We Must be Talking

  Antisemitism                Gerry OShea Peter Hayes, a history professor in Northwestern University who specializes in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, is amazed and shocked that celebrities with massive followings are spewing antisemitic tropes that have been considered taboo for decades. Police records reveal a substantial and disturbing increase in hate crimes against Blacks, gays, Asians and Jews. A few months ago, former President Donald Trump welcomed Kanye West, now known as the rapper Ye, to Mar-a-Lago.  In a recent interview Mr. West expressed his admiration for Adolf Hitler. Also present at that gathering was Nick Fuentes, a belligerent racist leader of white nationalism. He has publicly bemoaned the prominence of Jewish leaders in America and suggested that they should be replaced by Catholics. This brings to mind the rabble-rousing preaching of Fr. Charles Coughlin who hosted a huge r...

  A Hundred Years of Irish Independence          Gerry OShea An outsider looking at Ireland’s hundred years of independence would surely be astonished by the gradual transition from rags to riches. The country started off in dire circumstances: the treasury was very low and business activity was stagnant. Lenders were hard to find for a nascent economy among European countries or in Washington where what came to be known as the Great Depression was already beckoning. Even worse than the economic challenges political differences loomed dangerously large. The vote to accept the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty showed a major cleavage in the Dail with almost half of the TD’s, led by the president of the assembly, Eamon de Valera, condemning the deal as a sellout of Republican principles. In particular, they strongly resented the requirement that members of the new Free State parliament would be compelled to sign an oath of fealty to the Eng...

  Poverty in America            Gerry OShea The wisdom of Oliver Goldsmith’s powerful lines in his moving 18 th century poem The Deserted Village resonates today at a time of flagrant inequality and increasing child poverty in America: “ Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey where wealth accumulates and men decay.” These words are particularly appropriate while the lame duck Congress is considering restoring the generous Child Tax Credit (CTC) program abandoned at the end of 2021 because of outright opposition by Republicans aided by the cantankerous Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin. Between July and December 2021, the Internal Revenue Service as part of President Biden’s enhanced Child Tax Credit paid out monthly family subventions of up to $250 per child, aged six to seventeen, and as much as $300 for infants under six, positively impacting 61 million children and over 36 million households. An important addition to t...

  LGBTQ Issues                      Gerry OShea Some readers may remember the Stonewall riots that took place in Greenwich Village in June 1989. The Stonewall Inn was one of a number of bars, mostly owned by the Mafia, located in the Greenwich Village area in Lower Manhattan that were frequented by members of the gay community in New York. Police visited these places regularly to disrupt their partying and generally conveyed a hostile attitude to members of that community. On the night in question the members of the NYPD became very assertive and used physical force against patrons in the Stonewall. The gay men and their friends in the community fought back and violent altercations took place during the next few days. Village residents, especially homosexuals, joined with activist groups in asserting their right to live openly and without threats of being arrested by the police...

  Abusive Schools in Ireland           Gerry OShea Gabriel Byrne’s Broadway play Walking with Ghosts deals with the actor’s life growing up in Dublin as the eldest of six children in a working-class family. It is a dramatic memoir of his young years, dealing impressively with his early school and church experiences before moving on to heartbreaking family tragedies and his own successful battle with alcoholism. At age eleven, in the early 1960’s, he was recruited as a likely candidate for the Catholic priesthood by some order with a preparatory junior seminary in England. There, he liked studying Latin and was lauded by his teacher as a possible future classical scholar. In one of the high points of the play, the Latin teacher invited him to his room for a chat. The priest questioned him about his sexual propensities while grooming him for grotesque sexual molestation which occurred on that day. In a poignant scene from a la...

  Elections Reflections              Gerry OShea Despite the positive results for democracy that emanated from the recent midterms I am still completely perplexed by the happenings in American politics since the last presidential election. Saying that we live in extraordinary times does not begin to capture the extent of the moral and political confusion that has engulfed the country. It is mind blowing that more than half of the candidates representing one of our two main parties ran for office on the outrageous assertion that Donald Trump was cheated out of victory in the last election. They assert - without blushing - that he should still be at the helm in the White House. Sixty judges reviewed the results and not one could find the slightest evidence of any chicanery. We hardly need to explain that in a democracy the one who gets the most votes in an election (in America in the electoral college) wins the contest...

  Catholics and the Presidency             Gerry OShea In 1933 President Theodore Roosevelt told two of his trusted advisors, Henry Morgenthau Jr., a Jew, and Leo Crowley, a Catholic, “you know this is a Protestant country – Jews and Catholics are here by sufferance.” A hundred years later, these two religious groups are no longer outsiders, but traditional Protestanism still carries real heft in political circles. People associate religion with conservative politics. Evangelical Christians and churchgoing Catholics tend to support the Republican Party while people deemed liberal in both groups join Jews, Blacks and secular voters to populate the Democratic party. It is hard to imagine a freethinking candidate, unattached to the Christian mainstream, securing a Republican nomination for high office. Similarly, an aspiring Democrat who, for instance, condemns gay marriage would vainly appeal for approval in the Democrat...

  Reflections of an Immigrant             Gerry OShea I came to America on a student visa in the summer of 1968. I travelled with a college friend, Ignatius Coffey, who hails from Labasheeda in County Clare. We were attending University College Dublin (UCD) after completing a second year studying the Arts curriculum. As evening students we were making our way by working in various jobs because our parents could not afford to cover our living expenses. So, we arrived in New York on the last day of May with very few dollars in the back pocket wondering if this new country would give us a break. I had uncles and aunts in New York who were a big help in providing meals and subsistence. A first cousin’s husband, who worked in Woolworth’s warehouse in Harlem and who was one of about six shop stewards in the Teamsters Union there, found us a job in his place, despite the line of American students knocking at the door. The...

  The Midterm Elections           Gerry OShea When John Healy, the great Irish Times columnist in the 1970’s, faced covering a bewildering political situation in Ireland he would playfully plead with his readers for help. “Riddle me this!” he would ask as he started to draw the readers into the complexities of whatever conundrum he was writing about.    I feel like Healy’s assertion applies in spades as we look towards the  elections on November 8 th because they involve so much emotion and are so crucial for both parties and, indeed, for the future of American democracy.  Republicans are justifiably confident that they will benefit from the traditional midterm negative judgement on the party in office. In addition, all the polls point to the rising cost of food and gas as the number one voter concern.  I read about a woman in Colorado who bought a dozen eggs for 80 cents two years ago but who i...

    On December 5 th 1921 the British Prime Minister, reminding Griffith and his colleagues that the Dail made them plenipotentiaries, issued an ultimatum: sign the treaty document or face immediate and terrible war. Collins knew that many of his colleagues at home would be outraged at any oath to the English monarch which clearly reneged on their promise of fealty to an Irish Republic. Just how difficult he found signing his name on the document can be gauged from Churchill’s assessment: “Michael Collins rose as if he was going to shoot someone, preferably himself. In all my life I have never seen such pain and suffering in restraint.”   In the last letter he wrote to a friend from London, he unburdened about the depth of his painful misgivings. “When you have sweated, toiled, had mad dreams, hopeless nightmares, cold and dank in the night air. Think – what have I got for Ireland? Something she has wanted these past 700 years. Will anyone be satisfied with the bar...