Irish America February / March 2008

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IRISH AMERICA February/March 2008

Canada $4.95 U.S. $3.95

U.S. -IRELAND FORUM The Changing Relationship THE IRISH IN CALIFORNIA From Gold Rush to Silicon Valley ONE BRIEF SHINING MOMENT From Innocence to Assassination THE TROUBLE WITH IRISH Can the Language be Saved?

ALICE MCDERMOTT Writes What She Knows THE MAGIC OF YEATS Lives on in Sligo

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The Reluctant Star INTERVIEW BY PATRICIA HARTY

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Vol. 23 No.1 • February / March 2008

IRISH AMERICA 875 SIXTH AVENUE, SUITE 2100, N.Y., NY 10001 TEL: 212-725-2993 FAX: 212-244-3344 E-MAIL: irishamag @ aol.com WEB: http://www.irishamerica.com

{contributors} Sharon Ní Chonchúir is a regular contributor to Irish America. In this issue she examines the plight of the Irish language and its struggle to survive even in the Gaeltacht – the very areas that act as custodian to Ireland’s native tongue. An Irish speaker who was raised in the Gaeltacht, Sharon contiues to live and work in West Kerry.

Much of her writing is concerned with the changing face of Irish culture and identity.

Mortas Cine Pride In Our Heritage

Founding Publisher: Niall O’Dowd Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief: Patricia Harty Vice President of Marketing: Turlough McConnell

Tom Deignan is a columnist at Irish America where as well as reviewing books and reporting on all things Irish in Hollywood, his history column has proven a hit with readers. In this issue he examines the role of the Irish in the great state of California. He is the author of Irish American: Coming to America, and is among those contributing to a book called Irish America Chronicle, due out in 2008. Tom, who teaches English at the Automotive High School in Brooklyn, is married and has four children.

Art Director: Marian Fairweather Assistant Editor: Declan O’Kelly Copy Editor: John Anderson Advertising & Events Coordinator: Kathleen Overbeck Financial Controller: Kevin M. Mangan Editorial Assistants: Bridget English, Kate Hartnett

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 2100, New York, NY 10001.

Telephone: 212-725-2993. Fax: 212-2443344 E-mail: Irishamag@aol.com. Subscription rate is $21.95 for one year. Subscription orders: 1-800-582-6642. Subscription queries: 1800-582-6642, (212) 725-2993, ext. 16.

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.

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Bridget English, who writes about the Yeats Summer School in this issue, is a graduate of New York University where she received her B.A. in English literature with an emphasis on creative writing, and an Irish studies minor.

She continued her studies at Brooklyn College, graduating with a master’s degree in literature, and currently teaches there. A valued member of the Irish America team, Bridget, who is a native of Chicago, has also written for Irish Dance magazine.

Michael C. Finnegan, who writes on America pre-JFK’s asassination has authored a number of articles on environmental law, an area on which he concentrated until entering government service as Chief Counsel to Governor George Pataki. He is today a managing Director at JP Morgan in the healthcare department. He lives just four miles from Peekskill where he grew up, with his wife Candace and children Kate 21, Rob 18 and Mikejr. 16.

Chuck Leddy, from Dorchester, Massachusetts, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and a contributing editor for The Writer magazine. He also contributes book reviews regularly to The Boston Globe.

Chuck who interviews Irish-American writer Alice McDermott in this issue, describes his interviewing style as “asking good questions and shutting my trap long enough to hear good answers.”

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{readers forum} DEAR EDITOR In your excellent editorial: Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears (December 2007/January 2008), you write: “And so we dedicate this issue to a country where dreams can still come true. And as we pay tribute to those on our Business 100 list we put forth the hope that today’s immigrants, Irish and otherwise, who languish on the sidelines waiting for proper documentation, will eventually get through the process and have a shot at keeping the American dream alive.”

I would like to pay tribute to the story of some of those pre-Ellis Island and preBusiness 100 List Irish immigrants who responded to the opportunity of this country and successfully took a shot at the American dream and built this country. To them, and to those on your Business 100 list, I dedicate the following essay, a celebration of Irish success in middle-America, beginning in New York City in mid-19th century which has made all of our current success possible.

THE JOURNEY HOME From a pest house in New York City, my great-grandparents, Jeremiah and Ellen Lyons, had the first glimpse of their new home, America. Forced to flee famine and oppression, they left Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland in 1845.

Filled with hope for a better life and $1,500 sown in Jeremiah’s underwear, they made the crossing. But when Jeremiah caught the cholera on board ship, he was isolated from his wife and two young daughters, Bridgit and Margaret. Upon arrival at the docks, unknown to Ellen, Jeremiah was placed in a pest house along the shore line.

There he was nursed by anonymous caretakers. For three months Ellen searched every shanty and shack in New York City until, in the words of the story recited at every family reunion: One day a man said, “Well, yes, but it just couldn’t be him,” “He was so old and bearded and thin.”

If she wished she may come in and look, There were no records on the book, He seemed to be traveling alone, His memory was gone, and without name or home.

Thus she found her Jerry, lying on a bed of straw, His face was drawn in a look of awe.

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What had happened in the past there was no telling— He raised his head and whispered “Ellen.”

The money had disappeared. After Ellen nursed her Jerry back to health they joined with other recent arrivals to build the railroads from New York to Chicago.

Near that windy city, with a growing family – including my grandfather, Will – they became successful farmers and later moved farther west to Iowa and finally Dakota Territory where they spent the autumn of their lives with their pioneer sons and daughters. Ellen and Jeremiah brought with them, and passed to their children, and their children’s children, a passion for education and a strong commitment to exercise the civic virtues of their new country.

They were the real radicals in America’s history. These people lived in their adopted land, not as victims of the oppression they had fled, but as confident and contributing citizens who saw that their own fulfillment was in helping to build this country, its schools, farms and businesses. When I reflect on their odyssey, I realize that the journey to my home began in a pest house in New York City where the kindness of strangers gave my first American relatives a taste of the goodness and greatness of its people.

archdiocese wants to sell the site to a developer. St. Brigid’s was built by New York’s Irish immigrants who fled the famine that devastated Ireland in the 1840s. The people of the parish want St. Brigid’s to be converted into a museum, which would encapsulate the history of the Irish in New York over the past 160 years. Apparently, the church hierarchy does not agree and is pursuing a case through the courts to enforce the sale.

They [the hierarchy] refused to speak to Nationwide or make any response.

Nationwide is now requesting that the Dublin government and other influential people and corporations support the parishioners’ efforts to preserve St. Brigid’s and mount an appeal if the current case goes in favor of the archdiocese.

Robert F. Lyons Kennebunkport, Maine

Note: Robert Lyons grew up in South Dakota, where his Irish This recent photograph of St. Brigid’s Church shows ancestors homesteaded. He teaches the beautiful stained glass windows which were Irish Studies in OSHER Lifelong destroyed by the wrecking ball before a court order Learning Institutes at Tufts prevented further demolition.

University, Boston, and University of I urge readers of your magazine to join Southern Maine, Portland. He and his this good cause. As it is a presidential wife, Nona Lyons, have lived much of the election year in ’08, it might be possible past seven years in Ireland and now reside to get local politicians to use their influin New England. ence. Maybe even Hillary Clinton?

THE DEMISE OF ST. BRIGID’S CHURCH I am writing to you in response to an item on Irish television’s Nationwide. The program’s presenters Michael Ryan and Mary Kennedy aired the concerns of the parishioners of St. Brigid’s “Famine Church” in Manhattan, which is going to be demolished because the New York

Joseph Patrick Muldoon County Derry

Note: The court, in fact, ruled in favor of the Archdiocese on November 15. The Committee to Save St. Brigid’s filed a Motion to Appeal and the Archdiocese agreed to keep the Temporary Restraining Order in place. For more information or to join the campaign to save St. Brigid’s go to www.savestbrigid.com.

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{ news from ireland}

By Frank Shouldice

The aftermath of the 1998 bombing in Omagh, County Armagh, which killed 29 civilians.

Omagh Bombing Case Collapses elfast Crown Court acquitted Sean Hoey of all charges in connection with the 1998 Omagh bombing, which claimed the lives of 29 civilians. Hoey, a 38-year-old electrician from Jonesboro, Co. Armagh, was accused of 56 charges relating to the atrocity but Justice Reg Weir ruled that the forensic evidence gathered by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) was unreliable. Hoey was acquitted of all charges.

At the end of a trial which lasted ten months Justice Weir concluded that police officers had botched the investigation. He added that two PSNI officers fabricated evidence to strengthen their case and two witnesses called were guilty of “a deliberate and calculated deception.” He also expressed doubt that one person alone was involved in assembling the bombing device.

Sean Hoey is the only person arrested by Northern Ireland authorities in relation to the Omagh bombing. Two suspects currently imprisoned in the Republic await trial.

When it was revealed that the main evidence against him was based on low-copy DNA taken from the timing devices that set off the bomb, the case virtualy collapsed. Although low-copy testing is a widespread practice by prosecutors it is usually offered as supporting evidence rather than forming the basis of a case.

Speaking after the verdict Hoey’s solicitor, Peter Corrigan, said his client was an innocent man who had been completely vindicated. “Today’s judgment – a reasoned, lengthy and well considered judgment – completely vindicated this position that he maintained. Sean Hoey is an innocent man,” said Corrigan.

Outside the court Mr. Hoey’s mother Rita told reporters: “I want the world to know that my son Sean Hoey is innocent. The

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authorities north and south have held two separate trials, but one witch-hunt.”

Transcripts of the 56-day trial have been sent to the Police Ombudsman’s office in Belfast. An inquiry is expected to review the actions of two PSNI officers who gave evidence at the trial.

A senior Garda (Irish police) spokesman pointed out that the Gardai have dropped using low-copy DNA evidence in other cases. “It was something we looked into but we felt that low-copy DNA samples could be transferred from anywhere and were not particularly reliable,” he said. “We did not consider it to be robust enough at all, certainly for a high-profile investigation. It may have its uses as support evidence if there were witnesses and so on, placing a suspect at the scene. However, we would not consider it at all appropriate to bring a case based on this type of DNA evidence on its own.”

The failure of the PSNI to identify and charge the perpetrators of the 1998 atrocity has led to stinging criticism of its bungled investigation. Relatives of the 29 victims have openly despaired at the lack of investigative progress in nine years since the Co. Tyrone market town was torn asunder.

“There wasn’t an atrocity in the history of the Troubles that more was known about, and yet least was done about,” said Michael Gallagher, who lost his son Aidan in the blast. Lawrence Rush, who lost his wife Elizabeth, felt the case had been grievously mishandled by the PSNI. Gallagher, Rush and others are demanding that a full cross-border inquiry be conducted to find out who carried out the Omagh bombing in an effort to bring them to justice.

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{news from ireland}

Furor Over Increased Cocaine Use in Ireland he high-profile death of Irish model Katy French (see John Spain’s “Ireland Today” column on page 70) has thrown a spotlight on the prevalence of cocaine in Irish society. The 24-year-old collapsed at a party and went into a coma from which she never recovered. An autopsy revealed she had taken cocaine and alcohol, the combined effects of which have been blamed for costing the model her life. Prime Time, an investigative TV current affairs programme with RTE, the national broadcasting service, examined the extent of cocaine use across Ireland. A total of 296 pubs and nightclubs were surveyed and traces of cocaine were found in the bathrooms of 92 percent of premises tested nationwide. The findings tested positive at a broad cross-section of venues, including facilities at Croke Park, the Abbey Theatre, and RTE itself. Dr. Des Corrigan, head of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs, said the survey confirmed how widespread cocaine use had become.

The Prime Time program broadcast soon after Katy French’s death.

The young model’s misfortune was followed a similar tragedy in Waterford when two young men – John Grey, 23 and Kevin Doyle, 21 – both went into a coma after eating a quantity of cocaine.

“Kevin and John’s families and the families of all drugs victims deserve the sympathy and understanding of the Drugs seized by the Irish police in a raid in Dublin. nation just as much as does Katy’s family,” said French’s co-model friend Andrea Roche. The Prime Time findings elicited a predictable response from political figures. Charlie Flanagan, Fine Gael spokesman on justice, called for random garda checks in pubs and nightclubs to “clamp down on the fast-growing popularity of cocaine and counter the widespread perception that cocaine is an acceptable drug. “Pubs and nightclubs must be aware of their responsibilities to prevent illegal drugs being consumed on their premises,” he added. “If traces of cocaine are found at a venue then the owner should expect serious consequences.”

Director of Crosscare Drugs Awareness Program, Chris Murphy was skeptical that punishment would counter addiction. “Cocaine is a social drug and people use it in pursuit of a high or euphoric feeling,” said Murphy.

“People who have gone beyond experimental use can’t kick the addiction on their own. They must get help from other people.

“It [random drug searches] is one thing that will help among many, when a whole lot of approaches are taken it could be more effective,” he added. “I don't think imprisonment is helpful, it doesn’t put cocaine-users off the drug in fact it would make it worse rather than better. Community service would be a better punishment.”

Dr Chris Luke, a practitioner at Mercy Hospital Cork, was critical that it should take the death of ‘beloved celebrities’ to raise public awareness of the crisis. Dr Luke said he saw four or five new patients seriously ill from cocaine every week.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

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The first signs of a slowdown in Ireland’s construction industry show a drop in the number of new houses being built. About 77,000 new homes were built in 2007, a fall of 16,000 units on the previous year. It is the first decrease in 14 years with property prices also slowing up. The average price of a new home in Dublin is now 412,324 euros. . .

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Cork couple Fergus Burke and Michelle Owens availed of new marriage laws to hold the first civil marriage in Ireland in a venue other than a registry office. Until November, civil marriages were lawful only when held in a registry office but a provision made to the Civil Registrations Act allows couples to hold their weddings in alternative locations under the watchful eye of solemnisers and registrars. The newlyweds from Co. Cork were first to make use of the new legislation and they had their ceremony conducted in the stylish conservatory of the Cahernane House Hotel in Killarney, Co. Kerry. . .

The famous Royal Hotel in •Roscommon town was completely destroyed by an accidental fire over Christmas. It took hours for firefighters to bring the blaze under control but the landmark hotel, owned by the O’Gara Family, was reduced to a shell. Happily, nobody was injured. . .

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A contractual dispute over the refurbishment of Eyre Square may lead to heavy legal bills for Galway City Council. Local opposition to the controversial redesign of the city center area saw the original contractors Samuel Kingston Construction Ltd. (SKC) pull out of operations two years ago and SIAC Construction Ltd. appointed to complete the job.

However, a dispute over payments and compensation means that the project is now under review, with the local authority potentially facing substantial payouts as well as legal fees.

The redevelopment of Eyre Square was first proposed in 1995 at a cost of 1.25 million euros; the scheme was finally completed in April 2006 with costs approaching 10 million euros. . .

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{news from ireland}

Visitors to Ireland Reached Record High in 2007 record 7.8 million people visited Ireland in 2007, according to the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation. Although U.S. business increased by a modest 3.3 percent, industry sources show strong growth from markets in Scandinavia and Spain.

Tourism is worth an estimated 4 billion euros to the Irish economy and Britain remains the single largest source with almost half of the total number of overseas visitors originating in the UK. Looking ahead to 2008 Confederation chairman Dick Bourke said the open skies policy would chiefly benefit tourist interests in Dublin and the East Coast.

A marketing fund had been established to promote the West of Ireland specifically but Aer Lingus’ decision to shift UK operations to Belfast meant there was increased capacity at Shannon airport.

A growing segment of the market is the passing trade of luxury liners. Some 113 cruise ships docked in Ireland last year, berthing in Dublin, Cork and Waterford.

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Ireland Loses Two of Its Finest Entertainers opular singer Joe Dolan (pictured above) died after suffering a brain hemorrhage. The 68-year-old entertainer had been ill for some time and was forced to cancel a series of concerts in October. He suffered a hemorrhage on Christmas Day and was rushed to the Mater Hospital in Dublin but doctors were unable to revive him. Thousands of fans paid their respects at Gilsenan’s funeral parlor in the singer’s home town of Mullingar, County Westmeath. A burial service was attended by numerous figures from the entertainment industry.

Dolan first came to prominence the the 1960s when, with his brother, he joined “The Drifters.” Dolan went on to have huge hits in the late 60’s with “Make me an Island” one of the the biggest, going to number three in the UK charts. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern paid tribute to the singer, saying Dolan was “a fantastic showman, with a great stage presence, who never forgot his roots.”

Joe Dolan’s death marked a second significant blow to Ireland’s showbiz world. Christy Hennessy, a much-loved

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singer-songwriter from Tralee, County Kerry, passed away in London aged 62. Hennessy had been suffering from asbestositis which it is believed he contracted while working on building sites around England through the 1950’s and 60’s.

He released his first album in 1972 but gained commercial success twenty years later with “The Rehearsal.” Many of Hennessy’s songs were covered by other artists. Two of his best-known works – “All the Lies That You Told Me” and “Don’t Forget Your Shovel” – were recorded by Frances Black and Christy Moore.

“He was a prince among us,” said Christy Moore, describing Hennessy as “the most beautiful of men, family man, wonderful friend, writer and singer of magical songs.” He is survived by his wife, Jill; daughters Amber and Hermione, and his son Tim. Hermione is also a musician and singer and was a regular member of Christy Hennessy’s band. She sang “Amazing Grace” at the funeral service, which was also attended by musician Luka Bloom, brother of Christy Moore.

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{ hibernia }

PEOPLE

| HERITAGE | EVENTS | ARTS | ENTERTAINMENT

Paisley and McGuinness on Tour Paisley and McGuinness ring the Nasdaq Bell.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness together on economic mission.

JOHN HARRISON

JOHN HARRISON

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1.Congressman Neal, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Paisley and McGuinness. 2. Bill Flynn presents an award to Martin McGuinness. 3. McGuinness and George Mitchell.

4. Paisley, Presidnet Bush and Martin McGuinness.

5. Paisley and McGuinness make a presentation of a photograph of devolution day in the North, May 8, to Senator Edward Kennedy.

6. A light moment between Paisley, Senator Clinton and McGuinness

(C) 2007,THE NASDAQ STOCK MARKET, INC.

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orthern Ireland First Minster Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinnes spend a whirlwind few days in the United States in early December when they visited New York and Washington D.C. During their trip to the Big Apple the former enemies presented a united front to business and political leaders in an attempt to attract U.S. investment to the North.

The duo attended an event orgainzed

by Bill Flynn at the University Club and present Flynn with a sculpture of bog oak in recognition of the part he played in the peace process, met Mayor Bloomberg who accepted an invitation for Bloomberg to visit the North, and met with Donald Trump to discuss the possible relocation of a luxury golf project to Northern Ireland.

The two also found time to ring the Nasdaq bell, an event orgainzed by Tom Moran CEO Mutual of America, before heading to Washington D.C. to meet President Bush. Senator s Edward Kennedy and Hilary Clinton, Congressmen James Walsh and Richie Neal, former Senator George Mitchell, who played a crucial role in the peace talks, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were among those who welcomed the Ministers to Washington.

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LITERARY IRELAND

An Evening with Joe O’Connor

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Sinead O’Connor, also talked about his formative years and while describing himself as a bookish little fellow, admitted there weren’t too many books around the house. Two authors whose work was available were Benedict Kiely and John McGahern. Indeed, it was one of McGahern’s stories, “Sierra Leone,” which had a big effect on the 12-year-old O’Connor. The young Joe wrote out the story in a school notebook to feel what it would be like to write the words out on paper. Over the next few months he began to change the names of the characters, and alter the plot. Over time the fledgling writer kept bending and shaping the story until he came up with his own tale, “True Believers,” that would

PHOTOS: JORI KLEIN

rish novelists Joseph O’Connor and Colum McCann enthralled an audience at the New York Public Library on November 14. As part of the fall program at the Dorothy and Lewis Cullman Center, O’Connor and McCann, both former Cullman Fellows, were there to discuss Redemption Falls, O’Connor’s novel about the American Civil War, an epic tale he wrote and researched during his Cullman Fellowship.

The bespectacled O’Connor chatted with McCann (the acclaimed author of Zoli, Dancer and This Side of Brightness) about the book, the craft of being a novelist, modern Ireland and the art of writing.

Doing his best James Lipton (Inside the Actors Studio) impersonation, McCann cajoled O’Connor into giving insights into his writing process. After reading an excerpt from Redemption Falls, O’Connor discussed the challenges and hurdles endured when writing historical novels, recounting humorous anecdotes of how there is always a reader with pen at the ready if any historical inaccuracy cropped up in his work.

On the modern Irish novel, O’Connor simply said, “There is no Irish Novel.

Our generation of Irish novelists is not influenced by each other or by previous generations.” That said, he added that the current generation of Irish novelists is among the interesting with writers like Colum Tobin, Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, and Hugo Hamilton standouts.

Both O’Connor and McCann touched on the transformation Ireland has undergone in the past 15 years. O’Connor, who lives in Dublin, described the country of his youth. “The Ireland of today is not where we grew up. We were brought up to emigrate, the day you graduated you got a degree and a plane ticket. When I was in London in the 80s, I felt an overwhelming loneliness on returning to Ireland as I came home to a place where I knew no one.” He then contrasted the past to the country today. “Ireland has full employment but no big welcome. We’ve become multicultural very rapidly. Ten percent of our population and 17 percent of the workforce come from somewhere else.

When my seven-year-old son grows up, there will be new languages, culture and

Joe O’Connor (above) and talking to Colum McCann.

belief systems. The preoccupations I had as a child will have disappeared. It’s already happening, so we had better get used to it.”

McCann echoed the theme, adding that Irish novelists now concentrate on subjects outside of Ireland (in O’Connor’s case the American Civil War and in McCann’s the tale of the Romany gypsies in Zoli) and argued that as Irish writers expand on exterior themes, the makeup and priorities of the Irish people were changing dramatically as sites such as the Hill of Tara, the ancient seat of Ireland’s High Kings, were about to be destroyed so highways could pass through. “We cannot go back to a country that doesn’t exist anymore,” said McCann.

O’Connor, who is a brother to singer

later be the title piece of a book of short stories.

On adapting his work into film, O’Connor said he would not do the screenplay himself. He argued that a really good book cannot be adapted, simply for the reason that the writer chose the novel form to best tell his story. Plans are afoot for O’Connor to complete his historical trilogy (Star of the Sea was the first in the series) with a novel about Molly Allgood (the Abbey actress who was the love of writer J.M. Synge’s life) and after that he plans to write a contemporary novel. Of his future goals O’Connor said, “Learning to be a novelist is my greatest challenge.” He seems to be doing a good job so far.

– By Declan O’Kelly

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{hibernia} EVENTS

Concern’s Seeds of Hope Dinner Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was the 2007 recipient of the Concern Worldwide Seeds of Hope award.

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he author of more than 40 books, including the memoir Night, about the horror of his experiences at Auschwitz, was honored for his tireless efforts to promote peace and respect for human rights at a ceremony in New York City.

The 79-year-old Romanian-born Jewish scholar was presented with the accolade at Concern’s largest ever single fundraising event in the United States on December. In a moving address to the 500-strong audience, Wiesel spoke about the perils of indifference. “Will the world ever learn,” he asked, “that when one community is targeted, it affects us all? What adds to the suffering of the victim is always the notion that nobody cares.”

A vocal advocate of international intervention in conflict-ridden regions such as Darfur, Professor Wiesel paid tribute to the work of Concern, which marks its 40th anniversary in 2008.

“You are there when you are needed,” he said of Ireland’s largest international humanitarian organization.

Born September 30, 1928, Wiesel grew up in a small village in Romania.

In 1944 his family was moved to Auschwitz where his mother and

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Ted Koppel, Concern chief executive Tom Arnold, honoree Elie Wiesel, and Concern’s U.S. chairman Tom Moran. Below: Elie Wiesel and his wife Marion.

younger sister died. Elie survived Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald, where he joined his father who died just before liberation, his final word was “Elie.”

Weisel spent a few years in a French orphanage and went on to study journalism. His acquaintance with Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac eventually persuaded Wiesel to break his vowed silence and write of his experience in the concentration camps. He has since published over 30 books, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wiesel, who was introduced by Ted Koppel, said that while he had seen examples of “humanity in human beings,” his experience with Concern was the first time he experienced “humaitity in an entire organization.” Concern chief executive Tom Arnold described Elie Wiesel as a “witness and storyteller” whose words were “an inspiration, a guide and a moral

compass.” Down the years, Concern staff, too, he said, have been witnesses and told – when possible – the story of ordinary people caught up in disasters and conflicts from the famine in Biafra, to the killing fields of Cambodia, to the genocide in Rwanda.

More than one million dollars was raised by the New York event – all of which will go towards Concern’s projects overseas, including current emergency programs in Bangladesh and Chad. (Siobhan Walsh, executive director of Concern Worldwide U.S., spoke movingly about her recent trip to Chad).

“When you consider that the cost of treating a child for malaria is five dollars, for example,” said Tom Arnold, “the impact of a million dollars is simply enormous. This money directly translates into improving the lives of some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

Father Angus Finucane, the founder of Concern, and the first speaker of the evening, thanked Tom Moran for all that he has done to grow the organization in IA the United States.

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{hibernia}

Business100

Celebrations

Irish America celebrated its annual Business 100 Awards on November 20 with a luncheon at the Yale Club in Manhattan.

U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland Paula Dobriansky, gave the Keynote Address, and Tim Brosnan, Executive Vice President Business Major League Baseball, received the Spirit of Ireland Award.

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1) Irish Consul General Niall Burgess, U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland Paula Dobriansky, who gave the Keynote Address, and publisher Niall O’Dowd. 2) Honoree Patricia Cunningham (Continental Airlines) with her uncle Paul. 3) Honorees Kieran Claffey (Pricewaterhouse Coopers) and Jayne Fitzpatrick (Gulf Oil) with actor Des Keough. 4) Honoree Tom Moran (Mutual of America) , Editor Patricia Harty, Courtney Kennedy and Niall O’Dowd. 5) Honoree Jim McCann, founder of 1-800-FLOWERS, Kathleen M. Connor, and Dave Aldrich. 6) Honoree John FitzPatrick (FitzPatrick Hotel Group) and Orla O’Malley. 7) Honoree Dawn Sweeney (National Restaurant Association) and Denis Kelliher, founder of Wall Street Access. 8) Honoree Declan Kelly (FD).

9) Honoree Patrick Dowling (CIT) and wife Kate. 10) Alfie Tucker (Mutual of America), his sister Marie and mother, May. 11) Honoree Brian Stack (CIE Tours) and,Maureen Clarke. 12) Honoree Susan Ungaro (The James Beard Foundation) and Irish America Art Director M. Fairweather.

13) Honoree Jack Foley (Aer Lingus. 14) Honoree Dave Fitzgerald (Fitzgerald & Co.) with wife Stacey and honoree Ted Sullivan (KPMG). 15) Tim Brosnan (Major League Baseball) who received the Spirit of Ireland Award is pictured with his father Kevin.

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Unquote

“For a long time, he has been a regular worshiper at Mass with his family, and in recent months he has been following a program of formation to prepare for his reception into full communion. My prayers are with him, his wife and family in this joyful moment in their journey of faith together.”

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor who received Tony Blair into the Catholic Church.

- The New York Times

“One always feels a bit nervous when you spend a great deal of money. But I don't feel as nervous as I would with other books at these figures because it touches on so many audiences, and I think we can get them all.”

Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central Publishing who declined to comment specifically on the size of the advance to Senator Edward Kennedy for his memoirs, which is said to be more than $8 million. - The New York Times

“He broke a lot of people’s hearts.

But he was a pioneer.”

Jim Flaherty, 70, a Brooklynite, commenting on Walter O'Malley’s posthumous election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame half a century after he “ripped the heart out of Brooklyn” by moving the Dodgers to Los Angeles - The New York Times Right: The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers

28 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008

“We had heard about it, read about it and talked about it, but seeing the two old enemies together in the cold light of day was something else altogether. It was one of the most extraordinary sights I have witnessed in my career.”

Niall O'Dowd writing in The Irish Voice on the joint visit to New York of N. I. First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

“I couldn't leave this city in a better frame of mind. It's a very happy way we leave.

This has been a tremendous meeting for us.This has been a cracker of a meeting.”

N.I. First Minister Ian Paisley after a White House meeting with President George W. Bush.

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Reluctant Star THE

C

Ciarán Hinds is lovely. Now, perhaps I shouldn’t admit that because part of Hinds’ attraction is that he remains somewhat of an unknown. In fact, one fan found it so hard to find information on Hinds that she started a website www.Ciaranitis.com, for those “smitten with Ciarán Hinds.”

Hinds has appeared in a wealth of movies and plays over the years, yet he remains on the periphery of Hollywood stardom – it would seem by choice. I met Ciarán at the Irish Arts Center dinner in New York City in November. It was a night full of Irish stars, including Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne, and Hinds, who seemed to stand just outside the picture. In rehearsals for the Broadway debut of Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, he reluctantly agreed to an interview. Then the stagehands strike happened, and the play, which had had a week of previews, was put on hold, and so was the interview.

When he finally agreed to meet me at Kit DeFever’s studio for an early morning photo shoot and interview, he and the four other actors in The Seafarer were in the unenviable position of keeping the play “warm,” ready to go at a moment’s notice of the strike’s end. Yet, Hinds seemed unflustered.

I had offered to send a car to pick him up – he opted to take the “metro.” He arrived on time, dressed in the blue shirt I had requested, but was happy to change into an Irish fisherman’s sweater provided by Kit. During our conversation I found him open and available, and relaxed (after watching me spend a couple of frustrating minutes trying to solve the mysteries of my tape recorder, he calmly took over and solved the problem without making me feel the dumb blonde).

Hinds, who turns 55 on February 9, was born in Belfast, the youngest of five children and the only son. His father was a doctor, and his mother, Moya,

had been involved in amateur dramatics “before she had us.” As a boy he performed with the Patricia Mulholland Irish Dance troupe and appeared in productions at St. Malachy’s College, an all-boys’ high school. He attended Queens University, ostensibly to study law, but soon left to attend the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He began his stage career at the Glasgow Citizens’ Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and since his first film appearance, in 1981, as one of the medieval knights in Excalibur, he has gone on to amass a large number of credits both on film and stage, including Munich, Margot at the Wedding, and the much touted There Will Be Blood which also stars Daniel Day-Lewis. He also appeared as Julius Caesar in the HBO series Rome, for which he received the 2007 Irish Film & Television Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role.

I’ve had a grá for Hinds since I first saw him in December Bride, a tale of two brothers in love with the same woman – Hinds plays off Donal McCann’s earthiness with sullen brooding. Set in Northern Ireland at the turn of the 20th century, it’s a classic film with haunting cinematography.

CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT DECEMBER BRIDE, WHICH I SAW AGAIN RECENTLY AND ENJOYED AS MUCH THE SECOND TIME ROUND?

It was filmed in 1989. There hadn’t been a film made in the North of Ireland for about forty years, sometime in the 50’s. It was made and directed by a Kerry man, Thaddeus O’Sullivan, a great cinematographer who was interested in the dichotomy of the North. He found this story by Sam Hanna Bell and stayed with it for a long time to get it made.

There was something very pure about the film itself, at the root of it. It was very honest. They didn’t try to modernize it or give it an aggressive glamour that passes for truth. It was a simple story of two broth-

I N T E RV I E W B Y PAT R I C I A H A RT Y • P H OTO G R A P H B Y K I T D E F E V E R 30 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008

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Irish actor Ciarån Hinds, currently starring in The Seafarer on Broadway, has a body of work that would do any actor proud, yet he’s happy to reign just outside the glare of Hollywood glitterati.

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ers, very closed off. And they get awakened, their hearts get awakened, by the same woman.

IT ALSO BROUGHT IN MUCH ABOUT THE NORTH, AND WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THE PERIPHERY.

Presbyterianism and the landscape featured heavily in the film. Thaddeus being a photographer himself got this fantastic French cinematographer Bruno de Keyzer because he loved the way he treated people’s faces and landscape.

WAS THERE A SPECIFIC MOMENT WHEN YOU KNEW ACTING WAS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO? I KNOW THAT YOU STUDIED LAW.

(Laughs) Well, I hardly studied law. I was supposed to be studying law — I never thought, “I want to be an actor, I want to be on stage, I want to be in film.” For a long time I was just involved. I did a lot of Irish dancing. I worked with Patricia Mulholland who was one of the few in the North who did work that was different from the rigid Irish dancing. Her work was very fluid.

She was a huge influence just in the way you move. How you balance and make patterns with your feet or body, which is also the physical thing in theater. She was also a brilliant classic violinist and she created this troupe of Irish dancers, and through dance and mime she told stories of the legends of Ireland – Chuculainn and Finn McCool. I was with her from the age of seven or eight until I left at nineteen. The troupe used to tour all the schools and into Tyrone or Fermanagh or over to Derry. And once a year they would perform at a theater in Belfast. It was all amateur but there were proper costumes. And it was a big influence in my life.

And of course I went to elocution lessons and did monologues, and bits of Shakespeare. And then at St. Malachy’s College we had a couple of good drama teachers and put on big productions once or twice a year. I was twelve or thirteen when I played Lady Macbeth – they always got the younger boys to play the women back in the Shakespeare days.

My mother still believes that’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s hard to keep on pushing in your fifties thinking, “Wow, I’ll never beat that [laughs].”

The cast of The Seafarer: Conleth Hill, Jim Norton, David Morse, Ciarán Hinds and Sean Mahon.

the first one, playing Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, thinking they wouldn’t ask me back again, but they did, and in The Winter’s Tale I played Leontes, the one who turns out to be very jealous.

WAS THERE A BIG CONCENTRATION ON SHAKESPEARE AT SCHOOL?

It prevailed quite strongly in St. Malachy’s school. It was a great grounding in literature, and also what he taught you about life, if you can get through the complexities of it.

THE THING ABOUT SHAKESPEARE IS THAT HE IS SO MODERN.

Yes, I know [Benedetto] Croce said that this is part of the reasoning and emotional center of humanity down through the ages.

DIDN’T YOU DO SOME RECORDINGS OF SHAKESPEARE PLAYS?

YOU WERE IN MUNICH (THE FILM, SET IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE MASSACRE OF 11 ISRAELI ATHLETES AT THE 1972 MUNICH OLYMPICS, FOLLOWS A SECRET ISRAELI SQUAD ASSIGNED TO TRACK DOWN AND ASSASSINATE THOSE RESPONSIBLE). DID GROWING UP IN NORTHERN IRELAND GIVE YOU SOME SORT OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION?

I was involved with two of them.

[Hinds is a 2004 Audie Award Winner, for best audio drama performance on The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare]. I did

The year I was at Queens University, supposedly doing law, a group came over from the National Film School in London, who were making a short film

32 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008

for their finals about the North, the dichotomy and the problems in the different communities. There were four of them, a Palestinian, an Iranian, an Israeli and a Canadian Jewish guy who wrote the piece. And because they were out of their home territorites they could meet, and converse, and argue. And they were here [in the North] because they identified what was happening with what was happening back in their homelands. This was 1972, and people did sort of equate the Israeli/Palestinian problems with the Protestant/Catholic problems of the North, because they were both flaring up at that time.

But you realize when you grow up a little, that the [Palestinian] problem is a thousand times more difficult and conflicted than our petty little faux-Christian segregated battle in the North. I mean, the refugees and the poverty, and the scale of it all. It’s much heavier, much deeper.

Of course, the problems of the North are serious, because the land and the people have been cemented there for generations now. If the false state hadn’t been set up – and even once it was, if there was an equalizing force at work, it’s a natural human condition to say there is an equality, even if it is false and we feel

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content among ourselves living with each other. But if it’s set up wrong, and continues to be wrong . . . . Well, Shakespeare knew [what happens].

YOU ALSO WORKED ON THE MOVIE ABOUT THE HUNGER STRIKE, SOME MOTHER’S SON WITH HELEN MIRREN

It was a very strong film. It was a hell of a time. Terrible.

The French said that it was a very powerful film to come out, because they knew what was going on, and their connection with England is complex as well.

These historical imperialistic nations, you know?

I REMEMBER HELEN MIRREN WAS GIVEN A BAD TIME BY THE BRITISH PRESS.

Oh yeah. But Helen, being the divine artist that she is. She has an intelligence and an emotional reasoning that’s far beyond these people that are reviewing her. She’s fantastic.

DO YOU GO BACK TO BELFAST A LOT?

I nip in and go visit my mom in Cushindall, in the Glens of Antrim. She’s

to follow wherever you go, we know that now. So they were probably quite nervous for a while. I mean, in the end the work is about survival, it’s not about getting up to the top rung. It’s about the adventures of doing different work and working with different people, just keep going on. And for me suddenly I was elevated for something that was none of my doing, it just had to do with circumstance, timing, and somebody’s choice – BUT YOU HAVE A CONSISTENT BODY OF WORK EVEN FROM YOUR EARLY WORK WITH FIELD DAY.

It was Field Day in the mid-80’s, about ’85 I think. And I was with Druid in ’86.

I was like a vagrant with a lot of bags. I worked a lot in Glasgow not really in London, just going around wherever I was offered work. I worked without an agent for years. I just went wherever I got the job. And then I went with this agent, only agent I ever had, and I’d go off and do a job and he couldn’t find me.

If I went down to Druid and spent eight

To do it professionally was never in the back of my head.

I never thought, “I want to be an actor, I want to be

on stage, I want to be in film.” been living there 20 odd years. My father died 15 years ago and they had moved there right after he retired. She’s 87 now.

She can’t move as once she did, but she’s still very much in the game. She was involved in amateur dramatics when she was younger before we children were born. I saw her once, when I was ten or eleven with an amateur group based on The New Lodge Road in Belfast, She was playing an old woman reminiscing over their life. It was fun to watch, very exciting. I think if this darn play [The Seafarer] ever gets on she will come over for it.

SHE MUST BE THRILLED AT YOUR SUCCESS.

I suppose, yeah, but like any parent they’re nervous for all their children, “Will they get through?” “Will they get by?” That was the reason, I think, that even though my parents knew I wanted to be involved in theater, they wanted me to have a degree to fall back on, which often proves to be worthless – you need

months there I was involved in it, and the idea that some people wanted to meet me in London was no part of the psyche.

[Laughs]. You go for the work, and sometimes it doesn’t matter where you do it. I had always worked through subsidized theater, in fringe groups and Irish companies, and then I was asked to join the Royal Shakespeare Company and that’s where my training in dance helped me to present classical work.

WELL, LOOKING AT YOUR BODY OF WORK AS A WHOLE IT’S REALLY INTERESTING, WHETHER IT’S ABOUT THE SLAVE TRADE IN AMAZING GRACE, OR JULIUS CAESAR IN ROME, IT ALL SEEMS LIKE A FASCINATING JOURNEY.

See, that’s an extraordinary thing because you think, how do you go from working in fringe theater in Britain and Ireland, I was working in Glasgow at the time, to a meeting with this famous man of theater Peter Brook?

I just knew that there was a story that was being translated from French into English, and that he needed people who could speak English, and it turns out to be this extraordinary project. So you don’t know how you’re chosen, you never know. They choose you for your nature sometimes, or how you look, or what you’ve done that they liked, it can be a mixture of things.

I remember he read with lots of people in London, and I was invited to do a oneon-one with him in this extraordinary theater in Paris, the D’Oeuf en Neuf.

And I remember walking in, and I think that his assistant said, “Peter wants you to be in the company.” But because you have doubts all the time, real doubts, we have instincts, but are they good enough?

So anyway, I went back and my friends said “How’d it go?” and I said “I don’t know, I’m not sure.” I thought I’d gotten in but I couldn’t trust it. So two months later when I was summoned for a costume fitting, I understood that she had definitely said “Peter would like you to be in the company.”

And suddenly you’re in Paris working, in English but… I met my partner of twenty years there [Hélène Patarot]. She was working in the play too. But suddenly you’re working in a company of twenty-three, twenty-four people with fifteen different nationalities, and that’s a mindblower. Because what you think, morally, or politically, or reasonably, emotionally – it’s not the same because everybody’s come from different sides of the world. They’re all formed in different ways, their brain works in different ways, their emotions. It was really enlightening, and you got lost and then you got opened. And it was great because sometimes there were flare-ups, but it was always discussed. And then you think “What a jammy job.”

That’s where I’ve been dead lucky.

SINCE YOU DIDN’T SET OUT WITH ANY SORT OF STRATEGY IN MIND, DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSAL PLAN?

OR TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD IN THE MAHABHARATA [IN 1987, HE WAS CAST BY PETER BROOK IN THE SIXHOUR THEATER PIECE THAT TOURED THE WORLD, AND HE ALSO APPEARS IN THE 1989 FILM VERSION].

I do honestly. I mean, I still think life is random. It just seems to me that there are too many possibilities. Say you have to make a choice between two things.

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amorous reasons; and they don’t all work in tandem. I mean I made a decision to do this play [The Seafarer] because I just love it and it was a great honor to be asked. But I needed to think about it; because it’s a long commitment and meant leaving the family. So I took two weeks to think about it, and they called and I asked for another week. And the moment came, and I was actually boarding a plane and the agent calls and says, “They need a decision from you” – “Oh, just say yes!” But I sort of knew I was always going to do it. I just had to convince myself.

HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF IN THE PLAY? I MEAN, WHAT DO YOU DO IF YOU’RE HAVING A BAD DAY?

You have to learn to put it away, because that’s what you’re here for, this is your profession. There are actors who are so brilliant they can play around. I’m not. There’s like a third eye always looking around that allows you to take risks and to break what you thought were strictures at the time. And it allows you to really connect and take those risks.

But you have to be engaged and committed to what you’re doing. And to listen – one of the hardest things in acting is to listen, because you’re always thinking of where you might come from next. But if you’re really listening, you trust that it will all work out.

IT MUST BE FRUSTRATING WAITING FOR THE OUTCOME OF THE STRIKE?

recognize it from when you work closely with people, you just think, “Wow, you guys are amazing.”

I THINK A LOT OF THEATER IS MISSING THE WHOLE ENSEMBLE – WORKING TOGETHER AS A GROUP.

Well, that’s Broadway: Bring on the Stars! I had a friend who was at theater school with me who came to a preview, and even he said that you rarely see ensemble acting like this with people moving and people connecting. I mean we all have the responsibility as actors to take the moment when it’s yours but not get in the way of anyone else’s moment.

Because it sure as hell ain’t all about you.

WHEN DID YOU MEET CONOR ?

We met at the Gate Theatre in 2001.

Michael Colgan presented a night of three short plays. There was one written

by Conor McPherson, an Irish writer in his 30s, one by Neil Jordan, an Irish writer in his 50s, and one by the master, Brian Friel who is in his 70s. I was in this Brian Friel piece that was based on a Chekhov short story called The Yalta Game and Conor just loved it. He used to come in and watch, and he recognized a master in Brian Friel working with language and theater, and that’s where we met.

HOW IS IT TO WORK WITH CONOR AS DIRECTOR AND WRITER?

Ciarán Hinds and Kelly Reilly in the 2001 Gate Theatre production of Brian Friel’s The Yalta Game.

The thought that came to mind is that this must be like limbo – always standing and waiting. I mean we could be in Hell so this is a step up. It’s a question of being patient and believing that it will come, and being ready. But we’ve done eight or nine previews and it grows and builds with the audience. And suddenly you loose your steam, but you have to be ready when they say “Okay, we’re going.” That decision will be made quickly, and vocally you have to get your voice ready for 800 seats in a Broadway theater. You don’t want to start acting in a room that you’re not connecting to, and you don’t want to get into bad habits. The Seafarer is a fantastic piece of writing.

There were a couple of performances where the magic really happened . . . you 34 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008

THERE ARE NOT MANY ACTORS WHO CAN GO FROM MOVIE TO STAGE, BACK AND FORTH LIKE THAT.

In Ireland there are. It’s different.

DO YOU HAVE A PREFERENCE?

Not really. I usually say that the one that I’m doing at the time is the one I prefer, and that is certainly true in the case of The Seafarer. There’s work to do along the journey. But it’s just everything around the play, from being around Conor McPherson and his writing, and working with Conleth Hill, David Morse, and being in on Sean Mahon’s first time on Broadway, and he’s great, really wonderful. Then there’s the god we call Jim Norton. So just to be in the company of these people and to work together is quietly thrilling.

He’s had two plays on Broadway and this is his third, and for a man in his mid-30’s that is just extraordinary. But this is the first time he’s directing on Broadway. And he is – all directors are different – but he works in the most human, untheatrical way. It’s about connecting, and about truth, and having a laugh like real life. Except he structured this piece brilliantly, and just lets you go off on your own, and maybe two days later he’ll come up to you and say a little thing. So the connection is very fluid and very free, sometimes you wonder where the hell we are at, but as he is a highly intelligent young man, who doesn’t show off about it, you trust him, and he trusts that you will do whatever he leaves you to do. And then he’ll say when it needs to be shaped. It’s been great for me.

END NOTE: The stagehands strike lasted for three weeks but the producers stood by The Seafarer and when the play opened the critics raved. Ben Brantley in the New York Times wrote “one of the finest ensembles to grace a Broadway stage in years uncovers the soul-defining clarity within the drunkard’s haze.

Alcohol may be a great leveler, but as these men confirm with spectacular style, it is also a great individualizer.”

Brantley went on to say: “As the central adversaries, Mr. Morse and Mr. Hinds give the show a diamond-hard dramatic center it lacked in London. . . Mr. Hinds is uncanny in balancing the mortal failings of Mr. Lockhart’s borrowed body and the immortal rage and agony of the demon within.”

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Where Do We Go From Here?

THE FUTURE OF THE IRISH/IRISH-AMERICAN RELATIONSHIP

Left to right: Publisher of Irish America magazine Niall O’Dowd (standing). Declan Kelly CEO FDUS, Don Keough, Chairman Allen & Company, John Duffy CEO KBW Inc., Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Chairman American Ireland Fund, Hugh Brady, President University College Dublin, Dennis Kelleher, Founder Wall Street Access and economist David McWilliams.

The inaugural U.S.-Ireland Forum was held in New York on November 7 and 8. Irish America magazine, together with The American Ireland Fund, University College Dublin, and the Irish Government co-hosted the event at the Affinia Manhattan Hotel.

Over the two days some of the finest Irish and Irish-American minds came together to discuss the changing relationship between the two countries.Themes explored included: Social Capital and Philanthropy, Culture and Education,The Future of the Celtic Tiger, Philanthropy in Ireland, and Ireland–U.S. :The Next Generation.The following pages give a small taste of what took place with excerpts from some of the many speeches.The Forum began with a major announcement from UCD President Hugh Brady.

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FORUM The U.S.-Ireland Forum got off to a good start when Dr. Hugh Brady, President of University College Dublin, announced that major funding had been obtained to assist the university’s decision to establish an international center to support the global Irish family.

T

oday there is unprecedented interest in the Irish and the Irish Diaspora, Over 80 million identify themselves with Ireland, and one of the questions today is, why is that? There are several reasons. There is a collective pride in the achievements of the global family; peace and prosperity on the island of Ireland; the outstanding business success of Irish America and the Irish in Britain; the wonderful reputation enjoyed by Irish artists and culture from Joyce to Bono, Flatley, Heaney and so many more.

There is a flip side. There is concern about the future of the global Irish family and that is the focus of much of this forum.

I put it to you that there is a set of relationships under strain, there is a need to redefine the mission and there is a need to energize the next generation of leaders.

It is my contention that Ireland does not understand Irish America and its contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process and the current economic success. Possibly even more worrying is that Ireland thinks it does. Secondly that Irish America, who probably feel that they understand Ireland better than the Irish themselves, may feel that their contribution has been underappreciated. In fact because of its own success Irish America is at risk of becoming almost an invisible ethnic group. Finally, collectively we may underestimate the shared values that underpin the bond that is Irishness and the potential of the global Irish family to address and influence the major social issues of our time.

As university president what can a university do? We have seen it as a priority at UCD to establish an International Center, a hub focused on the challenge and support of the global Irish family. The core themes of history, heritage, and culture will be addressed, but also contemporary themes like peace and reconciliation, human rights, migration, diversity, global citizenship, glob-

al Ireland and the developing world. This should be a well-visited center with students, scholars, and professors from the Diaspora coming and challenging each other and coming up with solutions.

One of Ireland’s most successful developers, Pat Doherty, has made a very significant gift to launch the fundraising campaign for this institute. The only condition was that the institute be known as the John Hume Institute for Irish Studies. A wonderful gesture as we approach the ten-year anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, and a wonderful tribute to one of Ireland’s greatest statesman. I see this activity as being crucial. I put this question to you: In ten or fifteen years time, will the global Irish family be a historical curiosity, or an agent for change? I hope that the collective presence here today share the desire that the Irish Diaspora goes from strength to strength and becomes that agent for change through this forum and other actions like it.

Dr. Hugh Brady, Marie Collins, Loretta Brennan Glucksman, and Irish Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Collins.

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Outtakes from t A wide array of speakers examined myriad issues that confront the Diaspora. The following pages contain outtakes from the seven panel discussions that took place during the conference.

ON THE FUTURE OF THE CELTIC TIGER: The Celtic Tiger is a very good description for the problem and the challenge facing Ireland now. Like the tigers in Southeast Asia, what Ireland has to answer over the next few year is can it become a self-sustaining economy.

All the growth and benefit was driven by the fact that Ireland had the best education, the highest literacy rate, and the lowest salaries in Europe. This is now being supplanted by Eastern Europe. I say this as a person who is always facing the choice of where to invest and who to invest with. Increasingly over the last year we have not been finding opportunities in Ireland. That is not because we don’t believe that Ireland has a great economy, but because the opportunities for investing are slowing. Not only because of India and China, but also because of Poland and the Czech Republic who are just like the Ireland of ten years ago.

Ireland needs to make the transition that Singapore and Korea made – that even if external growth and external demand slowed, we would be able to survive and continue to increase GDP. Ireland has, so far, allowed immigration, and that is a really important feeder in the productivity process. Growth and external investment depend almost entirely on Ireland showing that it has selfgenerating growth.

Richard Medley, Chairman, Medley Capital

The Tiger hasn’t gone lame, we have seen some slowdown, a reality check, we have had some recent job losses but that is usual for other markets so why should it be unusual for us?

The cost of doing business in Ireland is a little too high in my opinion, and the biggest threat of all is complacency.

We must address our competitiveness, keep an eye on globalization issues, and the cost of living must be controlled.

We must not talk ourselves into recession.

Maybe the accidental element of the Celtic Tiger has run its course and it is time for us to do what we do best, be innovative, and redefine our business plan and work for a living.

Ian Hyland, Publisher, Business & Finance Magazine

Ian Hyland, Michael Flatley and Colum McCann

ON THE FORUM:

If you put the finger on the pulse of all the people here today you will find a sea change; something entirely new and unique is happening. A whole new direction is being taken because of this confluence of people from all around the world, from all around our culture and business. It is a real surprise and it is fantastic.

It is a pulse and is the pulse of a wound that goes through to the opposite side.

Colum McCann, Novelist 38 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008

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m the Forum ON WHY THE DIASPORA REALLY MATTERS:

LAURA JEAN ZITO

At Glucksman Ireland House we teach the Irish language and it is not all Irish kids, it’s Asian kids, it’s African-American kids. To walk into that classroom would just lift your heart. The Irish language, which for so long was lying fallow as a dead language, is now hot, and the best fun is talking to the kids and learning their motivation for taking on a pretty tough language. Sometimes it is that they are in love with an Irish kid and they want to impress the family! I think that culture and education can cross a whole bunch of boundaries that seem insurmountable.

Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Chairman, The American Ireland Fund, and Founder of Glucksman Ireland House at NYU

It is time for a think tank, for a comprehensive scholarly and intelligent approach to plotting the future of this critical relationship between Ireland and America which is taken far too much for granted. Irish America must also change because of the new reality. For too long we have been identified in part by a bogus and trivial culture that

LAURA JEAN ZITO

LAURA JEAN ZITO

Those of us who grew up in the Diaspora have an obligation to try to help this amazingly unusual situation in Ireland. For the first time I think in history, we have an unarmed group of immigrants coming to Ireland. We have been exporting people for hundreds of years now, particularly since the 19th century to this city [New York]. I think one of the things we have an obligation to do is to help Ireland itself in the quest for absorbing immigration, because that was our tale. We had things done to us, but we happened to win the later rounds, particularly after 1960 with the election of Jack Kennedy. But we had things done to us and we learned how to be truly tough, to endure without talking tough.

Pete Hamill, Irish-American Journalist and Author

FORUM

focuses on green hats, leprechauns and beer drinking. Is that what we want America to know us for?

Niall O’Dowd, Publisher, Irish America Magazine

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FORUM IRELAND & AMERICA:THE NEW PARADIGM: I don’t see why economic success argues against culture. They can coexist. It is about reinventing Ireland. The Celtic Tiger phase was really positive, really fantastic. A lot of people came home. The situation now is: if there is a downturn we can sit back and think about the country. Ireland is interesting because we are half American half European, and that is what gives us our unique selling point. Culturally we are extremely close to the United States, but politically and geographically we are close to Europe.

That is our unique selling point. In the long term Ireland will realize that that is where our vested interest lies.

Right now the government is obsessed with getting deeper and deeper into the European Union.

Ultimately it is looking to the East, whereas Irish people have always looked to the West for economic opportunity.

Ireland is an Atlantic nation, not a continental European one. I think the Diaspora idea [we are talking about here] would allow us to NAELA EL-ASSAD pursue a policy that is less defined by Brussels or Berlin or Bucharest, and more defined by something that links to our history and our people. This is part of an active reinvention of our culture and society for the 21st century.

Genuflecting to our past, to where we are geographically from, but also embracing the Diaspora, which is our only unique global resource.

David McWilliams, Economist and Broadcaster

What I hope to demonstrate and what I hope the panel demonstrates is that Irish America does have an ongoing role to play in the ongoing educational and cultural life of Ireland, North and South. But that role can only be played to the degree that the Irish mind itself is free enough to accept gifts beyond the checkbook; gifts of the NUALA PURCELL minds and hearts and sensibilities and spirit that Irish America has kept alive. I have experienced enormous generosity in Ireland, both personally and for the work I’ve tried to do there, just extraordinary generosity and I don’t want to take away from that. But I have experienced in Ireland a cynicism in regards to Irish America and above all, a cynicism in what they see in us as a sentimental, romantic almost a nincompoop kind of relationship to Irish culture born of total ignorance. What is left out of that equation is a lack of understanding of IrishAmerican culture, what we have passed through, and indeed what we are doing – particularly through the Irish Studies programs that have been created across the country in the last ten or fifteen years to keep alive traditions that in many ways, and I can speak out of personal experience on this, many ways have been lost or derided in Ireland itself. The work of Yeats itself is an example of that, the work of Thomas Moore is an example of that, those are personal examples of mine.

James Flannery, Winship Professor of Arts and Humanities, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

Bruce Morrison, Former Congressman, Instigator of the Morrison Visas 40 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008

LAURA JEAN ZITO

We need Irish and Americans to learn a lot from each other about the immigration heritage, what it’s about and how to react to it and to be smart about it If we think about the relationship between Ireland and the United States [with respect to our current immigration question] and Ireland’s relationship to the world in terms of its immigration [practice] then what you want for the future will tell you how to fix the mistakes of the past.

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ON THE FORUM:

I think culture is the unspoken aorta valve that keeps Ireland alive all over the world. I think culture is the thing that everyone touches and feels. Why is it that everyone in this country loves St. Patrick’s Day? In this country it is a day of pride for all of us.

Everybody likes Ireland. It is a phenomenal asset and we don’t utilize it half as much as we ought to.

Declan Kelly, President & CEO, FD-US

THE DREAM: Do you know about Grosse Ile? It's an island in the St. Laurence River in Canada where thousands of Irish are buried in mass graves.

Estimates are that one in seven famine immigrants never [survived the journey]. And that their life span was seven to fourteen years if they did.

All we ever learned in Ireland was that they got on the coffin ships. We didn’t learn what happened to them once they got here.

It is my dream that Ireland, the mother country, would care enough to know what happened to her children, and teach that history in the schools.

Terry Dolan [Professor, School of English, University College Dublin] talked about a building and how many “stories” there are in a building. There are enough stories in Irish America to fill a very tall building.

Mick Moloney’s class at New York University, “The IrishAmerican in Music, Theatre and Dance,” is one of the most popular. And what a legacy we have there – not only do we have Gene Kelly, whose mother ran an Irish stepdancing school, we have Eugene O’Neill who once said, “The thing that critics don’t get about me and my work is that I'm Irish.” O’Neill never put a foot on Irish soil but you only have to see his plays to know that you don’t have to be born on the island of Ireland to be Irish.

My dream is that Mick Moloney’s class would be taught in all of the colleges in Ireland – that Irish Studies classes would become Irish-American Studies – or I’d settle for Diaspora Studies.

It’s such a great history [the history of the Irish in America].

There are millions of stories out there. And I hope the new International house at UCD has a place for all of them.

- Patricia Harty

I had the good sense this morning to look up the word Diaspora in the dictionary, which I still do occasionally. It is a Greek word that means “a scattering” or “a sowing of seeds.” Another interpretation is that of “displacement.”

I’d like to think that today many of those seeds scattered across the globe have found their place here and in a broader sense are finding their places around the world.

During the summer I was at a “Flight of the Earls” conference in County Donegal organized by Ulster University. It was an opportunity to mark that historic event that took place 400 years ago this year. At the conference they spoke of the Diaspora as a “coming and going.” So today we can no longer think about the Irish Diaspora as a population forced to leave their homeland, experiencing a displacement that was very sad.

Today we must think of it as a coming and going and a powerful sharing with each other.

LAURA JEAN ZITO

Turlough McConnell, Executive Director, the U.S.-Ireland Forum

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FORUM

Does the Diaspora Matter?

Keynote speaker and principal honoree at the forum dinner Don Keough, chairman of Allen & Company and former president of Coca-Cola, gave a stirring speech that captured the essence of what the forum was about and what it could lead to. “

T

his forum is asking an important question: Does the Diaspora really matter, and is it something that is really important? Is it just a pleasant thing or is it something we should really think about? I think we should.”

After taking a look at the giant strides taken in Ireland over the past 25 years – from a struggling land losing its young to emigration and barely surviving to a country thriving – and the role that Irish America played in that transformation, Keough talked about the Diaspora.

“Let me tell you something. It [the Diaspora] is not there to meddle, preach, lecture or pontificate.

It is there to gather a collection of loving, admiring people, respectable men and women, who consider Ireland an important part of their DNA, heritage, and lives to look to the future and raise questions. That is why I think this coming together is important for us and Don Keough, top, and above with Niall O’Dowd. for Ireland.” women, boys and girls, and those not yet With the incredible growth experienced born who will carry Irish blood and their during the Celtic Tiger tapering off, Keough linkage to the Ireland of the 21st century? touched on the challenge facing Ireland and “What about tomorrow? What about the those outside the country of Irish descent.

30 million Americans of Irish extraction “The Celtic Tiger is history. And the difwho live in the States who are not touched ficulty is going to be maintaining growth by the government or the magazine or by over the coming years. The 70 million peothe various societies, what about them? ple outside of Ireland who carry Irish blood What about the Scots-Irish, who carried the move back another generation quickly, name Scots because they didn’t want to be every 20 years. There are no more people totally associated with Ireland? And now moving into the Diaspora, the island they can. Now they should. They want a becomes more mentally distant, so the funhome. Are we going to find them? Are we damental question on the table remains: Are going to locate them? And make them want the 40 million people in this country who to come home. These are sensitive quescarry Irish blood really an important asset to tions. Should the Irish government revisit the Republic? Is there a plan to strengthen the citizenship criteria? Does it make sense that relationship between the men and

42 IRISH AMERICA FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008

for the criteria for Irish citizenship to look back more than one generation? Should it be more inclusive, like that of Israel? Or is there a next better thing? A certificate of Irish heritage with certain rights and privileges in Ireland?”

Keough rounded off his speech with his ideal scenario for the coming years: “I have a vision, and that is the biggest Welcome Home party in history. With 80,000 delegates filling Croke Park, coming from everywhere, from the United States, from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, from Argentina, from everywhere. Maybe in 2010? Filling the park, forming in effect Ireland’s own Commonwealth, which would bring political, economic, and cultural leaders to Ireland to discuss ways to strengthen ties to the republic in the years that lie ahead.”

Also honored at the dinner was dancer Michael Flatley. The Chicago native, who now lives in west Cork, also suggested ways of developing the global Irish family.

“Why can’t we have a TV station that shows the best of what we are? It’s time to shed this leprechaun image once and for all.

We are leaders in our field, every field we choose. It’s time that the world knows that.

Our greatest asset is our people. Let’s stand shoulder to shoulder. Let’s scream and we will be heard,” he said to applause.

“We are standing on the shoulders of people like Pearse and Connolly. We have a responsibility to reach for the stars. And IA don’t tell me that we can’t.”

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{ireland today} Opinion by John Spain

The French Connection THE COCAINE EPIDEMIC IN IRELAND

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he death of top model Katy French a few weeks ago from a cocaine overdose has finally woken Ireland up to the fact that we are in the middle of a cocaine epidemic. Cocaine use has now permeated all levels of Irish society, from the boardroom to the bar.

So much of it is being used that when RTE (the national television station) did a countrywide investigation a few weeks ago taking samples from counter tops in bar bathrooms all over Ireland, over 90 per cent of the dozens of bars visited tested positive.

So it’s not an exaggeration to refer to it as an epidemic. It’s everywhere. It’s the Celtic Tiger’s drug of choice. Thanks to our economic boom we can afford it, so we’re using it in vast quantities.

It’s now a routine part of a night’s drinking in music pubs even in poorer areas. In better off areas, it’s equally routine to be offered it at a dinner party and you are considered a bit of a party pooper if you say no. At both ends of the social scale, it’s now accepted that people visit the bathroom more often than usual and come back sniffing.

Until recently nobody in Ireland talked about this because everyone was doing it and it was mainly seen as a nice middleclass drug (a clean white powder and no needles); middle-class people could handle their drug better than those moronic working-class addicts stuck on heroin. And of course cocaine is not really addictive.

The death of Katy French has changed that tacit conspiracy of silence. Now everyone here is talking about cocaine, about how big a problem we have and how destructive it is.

Katy French was just 24, a bright and

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beautiful model intelligent enough to be in demand as a guest on TV shows. She had built a very high profile for herself very quickly. So her death was genuinely shocking to a lot of people here who seemed to think that cocaine was risk free.

Her death emphasized that the cocaine epidemic was real and that people at all levels of Irish society were using the drug.

The truth is that week in, week out, cocaine is causing havoc here. Just before Christmas, the Dublin County Coroner said that cocaine was the most common cause of death in more than half of all inquests into drug related deaths heard at his Court last year. He said that of the 47 inquests into drug related deaths heard at the Court in 2007, 26 of them were cocaine related, 16 were heroin related and five were Ecstasy related.

And if the figure for drug related deaths coming before the Dublin County Coroner seems shocking to you, take note that it relates to the county, not the city.

So it’s only half the Dublin cocaine story in 2007.

The County Coroner was speaking at a double inquest into the deaths of two teenagers who drowned while high on cocaine and Ecstasy (they had jumped into a canal to cool off).

It didn’t get much coverage in the media here, because the two young men who died were ordinary guys, not a blonde top model. And it was the same with the two guys in Waterford who died from cocaine about the same time as Katy French. Like her, they had been in a coma for days before dying. She got pages and pages of coverage while they were hardly mentioned.

That may seem unfair because for the families involved one death is as tragic as another. But the huge coverage given to the collapse, coma, death and funeral of Katy French did achieve something important. It did bring home to people here that the cocaine epidemic is real and that people at all levels of Irish society are using the drug.

That was the central message of the controversial book The High Society about cocaine use in Ireland which was published just before the death of Katy French and which caused a furor because it said that all kinds of top people (including a government minister) were doing it but gave no names.

One section of the book will be of particular interest to those of you who fly regularly between Ireland and the U.S. Among the many people the author interviewed is an unnamed pilot in his 40s who flies out of Dublin to various airports in the U.S. at least a couple of times a week.

The author quotes the pilot as follows: “I actually use coke more on the days that I am working and away than I do when I’m at home. I find sitting still in the confined space of the cockpit for hours excruciating without it. The truth is that aircraft largely fly themselves these days and when we land I tend to sit in front of the box [TV] by myself, doing coke, having a few drinks in a motel room and waiting for the morning.”

That should make you sit up a bit the next time you hit a little turbulence on the way over.

But that was far from the most controversial part of the book, which was written by an unknown young TV researcher, Justine Delaney Wilson. There was also

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The death of model Katy French shocked a lot of people who seemed to think that cocaine was risk free.

the interview with an unnamed government minister, which the author says was done in a hotel just across the road from the Dail [Irish parliament].

“Yes, I do drugs – just coke though – regularly enough,” the minister said.

“I’m certainly not the only one around here that does. The hypocrisy that surrounds it really galls me. We all know how widespread it is – in bars, offices, over there (motioning across the road to the Dail), but we pretend to be horrified when we read the figures in the papers.”

As well as the unnamed minister and pilot, the book also had interviews with a priest, a nun, a lawyer, a doctor, business people, a top media columnist, and other people from all kinds of professions and parts of the country all of whom admitted to regular cocaine abuse. All of the people interviewed were anonymous, but intriguing little details about each interview subject were added to give an idea of who or what they might be.

If it had been just a book, it might not have attracted too much attention. But the book was also used as the basis for a two-part television documentary tie-in

with RTE. The two-part programwas made by a small independent production company for RTE. Actors played the parts of various people in the book as the interviews were recreated for television.

The programs sparked a furious national debate, with acres of space given to it in newspapers and questions asked in the Dail about the identity of the government minister. A sort of national guessing game – Name the Minister – began as people speculated about who it might be.

What was really driving the brouhaha, apart from the fun of trying to guess who was who in the book, was the fact that this was a drugs story which was not about the track-suit-wearing “skangers” from the deprived housing estates but was about the “nice” people, respectable, educated, well-off. The subtitle of the book is Drugs and the Irish Middle Class.

What followed then took a rather different turn. It became a game of Shoot the Messenger, as other journalists began to question the methodology and credibility of the author, Justine Delaney Wilson.

Had she really spoken to all these people?

Would a minister really have been so

forthcoming? Would a pilot be stupid enough to say such things? Did she make it up, or sex it up?

Several high-powered investigations then got under way (including one in RTE) and senior people in RTE admitted to a Dail committee that their usual level of editorial control had not been applied.

But RTE was still standing behind the programs even though some of the interview tapes had been destroyed by the author.

There are still doubts about Delaney Wilson’s book and the TV shows based on it. The publisher is saying that they know the identity of the minister and they are confident that the book is based on real interviews and is accurate.

But other groups apart from politicians are less than happy. The pilots’ association says the author must reveal the identity of the pilot because passenger safety is at stake. The Irish Aviation Authority has written to RTE demanding the pilot’s name.

Other groups are also unhappy, teachers and lawyers being just two. The book features an unnamed teacher who likes to take a line during her free classes, and an unnamed lawyer whose offices Delaney Wilson was in with a drug dealer when he made a drop and picked up a bag of cash.

Again there have been demands that she prove that all these interviews are real and suggestions that if she can’t, no one should believe her. But the reality is that the death of Katy French — and the other recent cocaine deaths – have made this kind of questioning seem pointless.

Public opinion has shifted. The deaths are clear evidence that we are in the middle of an epidemic, so why try to pick holes in a book that says that?

The real situation here does not need any melodrama or exaggeration to make it shocking. Katy French died after a cocaine binge in a private house. She was an engaging young woman but she had some questionable friends and her social life appears to have mirrored some of the excesses of one section of Celtic Tiger Ireland. It’s a fast, loose, tawdry, drug-fueled set of media names, models and business types, a B-list celeb crowd whose faces fill the Irish papers every weekend.

But the same thing is going on at all levels. The two young men who died in Continued on page 73 FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008 IRISH AMERICA 71

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Waterford around the same time as Katy French were also at a house party, a late night birthday party after being in pubs in the city earlier. When someone produced cocaine it was too damp to snort so some of the partygoers ate it. The problem with this is that it takes at least an hour to kick in and people take more when they think it’s not working. With alcohol it produces a toxic mixture. Within a few hours the two young men were having seizures and palpitations, before lapsing into a coma, like Katy French had done.

That’s the sleazy reality at both ends of the social scale here. Another reality is the scale of what’s going on. Last July cocaine with a street value of 100 million euros was seized off the Cork coast as it was being smuggled ashore. It was discovered by accident when a boat involved got into difficulty, raising the question of how much was going undetected.

The answer is: probably a great deal.

We have a very long coastline around the south and southwest of Ireland full of hidden bays and beaches and only eight navy patrol boats (mostly small boats) to monitor it. The area is around a quarter of a million square miles. With other routes into Europe being closed off, the drug smugglers now regard Ireland as an easy entry point, with the added advantage that onward shipment in containers is not subjected to the same scrutiny as cargoes coming from places like West Africa.

Most of the cocaine goes straight through to the UK and Europe. But there is plenty to drop off for the home market.

Cocaine here has never been so cheap and so easy to source.

A few days before Katy French’s collapse the media had covered her glitzy 24th birthday party in a Dublin nightclub at which she arrived in a shimmering gold dress in a Rolls Royce. She had recently been part of a TV reality show and had appeared on TV chat shows after that.

She was a model who was famous for wanting to be famous. A year ago she had split from her restaurant-owning fiancé because he objected to her doing lingerie modeling. The break-up had put her in all the social columns and magazines, although some suspected the whole thing may have been a publicity stunt.

She had invited some A-list stars like Bono to her party but they didn’t show, and this had attracted some comment in

adults brought in with everything from breathing difficulties, seizures, panic attacks, violent paranoia, to even strokes and heart attacks, all triggered by cocaine use.

One thing that is clear is that we have a particular problem here because of the culture of weekend binge drinking. This leads to a lack of judgment when the drinking session is followed by cocaine and too much of the drug can be taken.

The toxin formed by an excess of alcohol and cocaine together can be lethal.

Katy French’s death is a tragedy ... but something good could result if it leads to more resources being put into the battle against cocaine. At present we have less than 40 gardai (police) in the drugs unit across the whole country, we have inadequate resources to stop smuggling, and the war against the drug dealers is being lost.

But apart from limiting supply, we will really only win the cocaine war in Ireland by reducing demand, and that Katy French’s mother Janet and sister Jill at her funeral. means scaring all those nice the gossip columns. She was so despermiddle class people who are abusing the ate to be famous that she was easy to drug. Random car checks using sniffer make fun of. And yet her TV appeardogs should be introduced, with immediances and her evident sense of humor ate confiscation of a vehicle for testing if about herself meant that many people not there is a reaction. We breathalyse peoonly knew who she was but liked her. ple all the time for alcohol at car checkShe was not the top model here for points, and the sniffer dogs could be used fashion shows but she was easily the at the same time. most high profile among the 2007 crop of Even better would be a regular examileading models. And she made no secret nation of leading bars and nightclubs, of her ambition to move beyond shoots with instant closure of the premises if any and catwalks into general TV appeartraces are found on table tops, toilet seat ances. And she was intelligent enough to lids etc. That would make the owners a make it happen. lot more vigilant. It seems strange that we She may have been too much a reflechave a small army of pub inspectors looktion of the celebrity obsessed, money ing for smokers, but no one looking for driven, insatiable Celtic Tiger culture. cocaine.

But she was fun. In retrospect her death The cocaine epidemic in Ireland is all a seems such a tragic waste. factor of our Celtic Tiger wealth, of In the wake of her death, some frontcourse. But even if the money flow line medical staff who deal with the slows, we will be left with the problem. cocaine epidemic have been talking about Hopefully we will all wake up before what they face on a weekly basis. The there are too many other young deaths IA Accident and Emergency Consultant at a like that of Katy French. leading Cork hospital said that at least six John Spain is a columnist for young adults have died there this year the Irish Voice newspaper where a from the effects of cocaine. He said that version of the above first appeared. every weekend now they see young FEBRUARY / MARCH 2008 IRISH AMERICA 73