Golway is able to strip down these men whom we often treat as demi-gods to become the humans that they were: brilliant, flawed, and passionate as they wanted to make a better life for all Americans. Frank and Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance and Epic Feud that Created the Modern Democratic Party is a story worth telling in this trying time, when politicians within and without their respective parties need to reach across the aisle to create a better America like these IA men (and women) did.

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Congratulations UCD Michael Smurﬁt Graduate Business School, Dublin, Ireland proudly congratulates members of our North American Advisory Board, Emeritus Board and Alumni Community Kieran Claﬀey, PwC John Curran, LibreMax Capital Helen Doody, Kepos Capital Shaun Kelly, KPMG Conall McGonagle, KBC Bank Kathleen Murphy, Fidelity Brian Ruane, BNY Mellon

For further information contact: Colm Small, Senior Manager Student Recruitment and Admissions Email: colm.small@ucd.ie Tel: + 353 1 7168098

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review of books | of irish interest Every Breath You Take

Murder at the Mansion

FICTION

By Mary Higgins Clark & Alafair Burke

he latest thriller and newest undertaking in the Under Suspicion series by Mary Higgins Clark, co-authored with Alafair Burke, shows that the authors’ talent for weaving an intense, fastpaced suspense story has not diminished in the slightest over the course of her career. The book finds protagonist Laurie Moran, whose TV show, Under Suspicion, examines cold cases and attempts to solve them (at an unprecedented success rate) as she tackles the murder of aging socialite and philanthropist Virginia Wakeling. The investigative team explores the woman’s layered private life, uncovering new information and suspects with every sharp twist and turn. Throughout it all is the intergenerational bond between Laurie, her father Leo, and her son Timmy, which relieves some of the dramatic tension built up by the troubling investigation and reveals Clark’s consummate skill that transcends the mystery genre and establishes her as an iconic novelist.

– Mary Gallagher (Simon & Schuster / 304 pp. / $26.99)

Straying

By Molly McCloskey

olly McCloskey is a critically acclaimed Irish author and her new novel, Straying, marks her first American publication, much to the benefit of readers on our shores. Following a non-linear storyline that tackles complicated issues of personal identity, marital infidelity, and loss, the book tracks crucial points in the life of Alice, a middle-aged American looking to rebuild her life in Dublin. Alice’s experiences as a 1980s twentysomething exploring Ireland for the first time are countered poignantly by the reflections of her older, wiser, present self, who seeks solace from grief at the death of her mother and a new understanding of her terminated marriage by returning to Dublin. Flashbacks to Alice’s relations with her mother and mostly-absent father, her nomadic lifestyle, and her lifelong sense of isolation combine to create a flawed yet compelling heroine. Straying is as much a coming of age story as it is one of healing, with Ireland’s own economic progress from the 1980s to the present under– Mary Gallagher scoring Alice’s transformation.

(Scribner / 214 pp. / $24)

88 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

By Sheila Connolly

heila Connolly’s Murder at the Mansion is a good, fastpaced read that’s perfect for a plane ride. In it, Katherine Hamilton’s returns to her hometown of Asheford, Maryland, to help the town, which is on the verge of going bankrupt. A few days later, at the huge Victorian mansion just outside the town that is central to her revitalization plan, Katherine stumbles over the body of her high school nemesis, Cordelia Walker. The mansion has its own long-hidden mysteries, and Kate finds herself juggling the murder investigation with her plan to save the town and her growing fascination with the old house. Connolly has published over 30 books, including the popular County Cork Mystery series. A former genealogist and historian, her books all feature strong female central characters and always impart a historical lesson or two. Warning: once you start reading Connolly’s books, you can’t put them down.

NON-FICTION

– Patricia Harty (Minotaur / 336 pp. / $26.99)

To Struggle With Hope

By Geraldine O’Connell Cusack

eraldine O’Connell Cusack spent most of her life working on American Indian reservations and in the developing world. To Struggle with Hope is a montage of thoughts, ideas, and propositions arrived at over the years when she began to understand the world as the dispossessed see it. Cusack is also one of a growing number of thinkers within Irish society who are witnessing the steady erosion of national cultures and values by the European Union – and who are fighting back. Global influence and economic power has become the driving force within the E.U. at the expense of national identities. To Struggle with Hope offers a new direction, not only for Ireland, but for the world.– E.O.

Lulu Publishing Services / Available on Kindle or Nook / $7.99

How the Irish Saved Civilization By Thomas Cahill THROWBACK

homas Cahill’s groundbreaking account of how Irish monks ushered in the European medieval era from the remnants of the Roman Empire was an immediate hit when it was first published in 1995, remaining on the New York Times’s bestseller list for nearly two years. If you’re looking to revisit an Irish American classic, we recommend Cahill’s endlessly digestible and entertaining portrait of a country on the periphery and the characters who would turn it into a hive of scholarship. There are Saints Patrick (“the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery,” in Cahill’s classic hyperbole) and Augustine (“father of the Inquisition”) of course, but also Irish “barbarians” like Queen Medb and Cúchulainn, as well as Ausonius, a Roman poet and professor from Bordeaux – all brought to life vividly and with considerable, but welcome, creative embellishment. Scholars can debate the veracity of Cahill’s central thesis, but they can’t argue with his wry and pithy descriptions, delightful storytelling, and fervor for – Adam Farley championing unsung Irish.

(Nan A. Talese / 246 pp. / $16)

f ro m I r i s h Po et

MICHEAL O’ SIADHAIL

Receive 20% off and free shipping at baylorpress.com with code 17MOS until 12/31/18 on all three of Micheal O’Siadhail’s books: The Five Quintets | One Crimson Thread | Collected Poems Untitled-3 1

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crossword |

By Darina Molloy

ACROSS

1 Game of Thrones is filmed in this Northern Ireland city (7) 7 (& 41 down) Historic pier at the rear of the White Star Line building in Cobh, County Cork (10) 9 See 13 across (3) 11 See 31 across (1, 8) 13 (& 9 across) This Irish country and western singer died in April (3) 14 See 15 across (5) 15 (& 14 across) This novel won the €100,000 International Dublin Literary Prize in June (5) 18 This Maryland newspaper was the scene of a fatal shooting in June (7) 20 See 40 down (2, 7) 24 There’s a Great Hunger Museum at this Connecticut university (10) 26 The Irish or English version of a ladybug (8) 29 See 28 down (7) 31 (& 11 across) This 16-year-old runner followed in her mother’s footsteps, winning a silver medal at the European Championships (6) 33 Deprive of strength or vitality (5)

34 A declaration of affirmation found in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian worship (4) 38 (& 4 down, & 19 down) The legal name of this institution is the Belfast Library and Society for Promoting Knowledge (5) 39 “The Ballad of ______ Gaol:” famous Oscar Wilde poem (7) 42 (& 30 down) This people-friendly butterfly often lands on humans (3) 43 See 35 down (6) 44 (& 32 down) _______ and the ______: New book by Niall O’Dowd (7)

DOWN

2 Consume calories (3) 3 A form of popular music that dominated in the US in the 1930s and ’40s (5) 4 See 38 across (4) 5 The ______: musical group with whom Dolores O’Riordan catapulted to fame (11) 6 (& 36 down) Headland in County Wexford (4) 8 Part of the leg (4)

Win a subscription to Irish America magazine

10 Surname of 13 across (2, 5) 12 Irish traditional music group co-founded by the late Liam O’Flynn (7) 16 Morning, in short (2) 17 Roman Catholic, in short (1, 1) 19 See 38 across (7) 21 Small nutrientdense black and white seeds (4) 22 Mayo crashed out of the AllIreland football championships after defeat to this county (7) 23 Replica famine ship in County Wexford (8) 25 Collision (5) 27 The D in Michael

Please send your completed crossword puzzle to Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001, to arrive no later than July 15, 2018. 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 accepted. Winner of the June/July crossword: Anne Sullivan Miscoski, Blountville, TN

90 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

D. Higgins (6) 28 (& 29 across) He played Marty Crane in Frasier (4) 30 See 42 across (7) 32 See 44 across (5) 35 (& 43 across) This newest member of the British Royal family visited Ireland with her

36 37

40 41

husband in July (6) See 6 down (4) Fashion label, recently wound up, established by Bono & Ali Hewson (4) (& 20 across) Author of 15 across (4) See 7 across (4)

June / July Solution

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Congratulations

to all of this year’s Irish America Magazine’s Wall Street 50 honorees

CMY

~ Sláinte!

Penn Mutual Asset Management is proud to support Irish America Magazine. www.pennmutualam.com

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ThoseWe Lost William Flynn

Myrtle Allen

1924 – 2018 ichelin-star Irish chef Myrtle Allen died in June, at 94. Through a study of cooking that lasted her entire adult life and a determined use of local products, Allen raised the profile of Irish cuisine to an international level, becoming a success in the hospitality business while promoting a renewed Irish investment in the island’s resources. Born Gladys Myrtle Hill in Tivoli, County Cork to parents Elsie and Henry, Allen took some cooking classes at the Cork College of Commerce after marrying Ivan Allen at 19 and becoming a full-time housewife. She eventually turned an enthusiasm for cooking into a successful business. Allen opened her Ballymaloe home to the public in 1964, advertising dinners in a historic residence. Guests responded overwhelmingly, according to Allen’s daughter, Fern. “We could have 60 people for dinner,” she told the New York Times. “People were sitting on the stairs, waiting for their tables.” The residence expanded into a hotel, ultimately boasting thirty rooms. Allen is predeceased by husband Ivan, who died in 1998. She leaves behind sons Tim and Rory, daughters Fern, Natasha, Yasmin, and Wendy, 22 grandchildren, and 36 great-grandchildren. – M.G.

1927 – 2018 ill Flynn’s approach to business was always a human one. Colleagues called him a fair leader, attuned to the customer’s needs and concerns, which allowed him to look at the industry in ways that eluded others. In his 2008 interview with publisher Niall O’Dowd, Flynn offered his sage, down-to-earth business philosophy: “Greed is the biggest problem…Look at the recent mortgage crisis and all the Wall Street firms that overextended themselves. It’s the same mistake over and over… My advice is, don’t get greedy, help the other guy, and stay in the real world.” One of his finest accomplishments as CEO was role was to steer Mutual of America’s attention towards the non-profit sector, where it now provides pension plans for the employees of more than 15,000 charities throughout America. William J. Burke But the scope of his influence has traveled far beyond the world of business. 1942 – 2018 He used his position of power in corporate America as a force for peace, comrominent banker and pillar of the Irish community munication, and understanding in the social and political spheres. With his guidin New York Bill Burke died in June, at the age of ance, Mutual of America took on a significant philanthropic role, sponsoring 76. Born in Tubbercurry, County Sligo into landmark events and discussions such as the “First Liberty Summit” a family of 13, Burke came of age in an Irein Williamsburg, V.A., the subsequent “First Liberty Forum” in New Myrtle Allen land that offered little in the way of personal York, and the international “Anatomy of Hate” conferences hosted advancement. Graduating from St. Nathy’s by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. These events brought College in Ballaghaderreen, Roscommon, Nobel laureates, leading intellectuals, and involved citizens together he decided to take the route of five of his Flynn’s personal involvement ran even deeper. He became a siblings and move to the U.S. Without any board member of the Elie Wiesel Foundation and joined the Naprior experience in the field of banking, he tional Committee on American Foreign Policy (N.C.A.F.P.) When took a job in operations at Franklin National N.C.A.F.P. encountered financial difficulty in the late 80s, Flynn Bank, from which he made his way steadily came to the aid of the nongovernmental organization. Shortly afup the corporate ladder, holding the role of terwards, co-founder George Schwab invited Flynn to assume the senior vice president at branches of both position of chairman, which he accepted and, having already been William J. Burke Barclay’s Bank and the Bank of Ireland beparty to many important conversations on the religious and political fore joining with Joe Murphy of County conflicts in the Middle East and South Africa, Flynn was drawn to Cork to open Country Bank. and deeply affected by the troubles in Northern Ireland. As an adBurke never forgot where he came from, vocate for human rights and peace, the son of two Irish immigrants and the bank gained a reputation for providcouldn’t ignore the violence and discord. ing financial assistance to many fellow In 1992, Mutual of America sponsored a conference in Derry, enmembers of the Irish community. “I deal titled “Living With Our Deepest Differences.” Though he knew that with the Irish a lot and we talk the same lanpublic involvement could potentially pose a threat to his profesguage,” Burke told the Irish Voice in a 2007 interview. sional reputation and even his personal safety, Flynn became one of the AmerHis contribution was recognized publicly in 1988, icans who was unstinting in doing everything he coud to promote peace. He when he was asked to be Grand Marshal in N.Y.C.’s hosted numberous N.C.A.F.P. luncheons at Mutual, bringing in speakers from Saint Patrick’s Day parade. He was also honored in all the different sides. N.C.A.F.P. also was instrumental in Gerry Adams reIrish America’s Business 100 in 2010. ceiving a visa to visit the states which helped bring about the ceasefire. Burke is predeceased by his first wife, Kathleen, Bill Flynn was the beloved husband of Peg, loving father of Maureen Flynn who died in 1991. He is survived by his second wife, Welsh, William K. Flynn, and the late James Edward and Robert H. Flynn. He Aileen, children William, Elizabeth, Michelle, Robert, was a devoted grandfather to 11 and great-grandfather to one. He died on June Ross, and Riley, and five grandchildren. – M.G. 2, aged 91. – I.A.

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Senator John McCain

William J. Connors

1941 – 2018 lliam Joseph “Billy” Connors, a shorttime professional pitcher turned longtime pitching coach for the New York Yankees, died at 76 in June. Known for his expertise on the “cutter” pitch, Connors, who was from Schenectady, New York, started small and worked his way up. In 1954, he and his friends won the 8th Little League World Championship, beating out a tough team from Colton, California after beating Florida and Pennsylvania. From there he went on to play in high school and attended Syracuse University for two years before signing with the Chicago Cubs in 1961. After signing, Connors appeared in the minor leagues until he was called up five years later to pitch in the big leagues. Connors’ professional career lasted two years, during which he pitched 26 games total for the Cubs and the New York Mets. In 1971, Connors switched from player to coach when he became the Mets’ batting practice pitcher and began to coach for the Mets’ and the Philadelphia Phillies’ minor league teams. He was most known for his extended career at the New York Yankees that lasted on and off from 1989-2000, during which he developed pitchers like Andy Pettitte, and C.C. Sabathia. Former Yankee David Cone told the New York Post that “He was one of the great characters of the game.” – D.L.

Thomas J. Cuff

1931 – 2018 ongtime volunteer for the Levittown Fire Department Thomas J. Cuff, Jr. died in April, aged 86. Over a 50-year career as a volunteer fireman, Cuff was also an effective supporter of establishing efficient measures of fire prevention. He passionately pushed regulations to prevent fires and minimize their damage. He pursued legislation making home smoke detectors mandatory, and headed a national committee to ensure that hotels maintained updated escape routes. Cuff’s devotion led to leadership positions in several organizations, the highest being president of the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York. “He saw himself as a public servant,” Cuff’s daughter Shannon told Newsday, “and this was his role as serving the public and ensuring people’s safety.” Born in Garden City, New York to State Supreme Court justice father Thomas Sr. and Loretta (neé McNamara), Cuff was a third-generation Irish American. He attended Chaminade High School in Mineola, and graduated from Adelphi University with a business degree. He joined the Garden City Volunteer Fire Department in 1953, then Levittown’s in 1961. He is survived by his wife Jane, daughters Sharon, Susan, Crissie, and Kate, 10 grandchildren, and a grateful community. – M.G.

1936 - 2018 enator John McCain, 81, died on August 25 after a battle with brain cancer. He was the first Republican to show an interest in the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform at presidential campaign level, appearing at an Irish presidential forum in Scranton in 2008. That same year, when Niall O’Dowd interviewed McCain in his office on Capitol Hill, he explained why. Pointing to a photograph of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island late in the 19th century, he said, “This right there is the promise of America,” McCain said simply. “Look at the faces, look at the hope.” John McCain connected with that hope. On his mother’s family side, Hugh Young came over from Antrim in Northern Ireland early in the 18th century and settled in Augusta County, Virginia. His father’s family, the McCains, bred to fight as Highland Scots of the Clan McDonald, arrived in the New World when Hugh McCain settled his wife and six children in North Carolina. Hugh and his four sons fought in the Revolutionary War. John McCain will be remembered as a war hero who survived five years as a POW in Vietnam; as a great humanitarian who believed that all men and women are born equal; and in these days of divide-and-conquer politics, he will be remembered as a politician who reached across the aisle. At McCain’s memorial in Arizona, former V.P. Joe Biden, spoke of the bipartisanship that defined McCain’s politics. He began his speech to laughter as he declared: “My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I love John McCain.” – I.A. Read Niall O’Dowd’s interview with McCain on www.irishamerica.com

William Connors

Thomas J. Cuff

Tom Gallagher

1940 - 2018 om Gallagher, the first openly gay member of the U.S. State Department, died in July, aged 77. Raised in Deal, New Jersey by a Catholic mother from Mayo, Gallagher knew he wanted to work in foreign affairs by the fourth grade, initially planning to be a missionary, as he relayed in a 2012 oral history. He graduated from Monmouth College in 1962, and enlisted in the Peace Corps, teaching in Eritrea for two years. Gallagher joined the Foreign Services department in 1965 and served assignments in Saudi Arabia and Ecuador, working in Personnel at the State Department in between, advocating for fair provisions for female employees. His 1976 speech for the Gay Activist Alliance confirmed his sexual orientation and Gallagher resigned, since it was illegal for a homosexual to obtain security clearance. He returned to the Foreign Service in 1994 when the laws were changed, taking posts in Madrid, Brussels, and several African countries, retiring in 2005. Hillary Clinton praised Gallagher for his efforts and activism at a 2012 Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies event. “I don’t want any of you who are a lot younger ever to take for granted what it took for people like Tom Gallagher to pave the way,” she said. Gallagher is preceded in death by his father, who died when he was 13. He is survived by his husband, Amin Dulkumoni. – M.G.

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Tom Moran

1952-2018 om Moran, a corporate chief1941 – 2018 tain with a big heart, died on ducator and promoter of Irish history in the August 14. He was born in 1952 United States John Garvey died in June, aged 76. on Staten Island, N.Y., one of Along with a decades-long career at PS 85X in Manthree children of an Irish-Italianhattan, Garvey was a director of the Emerald Isle ImAmerican mother and an Irishmigration Center, Chairman of the Board of Directors American father, with roots in of the Irish Institute of New York, a head of the Counties Fermanagh and TipperAmerican Irish Teachers’ Association, and an instruary. Moran’s maternal grandfather, mental proponent of Ireland’s Great Famine becomArturo Quaranta, was from outing a mandatory part of the curriculum in New York side of Salerno, Italy, and as public schools. Moran pointed out in an interview Garvey was born in County Mayo to Charles and with Patricia Harty, he “was a Evelyn Garvey, and obtained much of his education lover of all things Irish, especially in Ireland (St. Muredach’s College in Mayo, and PaPeggy O’Neill,” his wife and trician College in County Laois). Though he moved Tom’s grandmother. to the U.S. to obtain degrees in business and educaAlways a modest man, Tom was quick to give credit to others, beginning tion, Garvey kept Ireland close, leading groups dedwith the nuns who educated him as a young boy. When he first started grammar icated to establishing the significance of Irish school, he wasn’t able to speak. However, the nuns of the Daughters of Divine influence to this country. He co-founded the AmeriCharity worked with him, and by the time he was in the second grade he was can Irish Teachers’ Association, lobbying for 1998’s talking. At the age of 14, Moran began his first job as a janitor at his high Irish Immigration stamp. He also led the committee school. He followed this by working as the french fries man at Nathan’s Hot that published a book on the involvement of New Dogs, a short-order cook, and a cemetery worker. While attending Manhattan Yorkers in the Easter Rising, writing the introduction College, he drove a cab during the night shift. Through these diverse work exand an essay. periences, Moran learned valuable lessons and developed the beliefs that conGarvey’s inspiring commitment was tinue to influence his life and work today. John Garvey recognized in numerous accolades After earning his B.S. degree in mathematics, Moran began working throughout his life. The Association of at Mutual of America in 1975. Back then, his job was to “paperclip Teachers proclaimed him “Educator of anything that needed to be signed” whenever a pension had been sold. the Year,” and he received the Rose CosOn a personal note, it was at Mutual that he met his wife, Joan, in 1976. grove Distinguished Service Award for The couple married in 1983 and both remained at the company – his work on the Easter Rising publicaMoran as president, CEO and chairman, and Joan responsible for the tion. The Irish government even precompany’s technology. sented Garvey with a Salmon of Rarely one for the spotlight himself, Tom praised Mutual of America Knowledge sculpture, acknowledging for creating an atmosphere of giving within the company, with all emhis efforts to highlight the stake Ireland ployees either actively volunteering for or donating to various causes. Margaret Heckler has in U.S. history and culture. Tellingly, he never discussed his philanthropic work in terms of what Garvey was predeceased by his he has done, but rather by discussing what the organizations do. In brother Frank, who remained in Ireland. 1992 Moran became involved with the Abilities Foundation, which John is survived by his brother Cathal, works to improve the lives of people with disabilities, and through them wife Ann, son William, and granddaughhe is also involved with the Henry Viscardi School for students with ter Sara. – M.G. severe physical and medical disabilities. Moran was drawn to these programs due to their shared belief that people with physical disabilities Margaret Heckler can and should pursue their dreams. 1931-2018 He first became involved with Concern Worldwide, U.S., as a donor argaret M. Heckler, who served as the U.S. and he went on to become the chairman. In this role, he took an active apAmbassador to Ireland during the Reagan adproach, traveling to Haiti, Rwanda, Sudan, and other troubled spots in the ministration, died in August, aged 87. world. He also helped raise the profile, and millions of dollars to aid Concern’s Born Margaret Mary O’Shaughnessy in Flushing, work. New York to John and Bridget O’Shaughnessy (neé In his involvement with the N.I. peace process, Moran worked behind the McKeon), immigrants from counties Limerick and scenes, resulting in strong friendships with those on both sides of the conflict. Leitrim, Heckler called Ireland home for a year when Mutual of America hosted numerous luncheons with guest speakers from she moved back with her parents as a nine-year-old, across the divide in Northern Ireland, adding an important element to the peaceand was fated to return decades later to represent the keeping efforts. United States. Before that, however, she was the sole There is a saying that as long as one person speaks your name you will not woman in her class at Boston College Law School, be forgotten. Tom touched so many lives in his short time here on earth that he ranking among the top six graduates. will live on in our hearts and minds for many years to come. Heckler found the call to the political life imposHe is survived by his mother, Lillian, brother Jack, sister Bess, nieces, sible to resist, joining the Wellesley Massachusetts nephews, grandnieces and nephews, and grieving friends around the world. Republican Town Committee in 1958, then being – I.A.

John Garvey

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those we lost | passages elected to represent Massachusetts in Congress in 1966, becoming The University College Dublin’s Smurfit Business School named its the first U.S. congresswoman not to succeed her husband. “She first Chair in Electronic Commerce after Sharkey, in acknowledgewould never take no for an answer when it came to her con- ment of his achievements. stituents,” said staffer from Heckler’s congressional days Jack Sharkey’s generosity benefited several groups, especially advoHorner to the Washington Post in 1983. Ending an eight-term run, cates for the neurologically impaired. But the isle of his ancestors Heckler was appointed to be President Reagan’s Secretary of remained close to his heart all his life, which Sharkey proved with Health and Human Services in 1982. She faced the AIDS epidemic devoted support to Irish organizations. head on, though she was criticized for not releasing more funding A co-founder of the Ireland Funds’ Wine Geese Society, which for research, she also worked on issues related to the disparity in notes Ireland’s artistic, culinary, and wine-related contributions lifespan for minorities in the U.S, and Alzheimer’s disease. worldwide, Sharkey also served on the boards of Belfast’s FLAX Following her term in the cabinet, Heckler was appointed Am- Trust, NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House, and Belfast’s branch of Cobassador to Ireland in 1985. She worked to promote U.S. invest- operation Ireland. His commitment was rewarded by numerous ment in the country of her roots, and played a role in the U.S. recognitions, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Lou government’s donation of $120 million to the InternaGehrig Humanitarian Award, and the Saint Patrick’s tional Fund for Ireland, to promote the Anglo-Irish Home Humanitarian Award. Brandon O’Sullivan Agreement. Sharkey is survived by his wife Helen, siblings VirHeckler is survived by children Alison, Belinda, and ginia, Lillian, and Michael, children Jacqueline and John, and four grandchildren. – M.G. Brian, and granddaughter Samantha. – M.G.

Brandon O’Sullivan

Kate Spade

1989-2018 1962 – 2018 randon O’Sullivan, passed away July 2 this year. pparel and accessory designer Kate Spade died in Born in Rye, New York, Brandon had just turned 29 early June, in her Manhattan apartment. She was years of age when he died of natural causes – a heart at55, and her death was ruled a suicide. tack is suspected – in San Diego, C.A. where he was in A third-generation Irish American on both sides, his final year of a master’s degree program in Theatre Spade was born Katherine Noel Brosnahan to parents Arts at the University of California, San Diego. Frank Brosnahan and June (Mullen) in Kansas City, Brandon’s father David was born in Dublin and is Missouri. After graduating from St. Teresa’s Academy, well-known in Irish-American circles through his inan all-girl Catholic high school, Spade attended the Univolvement with the Ireland-U.S. Council. Indeed, Branversity of Kansas. She later transferred to Arizona State don did stints of part-time work helping out at various John University, and while living in Phoenix, she met her fuCouncil events in New York in recent years. A graduate Sharkey ture husband and business partner-to-be Andy Spade. of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, Following college, Kate worked at Mademoiselle he was an avid theatre-goer and was especially fond of magazine in Manhattan from 1986 to 1991, where she the Irish Repertory Theatre on West 22nd Street in Manwent by her maiden name, Katy Brosnahan, and held hattan. He had also been involved in the New York the title of Senior Fashion Editor / Head of Accessories. Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park program, She and her husband launched the Kate Spade brand in working there for a time managing its box office oper1993, with resounding success. ations. He was an accomplished musician and an asRenowned for patterns enlivened by vibrant, festive piring actor who was building his resume and had colors, Spade’s trademark handbags offered a fun yet appeared off-Broadway and in small parts on television classy look for the modern professional woman of the Kate Spade shows such as The Good Wife. He will be missed by nineties, embracing a simplistic, joyful aesthetic in an his wide circle of friends in New York, California and, of course, in industry that had long prized the avant-garde as a rule. The bright Ireland. – I.A. attitude of self-confidence promoted through her style echoed that of her public persona. “Dress for yourself,” Spade advised in an inJohn Sharkey terview with the Kansas City Star in 2006. “It’s so much more fun.” 1936 – 2018 Though the couple sold the majority of their ownership in the rish-American marketing executive and treasured friend of this mag- company to Neiman-Marcus in 1998, they maintained control over azine John Sharkey died in June, aged 81. Sharkey was the founding the designs until 2007. Kate stepped away from fashion to raise her head of MCI Communications’ Corporate Accounts division, then daughter, Frances, 13, and in 2016 launched a new footwear, handchairman and CEO of communications firm Kane, Saunders, & bag and accessories brand, the Frances Valentine label. Smart. He was also a benefactor of several organizations, maintaining The designer’s niece Rachel Brosnahan, who stars in the hit Amaa special love for those that promoted peace in Northern Ireland. zon show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, shared her reflections in an Born in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen to parents Lillian and Instagram post. “She had a light that words can’t capture but John, Sharkey was a third-generation Irish American with roots in touched everyone she came into contact with,” Brosnahan rememTyrone and Roscommon. Obtaining degrees in marketing manage- bers. “She was effervescent.” ment at Iona College and business sciences at N.Y.U., he worked for Spade is predeceased by her mother, June, who died in 2010. Litton Industries and General Electric Company before settling at She leaves behind husband Andy, daughter Frances Beatrix MCI. His marketing savvy was instrumental, seeing the company (“Bea”), father, Earl, and siblings Reta, Missy, Ann, Eve, and IA through its merger with WorldCom before he stepped down in 2000. Earl. – M.G.

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last word |

by Sharon Ní Chonchuir

The Pope’s Visit to Ireland

hen I was growing up in the 1980s, a photo of Pope John Paul II hung above many Irish fireplaces. That pope held a special place in Irish Catholics’ hearts, as he was the first and only pope ever to visit the country. He visited in 1979. There wasn’t another papal visit until this summer when Pope Francis came for the World Meeting of Families. He arrived in Dublin on Saturday, August 25th, and his first engagement was at Áras an Uachtaráin, where he was welcomed by

sentiments of the Irish president at this reception and the pope responded with the first of four apologies he was to utter over the weekend. He recognized that the Church’s failure to address abuse had given rise to anger, pain, and shame within the Catholic community, and admitted to sharing those sentiments himself. This third engagement was in St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, which is the episcopal seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, but even here he couldn’t escape the shadow of abuse scandals. A Candle of Innocence has burned here since 2011 in memory of all victims of clerical and institutional abuse. Pope Francis said a silent prayer in front of it. Later that day, he had a private meeting with survivors of abuse. Among them were representatives of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors, many of whose babies were forcibly removed from them and illegally adopted. Afterwards, they said that the pope had listened to their stories with genuine interest and apologized for the hurt they had suffered. Pope Francis’ final engagement on Saturday was the Feast of the Families Festival in Irish president President Michael D. Higgins. Croke Park. This was a joyous Michael D. The president released a statement Higgins greets affair, with 80,000 Catholics afterwards, striking what would be- Pope Francis on from all over the world singing the second papal come the tone of the pope’s entire visit. visit and dancing together. to Ireland “President Higgins raised with his Ho- in history. Sunday started with a flight liness the immense suffering and hurt to Knock in County Mayo. It’s caused by abuse perpetrated by some within believed to have been the site of an apparithe Catholic Church. He spoke of the anger tion of the Virgin Mary in 1879 and the main at what was perceived to be the impunity en- reason Pope John Paul II timed his visit to joyed by those who had the responsibility of Ireland for 1979 was to mark its centenary. bringing such abuses for action by the apThe rain was pelting down in typically propriate authorities and had not done so.” Irish fashion when Pope Francis landed. Yet there was light-heartedness too. Just However, it didn’t dampen the enthusiasm as Pope John Paul II had done, Pope Francis of the local families, airport staff, and clergy planted an Irish oak on the lawn of the pres- who were waiting to welcome the pope to idential residence. Visiting dignitaries plant- Knock. ing trees here is a tradition older than the A further 45,000 people awaited him at the Irish State itself. shrine itself. Here, he said the Angelus and Next was an official State reception at took the opportunity to apologize once again. Dublin Castle. The Taoiseach reiterated the “None of us can fail to be moved by the 96 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

stories of young people who suffered abuse, were robbed of their innocence, were separated from their mothers, and were scarred by painful memories,” he said. “I beg the Lord’s forgiveness for these sins and for the scandal and betrayal felt by so many others in God’s family.” Back in Dublin, Pope Francis travelled to the Phoenix Park to say mass. This was to be the set piece of his entire visit. In 1979, 1.25 million people attended Pope John Paul II’s mass. However, only an estimated 130,000 turned out for Pope Francis. One of the reasons for this low attendance is the Say Nope to the Pope campaign, which block-booked some of the 500,000 tickets with no intention of attending the mass. These weren’t the only protests. A number took place across Ireland. The most popular was Stand4Truth. Writer Marian Keyes and singer Hozier were among the 1000 who congregated in Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance to stand in solidarity with victims of church-led abuse. Meanwhile, a silent vigil was held in Tuam, County Galway to remember the women and children who died in Ireland’s mother and baby homes. Pope Francis met with Irish bishops after the mass and then returned to Rome. The second papal visit to Ireland was over, having revealed much about Ireland’s relationship with the Catholic Church today. In 1979, few of us had any idea of the abuses being carried out and covered up by members of the Church. The institution was still held above all others, so much so that half the country turned out to catch a glimpse of the pope on his three-day visit. Today, Irish faith is in crisis. This was made clear by the contrast between us and those who had travelled from overseas for the World Meeting of Families. The foreigners expressed a joy in their faith that was missing from the subdued faces of Irish Catholics who looked battle-worn and weary from decades of being disappointed by their Church. This papal visit was long overdue. The apologies were much needed. Now the Church needs to do real penance for the hurt it’s inflicted on so many here in Ireland. IA

Through October 2018 West Cork Arts Centre Skibbereen January - March 2019 Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin Derry

The world’s largest collection of Famine-related art on view in Ireland for the first time. On loan from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University. artandthegreathunger.org

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photo album | Bridget Heaney

My First & Only Love

y wife, Bridget Heaney, was born on June 7, 1944. She was one of 10 children raised by a single mother in Cavan, Ireland. Her mother eventually moved to England (Newbury) in search of work, and it was in Newbury that I met Bridget. I was 23 and she was 19. At the time, I was in the U.S. Air Force (U.S.A.F.) and stationed with the Strategic Air Command, at R.A.F. Greenham Common. I met Bridget one day in Victoria Park and we just started talking. I asked if I could take her out to dinner, and she said, “yes,” if I agreed to met her mother first, which I did. Later her mother told me: “Bridget wants to marry you.” And I certainly wanted to marry her. And so we married in St. Joseph’s R.C. Church in Thatcham, England on July 31, 1963. I promised Bridget’s mother that I would always look out for her daughter and keep her safe, and after we moved back to Harrison, New Jersey, where I found a job with a trucking company, I made sure Bridget went back to England to see her family every two tor three years, which she looked forward to. We had three children, Anna, Jean, and son Richard Jr. (Sadly, our daughter Jean passed away on November 21, 1993, age 29.) What Bridget remembered most about growing up in Ireland was that she was always cold, and so I took her to California on vacation, where she said she felt warm for the first time in her life. We visited Castle Air Force base, northwest of Merced, where I had been stationed during my time in the service, and we decided to stay in the area. I found work with Penske trucking company. Bridget was my first and only love, and looking back now, I think of the courage she had to leave her family TOP LEFT: Bridget in Thatcham, and come away to the United States with me. England in 1963. She passed away at home on Mother’s Day, May 8, CENTER: Bridget’s 2016, in the evening. She was very ill at the end and she headstone features had dementia in the final months, but I made sure she a “Claddagh,” to well taken care of, and with the help of my son, Richard, mark her Irish birth. we were able to keep her at home. BOTTOM: Bridget In her final moments, Bridget was calling out the wearing her favorite dress, which she had names of her brothers and sisters and her mother. On on at her funeral. that last evening, I asked her if she would like a cup of tea, and she said, “Yes.” I was in the kitchen boiling the water when my son, Richard called out to me that she had slipped away. I miss Bridget very much and think of her every day. IA

– Richard Sandford

Please send photographs along with your name, address, phone number, and a brief description, to Patricia Harty at Irish America, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY 10001. If photos are irreplaceable, then please send a good quality reproduction or e-mail the picture at 300 dpi resolution to submit@irishamerica.com. We will pay $65 for each submission that we select. 98 IRISH AMERICA SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018

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