tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8044771594865635362024-03-05T16:17:06.987-08:00vinnymurphyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-65922173831126228692011-12-12T09:02:00.001-08:002012-04-01T05:10:54.964-07:00New York: 20 months, scores of adventures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Zr0z_IXsEB1GhkePuGlf816yOS2nFnexrp9EGD95x3GRHB3RvsBRz7eHwkDdGjoEGTPGIIOQOWyfngWN6D2I_IyLoXdfHH1YsbC6povroud72nDRr_Z2S8xAJcGGwNC9rgyUSg5G5zGy/s1600/69313_493530514574_538439574_7261132_7008330_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Zr0z_IXsEB1GhkePuGlf816yOS2nFnexrp9EGD95x3GRHB3RvsBRz7eHwkDdGjoEGTPGIIOQOWyfngWN6D2I_IyLoXdfHH1YsbC6povroud72nDRr_Z2S8xAJcGGwNC9rgyUSg5G5zGy/s320/69313_493530514574_538439574_7261132_7008330_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">At the end of this week I will be returning to Ireland after 20 months living in New York City. I've also decided to retire this blog, which really is a collection (not comprehensive) of some of the journalism work I've done during my time in the Big Apple.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But before I finish, I've decided to list 75 interesting things that I've done in New York while I've been here. Some are big momentous events, others are small things that I derived pleasure from. It's by no means everything I've done, and it's not in any particular order! Enjoy!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">1. </span></span> Reported live from the celebrations at Ground Zero on the night that Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Forces<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">2. Saw Kelsey Grammar (Frasier) in La Cage Aux Folles, Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) in How to Succeed in Business, and indulged my Broadway</span></span> addiction further by attending Chicago, Avenue Q, Catch Me If You Can, Follies, The Adams Family, Spiderman, and the brilliant Next to Normal.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">3. Been on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street for opening bell during a visit by then Taoiseach Brian Cowen</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">4. Attended a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart twice</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLUgsUT7rmXxV8Ai7Sb1UsiKXaBPFtHwmENghYw3qyMr8djzZz2lUmMYMe1ghh3ZolfargZwuGOYg3rFFTPFyEUqO-mfvmtJc9Pcv1gqYES4dox_AYh9ycj0KAh5tUj3wv5fk0JR3OwPC/s1600/320110_10150376224789575_538439574_10153394_712322969_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLUgsUT7rmXxV8Ai7Sb1UsiKXaBPFtHwmENghYw3qyMr8djzZz2lUmMYMe1ghh3ZolfargZwuGOYg3rFFTPFyEUqO-mfvmtJc9Pcv1gqYES4dox_AYh9ycj0KAh5tUj3wv5fk0JR3OwPC/s320/320110_10150376224789575_538439574_10153394_712322969_n.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">5. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Was giving a personal tour of the redevelopment at Ground Zero, including signing my name on the steel girders of the new Tower One</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">6. Saw at chair being sold for $2m at Christie’s Auction House and attended other high-value auctions - strange experiences!</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">7. Watched the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Thanksgiving Day Macy’s parade and indulged in turkey dinners, corn bread and all the trimmings!</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">8. Cheered on participants, including friends, in the New York Marathon</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">9. </span></span>Attended the recording of New York auditions for America's Got Talent<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> (concluded it doesn't!)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">10. Met former Irish president Mary Robinson at a UN report launch</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">11. Played roulette in the casinos at Atlantic City</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">12. Watched New York Rangers play an ice hockey game at Madison Square Garden</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">13. Relaxed with a blanket, a book and an ipod on Chelsea Piers on sunny summer afternoons</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">14. Attended free lunchtime Broadway performances at Bryant Park during summer months</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">15. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> B</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">runch at Garage in Greenwich Village with a live jazz band on a Sunday - nice</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">16. Took the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty about 40 times</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxBRGO2coZtzIpsQN9uPYzPKSJCHR3a66cHrWLmeYMQEuNCU6oQkh0CfKrx_SSkTW_ERwEKUKwQFTGMQqHtB87q9f59gugwZEjz7XXDsZZyZYxO6UNzYedvoSs7gttJzZNTskuLRCOGP1/s1600/39985_453834014574_538439574_6430689_4889820_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxBRGO2coZtzIpsQN9uPYzPKSJCHR3a66cHrWLmeYMQEuNCU6oQkh0CfKrx_SSkTW_ERwEKUKwQFTGMQqHtB87q9f59gugwZEjz7XXDsZZyZYxO6UNzYedvoSs7gttJzZNTskuLRCOGP1/s200/39985_453834014574_538439574_6430689_4889820_n.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">17. Checked out the Dinosaur bones at the Natural History Museum</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">18. Watched the Fourth of July fireworks from my apartment balcony</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">19. Frozen Margheritas and the best Mexican food ever at Baby Bo's (34th and 2nd)</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">20. Took in free outdoor concerts in Madison Square Park on summer evenings</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">21. Walked through Central Park as it changed colours through the year, especially beautiful in October and November</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">22. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Oysters and champagne lunch at the famous Balthazars restaurant in Soho</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRykLGszveGyTjN9Syh9cbrws3xtU1v2CISLqvRyPPaQotTjHhkLRVrKRuN1Y00fS1Ph9oCEIi4EAzVKj0nYqL7YUXUCR88jBPK6uY5MD2aETwQ5hi-SDjym-14Fj1QHo-H6-OJOKILnyy/s1600/76038_492231824574_538439574_7236300_6153441_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRykLGszveGyTjN9Syh9cbrws3xtU1v2CISLqvRyPPaQotTjHhkLRVrKRuN1Y00fS1Ph9oCEIi4EAzVKj0nYqL7YUXUCR88jBPK6uY5MD2aETwQ5hi-SDjym-14Fj1QHo-H6-OJOKILnyy/s200/76038_492231824574_538439574_7236300_6153441_n.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">23. Dressed as a Smurf for Halloween and took part in the one million strong Fancy Dress Parade through the Village</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">24. Viewed works by Picasso, Van Gogh and Metisse at the MoMa (Museum of Modern Art)</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">25. Walked through the grounds of Harvard University during a trip to Boston</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">26. Ate at Mao, an amazing uber-trendy Chinese restaurant that thinks it’s a nightclub. Those who know these kind of things tell me it was in Sex and the City</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">27. Attended art exhibition openings at different galleries in Chelsea</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">28. Saw Bell X1 play an acoustic gig at La Poussin Rouge in the Village, and six months later rock it out at the Bowery Ballroom</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3R5rN6PyXd6VW8kNzdsF5QqG_mhv78yJImewHWYI5Ritg9nLrlHQEzu9pYWLwfud_VLIQdI08xoT7vE0wsNUVtM1-VeZBm5smCBf_t_BQHKDRAJyIu4n1Vvvyp9OtU7Ju0ZISEAIt7cYR/s1600/35708_436975614574_538439574_5975635_8117320_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3R5rN6PyXd6VW8kNzdsF5QqG_mhv78yJImewHWYI5Ritg9nLrlHQEzu9pYWLwfud_VLIQdI08xoT7vE0wsNUVtM1-VeZBm5smCBf_t_BQHKDRAJyIu4n1Vvvyp9OtU7Ju0ZISEAIt7cYR/s200/35708_436975614574_538439574_5975635_8117320_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">29. Cheered on the New York Gay Pride parade</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">30. Walked the Brooklyn Bridge regularly</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">31. Enjoyed receptions at the spectacular residence of the Irish Consul, which used to be owned by singer Luther Vandross.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">32. Relaxed on the beach at Asbury Park, New Jersey</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">33. Sang along at a Sound of Music Singalong screening in Chelsea Cinema complete with drag nuns!</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">34. Played Ping Pong at an outdoor Sunday m</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">arket in Chinatown</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgpG68PPlrsT918eWHWbv98hXGwkL1tj_oHu9QLRNPaARG5SNrxVjcO82E_eN5AiHJKiUUP9OXbanXHkxfjR9-OWOaqDNJPgU3AvofXc_melUuxdsINR84VE7SHkVsS9DDgrRnLrGswSOi/s1600/165374_10150114190974575_538439574_7755502_4518249_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgpG68PPlrsT918eWHWbv98hXGwkL1tj_oHu9QLRNPaARG5SNrxVjcO82E_eN5AiHJKiUUP9OXbanXHkxfjR9-OWOaqDNJPgU3AvofXc_melUuxdsINR84VE7SHkVsS9DDgrRnLrGswSOi/s200/165374_10150114190974575_538439574_7755502_4518249_n.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">3</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">5. Relaxed on the High Line Park in Chelsea</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">36. Looked out at the city from the Top of the Rock at Rockafeller Plaza</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">37. Eaten many Buttermilk fried chicken or tasty burgers at Vinyl in Hell's Kitchen (51 and 9)</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">38. Went to see comedienne Lisa Lampanelli at the beautiful Beacon Theatre</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">39. Walked Boston's freedom trail during a second visit to the original Tea Party city</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">40. Visited American's oldest lighthouse at Sandy Hook beach, New Jersey</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0knMTVGuDnME3IkfzokcSiD7u-WlDCNYVE4dLaewhXg6U9AUWoE6TmnTPXWrSfFV7Nshhb-lPWodULSq98eb28omizm0AQ4Q6dlsk9AXvgI1ZopRaC4wLaUYh3R0eRGN2rFdQDUFv36ao/s1600/132330_470354353805_588818805_5689849_1655661_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0knMTVGuDnME3IkfzokcSiD7u-WlDCNYVE4dLaewhXg6U9AUWoE6TmnTPXWrSfFV7Nshhb-lPWodULSq98eb28omizm0AQ4Q6dlsk9AXvgI1ZopRaC4wLaUYh3R0eRGN2rFdQDUFv36ao/s200/132330_470354353805_588818805_5689849_1655661_o.jpg" width="150" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">41. Partied at Rockit, Bartini, Industry, Splash, Boxers, Griffin, Ritz, and too many other New York hotspots to list here! Mucho fun.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">42. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Attended a taping of The Colbert Report</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">43. Saw comedians Louis CK, Jim Gaffigan and Daniel Kitson for free at a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">comedy night at the tiny Upright Citizens Theatre</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">44. Attended a reading by Booker-nominated author Emma Donoghue of her novel "Room" at the Irish Arts Center</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">45. Checked out Canadian rockers My Morning Jacket at Terminal Five</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">46. Dinner at the upmarket David Burke Townhouse during Restaurant Week</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">47. Visited the Irish Famine Memorial in Lower Manhattan</span><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">48. Attended World Premiere of Gay Zombie Porn movie by Bruce LaBruce at the Mix Queer Arts Festival (don't ask!)</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrnCLKMhDvT5P-gfWvsICCfJ4VhWH0EXaIQl-K-I_4-r_3g2gtQIVyOS8mWC4OkthAGvonw6aeheyA5gvLH0OcOqDbnhgLez3Gql_L28whrPOI9I75TA6P5et2x2uTYW0Ir2zy3jChcWKv/s1600/65924_484503139574_538439574_7096568_2452352_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrnCLKMhDvT5P-gfWvsICCfJ4VhWH0EXaIQl-K-I_4-r_3g2gtQIVyOS8mWC4OkthAGvonw6aeheyA5gvLH0OcOqDbnhgLez3Gql_L28whrPOI9I75TA6P5et2x2uTYW0Ir2zy3jChcWKv/s200/65924_484503139574_538439574_7096568_2452352_n.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">49. Went to the top of the Empire State Building</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">50. Enjoyed Red Velvet Cheesecake and other delights from the renowned Magnolia Bakery</span></span><br />
51. Strolled around the Columbia University campus and surrounding area<br />
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52. Spent a weekend at Wild Wood, New Jersey - lovely seaside resort<br />
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53. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"> Was inside City Hall and met Mayor Michael Bloomberg</span><br />
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54. Celebs spotted walking down the street include Matthew Perry, Susan Sarandon, Jay Brannan, Zachary Quinto, Jared Leto and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (No i did not ask for pics or autographs)<br />
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55. Went to a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman<br />
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56. Covered the premiere of U2's Spiderman musical from the red carpet - Cindy Crawford, Bobby De Niro, Bill Clinton and others were there.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlf_qSKRV5wZWCO9qyuLjYMmpD2_VHXj6NSKZQkug2RWcoEKya0adY9waCuJQ4RchiCnUmO8g9P1t93eaGM0x3aImTkTIzwAJ1DYl8op1QCQvqhbDxj1r11k3O1xLY1oRMwlB7cZ78KeD1/s1600/250509_10150273184224575_538439574_9189450_2151402_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlf_qSKRV5wZWCO9qyuLjYMmpD2_VHXj6NSKZQkug2RWcoEKya0adY9waCuJQ4RchiCnUmO8g9P1t93eaGM0x3aImTkTIzwAJ1DYl8op1QCQvqhbDxj1r11k3O1xLY1oRMwlB7cZ78KeD1/s200/250509_10150273184224575_538439574_9189450_2151402_n.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>57. Visited Washington DC twice, including spotting President Obama on his back lawn on one occasion<br />
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58. Interviewed Christine Quinn, speaker of NYC City council, and one of the favorites to be the next mayor of New York<br />
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59. Watched the NYC St Patrick's Day Parade<br />
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60. Helped produce several broadcasts by The John Murray Show and one from Morning Ireland ex New York, including leading over 100 people on a walk around Central Park<br />
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61. Saw Julie Feeney in concert and interviewed here twice - lovely lady<br />
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62. Protest city! Visited Zucotti Park during Occupy Wall Street protests this year, and the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" protests last year.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg28PgpRgBcBvpq5wrbZD4P2-QZP1BbRBagZ4JhWy3Ak4Kzg8SMXAAPvlTF8y3A3I0KuDy8ck_tEf7I5DSTYxePzDo3QEGbZhCdshLIWtfK569Kg_s_mfWXQEJ3nG4rll1T_Zo9u3qQQPmk/s1600/323020_291027070932288_100000749911999_955367_2056619159_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg28PgpRgBcBvpq5wrbZD4P2-QZP1BbRBagZ4JhWy3Ak4Kzg8SMXAAPvlTF8y3A3I0KuDy8ck_tEf7I5DSTYxePzDo3QEGbZhCdshLIWtfK569Kg_s_mfWXQEJ3nG4rll1T_Zo9u3qQQPmk/s200/323020_291027070932288_100000749911999_955367_2056619159_o.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>63. Spotted 30 Rock filming near my house, Glee filming near the Lincoln Center, Gossip Girl at the Meatpacking District and the new Spiderman movie filming in the Flatiron area.<br />
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64. Had a magical night at Other Voices New York with performances from Glen Hansard, Martha Wainwright, Bell X1, The National, Justin Bond, Martin Hayes, Damien Rice, and readings by Paul Durcan, Roddy Doyle, Colum McCann, Joseph O'Connor, Gabriel Byrne and many more.<br />
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65. Spent evenings at Town Council meetings in Greenwich Connecticut and poring over land records to cover developer Sean and Gayle Dunne's dispute with neighbors at their new $2m house there<br />
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66. Attended a performance by Camerata Ireland orchestra at Carnegie Hall<br />
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67. Saw an early performance of the new Once musical based on the Irish Oscar winning film, which moves onto Broadway in Spring 2012 (I predict big things for it!)<br />
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68. Interviewed families and friends of victims of 911 as part of my coverage of the 10 year anniversary of the attacks here<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizgoL06W7_07allUYvTn2K475Bd-UBMGo_uSkXk3kqg_TZ4j0LzZIvrVjH8aGbZGe6T3LgbCBSQ6DBR_uMVk-ILFcrdLWptHrI-BhUxXKfLJIdCN3GlvC-4JvBAoxSKRdQTZTYjQowP1xA/s1600/285102_10150329456359575_538439574_9661523_891095_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizgoL06W7_07allUYvTn2K475Bd-UBMGo_uSkXk3kqg_TZ4j0LzZIvrVjH8aGbZGe6T3LgbCBSQ6DBR_uMVk-ILFcrdLWptHrI-BhUxXKfLJIdCN3GlvC-4JvBAoxSKRdQTZTYjQowP1xA/s200/285102_10150329456359575_538439574_9661523_891095_n.jpg" width="200" /></a>69. Survived the hurricane that never happened, as New York shut down in anticipation of being struck by Hurricane Irene<br />
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70. Took a trip to the Canadian capital of Ottawa and toured its Parliament buildings<br />
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71. Hosted a Eurovision party at my apartment with some bemused US friends and more excitable European ones<br />
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72. Saw Tori Amos concert at the Beacon Theatre<br />
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73. Enjoyed many Irish theater productions on their visits to New York including Mimic, Bogboy, Temporal Powers, John Gabriel Borkman.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vnE8FvIuj7vqKla52xxJdFFjG_v8d9UARVXQkUmm9jUigFabDGt1MTnovFZHlsZtqoMvs0CSb6seM8fhuF-WMd801xL-GNjdRjop2qhDuj6C9mxLNt-GcHyL4kcxizRUADkfAKazus5Q/s1600/289711_288404544508309_100000162968695_1388022_487670857_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="119" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vnE8FvIuj7vqKla52xxJdFFjG_v8d9UARVXQkUmm9jUigFabDGt1MTnovFZHlsZtqoMvs0CSb6seM8fhuF-WMd801xL-GNjdRjop2qhDuj6C9mxLNt-GcHyL4kcxizRUADkfAKazus5Q/s200/289711_288404544508309_100000162968695_1388022_487670857_o.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>74. Enjoyed a Circle Line ferry Cruise around Manhattan<br />
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75. Attended the US Open tennis championships at Flushing Meadows, and saw Serena Williams win her semi-final.<br />
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<b>Postscript:</b><br />
<br />
The list is meant primarily as a record of my time here for my own memory, but I decided to share with you - not to make you jealous, but maybe to inspire you to take an adventure too!<br />
<br />
It was January 2010 when I took a two year career break from my job in RTE.<br />
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And along with living in Manhattan, I think I should remind myself of some 15 other cool things I did since then:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmHMpnGKIuY4wZz1ebUPMX-TR4nJ5KqlzbHTvVIe4VqmMoBre1Uty1UMi-iVZ96ZkRatnmK4UczE1wnVu_j-oxifOhgjQ0jNQ7lnE5GRjDVnrP_rprTk_6rusv-ySPiktbIgwFMLDXbCGQ/s1600/23629_407184694574_538439574_5202124_7243374_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmHMpnGKIuY4wZz1ebUPMX-TR4nJ5KqlzbHTvVIe4VqmMoBre1Uty1UMi-iVZ96ZkRatnmK4UczE1wnVu_j-oxifOhgjQ0jNQ7lnE5GRjDVnrP_rprTk_6rusv-ySPiktbIgwFMLDXbCGQ/s200/23629_407184694574_538439574_5202124_7243374_n.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br />
1. Visited Rio De Janeiro, although it rained most of the time I was there! My view from the Christ the Redeemer statue was a bit ruined by clouds!<br />
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2. Relaxed on the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches.<br />
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3. Island-hopped off the Brazilian coastline at Parati<br />
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4. Camped roadside with new friends on the Kumuka Truck/Bus trip across Brazil<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69dnuu4Yvj4YsrzowLwxiRWurMnAVY_vV0ZydOXOE3dxTJfS28R2QsagC2T9cLkF9AhehoFEH9vqDdKlSKDcWyIZ-W1uorDkJX0j1r9njFvvxPLC7kX8xc8T2IjrWnDGsRe8_jXJ8yEwp/s1600/23629_407192304574_538439574_5202338_7940969_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69dnuu4Yvj4YsrzowLwxiRWurMnAVY_vV0ZydOXOE3dxTJfS28R2QsagC2T9cLkF9AhehoFEH9vqDdKlSKDcWyIZ-W1uorDkJX0j1r9njFvvxPLC7kX8xc8T2IjrWnDGsRe8_jXJ8yEwp/s200/23629_407192304574_538439574_5202338_7940969_n.jpg" width="200" /></a>5. Horse-riding though the Brazilian Pantanals (swampland/jungle)<br />
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6. Wildlife spotting in the Pantanals including alligators, and wild hogs<br />
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7. Fished for piranha in the Brazilian rivers<br />
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8. Snorkelled in the crystal clear waters of Bonito<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOVaFGau_52JQh9Dvh0YIFYNSA9omvDAAIJBqQHd9Gwymru9DQh66dUwa-ux-Oci9y8Bju15wDKztRT1OrkivfdhNxi4OpqGxcCNqNEnVLsczpGkWA-WPD2onf1VIzWKOB5Wku2l1_7rb/s1600/23629_407191184574_538439574_5202316_5799047_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOVaFGau_52JQh9Dvh0YIFYNSA9omvDAAIJBqQHd9Gwymru9DQh66dUwa-ux-Oci9y8Bju15wDKztRT1OrkivfdhNxi4OpqGxcCNqNEnVLsczpGkWA-WPD2onf1VIzWKOB5Wku2l1_7rb/s200/23629_407191184574_538439574_5202316_5799047_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>9. Viewed the spectacular Iguazu Falls from all sides, from the air, and from underneath.<br />
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10. Enjoyed an old-school BBQ in the Uruguayan town of Durazno<br />
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11. Visited Uruguay's capital Montevideo<br />
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12. Ate countless delicious steaks in Argentina<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpAq8rh4e-HcP3U4UsIHw17sbJza-0CM6J7tpbWAaxLOY8X2VjVms5KIWH8Wt1Q2EJUwRO4xSkn4KiolEFnx_AHayvt7m8DFm_AnoXRxo344QzP6hHqz4Dsv8IbhqKYtHrfQlzVAmUUUY/s1600/23629_407195494574_538439574_5202425_5335151_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlpAq8rh4e-HcP3U4UsIHw17sbJza-0CM6J7tpbWAaxLOY8X2VjVms5KIWH8Wt1Q2EJUwRO4xSkn4KiolEFnx_AHayvt7m8DFm_AnoXRxo344QzP6hHqz4Dsv8IbhqKYtHrfQlzVAmUUUY/s200/23629_407195494574_538439574_5202425_5335151_n.jpg" width="200" /></a>13. Did my best Evita impressions outside Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, and visted Eva Peron's grave in the impressive Ricoletta cemeteries<br />
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14. Checked out Diego Maradona's home suburb of La Boca<br />
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15. Took a Tango lesson in Buenos Aires<br />
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<b>Here is some final food for thought about my two years.</b><br />
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When I was last in Ireland:<br />
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- The IMF were not involved in any way with Ireland's financial affairs<br />
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- Gerry Ryan was still alive and hosting his 2fm radio show<br />
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- Jedward were best known as a joke act from the X Factor<br />
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- Gay civil partnerships were not allowed in Ireland<br />
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- Enda Kenny was considered a liability for FG, who were trying to oust him<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIeUsbSeTYm6pL-ka7-NvsoMoMm4LDYnhNSkuyonrD8N95F4hcOnwu3fO-4sTXUWFuPqi-kOv-85YAnRxHTnmHSHrSS-XmDpY9K4eb3I4KghO9OmZg3bkPUk3iwFOpWXbncjFQqBFVo9v/s1600/vin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIeUsbSeTYm6pL-ka7-NvsoMoMm4LDYnhNSkuyonrD8N95F4hcOnwu3fO-4sTXUWFuPqi-kOv-85YAnRxHTnmHSHrSS-XmDpY9K4eb3I4KghO9OmZg3bkPUk3iwFOpWXbncjFQqBFVo9v/s320/vin.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>A lot can happen in two years. Make the most of your time! LIVE THE BEST LIFE YOU CAN!!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-68216629325628967842011-10-20T10:23:00.000-07:002011-10-20T10:23:31.174-07:00RARE JOYCE AND SHAKESPEARE BOOKS FAIL TO SELL AT NYC AUCTION<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-j90yrYsUoQz5rzqgAh5SgEFqdUikKb6cgQzBinTirFCniUJyil-N_inlmCqylU-9yl_g9ZLt4gQ2YpLhOxXvLcOIXGwPWkf7QER6hiDs9FNpaYQSq4kI9SmZgu9_iouZJAZrBVXuvyb/s1600/ulysses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp-j90yrYsUoQz5rzqgAh5SgEFqdUikKb6cgQzBinTirFCniUJyil-N_inlmCqylU-9yl_g9ZLt4gQ2YpLhOxXvLcOIXGwPWkf7QER6hiDs9FNpaYQSq4kI9SmZgu9_iouZJAZrBVXuvyb/s320/ulysses.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A rare first edition copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses has failed to sell at auction in New York despite attracting bids up to $420,000.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And the first ever collection of Shakespeare’s plays published in 1623 – described as the most important book in English literature – was also withdrawn from sale after failing to meet the reserve price.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Both books were in the collection of a private British collector which went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Manhattan Thursday.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sotheby’s described the copy of Ulysses as “one of the most important” copies of Joyce’s classic to ever come to public auction.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Bids opened at $260,000 and quickly rose in increments of $20,000 among several bidders. But interest evaporated once the price rose to $420,000 – shy of the $450,000-$550,000 estimate. Not only was the first edition signed by Joyce, but the book itself has a fascinating history.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was originally owned by Sylvia Beach, the American woman who ran the bookshop in Paris which published Ulysses in 1922. She kept a personal copy of the novel, which was signed by the author. During World War II, Beach was forced to close her shop and was interned by the Nazis. Her release was secured by an American living in Paris at the time, Tudor Wilkinson, and as a token of her gratitude, she gave Wilkinson the book as a gift.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ulysses is one of the most sought after works for rare book collectors. Just one thousand copies of the first edition were printed, and of those, 100 were published on Dutch manuscript paper and signed by the author. The book on sale in New York Thursday was one of those 100. Only around one third of those are in private ownership, which makes them even more valuable.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Two other Joyce books - first editions of Dubliners and A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man – also went under the hammer at last night’s auction in New York and also failed to reach their asking prices of $150,000 and $40,000 respectively. Just two Joyce works from the collection sold – a first English edition of Ulysses from 1936 and Collected Poems (1936) went for $6,000 and $17,500 respectively.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But Joyce’s Ulysses was not alone in not selling.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhippMh-3RcDgpJnGLFQxc-N-b0-pPue2mrH3iUz1lOuDWpPPP57j60-DqbHbXDKpDs0k-ZZ1kLXJ3PXoub48-ZjmRgja3otatffP7sltLW-phNFYcibeSel2-0ns0CJJSEWzdWJ6FN6rui/s1600/shakes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhippMh-3RcDgpJnGLFQxc-N-b0-pPue2mrH3iUz1lOuDWpPPP57j60-DqbHbXDKpDs0k-ZZ1kLXJ3PXoub48-ZjmRgja3otatffP7sltLW-phNFYcibeSel2-0ns0CJJSEWzdWJ6FN6rui/s200/shakes.jpg" width="125" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">A first folio of Shakespeare plays from 1623 – considered the most important book in English literature and, along with the King James Bible published a few years earlier, one of the two greatest books of the English language – also failed to meet its reserve price of $600,000.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Experts say without the publication of this folio after Shakespeare’s death, 18 of his plays including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, A Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, The Tempest, Henry VIII, Twelfth Night and others, would have been lost forever.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of the 750 copies made, only 220 are known to exist. This copy attracted bids of up to $550,000 before being withdrawn.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">A third folio of Shakespeare plays published in 1664 did sell at Sotheby’s for $542,500. That collection is considered the rarest of the 17<sup>th</sup> century editions of Shakespeare, as a large number of copies were destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-37298834297658766392011-10-06T10:41:00.000-07:002011-10-06T10:41:33.495-07:00Is it all over for David Norris?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOZ7cPG51Q9_aP_4kfg7KkWv7ZwCrG4T_RduZvBhY6K4KRMdK_wKdu1JqnJnBwnoWCKbcMjEct56G02qZKeIVyhmihDyHIUwE26Y1xQvDJJQQaXNn9tFh5SwJY3HwmRA-7-S9A8E7A4wOB/s1600/norris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOZ7cPG51Q9_aP_4kfg7KkWv7ZwCrG4T_RduZvBhY6K4KRMdK_wKdu1JqnJnBwnoWCKbcMjEct56G02qZKeIVyhmihDyHIUwE26Y1xQvDJJQQaXNn9tFh5SwJY3HwmRA-7-S9A8E7A4wOB/s320/norris.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">David Norris’s presidential campaign is dead in the water according to two separate opinion polls published in the past 24 hours.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Red C has him on 14%, fourth in the race.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ipsos/MRBI puts him fifth, with just 11%.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For someone who held the lead in several polls during the summer, it’s a disaster.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And while Sean Gallagher has gained the momentum at a crucial time, Norris is going in the opposite direction.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The controversies over the clemency letters have dragged him down, and he needs a minor miracle to recover.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you were in his campaign team, what move would you make right now to try to turn it around? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here are a few ideas I had:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The only glimmer of hope in the polls for Norris is that when Red C asked the public, which of the candidates they would most like to invite over for dinner, he topped the poll (19pc). This shows that there remains a personal regard for Norris – many people still like him, despite all the controversies, they just can’t see him as president. <span> </span>So the task for Norris is to get those people, who still like him, to believe again that he’d make a good president.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1 – <b>High Profile Endorsements<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">He needs a series of high profile endorsements from people who are widely respected by the Irish public. People who could say, ‘I know David, I’ve seen what he’s done for Ireland, and I think he’s someone we could trust and be proud of as president’.<span> </span>The name Mary Robinson comes to mind, given that she worked alongside him for years as they fought for the decriminalization of homosexuality. But obviously, as a former president, there is no way she can do it. But he needs people of that calibre. (Any ideas for who?) A series of endorsements could help change the narrative, because if someone like, say Colm O’Gorman, could come out and say they accept his regret over the letters, then maybe he can move past the issue.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>2 – Play Up the Gay<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve argued before that rather than being a hindrance to him, the fact that he is gay is one of his strongest assets. He needs to raise the issue: “Is Ireland ready for a gay president?” If he can make that question a central part of the election, he will do better. Because I think the answer for a lot of the population is yes. Certainly, among those who could be persuaded to vote for him. A vote for him, is a vote for Ireland’s first gay president, a vote for something that would make history, a vote that would tell the world Ireland is out from under the yoke of Catholicism – that’s something that people could get behind. It’s also a subject that he’s on solid ground with, and that he can get passionate about.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>3 – Anti-establishment credentials<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">He should be releasing collections of quotes and clips from speeches he has made in the Seanad over the years that show how often he was vocal in his opposition to policies that everyone now agrees were wrong. He voted against the bank guarantee, he opposed the war in Iraq – he needs to remind people that he has been on the right side of many of the big issues over the past two decades.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>4 – Tone it down in media interviews<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I know fans of the West Wing would argue that we need to just “let Norris be Norris” but his media appearances over the past week were awful. He needs to stop shouting, he needs to know when to pick his interjections and when to shut up. His attempts at playing the “everyman” are cringe-worthy. We all know he’s not a regular guy – he’s the colorful scholar of Joyce with a plummy accent and high intelligence. Less pomp, more realism.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>5 – Courting transfers<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">We all know whoever wins such a crowded field is going to need to be strong on winning transfers from other candidates. Michael D and Sean Gallagher understood this when they facilitated Norris. Gallagher’s popular stunts on posters and letters are resonating, because they are common sense – even though they are nothing to do with presidency itself, but others should be jumping on board. I was surprised how small Norris’s transfers were from the likes of Mary Davis. It’s time for Norris to start looking for number 2s, especially from those candidates who are behind him, or very close to him in the polls. (He’d get a lot from Michael D and McGuinness, but he needs to get ahead of them before elimination so not much use)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">None of these might be enough to stem the tide at this stage. The letters issue has been hugely damaging. His prepared legal statement at the official launch yesterday was his best attempt to deal with it, but really it was far too late having spent a week and a half faffing about on the issue. At this stage, when it comes to the letters, all he can say is that although people are interested in what’s in them, and the media are of course dying to find out what juice is in there, it’s not necessarily the same thing as the public interest. He has his legal advice, and either people believe that he’s following that or they believe he’s lying about it. He could challenge the other candidates to say whether or not they believe he’s lying about it. The letters are what they are – a plea for clemency for someone close to him after he’d been convicted, not an attempt to stop the conviction. I'm sure he regrets ever writing them now. But most people accept that, in his position, they too might have written for mercy for someone they loved. The problem is the defensiveness he's exuded in the past week. It looks like he's hiding something, a howler as Vincent Browne put it. Norris himself has never done anything to harm anyone, after all. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But controversy is toxic to an Irish presidential race. Whether it's Mary Davis and the boards, or Norris and the letters, if enough of a fuss is created about them, then people will just go for the safe pair of hands, with none of the crap flying about. And who could blame them? We all know that even Norris is giving his number two to Michael D.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-67584731899365323782011-10-04T08:52:00.000-07:002011-10-04T08:52:58.316-07:00700 arrested on Brooklyn Bridge - Occupy Wall St protest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh46BXm0QhTmPIXN1BxSXVhJXBes9f1nli-VAJN0wJgB70Dp4h0uL9ulRZTwvl119fDdYRqX2pQ5Qb6CgyxT8RCdaOC4AtkTalq2Cj5YnGkazXzhYiafqdxXNdEQgGr5y36lw1kHArHs44W/s1600/brook+wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh46BXm0QhTmPIXN1BxSXVhJXBes9f1nli-VAJN0wJgB70Dp4h0uL9ulRZTwvl119fDdYRqX2pQ5Qb6CgyxT8RCdaOC4AtkTalq2Cj5YnGkazXzhYiafqdxXNdEQgGr5y36lw1kHArHs44W/s320/brook+wall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
700 people were arrested Saturday evening on the Brooklyn Bridge - they were taking part in a demonstration called Occupy Wall Street.<br />
<br />
Inspired by the Arab Spring, the movement aims to give a voice to the 99% of the population in America, against the 1% that controls most of the wealth.<br />
<br />
The arrests, along with an over zealous use of pepper spray by police a week earlier and the endorsement of high profile figures like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon, have brought the demonstration to international attention.<br />
<br />
I talked about it with RTE's Morning Ireland - you'll find the report at the link below.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1003/morningireland.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1003/morningireland.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-15824453019284242742011-09-27T08:49:00.000-07:002011-09-27T08:49:40.325-07:00DSK seeks diplomatic immunity in civil case brought by hotel maid<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2YkijP4h96aTE2ZNajc7H_RUatljMXts9LLzSFON619Y2z-R0vwC7XXN55_AXpFqVv7rYxUALvbIFYP_7umDoe4gsoVMX4UkiEY4pjtNBRaWOgn_uPrdn6rKgPZeM0_ed9f5k4Xp2vxw/s1600/dskperp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2YkijP4h96aTE2ZNajc7H_RUatljMXts9LLzSFON619Y2z-R0vwC7XXN55_AXpFqVv7rYxUALvbIFYP_7umDoe4gsoVMX4UkiEY4pjtNBRaWOgn_uPrdn6rKgPZeM0_ed9f5k4Xp2vxw/s320/dskperp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Former IMF chief Dominque Strass-Kahn is seeking to have the civil case against him by a hotel maid who accuses him of sexual assault at a New York hotel in May dismissed.<br />
<br />
The former front-runner in the French presidential election is claiming diplomatic immunity from civil litigation.<br />
<br />
You'll find my report on the developments for RTE Radio 1's Morning Ireland at the link below.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0927/morningireland.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0927/morningireland.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-15703001349057785182011-09-27T08:45:00.000-07:002011-09-27T08:45:04.570-07:00GILMORE PLEDGES IRELAND’S “FULL SUPPORT” FOR PALESTINE’S UN BID<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJRPm93t7T5fRzcvMBnf1Fnx9tj5HgBICwKb54mSgz8jeUmiTq6VPwDBh6zEvS51-ufCGQ47A6yCTz9ekDDDkxKaP5Q6IuJTFmuLyo4Bq5JxVUULgNhDI2sE0_5WQWhIizZWiU3SbNjBK/s1600/gilmore+un.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJRPm93t7T5fRzcvMBnf1Fnx9tj5HgBICwKb54mSgz8jeUmiTq6VPwDBh6zEvS51-ufCGQ47A6yCTz9ekDDDkxKaP5Q6IuJTFmuLyo4Bq5JxVUULgNhDI2sE0_5WQWhIizZWiU3SbNjBK/s320/gilmore+un.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Palestine’s bid for membership of the United Nations is “entirely legitimate and understandable”, Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore told the UN General Assembly in New York. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mr Gilmore said Palestine had “the same right to membership of the United Nations as Ireland, or any other Member of the organization”, a remark that prompted applause from sections of the chamber. He promised Ireland’s “full support” in any vote on a proposal to admit Palestine as a member, or as an interim step, to give Palestine non-member observer status.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Mr Gilmore also held separate meetings yesterday with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and the Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki. The UN Security Council has begun consultations on the application by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. But the United States has threatened to veto the bid, even if Palestinians get the support of the required nine of the 15 members.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">In his address to the Assembly, Mr Gilmore said that membership of the UN would not change the situation on the ground, or remove “the compelling need for negotiations”. But he said recognition of Palestinian statehood would “give dignity and support to the Palestinian people who have suffered for far too long”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">He called on Israel to halt all settlement expansion, and to end the blockade of Gaza by opening up land crossings to normal commercial, human and humanitarian crossings.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Elsewhere in his speech, Mr Gilmore praised the Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East as inspiring and historic. “We must ensure that the democratic changes underway are consolidated,” he said, “And that the promise of profound improvements in human rights in the countries concerned, particularly in relation to the role of women, is fully realized.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">He pledged Ireland’s support for the National Transition Council in Libya. But he expressed concern about the situation in Syria and warned President Assad that “no leader who refuses to listen to what his people are saying…can expect to remain in power.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Mr Gilmore outlined Ireland’s determination to fighting world hunger, and said the government remained committed to achieving the UN target of providing 0.7% of GNP in Official Development Assistance. He said the international community had a moral obligation to act in the face of suffering in the Horn of Africa.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Tanaiste also defended the United Nations itself, in the face of criticism from some countries. He said no other organization had the same global impact and legitimacy. “Ireland is deeply committed to the United Nations,” he said, “The UN is the embodiment of freedom and equality. It is a bulwark defending these core human values in a changing and uncertain world.” He said Ireland was strongly supportive of the UN’s role in peacekeeping and conflict resolution, pointing out that a 440-strong battalion from the Irish Defence Forces had recently returned to Lebanon.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-7903306398056914382011-09-21T13:01:00.000-07:002011-09-21T13:01:11.607-07:00GILMORE PRESENTS FIRST CERTIFICATE OF IRISH HERITAGE IN NEW YORK<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjELTUNPRSlaTx5iHhaSHn99hXFUPIzBm7LEHROKsnWtFiTzbWm08y9E8wZKcCvlnZgaLx4ve-_8f1xOe5p2IkHC4PNi-o4l_EEC9rV4-6YsFoN81lzWKctHk8vKVua9WgisbS9pUQaZKrg/s1600/cert.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjELTUNPRSlaTx5iHhaSHn99hXFUPIzBm7LEHROKsnWtFiTzbWm08y9E8wZKcCvlnZgaLx4ve-_8f1xOe5p2IkHC4PNi-o4l_EEC9rV4-6YsFoN81lzWKctHk8vKVua9WgisbS9pUQaZKrg/s320/cert.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">The first ever Certificate of Irish Heritage has been awarded posthumously to an Irish American firefighter who died on Nine Eleven at a ceremony in New York.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;">Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore presented the certificate to Mrs Bridget Hunter, mother of Joe Hunter, at fire house in Maspeth, Queens where he worked.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal">“It’s definitely going to hang! Are you kidding me?!” said Mrs Hunter, when asked what she would be doing with the framed certificate. “It’s going to be right in front of everybody when they walk into my house.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mrs Hunter emigrated from Recess, Co Galway in 1958. Her son Joe was last seen walking into the south Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11<sup>th</sup>, 2001 to help people escape.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The story of Joe Hunter first came to public attention, when it was featured in an RTE Radio documentary “Still Waiting for Joe” broadcast at the end of August. The Department of Foreign Affairs approached the family to see if they would like to receive the honour of getting the first certificate.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“(Joe) ended up losing his life in the Twin Towers, attempting to save the lives of others, and attempting to ease the suffering that was taking place on that occasion,” said Mr Gilmore. “I don’t think there is anybody more fitting to get the first Certificate of Irish Heritage than somebody who made such a sacrifice.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">He said Ireland was proud of the sacrifice made by all Irish-American firefighters on that day. <span style="background: white;">Monday night’s presentation was attended by the Chief of the Fire Department of New York Ed Kilduff, who said </span>it was “an extraordinary honour” to have one of its own singled out to receive the first certificate. He said photographs from the event will be distributed to the large contingent of Irish Americans in the Fire Department, to show that “the Irish government, by coming here to this location, is really expressing their appreciation to all firefighters”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The event was also attended by <span style="background: white;">FDNY chaplain Chris Keenan, Ireland’s ambassador to the US Michael Collins, Irish Consul-General in New York Noel Kilkenny and members of the Hunter family.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;">Joe Hunter was a quiet and reserved guy, according to his brother Sean. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">“He actually would have been embarrassed by all this attention, but he would be really honored too” he said. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Joe’s sister Teresa said her late brother was fiercely proud of his Irish heritage. </span><span style="background: white;">“</span>He had an Irish shamrock on his racing helmet, he had an Irish shamrock on his car, he had an Irish shamrock everywhere. So this is a tremendous honor,” she said. “We have such a large family here. My mom is one of 14, and we have about 50 first cousins, who are scattered all over here. Not just for our family, but also our friends, this is overwhelming. It’s hard to put into words, being the first of something that’s going to be now carried on for years to come in Ireland, America and the whole world.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The framed certificate contains a quote from the Irish constitution which says “The Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage.” The inscription is on a colour background featuring Edwin Hayes’ 1953 painting of “An Emigrant Ship, Dublin Bay, Sunset”, one of three designs applicants for the new certificates will be able to choose from. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">The scheme to provide Certificates to Irish diaspora around the world will be formally launched next month at Dublin Castle during the upcoming Global Irish Economic Forum. </span>It’s expected that former US President Bill Clinton will be presented with the second Certificate of Irish Heritage at that event.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;">The idea for the certificates originated more than two years ago and received support at the last Forum in Farmleigh in 2009. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">FEXCO, a company based in Killorglin, Co Kerry has been awarded the contract to manage applications and issue certificates. </span><span style="background: white;">A website, </span><a href="http://www.heritagecertificate.ie/"><span style="background: white;">www.heritagecertificate.ie</span></a><span style="background: white;">, will go live at the end of this month, with applications being accepted after its formal launch in October. </span><span style="background: white;">Each cert will cost </span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">€</span><span style="background: white;">40 and applications are open only to people who were not born on the island of Ireland. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Those who wish to obtain one will be asked to provide documentary evidence connecting them to a specific Irish ancestor.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;">Documents including birth certs, death certs, marriage certs, land records, ship manifestos, census records or other immigration documents will be acceptable. T</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">he requirements may develop over time, if necessary, to include the option of swearing a legal affidavit proving Irish heritage, where no records exist due to the passage of time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;">Mr Gilmore said the document will have no legal, political, economic or commercial benefit, but was about officially recognizing someone’s connection to Ireland. </span><span style="background: white;">“</span>One of the things that we have been hearing from people of Irish descent is that they want to have some formal acknowledgment of their Irish heritage, something to hang on the wall that says officially that they are Irish,” he said.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white;">At current estimates, over 70 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry. </span><span style="background: white;">Mr Gilmore said there was no way of knowing </span>what demand will be like for the certificates once they are launched, but suspects that it’s an idea that will grow over time. The certificates will be actively promoted through embassies and consulates, and through Irish-American organisations in the US.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-31303541773357813162011-09-10T22:30:00.000-07:002011-09-10T22:30:32.237-07:00Nine Eleven memories linger for Irish in New York<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB8ZeFaoU3yzthjvZiSK8xFBE-AvxfbRtLZc0tTAkB52fv78GSbPQhUXdXhmfCa2zAUY2vWmpctsJVbUGuyvBRcgxsnk8SqvP3VBX080PblVbv_-KmFmV1o8faxJo6qsSImM2Uo5VT8y1/s1600/ColorMolloy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB8ZeFaoU3yzthjvZiSK8xFBE-AvxfbRtLZc0tTAkB52fv78GSbPQhUXdXhmfCa2zAUY2vWmpctsJVbUGuyvBRcgxsnk8SqvP3VBX080PblVbv_-KmFmV1o8faxJo6qsSImM2Uo5VT8y1/s320/ColorMolloy.jpg" width="319" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Even now, a decade on, Honor Molloy won't look at pictures or films<br />
about the 9/11 attacks.<br />
<br />
"I just don't," she says, "I want my own memories of it."<br />
<br />
The Dublin-born playwright, who moved to the US in 1969, was living in<br />
the shadows of the Twin Towers in 2001 - just three blocks north on<br />
Greenwich Street.<br />
<br />
She can recall going for a jog that morning, passing the flow of people<br />
coming off ferries and out of subways on their way to work in the World<br />
Trade Centre.<br />
<br />
Many of them would never go home.<br />
<br />
She was in the elevator of her building when the first plane struck, but<br />
was out in the street with her partner and neighbours as the second<br />
tower was hit.<br />
<br />
"It was an explosion of orange. It was insane." she recalls.<br />
<br />
"There was no frame to this experience. This was not a TV show. Time<br />
compressed and expanded. There was no end. There was no narrative. I<br />
remember the fear."<br />
<br />
An overheard conversation sticks out in her mind - between a young<br />
mother and her five year old child.<br />
<br />
The boy pointed up and said: 'Somebody jumped'.<br />
<br />
The mother said, 'No they didn't. It's just glass'.<br />
<br />
Then, later when people were jumping, the boy said: 'Those buildings<br />
could fall'.<br />
<br />
The mother looked at her son, and reassured him: 'No they couldn't."<br />
<br />
Like everyone else in Lower Manhattan that day, Honor was evacuated from<br />
her home.<br />
<br />
She remembers returning to the street where she lived the next day.<br />
<br />
"It was like Dinosaur World. I mean, the cars were all burnt. There were<br />
grey carcasses of cars, hundreds of them, lining Church St with ash all<br />
over them."<br />
<br />
Soon it became clear that they had lost people in their neighborhood,<br />
and she noticed the loss in peculiar ways.<br />
<br />
The normally-busy gym on her street was emptier, for example.<br />
<br />
She plans to leave New York for the anniversary - she's going to<br />
Pennsylvania for the weekend.<br />
<br />
"It just hurts too much still," she says, "I can't stand sentiment."<br />
<br />
"I don't talk about this with people. This is not something that I open<br />
up about."<br />
<br />
Maurice Landers, director of Failte 32, which helps new Irish immigrants<br />
to the US, was working in Midtown when the Towers collapsed.<br />
<br />
His first instinct, like many others, was to make his way downtown to<br />
see if he could help.<br />
<br />
"They were organizing volunteers, next to the courthouses, to go on<br />
buses into the site to tend to the wounded," says Landers.<br />
<br />
"They gave us cloths to wrap around any wounds, gave us face masks and<br />
gloves.<br />
<br />
"I went on one of the buses which drove through the plume of smoke that<br />
covered the area but by the time we arrived near the site, the Army<br />
Reserves were directing everyone away from the area.<br />
<br />
"They knew the third building was going to fall, and were not going to<br />
put untrained volunteers in amongst the rubble."<br />
<br />
By then it was clear there would be few survivors.<br />
<br />
"It was ominous to see one medical centre that had prepared for the<br />
arrival of the wounded by erecting a canopy outside the main entrance,<br />
housing empty stretchers and other medical equipment.<br />
<br />
"Staff were just waiting in hope to treat people but probably realized<br />
that no one was coming at that stage. A sad day."</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Prominent Irish-American radio host Adrian Flannelly had just finished a<br />
broadcast when news broke that the terrorists had struck.<br />
<br />
His thoughts immediately turned to his two daughters who worked in Lower<br />
Manhattan.<br />
<br />
One, Eileen, had phoned him moments earlier.<br />
<br />
She had been on a bus, about four blocks from the Twin Towers, when the<br />
impact of the first plane knocked the vehicle on its side.<br />
<br />
At the time, Flannelly was unaware of how serious the attacks were, and<br />
thought his daughter was just being a drama queen.<br />
<br />
Now, he realized the enormity of what was unfolding.<br />
<br />
It would be 36 hours before he heard from Eileen again, and a full three<br />
days before he made contact with his other daughter Kathleen who worked<br />
in the area to confirm she was safe.<br />
<br />
"It was horrific. It was awful," he says, "The uncertainty of it all."<br />
<br />
"Take the scene: no subway, no buses, the city in lockdown. No<br />
communications. Cellphones down. There were people who didn't hear from<br />
their kids for ten days. This was not unusual."<br />
<br />
Flannelly was working as an Irish community liaison officer for New<br />
York's mayor Rudy Giuliani at the time.<br />
<br />
In the days the followed, it soon emerged that the cops, fireman and<br />
other first responders who died were predominantly Irish-American.<br />
<br />
"It seemed as each day went by that it was a woefully lob-sided<br />
percentage of the fatalities," he said.<br />
<br />
"We still know many people who were injured, some of them quite<br />
severely. I don't think history will even record it. Those that were<br />
merely hurt didn't even count."</span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpQTXFwhziJnEPYEjkazRN4AojUP9GtI-KkiuesKotz31_yb6lNqV36YOr23IKNUosfJxyjHkauTwppGTcZEW1kOP0h1a8pwHWvPDCf3sgHQGW9jLmOfXVq8qg4VYBPV5q00NhF0Lx02r/s1600/flanelly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpQTXFwhziJnEPYEjkazRN4AojUP9GtI-KkiuesKotz31_yb6lNqV36YOr23IKNUosfJxyjHkauTwppGTcZEW1kOP0h1a8pwHWvPDCf3sgHQGW9jLmOfXVq8qg4VYBPV5q00NhF0Lx02r/s200/flanelly.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Flannelly has been in the US since 1959, and says Nine Eleven has<br />
changed the country.<br />
<br />
Americans feel less safe.<br />
<br />
"That's never coming back," he says.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-5920629327706475322011-09-10T22:24:00.000-07:002011-09-10T22:24:20.300-07:00LADDER 3 FIREFIGHTERS REMEMBER THEIR FALLEN HEROES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFSokChEjgBKA_XcZcxPzRYIZZcGZ5NyFiVBgeVBd6RYaq2kJe15Zigo8c1KqAqSV4o_AKp8ChfHvCEnS0geuac1TFeJNNNhxB-hQmIA8itxXbQU7_XjEqoj0V2lnGM2uRS1P6dVDPWch4/s1600/firefighters-at-9-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFSokChEjgBKA_XcZcxPzRYIZZcGZ5NyFiVBgeVBd6RYaq2kJe15Zigo8c1KqAqSV4o_AKp8ChfHvCEnS0geuac1TFeJNNNhxB-hQmIA8itxXbQU7_XjEqoj0V2lnGM2uRS1P6dVDPWch4/s320/firefighters-at-9-11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZq9HUC2Ux1ceb1xrXgn8cHvYpBO923VkMxv6FnnmTXuLX1LXSYuCRetrwVo291LOC-C-mlyoO7h92hLBiMvVxYg-c7tg1WxQCQzj6GKOeok8LUPm9jsM2Bxu_onDAzus5lD_ZeQ6bhxE6/s1600/mike+moran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the days that followed, those that were left at Ladder Three fire house in New York’s East Village kept searching through the rubble at the World Trade Centre.<br />
<br />
“We kept looking. We kept going back. You wanted to find them, but in the back of your mind, you knew it wasn’t good. But you had to go down there and exhaust all possibilities,” says Jimmy Wind, one of a handful of the firefighters still working at Ladder Three ten years on.<br />
<br />
The company lost 12 fire fighters that day – wiping out over a third of the entire staff there.<br />
<br />
The men who died left 16 children behind.<br />
<br />
It was a story repeated in Fire Stations across New York – 343 fire fighters in all lost their lives that day.<br />
<br />
“You had to face it, as much as you wanted them, you were coming to the realization that you weren’t finding anybody after the first day or so,” says Wind.<br />
<br />
In the following weeks, returning to the scene became counter-productive.<br />
<br />
“It was hard between funerals and working a schedule. Guys were getting depressed going down there,” says Wind.<br />
<br />
Mike Moran, another Ladder Three fire-fighter, lost his older brother John, who was a fire chief at Special Operations Command when the Twin Towers collapsed.<br />
<br />
“We never found any part of his body. Maybe three or four days went by, and you were kind of hoping.<br />
<br />
“You were hearing reports that people were trapped. But other than that first night, they didn’t get anybody out alive.”<br />
<br />
And Moran was there working on the rescue line for days, despite his loss of family, friends and colleagues.<br />
<br />
In the wake of the attacks, firefighters became heroes in the city.<br />
<br />
The dangers of the job, taken for granted before, were now appreciated.<br />
<br />
Ten years later, while the 343 Fallen are still honored, the city has returned to its old patterns.<br />
<br />
“It was different in New York after Nine Eleven. There was not as much traffic but it seemed like any traffic that was on the streets, when you responded they pulled over and stopped. But now it’s kinda back to the rat race,” said Wind.<br />
<br />
“I still miss all the guys, not only from my house, but from others. It was hard for all of them. Everybody lost people.”<br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Mike Moran became a folk hero among his fellow fire fighters in the weeks after Nine Eleven.<br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">At a tribute concert in Madison Square Garden, Moran took the microphone and told Osama Bin Laden to “kiss my royal Irish ass”.<br />
<br />
The audience – mostly cops and fire fighters – went wild.<br />
</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I was thinking to myself, if they let me say something, I’m not going to say anything nice,” he recalls. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I was in the mood for a battle”<br />
</span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZq9HUC2Ux1ceb1xrXgn8cHvYpBO923VkMxv6FnnmTXuLX1LXSYuCRetrwVo291LOC-C-mlyoO7h92hLBiMvVxYg-c7tg1WxQCQzj6GKOeok8LUPm9jsM2Bxu_onDAzus5lD_ZeQ6bhxE6/s1600/mike+moran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZq9HUC2Ux1ceb1xrXgn8cHvYpBO923VkMxv6FnnmTXuLX1LXSYuCRetrwVo291LOC-C-mlyoO7h92hLBiMvVxYg-c7tg1WxQCQzj6GKOeok8LUPm9jsM2Bxu_onDAzus5lD_ZeQ6bhxE6/s200/mike+moran.jpg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I think people were a looking for a little anger.”<br />
<br />
The concert took place on the day of the funeral for his colleague Michael Carroll – who drove the fire truck from Ladder Three down to the World Trade Centre on the morning of the attacks.<br />
<br />
Carroll had relieved Moran at six the night before.<br />
<br />
“We shot the breeze for a little while. That was the last time I saw him,” he said.<br />
<br />
He says he feels “a little silly sometimes” now when he thinks back on his moment in the spotlight, but it felt right at the time.<br />
<br />
When Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces in May, Moran admits he was stunned.<br />
<br />
“I always thought it would be one of those mysteries that you might never know if he was dead or alive,” he said.<br />
<br />
That night he raised a new flag at this brother’s memorial close to his Rockaway home and admits to become “a little misty-eyed”.<br />
<br />
Both Wind and Moran will attend a ceremony at the Ladder Three firehouse on <span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT102" style="color: darkblue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT103" style="color: darkblue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Sunday</span></span> in honour of their former colleagues.<br />
<br />
Neither they nor any rank-and-file firefighters or policemen have been invited to Ground Zero for the anniversary.<br />
<br />
It’s something that upsets Jimmy Wind.<br />
<br />
“It seems like it’s a photo op for the president. I don’t know where he was on that day, but I know where I was, and I know where the rest of my guys were,” he said.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-53531000043396234162011-09-09T14:35:00.000-07:002011-09-09T14:35:32.508-07:009/11 and the Forgotten Tragedy of Belle Harbor<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0cOpMm2xgBw2NHBD06KFRjTlKBdB-GjsN7uyiz3Mc2oixM3oTaxO7EYmO5wv496Fx7ItWCDSAOxdjo14MUNVUmRi4dJQ0lKE-FaDi77gRwfMK1vhZuPvtwqI7FZy6mB46Eld_iZlOu22c/s1600/rockawaycrash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0cOpMm2xgBw2NHBD06KFRjTlKBdB-GjsN7uyiz3Mc2oixM3oTaxO7EYmO5wv496Fx7ItWCDSAOxdjo14MUNVUmRi4dJQ0lKE-FaDi77gRwfMK1vhZuPvtwqI7FZy6mB46Eld_iZlOu22c/s320/rockawaycrash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 0px;">It is often forgotten that just two months after the 9/11 attacks one suburb of New York was visited again by devastating tragedy.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 0px;">Residents of the Irish-American suburb of Belle Harbor in Queens had just buried the last of 12 residents killed in the 9/11 attacks, when a plane carrying nearly 300 passengers crashed there, just after takeoff from JFK Airport on 12 November.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 0px;">All on board were killed.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 0px;">The suburb is home to many fire-fighters, who had been at Ground Zero just after the attack. They now found themselves battling with death and disaster on their own doorsteps.</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">I went to Belle Harbor ten years on for RTE's News at One to see how the community is coping.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0909/belleharbor.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0909/belleharbor.html</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-70970933345701170592011-09-09T14:29:00.000-07:002011-09-09T14:29:14.100-07:00Eric Foner: How will history judge America's reaction to Nine Eleven<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWKUsBmcPhhTITVj5UOWyuPq5E7bKfnJheQaSYJqL8WpGQR8SXGEzt7TKx1IrrLQLW0BArolQrS5wXwFZIIkeEGN1Odyfsafl_aBi8I5A_5mEGsAhNPvUi4go7gJ07dJp_0xXBxKuqmVY/s1600/eric+foner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWKUsBmcPhhTITVj5UOWyuPq5E7bKfnJheQaSYJqL8WpGQR8SXGEzt7TKx1IrrLQLW0BArolQrS5wXwFZIIkeEGN1Odyfsafl_aBi8I5A_5mEGsAhNPvUi4go7gJ07dJp_0xXBxKuqmVY/s320/eric+foner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
For Morning Ireland, Eminent historian Eric Foner, professor at Columbia University and current holder of the Pullitzer Prize for History, talked to me about what has changed in the past 10 years for the US, and what history might make of he reaction of the Bush and Obama administration. (Hint: neither comes out well!)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0909/morningireland.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0909/morningireland.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-48435595149469761702011-09-04T13:35:00.000-07:002011-09-04T13:35:15.292-07:00At Ground Zero, a new World Trade Center begins to take shape<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5aFLUpPEmBuP0Zq7W7eGp2N0yFfxyb1zaApkjkPBJXOokWY3JvlDkvKSz6C9jesPX7pfDfm-J1uY1gL8ZgV7W85GqLQSzMNYDQIFEgUIk1kitV9odDaEzuEKgaqrxDyCOzH9mCFp6TNZC/s1600/world-trade-center-and-memorial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5aFLUpPEmBuP0Zq7W7eGp2N0yFfxyb1zaApkjkPBJXOokWY3JvlDkvKSz6C9jesPX7pfDfm-J1uY1gL8ZgV7W85GqLQSzMNYDQIFEgUIk1kitV9odDaEzuEKgaqrxDyCOzH9mCFp6TNZC/s400/world-trade-center-and-memorial.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On Sunday next, New York will reclaim a patch of land from history.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">For ten years, a high perimeter fence has blocked Ground Zero from public view, but now the first piece of the re-imagined World Trade Center is set to be unveiled. </span>The fences will move, and a permanent 9/11 Memorial Plaza will become a part of Lower Manhattan’s landscape.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">In the footprints of where the Twin Towers once stood, two giant reflecting pools have been carved out of the ground. </span>When water starts cascading down their granite sides next week, they will be the biggest man-made waterfalls on the planet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv5ldVHz2utX_liUvitbtmmprvQf8DzluoJr4DUTlNliP_yrVGnY_yTF8jOHWATbTXh-SZYbP-2yHBJIS41VFJ-4Z7nEHBSBTaOiKBw7RFhBdMxtv3tu6flEAdyLe29xWOrdAZY2qxE50m/s1600/9.11-museum-and-pools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv5ldVHz2utX_liUvitbtmmprvQf8DzluoJr4DUTlNliP_yrVGnY_yTF8jOHWATbTXh-SZYbP-2yHBJIS41VFJ-4Z7nEHBSBTaOiKBw7RFhBdMxtv3tu6flEAdyLe29xWOrdAZY2qxE50m/s200/9.11-museum-and-pools.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">One of the pools with museum behind</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Called “Reflecting Absence”, Michael Ared’s design strikes the right tone. </span>At once, it conveys the scale of what was lost when planes smashed into the iconic buildings a decade ago, and offers a dignified nod to the thousands who died.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Towers will rise around them, and thousands of people will once again call the World Trade Center their workplace. </span>But not here – not on the exact spot where the old towers stood and so many perished.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Around the edges of the pools, carved in bronze are the names of all the victims of the Nine Eleven attacks – not just those in New York, but in Washington and Pennsylvania too.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">“What we hope is that the families who lost so much – husbands, wives, kids – walk out in the Plaza next week, will say that we did our job with dignity, humility and honouring the people we lost,” said Bill Baroni, as he took me on a tour of the site last week.<o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoIZTKEr88BbB_p2Fjbotef1RJLRConmHHi7peAWfiLRdC_KPr1S-F330XgDQ5prkyGB6d_Mxtp79GGaHzETL_ipp57zLDzNhYS24h33XmbGxxZs7tscpY2v7zDukbauoqz3QTeKFFmRj2/s1600/LAM_2695.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoIZTKEr88BbB_p2Fjbotef1RJLRConmHHi7peAWfiLRdC_KPr1S-F330XgDQ5prkyGB6d_Mxtp79GGaHzETL_ipp57zLDzNhYS24h33XmbGxxZs7tscpY2v7zDukbauoqz3QTeKFFmRj2/s320/LAM_2695.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">With Bill Baroni on site last week</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Baroni is deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is responsible for the rebuilding effort. </span>The former New Jersey Senator, who holds dual Irish and US citizenship, is keenly aware of how important it is to get the memorial finished in time for the 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">“We are doing something unique for history and all of us know that,” he said. </span>“The pressure to make sure we finished this on time was extraordinary. The entire world is watching to see if we do our job and open this memorial on time.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">And open on time it will. </span>More than two hundred oak trees line the Plaza – when the entire complex is completed, there will be over 400. In amongst them stands a powerful symbol of resilience - the Survivor Tree, found in the rubble in 2001, and nursed back to health since. It was here, in May, that President Obama laid a wreath after Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">In order to finish the plaza on time, engineers and construction workers have turned building logic on its head. </span><span lang="EN-IE">Instead of building from the ground up which would have taken years, they’ve started building at the top. </span>The Plaza is, in fact, a roof for the 9/11 Memorial Museum which will open next year.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">It’s just one of the many engineering marvels that make the World Trade Center rebuilding, one of the most complex and fascinating construction projects ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><b>....</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Eighty feet underground Bill Baroni points to some exposed stone.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">“One question I often get asked when I show people around is ‘Where exactly is Ground Zero?’ he says. </span>“That is Ground Zero,” he says pointing to the exposed stone “That is the original bedrock of the South Tower.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Original steel bolts which were attached to the steel tridents of the old tower are visible in the bedrock, and above it the concrete foundation of the old building. <span lang="EN-IE">From here those mighty towers stretched skywards. </span>And down onto here and above where we now stood they tumbled to ruins.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><span> </span>“It’s impossible to come down here and not realize the gravity of what we’re doing,” says Baroni. </span>“It’s hard, you know. Three thousand people died on 9/11. More than a thousand victims have never been identified – no remains have ever been found. For those families, indeed for all families, this truly is a sacred final resting place.”</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><b>....</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">The 9/11 National Museum will not be open until September 12<sup>th</sup>, 2011 but already the shape and layout are clear. </span>A beautiful glass building, shimmering and reflecting the light around it, rises no higher above the ground than the oak trees beside its entrance. But inside, it stretches down three levels, most of which are still under construction. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_I8XW858Dq1ifvNzh-3Y_BgE-Xd6xkLlnVrOI5vfqyA47CtxH4V7tEnFhdbNQxwHSvZcs83_WqPBhhSEg8yIpE7bsy9B4RkIuYJkE-jJDWE-300sD-w8DsKxAPEq51TYc5saeD-BKuKBp/s1600/tridents.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_I8XW858Dq1ifvNzh-3Y_BgE-Xd6xkLlnVrOI5vfqyA47CtxH4V7tEnFhdbNQxwHSvZcs83_WqPBhhSEg8yIpE7bsy9B4RkIuYJkE-jJDWE-300sD-w8DsKxAPEq51TYc5saeD-BKuKBp/s200/tridents.jpg" width="133" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Tridents on original Towers</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Several weeks ago, the Museum moved some of the many large precious artefacts that it will house into place. The first thing that will greet visitors are two giant steel tridents –unmistakable as the ground level facade of the Twin Towers. Other remnants that survived intact among the rubble have also been brought from storage to be exhibited – for example, the concrete stairs down which thousands ran to safety before the North Tower fell. All are covered for protection as construction continues apace around them.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Drawing back the parapet on one, I’m confronted with huge piece of gnarled steel, twisted and bent out of shape. </span>Impact steel, Barino tells me, from the part of the building where the plane struck.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><b>....<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">When the families of victims are given access to the Memorial Plaza on Sunday, one of the first things they’re sure to do is search for the names of their loved ones among the thousands of others cast in bronze around the reflecting pool. </span>For the first time, here they will find a permanent memorial in their honor at the place of their death.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">But once the tenth anniversary passes, access to the Memorial Plaza will be open to everyone. </span>1,500 people an hour are expected to come. While tickets are free, visitors have to pre-book a time and date on <a href="http://www.911memorial.org/">www.911memorial.org</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">All around the plaza, construction work will continue – the swarming visitors just another complication for workers well used to navigating the particular nature of this complex project. </span>Every day, 75,000 commuters use the PATH train station located on the site – the busiest in the entire system. And since the beginning, the 1 Subway train has run through the site in a specially constructed shell. The work continues around it. On the 16 acre-site, 3,500 construction workers are active around the clock, among them scores of Irish.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><b>....<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">On September 11, 2001, Willie O’Donnell from Listowel, Co Kerry was working on nearby Canal Street and he witnessed the two towers crumbling with his own eyes. </span>In Midtown, Jimmy O’Sullivan from Dunmanway in Cork was working on the 30<sup>th</sup> floor of a new high rise, when a colleague remarked to him that something was wrong when a plane passed unusually low above their heads. Together they watched the first plane fly over Manhattan and into the tall building at the other end of the island.</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefnlKqdLilEdvY2MbLOxuAuVsrpXGuBeqQ8PUzU7PdtXsQB8ZKJ0pxf7grWVeOvzHnqR5qRm9W6vGk9O64LXBRQwUX9XTIxpHd_D4dYvFEXy4_OuQ5KS93j-_sP1fUgJuHxY03n4NlrGn/s1600/workers+ground+zero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefnlKqdLilEdvY2MbLOxuAuVsrpXGuBeqQ8PUzU7PdtXsQB8ZKJ0pxf7grWVeOvzHnqR5qRm9W6vGk9O64LXBRQwUX9XTIxpHd_D4dYvFEXy4_OuQ5KS93j-_sP1fUgJuHxY03n4NlrGn/s1600/workers+ground+zero.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Some of the Irish builders at Ground Zero</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Over in Queens, Mike Carmody from Tarbert, Co Kerry was also working on a high rise, and had clear view of the East side of Manhattan. </span>He remembers the second plane performing a “semi U-turn” as it smashed into the skyscraper. Little did the three men know back then, that ten years later they would be working to help the World Trade Center rise out of the ground again.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">All three now work at Ground Zero for Navillus, a Kerry company, responsible for much of the concrete work on the new Plaza. </span>“It’s definitely a privilege to work here,” Willie O’Donnell tells me. “The day you start working here, you remember Nine Eleven, where you were and everything. But then you get over it after a while and you just work away – just a regular pain in the ass job!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">“It’s great to involved,” said Jimmy O’Sullivan, “It’s something that you would be honoured to be involved in. </span>I’ll never forget that plane, and I’ll never forget that gentleman that stood beside me and said ‘There’s something wrong’ - that’ll stay with me forever.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Mike Carmody agreed that it was “an unbelievable feeling” to be working at Ground Zero. </span>“It’s a great honour to be working down here. Soon you get over that, and it just becomes a big project and a lot of headaches and a lot of schedules to meet.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Another two Irish men I meet on site, work on health and safety, for Bovis, the general contractor for the Plaza and museum project. </span>Michael Deere, from Pallasgreen in Co Limerick has been here for five months. “We’re here on the Memorial Plaza, so all the pressure was on us for the last couple of months to get it completed on time.<span> </span>There’s been massive progress in the last six weeks or so. Six weeks ago, you wouldn’t have thought it would ever open on time.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Niall Marshall from Birr, Co Offaly, is also proud to be involved. </span>“A lot of American people look at this as something great - a rebuilding that’s going to bring everyone back together, to see this coming out of the ground again. Obviously, it’s a good feeling to come in here every day and to know that you’ve something to do with it.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><b>....<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiejN_Jf-ejguyLt3-Nlk6LJ50VAci3R1mzjSqrSh5tRyN8DpwaSY1FTBSomgkEargSMsO7dNWnuMaa3pP8z2p65wMlJFK6mRnx_HJOLGtyY60bW8COeZvb9YD9O3iTdWqzwxeIUMZ2GoFM/s1600/tower+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiejN_Jf-ejguyLt3-Nlk6LJ50VAci3R1mzjSqrSh5tRyN8DpwaSY1FTBSomgkEargSMsO7dNWnuMaa3pP8z2p65wMlJFK6mRnx_HJOLGtyY60bW8COeZvb9YD9O3iTdWqzwxeIUMZ2GoFM/s320/tower+1.jpg" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Tower 1 rising high</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">From the unfinished 72<sup>nd</sup> floor of World Trade Center Tower 1, formerly known as Freedom Tower, the view of New York is spectacular in all directions. </span>The Statue of Liberty looks the size of a Lego piece from up here, and you’re already at eye level with the Empire State Building uptown. WTC 1 is already the tallest building in Manhattan, Baroni tells me, and when it’s finished you will be able to see the Earth’s curve from its top. The tower, when completed, will be 1776 feet tall, a height chosen because of its significance in US history (Independence), and also higher than the original towers were.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">Any fears that people might not want to work here seem to have been dispelled by the recent announcement that publishing giant Conde Nast will take one million square feet of the new property. </span>The Federal Government and a Chinese bank are also signed on as early tenants. Conscious that, like all other iconic buildings in New York, the tower could become a target again once it’s built, the safety measures being taken are setting new records. Each foot of steel used weighs 3,000lbs, and the concrete is 14,000lbs per square inch, seven times thicker than the concrete used in building sidewalks. “It’s designed to be stronger than any office building ever built,” said Baroni.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbnUZX1qN7DRtBRPYH9JBCbidnZuWHsemuNueYyCO5_T8EEzAwTZnp9nICFVwcHFeu7GgtEdOgw4M7g2ZDKwFjkx1Kisrkzbc5FD0zLR8vc0XKqk18Dj67rEp_nGzx8zSp6TCHFcjbkXT0/s1600/LAM_2685.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbnUZX1qN7DRtBRPYH9JBCbidnZuWHsemuNueYyCO5_T8EEzAwTZnp9nICFVwcHFeu7GgtEdOgw4M7g2ZDKwFjkx1Kisrkzbc5FD0zLR8vc0XKqk18Dj67rEp_nGzx8zSp6TCHFcjbkXT0/s200/LAM_2685.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Signing the frame of Tower 1</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">As I stand on scaffolding outside where the windows of the 72<sup>nd</sup> floor are going to be installed, Bill Barino calls me back in. </span>He hands me a white marker pen and asks me to sign a steel girder on the north side of the tower. So I write: “Vincent Murphy 01/11/11” – my signature forever etched on the interior of this historic building. “This will be someone’s office one day,” Baroni smiles, “You can tell them your name is written there.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><b>....<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">As I exit the complex, I take one last look around in an attempt to take in the scale and meaning of what I see. </span>Most of Ground Zero is a construction site still and will be for years.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">It’s a workplace and will be long after it’s done.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">It’s also a commuter hub.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">A PATH train pulls in as I leave, and hundreds of commuters swarm around me. </span>Building has only just begun on the Transportation Hub that will rise here – a spectacular design by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrave, who was responsible for the Samuel Becket Bridge in Dublin. “It will be a downtown Grand Central,” Baroni claims.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">It’s a tourist destination – all around the perimeter people arch their necks to see Tower 1, or take pictures of themselves at a place which is part of history – and that’s only likely to grow.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">But it’s also a burial place.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">And it’s a memorial.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE">And on Sunday, as families gather here to remember, and the perimeter fence is taken down around the new Plaza, the reincarnation and reclaiming of the World Trade Center site will send its own message to the terrorists who came here to destroy ten years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfSW9RnwwD-VIWRz3GkZftbtyd83hMv9I151ZLJaMqgsmnmJM31iGWwg7W08O1bCk8iEqziBkIjZJ9VKMpM5AbEARwaLKDUzvv4HErzFiSDpBTQWfl-qqo_14HPPYC3RvkYRKNwVoMBco/s1600/New_wtc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfSW9RnwwD-VIWRz3GkZftbtyd83hMv9I151ZLJaMqgsmnmJM31iGWwg7W08O1bCk8iEqziBkIjZJ9VKMpM5AbEARwaLKDUzvv4HErzFiSDpBTQWfl-qqo_14HPPYC3RvkYRKNwVoMBco/s320/New_wtc.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">What new WTC will look like when complete</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-IE"><br />
</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-62466125528895414272011-09-04T09:13:00.000-07:002011-09-04T09:13:38.668-07:001st Irish Theater Festival brings cream of Irish playwrights to NYC<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong>George Heslin</strong>, of the <strong>Origin Theater Company</strong> sits down with <strong>Vincent Murphy</strong> in advance of the <strong>1st Irish Theater Festival</strong> which begins next week.</em></span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><br />
</em></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5JgsXD7nVm-_SoLiFyZslf5pVx8BYdurPxl9Y5c0Ll89a60XLRlNWLcfUR1DK0pHF0H8wYxWcpWPKv0AXhA8M_phlzZ8zan38M8u2NwvbUWsf2m9ceXwUIsaM3_foINew8sS3yuA3gju/s1600/7028_127568414153_109411724153_2222933_1590505_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5JgsXD7nVm-_SoLiFyZslf5pVx8BYdurPxl9Y5c0Ll89a60XLRlNWLcfUR1DK0pHF0H8wYxWcpWPKv0AXhA8M_phlzZ8zan38M8u2NwvbUWsf2m9ceXwUIsaM3_foINew8sS3yuA3gju/s320/7028_127568414153_109411724153_2222933_1590505_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><br />
</em></span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a measure of just how much the 1st Irish Festival has established itself in just four years that George Heslin, the power and brains behind it all, received 94 applications this year from theatre companies all over the United States and in Ireland, who wanted to take part.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that doesn't even include the approaches he had from individual artists.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the end, the cream of the bunch will be on show throughout September in theatres across New York City.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And many more of them are sure to feature in future editions of the 1st Irish.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's the only theatre festival anywhere in the world dedicated purely to the work of Irish playwrights - even the Dublin Theater Festival features works by international writers and companies.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not only that, but all of the Irish-penned plays on show, will be making their US premieres.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's no wonder that even among jaded New York theatre-goers the festival generates a frisson of excitement.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heslin, a Limerick native, who studied drama in Trinity College Dublin and treaded the boards for years as an actor, spotted in 2002 that there wasn't a huge amount of Irish theatre making it across the Atlantic.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLeaHdvkFAVLl30KvUHheKQL5aapSkFRmJCsDKsZsN7fa94S9Uocn9N_u5e5lXi4n0TcDnGUFQUULNmSbJ30kmwnB1HPIgwin5Dad8Eex9LARqaO02ZnuwADGtzd2988DQngkJGpo4deqe/s1600/1stirish_2011.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="87" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLeaHdvkFAVLl30KvUHheKQL5aapSkFRmJCsDKsZsN7fa94S9Uocn9N_u5e5lXi4n0TcDnGUFQUULNmSbJ30kmwnB1HPIgwin5Dad8Eex9LARqaO02ZnuwADGtzd2988DQngkJGpo4deqe/s320/1stirish_2011.gif" width="320" /></a>"If you look at our history on Broadway," Heslin points out, "it has had work by probably 8 to 10 Irish playwrights over the last 40 years.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"And when you look back at the amount of playwrights in Ireland, I felt that there was an opportunity there in terms of working with a lot of the playwrights who I'd come to know in Ireland."</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heslin set up the Origin Theater, which soon gained a reputation for bringing fresh material to the US for the first time.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Our mission was to launch European playwrights in America - not just Irish," he explains. "We were the first company in the world to produce Mark O'Rowe, we launched Enda Walsh here in America, Abbie Spallon, and a huge amount of others."</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then four years ago, he realized that his audience at Origin were hungry for even more original contemporary Irish theatre.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He set up 1st Irish with just two rules - the work had to be from a playwright born on the island of Ireland, and it must be making its American premiere.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The festival presents work by playwrights from the island of Ireland, and in four years we've produced work by 62 Irish playwrights in 16 theatres across New York City during the month of September."</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div style="margin-top: 10px;">So how hard was it making a buzz in a city with so much theatre already?</div></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"One of the first projects I came up with was a play called End of Lines where I brought five playwrights from Ireland and I put them on the subway here in New York for a week. And each playwright had to write a play inspired by each different subway line. And it was ideas like that that engaged communities," he explains.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"Playwrights are great for doing marketing and PR, and it didn't take long for word to spread, certainly among the Irish theatre community in Ireland about the festival here in New York.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"Also through Origin since 2002 we have worked with a huge amount of organizations on the ground here in the city.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"The trick about New York is that you kind of have to be here for a long time before you see how it works, and indeed meeting the right people. A lot of projects pass through New York. On any given day there are 300 theatre companies in the city, believe it or not, and you have to be around for a while before people actually believe in you and start endorsing the project."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"></div><div class="callout_left" style="color: #006600; float: left; margin-bottom: 5px; padding-right: 10px; width: 170px;"><div class="callout" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 255); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-top-color: rgb(187, 187, 255); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 10px; font-size: 1.4em; margin-top: 10px;">"When I first moved here in 1994/5, it actually took me eight months to find the Off Broadway community. Because while now in New York we have fantastic buildings, just like in Ireland, in the mid-90s a lot of these well-known theatre companies were housed in the 3rd or 4th floor of buildings in derelict streets."</div></div>Heslin can also be credited with fortunate timing.<div style="margin-top: 10px;">He says the facilities available in New York for Off-Broadway theatre improved dramatically during the economic boom of the early 2000s.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"When I first moved here in 1994/5, it actually took me eight months to find the Off Broadway community. Because while now in New York we have fantastic buildings, just like in Ireland, in the mid-90s a lot of these well-known theatre companies were housed in the 3rd or 4th floor of buildings in derelict streets.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"So at the time that I began this journey there wasn't a huge amount of contemporary Irish playwrights. Yes, we had the award winners, the Brian Friel's, the McPhersons, all of those big names.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"But there's a wonderful Irish website called irishplayography.com, and if you go on there, there's probably 400 playwrights writing in Ireland at the moment. And if we say each of those writers has an average ten plays, that's 4,000 plays. That's just a rough estimate.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"And that was the kind of area that intrigued me more: the new generation of playwrights. Because I had worked with a lot, like Mark O'Rowe and Enda Walsh in Ireland, and to this day that is the wave that excites me and I think that's what keeps this festival going, the new energy."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">The 1st Irish has proved a springboard for many Irish artists in building their reputations here in the United States, and it offers a particular attraction for smaller Irish companies.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"Coming to New York is a big journey. We have special agreements with the unions here. We are allowed to invite theatre companies directly from Ireland, and that's a big cost saving for the Irish taxpayer and the companies themselves because they are allowed to pay salaries back in Ireland - we don't have to put them onto the high Broadway or Off Broadway contracts."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">Heslin has noticed an increased interest in US audiences from the Irish theatre companies since the start of the recession.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"You know for many years, the Irish had a focus on Europe. And I was sitting here in New York for a number of years, and I was frankly amazed. And on a number of occasions I talked about how we have here 300 million people who speak English, and craving Irish culture.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"So since the downturn in Ireland we are definitely seeing a huge upsurge here in people trying to break into New York, certainly with playwrights realizing that there is so much opportunity in a country like America.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"You look at regional theatres across America like the Pittsburgh Public or the Seattle Rep - these companies have budgets of $12-15m and they're just regional theatre companies.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"Another idea with this festival is that, very often when you produce a play in New York, it does get picked up across America. We've brokered deals. For example, there's theatre companies in Washington DC, Las Vegas and when you introduce the playwright here... a lot of those companies haven't heard of these writers until they come through Origin or the Festival.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"So there's a long term gain for Irish theatre as well in that way."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"></div><div style="margin-top: 10px;"></div><div class="callout_right" style="color: #ff9900; float: right; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 10px; width: 170px;"><div class="callout" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 255); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-top-color: rgb(187, 187, 255); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 10px; font-size: 1.4em; margin-top: 10px;">"We have the great 'Cirque Legume', which is a very physical theatre piece from a wonderful company with Jamie Carswell from Sligo. That is a circus with vegetables basically and very, very funny."</div></div>This year's festival features four theatre companies from Ireland, each of which Heslin is enthusiastic about.<div style="margin-top: 10px;">"We have 'A Night with George' from Brass Neck in Belfast written by Brenda Murphy and Donna O'Connor. That's a play that is set in West Belfast and it follows an evening of a woman fantasizing about a night with George Clooney.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"We have the great 'Cirque Legume', which is a very physical theatre piece from a wonderful company with Jamie Carswell from Sligo. That is a circus with vegetables basically and very, very funny.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"We have 'Bogboy' from Deirdre Kinahan. And we have 'Noah and the Tower Flower' which has been a big hit for the Fishamble Theater in Dublin."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">Heslin says he's excited to introduce American audiences to these new artists.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"We had Deirdre Kinahan here last year with 'Human Cry' and this is her second visit to the festival. And we have partnered with Fishamble in the past on other projects.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"But for the majority of the playwrights this is the first time that their work has been seen in America."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">The 1st Irish has secured the backing of several major sponsors including Mutual of America, the Irish government, Northern Ireland's Arts Council, Aer Lingus and the Irish Examiner USA newspaper.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">The festival has also partnered with several venues and theatre companies across the city.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"We work a lot with 59E59 which is on Park Ave and 59th St, this year we are working with 78th St Theatre Lab, the Flea Theater, The American Irish Historical Society, Times Square Arts Centre, Irish Arts Center and Mint Theater among others," says Heslin.</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"The key for this Theater Festival is partnering theatre companies with venues here in New York that have a high profile. It's very important because when you arrive here, you really need a network to kind of plug these organizations into. And they are relationships we've built up over the last while too."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">"While this is an Irish Theatre Festival, most of our audience goers, as you can imagine in New York, are not Irish. But plugging into the correct venues for that is ever more important."</div><div style="margin-top: 10px;">For more on the 1st Irish Festival, including a full list of shows, venues, dates and times, check out <a href="http://www.1stirish.org/" style="color: #006600; text-decoration: underline;">www.1stIrish.org</a></div></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-68925664132974602382011-09-04T09:03:00.001-07:002011-09-04T09:03:52.145-07:00The Irish workers giving Big Apple a renewed sense of hope (Irish Independent)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 12px;"></span><br />
<div class="info" style="color: #626362;"><div class="authors" style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-bottom: 2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Vincent Murphy</div><div class="published" style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-bottom: 2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Saturday September 03 2011</div></div><div class="body font-null" style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">IT IS the most high-profile construction project on the planet, but to the builders on site, it's just a regular job.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Scores of Irish construction workers are employed at <a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Ground_Zero" style="color: #306294; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: underline;">Ground Zero</a>, helping to rebuild the site left devastated by the fall of the Twin Towers.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"It's definitely a privilege to work here," says Willie O'Donnell (40) from Listowel, Co Kerry, who has been on site for two-and-a-half years.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"The first day you start here, you remember 9/11, where you were and everything like that.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"But you just work away and it becomes just a regular, pain-in-the-ass job!"</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Mr O'Donnell works for Navillus, a Kerry company responsible for most of the concrete work on the new Memorial Plaza and 9/11 Museum.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">On the day the terrorists struck the Twin Towers in 2001, he was working on nearby Canal Street and saw the giant buildings crumble before his eyes.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong style="font-size: 1em;">Rebuild</strong></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Now, a decade later, he's helping to rebuild the site they once stood on.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The attacks were also witnessed first-hand by two of his colleagues.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Jimmy O'Sullivan (47) from Dunmanway, Co Cork, was working on a high-rise on 47th Street in midtown Manhattan, when the first plane flew suspiciously low over their heads.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">A colleague remarked to him: "There's something wrong", and then, "everybody just froze".</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">He said: "It's great to be building it back up again. It's something that you feel honoured to be involved in."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Mike Carmody (37) from Tarbert, Co Kerry, was working 30 floors up on a building project across the river in Queens.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">And Michael Deere (43) from Pallasgreen, Co Limerick, was working underground across the bridge in Brooklyn on the day of the attacks.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By the time he emerged, all he could see was a cloud of smoke hanging over all of Lower Manhattan.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">He has been working as a carpenter with Bovis, the general contractors for the Memorial Plaza and Museum, for five months.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"Six weeks ago, you wouldn't have thought it would ever open on time, but there's been massive progress," he said.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Working alongside him with Bovis is Niall Marshall (31) from Birr, Co Offaly.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"I am very proud of being here," he says. "A lot of American people look at this as something great -- a rebuilding that's going to bring everyone back together."</div><div id="articleAuthor" style="font: italic normal normal 1em/normal Georgia, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">- Vincent Murphy</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-22879438375211478992011-09-04T09:02:00.000-07:002011-09-04T09:02:48.977-07:00Hands that Rebuilt America (Irish Independent)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 12px;"></span><br />
<div class="info" style="color: #626362;"><div class="authors" style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-bottom: 2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">By Vincent Murphy at Ground Zero, New York </div><div class="published" style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-bottom: 2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Saturday September 03 2011</div></div><div class="body font-null" style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">IN THE footprints where the Twin Towers once stood, the man responsible for the rebuild takes in the enormity of the task at hand.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"We are doing something unique for history and all of us know that," says Bill Baroni.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"The pressure to make sure we finished this on time was extraordinary. The entire world is watching to see if we do our job and open this memorial on time."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Mr Baroni, who holds dual Irish and US citizenship, is the deputy executive director of the <a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey" style="color: #306294; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: underline;">Port Authority of New York and New Jersey</a> which is responsible for rebuilding the site.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The taps were not turned on in the giant reflecting pools at the new 9/11 Memorial Plaza in Lower Manhattan when the Irish Independent was given exclusive access to the site this week.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong style="font-size: 1em;">Beginning</strong></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But when water finally cascades down their giant granite walls next week it will signal a new beginning at the site known as<a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Ground_Zero" style="color: #306294; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: underline;">Ground Zero</a>.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Families of 9/11 victims will be the first to see the spectacular design completed, on next Sunday's 10th anniversary of the attacks.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">For the first time, there will be a permanent shrine at the place where their loved ones' lives were lost.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Mr Baroni is keenly aware of how important it was to get the memorial finished in time for the anniversary.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">"What we hope is that the families who lost so much -- husbands, wives, kids -- walk out in the plaza next week and will say that we did our job with dignity, humility and honouring the people we lost," he said.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The plaza will open to the public a day after the anniversary, and is expected to host 1,500 people per hour.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The memorial is the first part of the old World Trade Centre site to reopen, but the rest of the 16 acres remains a massive building site.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Directly underneath will be the 9/11 Museum, which is due to open on Sept 11, 2012.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">It goes more than 80 feet underground, and will hold many precious remnants including original steel tridents from old towers, damaged fire trucks and other mementos from the buildings.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Across the complex, One World Trade Centre, formerly known as <a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/One_World_Trade_Center" style="color: #306294; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: underline;">Freedom Tower</a>, has been rising at a remarkable rate of one storey per week in recent months.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">At more than 80 floors, it's already the tallest building in Manhattan, and will stretch to 1,776 feet by the time it's complete -- taller than the original Twin Towers. Conscious that it may be a target for future attacks, Mr Baroni says it's constructed to be the "strongest office building ever built".</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Publishing giant Conde Nast will occupy a large section of the tower, also known as <a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/One_World_Trade_Center" style="color: #306294; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: underline;">1 WTC</a>, when complete.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The federal government and a Chinese bank have also been confirmed as future tenants.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Also under construction is a new transportation hub, designed by <a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Santiago_Calatrava" style="color: #306294; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: underline;">Santiago Calatrava</a>, who was responsible for the <a href="http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Samuel_Beckett" style="color: #306294; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: underline;">Samuel Beckett</a> Bridge in Dublin. But the opening of the plaza represents a significant milestone -- the first glimpse behind the high fence that has blocked the view of the 'giant hole in the ground' while controversy and wrangling delayed the project for years.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">And now 10 years on, New York is finally ready to reclaim a piece of hallowed ground from history.</div><div id="articleAuthor" style="font: italic normal normal 1em/normal Georgia, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">- Vincent Murphy at Ground Zero, New York</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-82239011290209846192011-09-04T09:00:00.000-07:002011-09-04T09:00:00.197-07:00New York prepares for Hurricane Irene<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIl01tAaDkYhZCDg0hbHU1m4nBb18YLvMjybSH659pBzVyNv33fB74k0GXpM6rfpNHWFEIXLDuESglHmfdV9pPFlGXxIeka5Cgtg8T9xwwvUMC-pu0gSdd0eQvWO7ltcuQqJWRM-aerx1G/s1600/irene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIl01tAaDkYhZCDg0hbHU1m4nBb18YLvMjybSH659pBzVyNv33fB74k0GXpM6rfpNHWFEIXLDuESglHmfdV9pPFlGXxIeka5Cgtg8T9xwwvUMC-pu0gSdd0eQvWO7ltcuQqJWRM-aerx1G/s1600/irene.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
On Friday August 26th, New York braced itself for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, and I reported for RTE's Morning Ireland as the city prepared for shutdown.<br />
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<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0826/morningireland.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0826/morningireland.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-11194565228016442782011-09-04T08:57:00.000-07:002011-09-04T08:57:52.152-07:00DSK sex case is 'too weak' to proceed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2YkijP4h96aTE2ZNajc7H_RUatljMXts9LLzSFON619Y2z-R0vwC7XXN55_AXpFqVv7rYxUALvbIFYP_7umDoe4gsoVMX4UkiEY4pjtNBRaWOgn_uPrdn6rKgPZeM0_ed9f5k4Xp2vxw/s1600/dskperp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr2YkijP4h96aTE2ZNajc7H_RUatljMXts9LLzSFON619Y2z-R0vwC7XXN55_AXpFqVv7rYxUALvbIFYP_7umDoe4gsoVMX4UkiEY4pjtNBRaWOgn_uPrdn6rKgPZeM0_ed9f5k4Xp2vxw/s320/dskperp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Here's a link to my report on the collapse of the Dominque Strauss-Kahn case on RTE's Morning Ireland, broadcast on the morning before his release.<br />
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<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0823/morningireland.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0823/morningireland.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-11595486057819334062011-08-05T14:12:00.000-07:002011-08-05T14:12:38.996-07:00Thoughts on the David Norris Tragedy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDryPwLeTZNb78jQSwFn90Ui86Ah3DvS6vI5vVg08EVkCE0QEuPdqF9iNKfdiCEaR19vDXEpEaVG2cpn0yEDcpTIF8eCaOGc-cGy-5hJQLFmN08ozSoHBpwnGDN-DtC7VpvRh-BTg98AHI/s1600/norris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDryPwLeTZNb78jQSwFn90Ui86Ah3DvS6vI5vVg08EVkCE0QEuPdqF9iNKfdiCEaR19vDXEpEaVG2cpn0yEDcpTIF8eCaOGc-cGy-5hJQLFmN08ozSoHBpwnGDN-DtC7VpvRh-BTg98AHI/s320/norris.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are so many facets to the story of David Norris’s failed presidential bid, so many issues involved that need to be teased out, that there must be some take-away lessons from it all. How we view it says a lot about our attitudes to politics, to sex, to our ethics and sense of right and wrong. I want to try to make sense of it all, because it seems to me that Ireland has lost a good president.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even many of those who believe it was right for Norris to leave the campaign concede he would have been good in the job. So why, then, have we forced out someone like that out of the race? The whole thing leaves everyone feeling a little worse off.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t like conspiracy theories. I don’t buy that he was driven out because of his sexuality, though of course it played its part. Was there an orchestrated campaign against him? Of course! But that’s called politics. That’s what you do in an election – you orchestrate a campaign against someone you don’t want to get elected. That’s not sinister, it’s the game.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What do we want from a president?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">David Norris was by far the most popular candidate for president – that much is clear from successive opinion polls, even those taken after the original controversy surrounding his Magill interview. It’s not that we’ve all suddenly fallen for his west Brit charms after all these years. It’s because he was a perfect fit for what most people want in a president.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It seems to me all we want from the president – which after all is a “largely ceremonial” role as people keep saying – are a few simple things.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They need to look presidential. (I’m sorry, but for me Gay Mitchell or Sean Gallagher just don’t fit the bill.) <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They need to sound presidential – someone articulate that can make wishy-washy non-political statements sound profound and important, and who we feel won’t let us down when speaking in public.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They need to have made some contribution of significance to Irish life and society over the years – we need to feel that they deserve the reward of the Aras. (Again, sorry Gay and Sean!)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And most importantly, and this is why I believe Norris was such a front runner, we want their election to say something about us as a nation.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mary Robinson’s election showed we were ready to have a first female president. Norris’s election would have shown that we were ready to have a gay president.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A gay president<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I think that, far from his sexuality being a negative for him, it was actually the biggest positive for him. We wanted to be able to say to the world – look at us, we in Ireland are now a grown up liberal social democracy capable of electing the first gay president anywhere in the world. He was popular because he represented the image of the country that a large portion of the population wanted to portray. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Norris himself campaigned that he “did not want to be a gay president, but a president who happened to be gay”. But the reality was, the only reason he was so far ahead in the polls is that Ireland didn’t just want a president who happened to be gay, we wanted a gay president. Because it said something about us. For all his human rights work, and all his scholarly Joycean work, for most people in Ireland the name David Norris means just one thing – gay rights. We weren’t just ready for a gay president, we wanted one.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The thorny issue of pederasty<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because David Norris equals gay in Irish shorthand, his opinions on sexuality became a focus point for the media. It happens to all candidates. If Mary Davis is being interviewed, she’ll be asked about the Special Olympics, not for her views on pederasty. If Gay Mitchell is being interviewed, it will probably be our role in Europe – he’s been an MEP for a long time, hasn’t he? Sean Gallagher, your thoughts on entrepreneurship please.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But luckily for the other candidates Europe, the Special Olympics and business are not as emotive and personal an issue as sexuality. The very idea that we would even ask Mary Robinson or Patrick Hillary for their nuanced opinions on teenagers having sex would be ludicrous. But it’s an issue that Norris had to deal with because his defining public role has been steering a catholic dominated country to a more gay-friendly equal society. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So I’m sorry David, but we must ask you – how young is too young? Mary Davis, what is your favourite Special Olympic sport? Davd, do you like having sex with younger men? Michael D, a word on how important the Arts are in Irish society? David, will you be having sex with another man while in the Aras? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ezra Nawi<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here comes the tricky part to discuss. The statutory rape of a 15 year old Palestinian boy by Norris’s former lover Ezra Nawi.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In a strange way, it was useful for Ireland to have had the discussion earlier in the year about Norris’s Magill interview, because it laid down an important distinction – that between paedophile and pederast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A paedophile has sex with children, a pederast has sex with post-puberty teenage boys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither is acceptable in my opinion for a man in his forties or fifties, but can we at least talk about this for a minute without descending into moral outrage.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The teenager, in any of the following European countries, would be over the age of consent:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Albania (14), Austria (14), Bosnia (14), Bulgaria (14), Croatia (14), Czech Republic (15), Denmark (15), Faroe Islands (15), Estonia (14), France (15), Germany (14), Greece (15), Iceland (15), Italy (14), Liechtenstein (14), Macedonia (14), Monetnegro (14), Poland (15), Portugal (14), Romania (15), Serbia<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(14), San Marino (14), Slovakia (15), Slovenia (15), Spain (13), Sweden (15)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That means, if as the Israeli court accepted the relationship between the teenager and Nawi was consensual, no court case would have arisen in any of these countries and Norris’s letter would never have been written.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now of course, the law of each country needs to be respected – but I think it’s a point worth making. And its important to make it because tabloid headlines describing Nawi as a paedophile, or commentary comparing his actions to those of paedophile priests are just dishonest.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s not unheard of in the straight world for teenagers to have sex with older men or women (when it’s a woman we call her a cougar!). <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now, personally, I don’t think it’s right for an older man to be with a teenager, but I’d have a bigger problem with Norris defending Cathal O’Searcaigh, who was an obvious sex tourist.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The letter<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Was Norris right to pen the infamous letter seeking clemency for Nawi? No, he wasn’t.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I think it’s perfectly understandable that he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the love of your life was heading for prison, and you thought you could make a difference by writing a letter, who wouldn’t? The words used, and the fact that Norris was making himself sound as important as possible, don’t matter. He was making the letter sound as strong as possible. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t think any politician should be writing these kinds of letters to judges in any jurisdiction. Norris was wrong to do it. And it cost him his presidential bid.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But should it have? Was the crime big enough to match the punishment? And has our moralizing cost us one of the best presidents we could have had?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Have we ever asked any other candidate in any other election to reveal what letters they had written to seek clemency for criminals? This is a new standard we are setting now.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Gay Mitchell, it appears, wrote to a Florida judge, seeking clemency for a man who shot dead two people at an abortion clinic, and was facing the death penalty.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Did I miss something here?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Since when is a Double Murder a less heinous crime than pederasty?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If Norris is forced out of the race for his letter, on behalf of the love of his life, why is Gay Mitchell still in the race, given his letter on behalf of complete stranger who is a killer?<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Media bias<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Finally, there is now an attempt by some conservative/right commentators like John Waters, David Quinn or Kevin Meyers to say that the media went easy on Norris. That because of a “liberal” bias, the media looked the other way to Norris’s comments. They argue this would not have been the case if it was a priest that had said it.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve already pointed out how the comparison to clergy is wrong. I think it’s also wrong to claim the media somehow went easy on Norris. There was a very tough series of interviews with Norris when the Magill controversy blew up – including the memorable one with Aine Lawlor on Morning Ireland. And once the letter emerged, the media were all over the story like a rash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The very media that these commentators claim is going soft on Norris, were the ones that kept the controversy so heated that Norris’s supporters found the going too hot and pulled out.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s a favourite new argument of right wing commentators that somehow they are victims of a liberal conspiracy. The fact is that it is often liberals who are weak at standing up for their viewpoints. Because a liberal viewpoint by its very nature is open to other ideas, and a conservative viewpoint is usually married to some dogma. Liberals want to hear all sides of the argument including the conservative ones. Conservatives never accept they are wrong. You see it in the States all the time, where Fox or Tea Party supporters claim the media has a left-wing liberal bias, where in fact it’s their viewpoint that is one-sided. I hope the liberal forces in Ireland will keep their strength.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Aftermath<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After the dust settles on the whole controversy, I think we’ll all feel a little worse about the situation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">There was no big homophobic conspiracy. There was no grand Israeli plan to knock him out of the election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was simply a storm that brewed from a society that still finds it difficult to discuss teenage sexuality, and a political habit of trying to wield influence over things that maybe they shouldn’t.<o:p></o:p></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> If we step back from it, do we really think that Norris is not acceptable as president because of that letter? It’s a hard one. I didn’t realize how much I wanted him to be president until he was no longer in the race. How boring it all looks now. I’m hoping some new candidate will come along that can inspire us, who would represent us well, who has contributed to Irish life and society, and whose election says something about us as a country.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, they will still need to get the support of county councils or 20 TDs… don’t get me started on that whole side of things…<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-52175801564721746412011-07-28T09:34:00.000-07:002011-07-28T09:34:29.165-07:00Storm Brewing over Ground Zero Cross<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Gfl53HvrGaMSy-tCjNN0HVRDO0Ad9D0ncksieXx_EiKMY7tfjhJq4YhRRil434n2a1REn9YDtr13cMoFxWgLqfXLxSL4QTJu-QsI3tYDM0_ZIBlNSW6g6DTWgLV-4Phyj0oeZQt3dK71/s1600/ground-zero-cross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Gfl53HvrGaMSy-tCjNN0HVRDO0Ad9D0ncksieXx_EiKMY7tfjhJq4YhRRil434n2a1REn9YDtr13cMoFxWgLqfXLxSL4QTJu-QsI3tYDM0_ZIBlNSW6g6DTWgLV-4Phyj0oeZQt3dK71/s320/ground-zero-cross.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><br />
You can hear a piece I did for RTE Radio on the lawsuit filed by American Atheists over the inclusion of rubble in the shape of a Christian Cross in the 9/11 Memorial Museum.<br />
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There is also an update on latest in the DSK sex assault case.<br />
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<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0728/morningireland.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0728/morningireland.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-44652613929211129272011-07-26T13:13:00.000-07:002011-07-26T13:13:09.582-07:00Jim O'Malley: An Irish connection to an extraordinary story<div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well-known New York immigration lawyer Jim O’Malley tells Vincent Murphy about his part in the extraordinary story of Deo, a student who escapes genocide in Burundi, only to return years later on a mission to help his people.</span></i></div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz72hzlPZ9idnuZNiwtDtOwj-PO4F-h2lrysxoCYlGtLAtkM_eOcjXTRogrt2dXVdlXpakvBoU6L1oRcTZ1B5BVy93rsEbT2Etrdu2ss1wHQwzaxHaiBc5gYd4bX1WbQFCsex-SIYgL5hv/s1600/Africa%252C+Burundi%252CUganda+Dec+2009-January+2010+207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz72hzlPZ9idnuZNiwtDtOwj-PO4F-h2lrysxoCYlGtLAtkM_eOcjXTRogrt2dXVdlXpakvBoU6L1oRcTZ1B5BVy93rsEbT2Etrdu2ss1wHQwzaxHaiBc5gYd4bX1WbQFCsex-SIYgL5hv/s320/Africa%252C+Burundi%252CUganda+Dec+2009-January+2010+207.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3c3731;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The airport policemen wanted to see Deo’s passport and visa and ticket. Deo wanted to know where he should go to pick up his bag.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3c3731;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The policemen looked surprised. One of them asked another question. The woman translates for Deo, “The man asks, ‘Do you know where you are?’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3c3731;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Yes,” said Deo, who speaks only French. “New York City.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3c3731;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She broke into a smile, and translated this for the uniformed men. They looked at each other and laughed, and the woman explained to Deo that he was in a country called Ireland, in a place called Shannon Airport.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 1.25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: right; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 115%;">excerpt from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strength in What Remains</i> by Tracey Kidder (2009): Random House<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When a young homeless African man walked into Jim O’Malley’s lower Manhattan office in 1995, the Limerick-born immigration lawyer had no idea of the remarkable tale he was about become a character in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The young man’s name was Deogratias (which translates to “Thanks to God”), and he was brought to the office, by Siobhan McKenna, a friend of O’Malley’s who was a caretaker at a Catholic church in midtown Manhattan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“He spoke no English, he only spoke French, the colonial language of Burundi,” recalls O’Malley, “She translated his story, and I’d never heard anything like it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Actually, I had never heard of the country Burundi in my life. I was aware that genocide had occurred in Rwanda, the neighboring country.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I just knew what I read in the papers and had seen on TV, but I’d no idea of the dimension from a very personal viewpoint - a person whose family members had been through this, and who had been through it himself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“It was quite a harrowing story to say the least.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deo’s extraordinary story is the subject of the New York Times bestseller <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strength in What Remains</i> by the Pullitzer-Prize winning author Tracy Kidder.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkHozaqu6SC9THKcumWyxUWjvMb4RDv8zoE9oV-G0L3i1Y0Y-JkaEQBOubwgpF3m9KTphuSCN1RnEtI9w9haK8HJE8IruZF1fzwoNhizU3onFj2rjg3Kue3Ymn9pGGe3mjTloXOU1YNCBM/s200/deo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="200" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deo</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkHozaqu6SC9THKcumWyxUWjvMb4RDv8zoE9oV-G0L3i1Y0Y-JkaEQBOubwgpF3m9KTphuSCN1RnEtI9w9haK8HJE8IruZF1fzwoNhizU3onFj2rjg3Kue3Ymn9pGGe3mjTloXOU1YNCBM/s1600/deo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1994, when Burundi and Rwanda were exploding in civil war, in which Hutus and Tutsis were slaughtering one another, Deo, a Tutsi, was helped to flee the country.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After several flights, including stopovers in Cairo and Moscow, the young man with no English landed in what he thought was New York, but was actually Shannon Airport in County Clare. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“</span>He thought he was in New York, and got off the plane and asked someone in the duty free shop, how he could get a taxi to Manhattan,” says O’Malley, who ironically grew up in Limerick city just a short journey from Shannon Airport. “To this day we have a good laugh about that. They said: No, you have a few more hours to go yet.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After arriving in New York with little more than $200 and no English, Deo scraped by. For a period, he lived homeless in Central Park. At another stage, he shared a run-down tenement in Harlem. For work, he delivered groceries from Gristedes supermarket for $15 a day. It was on one of these supermarket deliveries that Deo met Siobhan McKenna – who spoke French – and once she heard his harrowing tale, she took him to O’Malley’s office to see if he could apply for asylum. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;">The process was complicated, but eventually after going to court, Deo was granted political asylum.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">And while this was all happening, Deo’s life was taking another extraordinary turn. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;">Having heard about his living arrangements, a married couple living in Lower Manhattan, Charlie and Nancy Wolf, who were friends with both McKenna and O’Malley, took the young African student under their wing. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;">They offered him accommodation, and in a remarkable display of generosity arranged for him to go to Colombia University and even paid his tuition. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“They’re amazing people,” says O’Malley, “H</span>e started to live with them here in Manhattan, and they helped him enormously. They helped him go through school, and he enrolled in Columbia University. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;">By this time, which was some months later, I had formally requested political asylum on his behalf, and got him some ID and got him some quasi-legal status while his application was going through the system.”</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;">“He started in Columbia, and was a very bright student. He had been a medical student in Burundi, and did very well in Columbia." </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;">After Colombia, Deo went to the Harvard School of Public Health, where he volunteered with Dr Paul Farmer to go to Haiti to study malaria and drug-resistant TB.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, O’Malley was working on translating his asylum status into a green card, and later worked on his successful application for US citizenship.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“We became friends,” says O’Malley, “He has become part of our group of friends and his friends have become our friends.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At some point, Deo travelled back to Burundi for several weeks, where the violence had died down and a process of reconciliation was underway. But he was appalled by the state of health care there, and vowed on his return to New York to do something about it.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaZ9DsysaKg_bdbesvcjrMRqIgiZb1qvHFZ-2ii-rfvFzi7buHU4nCC7mRLegxO56gOMPFnzTM4XW6XZ8H7wvsQ8JLJAiPS_EN8xupjYvd3h3R9fXCyKSZQiDVsEU2vVRqgbVWe8Pk0ARO/s1600/James-OMalley.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim O'Malley</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaZ9DsysaKg_bdbesvcjrMRqIgiZb1qvHFZ-2ii-rfvFzi7buHU4nCC7mRLegxO56gOMPFnzTM4XW6XZ8H7wvsQ8JLJAiPS_EN8xupjYvd3h3R9fXCyKSZQiDVsEU2vVRqgbVWe8Pk0ARO/s1600/James-OMalley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“He described “hospitals” where patients were actually being held captive because they couldn’t pay their bills, so they weren’t released,” recalls O’Malley. “People who had died, their corpses were being held because their family owed money to the hospital. It’s an extremely poor country.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deo organized a fundraiser, where he took in several hundred dollars. Jim O’Malley says he thought that Deo would simply send the money raised – the equivalent of maybe a year’s income in local currency – to Burundi. But the medical student had other ideas. “He said, ‘No, I want to use this now as a springboard. I want to build a hospital’ and we thought: Wow - that’s ambitious!” says O’Malley.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deo started a charity called Village Health Works to raise enough money to build the hospital mostly with local labor in Burundi. He took a year out of medical school and went back to Burundi, where he lived in a tent while the medical center was being built. The resulting facility is a state-of-the-art hospital, with in- and out-patient services, a unit for malnourished infants, and a community centre. There’s even a model farm, where locals are taught how to grow crops.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“People travel on foot for two to three days, from Tanzania, the Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda to get there,” explains O’Malley, “Witch doctors are the only competition. They refer to the hospital as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">America</i>, it’s really a remarkable place.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The charity Village Works is now a fully-fledged organization that is completely self-sufficient. All money it raises goes directly to the running and development of the hospital. Plans are currently afoot to build a new wing with a maternity unit.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In December 2009, Jim O’Malley and his wife travelled to Burundi, with Deo and the couple who had “adopted” him, to see the hospital built in the mountainous area where Deo had lived before his exile. “When I arrived and saw it, I don’t think I’d ever seen a place as green in my life,” he said, “It’s absolutely beautiful and extremely fertile. The poverty is astounding, but at the same time the dignity of the people is equally astounding. The beauty of the country is spectacular. The population is very dense. Probably it’s the size of Ireland or smaller but it has 8 or 10 million people. Everyone walks everywhere, there are not a lot of automobiles. A bicycle is a big deal to have in a household.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deo wanted to show them the hospital, but on a personal level, he also wanted to introduce his four American friends to his mother and brothers who were still living there. “It was an extraordinary experience for me, personally and professionally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it,” says O’Malley.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a man who has clients from over 70 different countries, here is one that will always hold a special place in his heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Read Deo’s full extraordinary story in </i>Strength in What Remains<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> by Tracy Kidder, published by Random House (2009) and available in all good bookstores.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Follow the hospital’s progress or donate to Deo’s charity at </i><a href="http://www.villagehealthworks.com/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">www.villagehealthworks.com</i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Find out more about Jim O’Malley at </i><a href="http://www.omalleyimmigrationlaw.com/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">www.omalleyimmigrationlaw.com</i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A version of this article appears in the summer edition of Irish Connections magazine</span></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-91120350205915423322011-07-06T11:20:00.000-07:002011-07-06T11:20:42.439-07:00EXCLUSIVE: SPEAKER CHRISTINE QUINN INTERVIEW<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Speaker of the New York City Council Christine Quinn talks to Vincent Murphy about her Irish roots, her plans for marriage and whether or not she’ll be NYC’s next mayor.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlAcnsyE5iSsEqaa-pJtNNDKX7lWPvpu3nmnPQx45A91IyHDpbJtzeUQXGoZy1IOtRCN5OidTzSloO_uZls7kI_KOtW58_LmnuzDncKlK-8SgC01yWH-qjgDlEp8RO4wLJ5Inhwx6FbEv5/s1600/christinequinn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlAcnsyE5iSsEqaa-pJtNNDKX7lWPvpu3nmnPQx45A91IyHDpbJtzeUQXGoZy1IOtRCN5OidTzSloO_uZls7kI_KOtW58_LmnuzDncKlK-8SgC01yWH-qjgDlEp8RO4wLJ5Inhwx6FbEv5/s1600/christinequinn.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
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</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">On the window of her office across the street from City Hall, Christine Quinn has a copy of Ireland’s 1916 Proclamation of Independence. But it’s no valuable historical relic.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“That copy of the Proclamation actually came in a Clancy Brothers album,” she explains – you bought the record, and the proclamation was a freebie. How Irish.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“That used to hang in the kitchen in Glen Cove (where she grew up), my mother had it framed.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Around the office are several other indicators that with Quinn, her Irish heritage is something she wears on her sleeve. Tiny figureen leprechauns dance in a circle on her mantelpiece, on the wall are photos of the City Council Speaker with Irish actor Liam Neeson in one, and Bono in another.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All four of Quinn’s grandparents were born in Ireland – three in Co Cork and one in Co Clare. “I’m 100% Irish,” she says, “Most people in the United States nowadays aren’t 100 per cent anything – which is neither good nor bad - but it makes that country very central in your household.” Her father, Larry, lived in Schull in west Cork for a time as a boy. He went to school there and made his First Communion there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“My father once said we were so Irish we didn’t have to try to be Irish,” she smiles, “He always kinda resented those who had to try and put on airs about being Irish.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her maternal grandmother, Nelly Callaghan, or Nelly Shine as she was before she married, came to the United States from Cork on the Titanic. She was one of the few female passengers on steerage to survive when the ‘indestructible” liner met its match in an iceberg in 1912. Her survival is now the stuff of legend, her grand-daughter explains. “She was quoted in a book on the Titanic as having said: ‘When the other girls dropped to their knees to pray, I took a run for it’.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">From her desk, Quinn retrieves an envelope holder, which has a story cut-out from the New York Times stuck to its side. It tells of her grandmother and grandfather when they went returned to Ireland for the first time decades later. “Being a good immigrant they didn’t frame it of course, they stuck it here on this envelope holder,” she laughs, “Another copy went on a waste paper basket which my sister has.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Christine’s parents lived in Inwood after they were married, but moved to Long Island in 1958, two years after Christine’s older sister was born. Christine was born in 1966 in Glen Cove – a diverse community that included, among others, large Italian, Irish and Polish communities. “There were three churches: St Patrick’s, St Hyacinth and St Rocco’s,” she recalls. “We went to St Patrick’s. Occasionally, my mother would go to St Rocco’s which would cause an enormous fight on Saturday night. My father referred to St Patrick’s as the one true church of God,” she laughs.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Christine’s upbringing was strictly Catholic. She went to St Patrick’s elementary school and Holy Cross High School. “I once asked my mother if I could go to Public School and she said No, and I said why? and she said ‘Because that’s the rule!’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><i> “I didn’t come out until I was about 25, which is not that early in one’s life.”</i></span></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal">With religion playing such an important role in her family, it’s not surprising that dealing with her sexuality was a difficult experience. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think that was part of what contributed to me taking a much longer time than it takes some people to realize the truth of their sexual orientation,” she says. “I didn’t come out until I was about 25, which is not that early in one’s life.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Christine had lost her mother to breast cancer when she was 16, so it was all the more difficult to breach the subject with her father. When she finally told him she was a lesbian, it brought major tensions. “When I told my father he said, ‘I never want to hear you say that again’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I said, ‘Look, I’ve done what I have to do, I’ve told you, what you do with it is up to you’. Then there was some period of time where we didn’t see each other and didn’t talk.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">This distance was particularly strange for both of them, as her father was the kind that turned up at every baseball game, every softball game, every science fair. Eventually, the love between a father and daughter won through, and his attitude evolved over time and got better. Now her father is one of her closest advisers and biggest supporters.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">In his 80s, he’s still a key part of her political team and those tough times seem a distant memory. “Now, he marches in the Pride parade and uses ‘we’ sometimes when he’s talking about the LGBT community,” she smiles. “We made him join the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats. He jokes when he’s at the GLID meetings that it stands for the Gaelic League of Independent Democrats.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s been an eventful few weeks for Quinn. On the Friday before we meet, she secured a deal on New York City’s budget on time – one that despite the financial difficulties included no tax increases, no threatened teacher lay-offs and no fire house closures. But even as she held the press conference to announce the success, news was coming from Albany that would bring an even bigger smile. The State Senate had passed a bill legalizing gay marriage – an issue on which she had been a leading campaigner for years.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“It was remarkable. The disappointment in 2009 was significant, when it didn’t pass. So to have it come completely full circle in a relatively quick amount of time is just amazing,” she says. “And it really happened in somewhat of an Irish way because people never lost faith, they never gave up hope, they kept working and working in a political sense and changed the landscape and changed the number of votes.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Marriage Equality is not just a political issue for Quinn – it’s also personal. She plans to marry her partner, lawyer Kim Catullo in Spring 2012. “It’ll be a party, a celebration,” she says, although exact plans have not yet been made. “It was funny. Someone said to me: Congratulations on your engagement, and I was like… What?” she says, pointing out that they’d talked about marriage for years, it was not something that they just decided after the law was changed. “You know, we’ll be together 10 years in September. So it had passed the point of having a romantic moment with someone down on one knee, or you know a ring stuck in the middle of a chocolate mousse or something. It was just, when this happens, we’ll do it, was the operating assumption. I respect people who go to other jurisdictions and do it, but we didn’t want to do it anywhere but our home town.”</div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><i>"What is more to the core of a celebration of Irish heritage than the struggle to get to be who you are, and to be free in who you are?"</i></span></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Another long-running bone of contention for Christine Quinn is the continuing exclusion of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community from New Yorks’ St Patrick’s Day Parade. Is she tired talking about it? “If one can be tired of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> marching, I’m tired of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> marching” she says. With marriage equality now a reality, and with changes expected next year on the Parade’s organizing committee, she has renewed hope that the long running controversy can be sorted out.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“I’ve always had hope and real belief that the parade will change, sooner rather than later. But after Friday (when the marriage equality bill was passed), how could you not believe that?” she says. “Having such a diverse group of Senators vote for the Bill will help move all things that are stuck as it relates to discrimination or misunderstanding or bigotry. I think this will help, not just for LGBT people, but for all kinds of people, this law will help to dislodge those logjams. And certainly the parade is a logjam.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I suggest to her that most people in Ireland don’t understand it, and that St Patrick’s Day has long since become a day that celebrates Irish-ness, not just Irish Catholicism. “Right,” she says, “I think most folks don’t see it that way anymore. It’s a celebration of Irish heritage. What is more to the core of a celebration of Irish heritage than the struggle to get to be who you are, and to be free in who you are? And to get to celebrate who you are in a way you want to and you believe God wants you to and expects you to? I mean, that is at the core of what hundreds and hundreds of years of struggle have been about, and unfortunately too many people to count have lost their lives for it. So to have something that is in name about Irish-ness, and say some Irish people are better than other Irish people, is just not at its core, what I believe being Irish is about”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Quinn, despite her clear passion for Ireland, never got the chance to visit the Emerald Isle until relatively recently. Her first trip to Ireland was in 2003, but she has been back several times in more recent years, including with her father to west Cork, and Schull, the town he used to live in. “He always said it was the most beautiful place in the world but I was skeptical,” she says. “Now look, he and his brother talked about the tenement they lived in on 96<sup>th</sup> and 1<sup>st</sup> like it was the Taj Mahal! But Schull was just gorgeous. Beautiful.”</div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><i>“Well who wouldn’t want to be the mayor of the city of New York?”</i></span> </blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Since becoming the first female speaker of the City Council in January 2006, Quinn has established herself as one of the most powerful figures in New York politics. She was elected as speaker for a second term in January 2010. And now most observers say she’s well placed to take over the “other” office in City Hall, once Michael Bloomberg vacates it in 2013, especially after the implosion of Anthony Weiner’s political career. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Well who wouldn’t want to be the mayor of the city of New York?” she says. “Some people say it’s the best job in the world. Some say it’s the second best job, after the president of the United States. Either way, it’s an amazing position. And I love this city. I’ve been honored and really, really lucky to get to serve it. And I hope that I find ways to continue to be able to serve it.” But for now, she says she’s focused on her job as speaker, and on helping President Obama getting re-elected.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As speaker, her priority for the next 12 months is to keep the budget balanced, and help stimulate job growth. “We’ve done a lot of that in the past 12 months,” she says pointing to programs aimed at helping small businesses, and in the area of food and technology that the Council has introduced in the past year. She also points to having addressed some of the housing problems in city, from creating new affordable housing to dealing with buildings left run-down because of the economic and real estate crash.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0vyahgYa6iDmZZItCvwBxFjJJV8d3Oc4eMy-vMBI4ZokIpmiMSa8J4An_sYK5wue3shoxJQB5bBkmBHOTVAZ7pOtXrZfb9fhfDnO2LtRisjp5NyLIcfDGUsC5SJK4kS1zdjXAk-wRhen/s1600/quinn+imagine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0vyahgYa6iDmZZItCvwBxFjJJV8d3Oc4eMy-vMBI4ZokIpmiMSa8J4An_sYK5wue3shoxJQB5bBkmBHOTVAZ7pOtXrZfb9fhfDnO2LtRisjp5NyLIcfDGUsC5SJK4kS1zdjXAk-wRhen/s320/quinn+imagine.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Quinn with (R to L) author Colum McCann, former Arts Minister Mary Hanafin, actor Gabriel Byrne, and Culture Ireland director Eugene Downes at the launch of Imagine Ireland in January 201</span>1</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Alongside all of this, Christine Quinn has been a major supporter of the Irish and Irish-American causes, whether supporting arts and culture, or economic efforts or local community projects. That’s why she’s being honored as Irish Examiner USA’s Woman of the Year at a reception in the Irish Consul’s residence this Thursday. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I feel very strong about my Irish heritage, so to get recognition from the Irish Examiner is very, very important to me,” she says, “I hope it’s a recognition of the degree to which I’ve tried to make the work I’ve done as an elected official very Irish work. By that I don’t mean work that has only helped Irish people. But I mean work that’s infused by hard work, and a sense of pride and sense of faith and sense of the importance of community, and communities being allowed to have the freedom to express themselves, and people having opportunity to work and be with their families and live the Irish-American dream, whether or not they are Irish-American”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“You know, also being the first female Speaker of the City Council, I think any moment where you can have a Woman of the Year in any community is important. So I feel honored to be one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I think even though its 2011 and women have risen to great heights, there are still challenges for women out there. So to have moments where we can remind young girls that they can be anything they want as long as they work hard and never give up is great.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This feature first appeared in Irish Examiner USA of July 5th 2011</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-38481936455863311682011-06-29T14:02:00.000-07:002011-06-29T14:02:30.169-07:00Dublin Contemporary 2011 – A Terrible Beauty is Born<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The biggest contemporary art exhibition ever held in Ireland takes place in Dublin later this year. It aims to put the Irish capital firmly on the map as an international center for the visual arts.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24C0K6XSoTtBJVVlYtoMtw4iFeItCSUHut_uqPpJh17_O_mypmiu8IcbpcS6BIaKK3jtvmb_GfvhEr4SgUtr85WeDJyiKEih2Y1A4xXnNGsKSZVJSvcIq2UQJ7WIIWAfn_y5GtxDaCFcj/s1600/Du%252C+Wang+-+Bed.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24C0K6XSoTtBJVVlYtoMtw4iFeItCSUHut_uqPpJh17_O_mypmiu8IcbpcS6BIaKK3jtvmb_GfvhEr4SgUtr85WeDJyiKEih2Y1A4xXnNGsKSZVJSvcIq2UQJ7WIIWAfn_y5GtxDaCFcj/s320/Du%252C+Wang+-+Bed.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When you think of contemporary visual arts, Dublin is not a city that immediately comes to mind. But now an ambitious bid is being launched, supported by the Irish government, to change all that. The first Dublin Contemporary festival takes place for eight weeks during September and October this year, and will showcase Irish artists alongside some of the cream of talent from all five continents. But can Dublin Contemporary really make a mark, along the lines of the Venice Biennale?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“The ambition for it is to be a blockbuster exhibition – that’s the kind of budget we have, and that’s the kind of goal we have set out for ourselves,” says lead curator Christian Viveros-Faune. “And it is supposed to repeat, it’s a Quinquennial, which is it happens every five years,” The New York-based curator and writer was headhunted by organizers to take over the running of the festival, following the departure of the original artistic director Rachel Thomas at the start of this year.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Viveros-Faune is a former director of the prestigious Chicago Arts fair NEXT and VOLTA NY in New York, and has written for several prestigious art publications including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Art in America, Art Review</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker. </i>He insisted on having Jorge Castro as his co-curator, a Brussels-based Franco-Peruvian artist, curator and former UN and EU diplomat. Castro has curated exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, and major exhibitions in Spain. The pair took over the reins in February, just seven months before the massive project was due to open, and immediately changed the theme.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I would have never considered taking the job to do somebody else’s show,” says Viveros-Faune, “That was really one of the stipulations that we wanted. We were never filling in. We were doing our own exhibition. Thankfully, the previous group had really not done a tremendous amount of work, and they really only had a couple of artists on board. So we almost had a blank slate to work with, which in this case turned out to be a blessing.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The theme they chose <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Terrible Beauty—Art, Crisis, Change & The Office of Non‐Compliance</i>, addressed the “elephant in the room”, he says. The title of the show is taken from the famous WB Yeats poem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Easter 1916</i> in which he responded to the dramatic political developments of the time. It’s hoped Dublin Contemporary can also highlight art’s potential for commenting on current events in Irish life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think any major cultural event in Ireland has to identify the overarching social, cultural and economic issue that not only the nation is facing, but the entire world is facing," says Viveros-Faune, “What we want to do is basically explore the connection between art and these kinds of crises - art and life in a certain sense.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Although the final line-up of artists has yet to be confirmed, Viveros-Faune says there are several who are confirmed that have the potential to be really exciting. “Richard Mosse, for example, is an Irish artist that has been taking tremendous photographs in the Congo, at some significant personal risk, I should add. They are significantly more than just ordinary photographs. They are taken with an infra-red camera in the day, and they actually make the 20-year-old “generals” look almost feminized because they seem to be sporting pinkish or fuchsia uniforms. So that’s one example of terrific work.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“There’s a collective called the Bruce High Quality Foundation, from America, and they are looking to investigate the connections between art and life. They are currently touring art schools here in the States – and essentially they want to kick-off their European tour in Dublin, hopefully Trinity College. And then, you know, Lisa Yuskavage is one of the biggest living painters in the world, she has a show at the RHA.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Others artists confirmed include Nina Berman (USA), Tania Bruguera (CUB), Fernando Bryce (PER), Chen Chieh-Jen (TW),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>James Coleman (IRL), Dexter Dalwood (GBR), Wang Du (CHN), Omer<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fast (ISR), Goldiechiari (ITA), Patrick Hamilton (CHI), Jim Lambie<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(GBR), Brian O’Doherty (IRL), Niamh O’Malley (IRL), and Superflex (DEN).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The curators are hoping that the festival will viewed as a fresh new upstart on the contemporary arts circuit that is looking to be immediately relevant. They’ve promised that the art on view will bring in people who are not specialists in the visual arts and will be “very provocative”. Much of the art will be in on display at a cluster of buildings on Earlsfort Terrace, while others will use some of the well-established art institutions across the city. The festival is already leading to some interesting collaborations involving some of those institutions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile the city of Dublin itself will be used as a canvas, with street art inspiring and provoking public interest. Over and above the numbers attending, and the coverage Dublin Contemporary 2011 gets in the media, there is one other way that Viveros-Faune will be measuring its success. “That is the fact that we are putting on the biggest exhibition of contemporary art that Ireland has ever seen. And I think that in itself is going to raise the bar on efforts after 2011 and hopefully inspire some artists, and young potential commentators, and people who are not yet interested in the arts to possibly become more engaged. Those things are not so readily quantifiable immediately but they do have a lasting significance.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dublin Contemporary 2011 takes place Sept 6<sup>th</sup> – Oct 31<sup>st</sup>.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A version of this article appears in the summer edition of Irish Connections magazine</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-12765807372320055702011-06-28T09:42:00.000-07:002011-06-28T09:42:52.931-07:00SELLING IRELAND TO AMERICANS<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meet the man whose job it is to sell Ireland as a vacation destination to North Americans - Joe Byrne, head of Tourism Ireland North America</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit1KhjOesvKKvJ4tdvXGQ74SfSz8fANeYUcuM7Cg8ITZqP_fE7dfruMISTg97tx9iUePw0cz6Tc1Ypm_jWl2JQv4jGVOdOv2tSC59_KOTEmSB2qvGNn4SUnd8jCblxHU6feiGq-Jxyqcww/s1600/joe+byrne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit1KhjOesvKKvJ4tdvXGQ74SfSz8fANeYUcuM7Cg8ITZqP_fE7dfruMISTg97tx9iUePw0cz6Tc1Ypm_jWl2JQv4jGVOdOv2tSC59_KOTEmSB2qvGNn4SUnd8jCblxHU6feiGq-Jxyqcww/s320/joe+byrne.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“You can be a very busy fool when you have a job like mine in America,” says Joe Byrne, the Carlow man who heads up Tourism Ireland on this side of the Atlantic. “You can go after every target market and every city and all age groups and you can go after all interest levels and all hobbies.” But that would waste time and money, so Byrne and his colleagues, have done a lot of research to find out precisely who is most likely to actually travel to Ireland. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They call them their “Best Prospects”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“First of all they are baby boomers, so people 45 years of age and upwards,” he explains, “That’s not to say we don’t have younger people who go to Ireland – we do. And that’s not to say we don’t bandwagon every now and then on an opportunity to go after them. But in terms of where we put our focus, it’s baby boomers. We’re talking sight-seekers and culture seekers. These are the things they are most interested in doing when they are going on vacation to anywhere. They are college-educated and above-average income, defined as $75,000+ which eliminates a lot. And they are actually clustered in 15 cities in the United States. So that allows us to focus on these. They are interested in the finer things of life, and they are past visitors to Europe. Then we have three niche markets that we focus on. The first is golf, the second is business tourism, and the third is the Irish, and Scots-Irish diaspora.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">All in all that leaves a target market of about 12.5 million Americans. These are the people who have expressed an interest in travelling to Ireland at some time in their life. And Joe’s job is to turn that “some time” into now. This job, you would think, has not been made any easier by the developments of the last few years. Ireland has been receiving all the wrong kind of attention because of the banking crisis and the EU-IMF bailout. Open <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vanity Fair</i> or whatever publication you choose, and all you’ll find are references to crippling debts, severe austerity measures and an angry population worried for their future. You might think that convincing people to spend thousands of dollars on a trip there just got a whole lot more difficult. But luckily, that’s not the case.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“We actually got a bit worried about it,” says Joe. So worried in fact, that Tourism Ireland commissioned research to find out how all this negative publicity was impacting on perceptions of Ireland as a world-class vacation destination. And it brought good news. 81% of people had been immune to the storm of negativity that we Irish have been so focused on. “They asked: ‘What publicity? What problems are you talking about?’, said Byrne, adding that even among those who were aware of it all, there was encouraging news. “We asked would this affect your intention of travelling to Ireland, and there was a resounding No.” It appears that Brand Ireland is too strong to be shaken by a financial crisis.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Even as the IMF officials crunch the numbers at Government Buildings in Dublin, the attractions that make Ireland great are still there outside those four walls. The spectacular countryside, the terrific golf courses, the rich cultural and artistic traditions remain. “I would have to say that Ireland does have an extraordinarily strong brand image in the United States. Other countries which are far bigger than Ireland do not have the same level of awareness as a vacation destination,” says Joe Byrne. “They don’t have the same emotional attachment that Ireland has for an awful lot of Americans.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">So in a fiercely competitive marketplace, how does he make Ireland stand out? “There is what we say, and there is the way we say it. And the two are integrated,” he explains, “And the way we say it emphasizes the distinctiveness about Ireland. There are no countries in the world that are promoting themselves that don’t say that it’s a beautiful place. And we’re saying Ireland is a beautiful place. And there is no country in the world that’s promoting itself here that’s saying its people are not friendly! And we’re saying the Irish people are friendly. But there are very few that can claim what is distinctively, uniquely, culturally rich and worthwhile about Ireland. And it’s based around the fact that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. There’s this concept of ‘the craic’. Of being interested and interesting and warm and welcoming and affording an opportunity to be more involved in an authentic experience. So it’s that tone of how we communicate that says an awful lot about what we are saying about the place as well.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6Jt6iPba3Gi5F69vJOjm9fJzuxHDrCAeb6V6wLmgToRrnbvy2FjyOj2CqQWHGOGRBw7ITp8p-n2BC-Q-LoWh7BwUtXxFntKG8xoJSxaI9IwnKRWRpv85PmBaMuBgkSYUUy0Tgx3EGu1-/s1600/ireland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6Jt6iPba3Gi5F69vJOjm9fJzuxHDrCAeb6V6wLmgToRrnbvy2FjyOj2CqQWHGOGRBw7ITp8p-n2BC-Q-LoWh7BwUtXxFntKG8xoJSxaI9IwnKRWRpv85PmBaMuBgkSYUUy0Tgx3EGu1-/s200/ireland.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">“It is built around the spectacular fantastically beautiful places for which we are known and loved, and the warm welcoming rich Irish people, but wrapped together in this unique distinctively Irish sense of fun and welcome and warmth and wit and mischief and roguery.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Byrne says despite what many people think, the old leprechaun/blarney shtick doesn’t work anymore. “It doesn’t work in terms of persuading people to come to Ireland. It just doesn’t. And you would have to say there are probably a few nations involved: there’s Ireland, America and then there’s Irish America. One of the challenges that we have is that for Americans who are interested in coming to Ireland some time and should be interested, they get their impressions of Ireland from Irish-America rather than necessarily from Ireland itself. And a lot of that is what we call ‘paddy-whackery’ and not all of it is actually conducive to persuading someone who is interested or should be to actually go now. There is a certain stereotypical association which people believe is an association with Ireland, and a lot of it is to do with excessive drinking, and a lot to do with the paddywhackery that you see on St Patrick’s Day.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Byrne says that while they bask in the limelight that St Patrick’s Day offers, they are keen to use the opportunity to display those aspects of the country which are strong enough to pull people to Ireland. “It’s the fact of Dublin being a city of literature, of Derry being the UK’s city of culture in 2013. It’s the spectacularly rich sporting and cultural events that take place. That’s actually what pulls people in.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">A trip to Ireland is a significant investment for any US holidaymaker – the average stay costs in the region of $5,000. And any difficulty in convincing people to travel over the past few years had less to do with Ireland’s economic problems, and more to do with the economic difficulties here in the States. But consumer confidence is now returning, and in a funny way Ireland’s problems, which have dramatically reduced hotel prices for example, can actually help convince people to go. “It means that now we have people who would traditionally have stayed in certain forms of accommodation who are now adding a night or two in a Castle hotel as well,” he said.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwjtqdWzmXPhBig92TMcb2nTzQlm1hBBsSXvr3GReNP-sZY-X-7_m3nOSxZzNk2fR90gCI5aINzPTsXPIkYnMUL224brIgBBGoT0e3GgJK9auOEEkuDDC1J5pk3NpKAUoOyocBIAoINZH/s1600/obama+pint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwjtqdWzmXPhBig92TMcb2nTzQlm1hBBsSXvr3GReNP-sZY-X-7_m3nOSxZzNk2fR90gCI5aINzPTsXPIkYnMUL224brIgBBGoT0e3GgJK9auOEEkuDDC1J5pk3NpKAUoOyocBIAoINZH/s200/obama+pint.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Another unexpected boost has come from President Obama’s decision to visit Ireland. “This an example of Ireland being in the spotlight through no credit of Tourism Ireland, but we can use the opportunity to focus on things that are grist to our mill, to highlight some aspects that we know our target market is interested in.” Obviously, one of those is the tracing of ancestry – an important motivating factor in the decision of many to travel to Ireland. “Irish ancestry is important, certainly. And there are forty million people with Irish ancestry in the States, give or take a couple of million,” says Byrne.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But perhaps surprisingly, only a third of American visitors to Ireland have Irish heritage, two thirds have no direct link, and Byrne says they are careful to remember this in their promotions. “In our marketing activities we want to be very careful that we don’t in any way send out a signal to people who don’t have Irish ancestry, that Ireland is a great location if you are Irish,” he says. “We want to send out a message that Ireland is a great vacation destination whether you are Irish, or whether you have different heritage. That does not stop us from sending out an over and above message to people of Irish ancestry, and we do that.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">For those of Irish descent who do go to Ireland, most are several generations removed. “They are not Irish born, only about 3% are Irish born, and only about 3% have actually a parent born in Ireland. So you are talking about grandparent or much further out than that. Therefore it’s a link, but it’s more notional.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Byrne has been selling Ireland as a holiday destination for most of his adult life. A graduate of UCD, he worked briefly in RTE before taking those audio-visual skills to Bord Failte where he produced marketing videos. In the 1980s, the father-of-two was manager of Bord Failte’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paris operations, with responsibility for all of southern Europe. In the late 90s he came to New York as head of Bord Failte here. But he was soon called back to Dublin, as a new initiative to promote the entire island of Ireland as a tourism destination was being put together as the peace process began to bear fruit. Renamed Tourism Ireland, the North-South co-operation “took off from day one” and after five years working in Dublin, Byrne was once again appointed to head up the efforts in the USA and Canada.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Over the years, he’s witnessed many changes in the tourism industry. Major challenges have hit travel agents and tour operators as people began to book and research their own holidays using the internet. Nonetheless they both remain crucial allies of Tourism Ireland in influencing the choice of destinations for holidaymakers. “The first time the escorted bus tour market was written off was 30 years ago,” says Byrne, “And then 20 years ago it was written off again. I’m happy to say there will be more people on escorted bus tours to Ireland in 2011 than in any other year in the past. Escorted bus tours have moved with the times. The stereotypical image of the coach tour is just that – a stereotype. They are much more active and participant than they were in the past.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Tourism Ireland has also moved with the times. Its Facebook page has 120,000 fans and DiscoverIreland.com is the most visited European tourist board website in the US. Social media now plays a crucial part in spreading the word about Ireland. Joe says the balance of power is very much with the customer now, and real life testimonies are crucial in promoting a destination. “If I say something, people will say: ‘sure that fella is paid to say Ireland is a great destination!’ But if a Joe Byrne who is not working with Tourism Ireland says ‘I went to Ireland and had a great vacation’, it’s treated with greater credibility than anything I would say.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fortunately, Joe need not worry too much. Most of the comments on Facebook about Ireland are incredibly complimentary. And research conducted by Tourism Ireland shows an incredibly high satisfaction rating among those who make the trip to Ireland. “I handle directly all of the complaints that come in here,” says Joe Byrne, “I read all of the letters. And nobody has written to me in the past two years! I keep on looking at the post and nobody writes. We have really great satisfaction levels. I say that not to just wallow in it, but to say we do have a world class product that meets and exceeds expectations. And it does mean that we have an army of satisfied visitors. A big part of our current strategy is to turn that army into a proactive army of ambassadors and evangelists who will spread the word about Irish tourism.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A version of this article first appears in the summer edition of Irish Connections magazine</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-24501964004906812902011-06-27T06:03:00.000-07:002011-06-27T06:03:32.004-07:00POP UP PIANOS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span></div><h5 style="color: #214881; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0627/morningireland.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/images/speaker_lrg.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: #214881; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 30px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 3px; text-decoration: underline;">Art project puts pianos on the streets of New York</a></h5><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0627/morningireland.html" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="play" class="inlineSpeaker" src="http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/images/inline_speaker.png" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; display: inline; float: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 0px;" />Vincent Murphy reports on a new public art project in New York which aims to bring music to the masses</a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0gzoMZBhSzvVYgF8TEE_OSJ1VjuK_J0idJkC6x3zuF3rec6kLcwAtzT9MoeLWiSV_2_23MELtE1FOxecbMzaUqKnN8YDqSGpUF1qbvVqRELNtzOFAjE4IrjWWgC63p3sV9L6xryj3JaE3/s1600/piano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0gzoMZBhSzvVYgF8TEE_OSJ1VjuK_J0idJkC6x3zuF3rec6kLcwAtzT9MoeLWiSV_2_23MELtE1FOxecbMzaUqKnN8YDqSGpUF1qbvVqRELNtzOFAjE4IrjWWgC63p3sV9L6xryj3JaE3/s320/piano.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
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<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0627/morningireland.html">http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0627/morningireland.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-804477159486563536.post-45938021127553536422011-06-22T11:10:00.000-07:002011-06-22T11:10:46.812-07:00Michael Noonan: The Man in the Hot Seat<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ireland's new Finance Minister Michael Noonan talks to Vincent Murphy about the bailout, his first 100 days in the job, and how the Irish overseas can help the recovery</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span id="goog_86695866"></span><span id="goog_86695867"></span><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCway2nxYIb-yVgI2FypjP_5fPCxqtMbdZgCxy460yifPBs71nlNCu0r-GTLJVwxJEHf0h8f3OGGwi3UCeuQRUdan4-PQrpdWvHcCLQlkCgMDMlq8D5jjo3_KM8KNcStH_ySPgjeNLNCdH/s1600/noonan+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCway2nxYIb-yVgI2FypjP_5fPCxqtMbdZgCxy460yifPBs71nlNCu0r-GTLJVwxJEHf0h8f3OGGwi3UCeuQRUdan4-PQrpdWvHcCLQlkCgMDMlq8D5jjo3_KM8KNcStH_ySPgjeNLNCdH/s320/noonan+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I’m on my third Taoiseach, you know,” laughs Michael Noonan, when I ask him how he’s coping with the toughest job in Ireland right now.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I was there with Garret Fitzgerald and I was there with John Bruton. And I’m now there with Enda Kenny. So I’ve held a number of ministries. And I’m glad to be given the opportunity again to make a contribution.” Fine Gael has not been in government for a long time – but in their new Finance Minister, they have a wily pair of hands. Noonan has been around the block – several times.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And now the Limerick man is facing his biggest challenge – taking over the reins at the Department of Finance as Ireland struggles with an unprecedented debt and banking crisis. “Things got into a crisis in Ireland, and all I can say is I’m going to work every day to get us out of it,” he says.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">In many ways his hands are tied as Finance Minister, with the State effectively locked-in to the IMF/EU/ECB rescue package agreed by his predecessor. The day before we meet, during an interview, Noonan re-opened the debate on burning senior bondholders at Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. He said, as Anglo was no longer a bank in any real sense, he believed losses should be imposed on the bondholders. His comments were front page news on the Financial Times in Europe next day, alongside reports of the escalating crisis in Greece.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">And as a result, he was trying to dampen the fire, when we met, arguing that his comments had been given a weight they didn’t deserve, because of what was happening in Greece. “We are saying publicly that everything that has been given to us as a country, or has been given to us in our banking system, that we’ll repay to the last cent. And that’s our commitment to the senior bondholders everywhere,” he said. He added that, while his comments were accurately reported, he wanted to frame them in the context of the continuing review of the rescue program.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is estimated to be around €3.1bn in the relevant Anglo bonds and around €600m in Irish Nationwide bonds. “Everybody knows about Anglo,” he says, “I mean, Anglo is Anglo. And all I’m saying is there are issues that haven’t been fully resolved but that we are not going to make any kind of unilateral move. We are going to discuss these issues with the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank. And the discussions aren’t imminent either. You know, this is something for the Autumn. So we are not even looking for meetings on these issues at the moment.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">It was a fascinating snapshot of the kind of pressure the new Finance Minister is under, and how careful he has to be with the words he chooses, and how the global financial markets hang on his every utterance.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"We have been working day and night on it, you know,” he says, “I’m hardly seeing home, or hardly seeing the constituency"</i></span></blockquote></div><div class="MsoNormal">Noonan was in New York and Washington last week for over 16 meetings with business leaders and opinion makers. His message was simple – the new government in Ireland is sticking to the terms of the bailout deal. “It’s like a contract,” he explains, “where there are literally dozens of conditions, and when you fulfill the conditions on a timeline, you are allowed to draw down money. You can draw down money to pay the day-to-day needs of the State, whether it’s the health service or paying the teachers or the Gardai, and then there is another side where you can draw down when you need to capitalize the banks. So I was confirming that we’re committed to the program, we’re sticking by the program and we’re going to see it through.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the top officials at the IMF were among those who took time to meet the Minister during his visit to Washington. Noonan was also keen to draw attention to the differences between Ireland and Greece, as the world’s attention is focused on Athens. “We keep saying Ireland is not Greece, and people understand that, but when it comes to issues like this, the international financial media tend to box us together,” he says.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Whatever happens to Greece will have a major impact, not just on Ireland, but on the whole Eurozone. But Noonan knows Ireland is not in any position to direct events. “In the real world, it’s the stronger nations in Europe that will make the decisions about Greece,” he explains, “Now, the definition of the stronger nations are the Triple A countries – those that have a triple A credit rating. Finland is one of those even though it is a small country, Slovenia is one of those even though it’s small. Ireland won’t have a very strong voice in designing the solution, and our primary interest is to ensure that any solution arrived at doesn’t damage us.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">While Europe is dealing with the Greek crisis, Ireland’s attempts to have the terms of its bailout deal reviewed will have to wait. The government is keen to have the interest rate it is being charged reduced, but is facing some opposition from France and Germany, who are looking for changes to Ireland’s low corporate tax rate in return. That’s non-negotiable as far as Noonan is concerned: “It’s part of our industrial relations policy, and we will not negotiate it away under any circumstances.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While in the US, Noonan was also keeping a close eye on negotiations over the sale of Anglo assets here. These are properties worth up to €11 billion – a mix of hotels, shopping centers and apartment blocks, mostly in the North East, from New York up to Boston. As part of the wind-down of Anglo, the government hopes to sell these assets. “These are very good assets now. These are not impaired assets at all. All this stuff is leased or rented and is generating income. So these are very attractive on the market. We’re trying to reduce the size of the banks by disposing of their assets abroad.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">By coincidence, it’s exactly 100 days since the new government was formed on the day we meet. I ask him to rate how he believes he’s done. “Very busy,” he says, before listing off what he’s undertaking since taking up the position.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“We totally restructured the banking system in accordance with the program. We did that in the first three weeks and made all the necessary announcements and we’re implementing that now with a view to making the banks fully recapitalized in line with the new stress testing by the 31<sup>st</sup> July.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“We’re looking for private money in Bank of Ireland. We’ve commenced the legal merger of EBS and Allied Irish Bank, we are talking to people to sell off the insurance arm of Irish Life and Permanent. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“On the bondholders, we have gone to court and made arrangements and offers, for subordinate bondholders and we had the first success in that two weeks ago when we got agreement from 86% of the bondholders in AIB to accept the discounts offered. That’s worth, by the time the second tranche comes through, almost two billion to the Irish taxpayer. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“And we’re proceeding the same way now with Bank of Ireland. We want to see if we can arrange debt for equity swaps there. We’d like to keep Bank of Ireland as a publicly quoted bank, with majority private ownership. And then we’re moving on to EBS and Irish Life and Permanent. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“So we have, not only made the initial announcements about the structures, we are systematically implementing them and that’s a huge quantity of work in the first 100 days.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“The second thing we did then was we renegotiated the program that had been agreed by the previous government and we got some major concessions on it. Particularly, room to implement the jobs initiative because we had to change things around on the program to get that implemented.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“We also, on NAMA, got an agreement that assets below €20m in value would remain in their parent banks and wouldn’t be switched to NAMA which was very important. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“And we’ve got a review build in after 2012, and we got an extension on the time for the bailout, so it’s getting the deficit down to 3% by 2015 now. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“And of course, for the jobs initiative then, we had to put a Finance Bill in place. And we had to implement that.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“So systematically, we are ticking the boxes and we are meeting the commitments in the program on a timeline.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“I hope that most of the decisions we make will be good ones and that the ones that aren’t good ones, we’ll have the sense to admit it early and change”</i></span></blockquote></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s a thankless and tiring job. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“We have been working day and night on it, you know,” he says, “I’m hardly seeing home, or hardly seeing the constituency – that work is being done with the help of other people. But it’s Dublin all the time in the Ministry doing the job that’s required.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He says the new government is very conscious of how difficult it is for young people to find work in Ireland. But he argues that things are still not as bad as they were in the 1980s. “Back then there were only around 900,000 people at work. But this week’s figures have 1.8 million people at work – it’s nearly double. So even at the bottom of the cycle - and it looks that unemployment has bottomed out now - there’s 1.8m at work. And they’ve gone up the skill chain as well, the people who are at work.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">He said foreign direct investment is strong in Ireland, with the IDA successfully attracting companies, particularly form the US. Exports are booming, and he expects a Balance of Payments surplus this year. And he’s also targeted tourism as a key sector for recovery. The numbers visiting Ireland have declined 30% over a three year period, and Noonan sees regaining that lost ground as a priority. With that in mind he has an appeal to Irish Americans. “You know, people often say to me: You have trouble at home. What can we do? We feel that the crisis is too big and we can’t make any contribution to the solution,” he says. “Well my message is, if you can convince one friend to visit Ireland this summer, do. There’s a lot of Irish abroad, and if they can convince one person to come, it will swell the numbers.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Noonan says he believes things are beginning to build up again in Ireland. “I hope that most of the decisions we make will be good ones and that the ones that aren’t good ones, we’ll have the sense to admit it early and change,” he says. “We’re very conscious of building morale and confidence. We’re moving on. So far, so good.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime; font-size: x-small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: lime; font-size: x-small;">This article first appeared in the Irish Examiner USA June 21st issue</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2