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Charge of the ‘Right’ Brigade

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Ray O’Hanlon

This weekend’s Queens St. Patrick’s Parade has become the latest backdrop in the evolving argument over what it means to be Irish in New York.

In one green corner is Patrick Hurley, veteran campaigner on behalf of the Irish presence in the city. In the other is Brendan Fay, also a veteran campaigner on behalf of the Irish presence in the city. Both men see themselves as active promoters of Irish social, cultural and political life in their adopted city.

Many outside observers would see numerous similarities between both men, at least in a general sense. But when it comes to the particulars of their activism, Hurley and Fay would appear to sharply diverge.

Hurley, one of the founders of the Irish Immigration Reform Movement, was leading an effort this week to persuade Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others, to boycott Sunday’s parade.

Fay, a onetime member of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization and a founder of the Lavender and Green Alliance, said the parade will honor Fr. Mych’l Judge, the New York City Fire Department chaplain who perished in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center disaster. Fay was working overtime to have everybody in sight, regardless of sexual orientation, politics, religious or political affiliation, take part.

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Mayor Bloomberg is shaping up to be one of the participants. According to a spokeswoman at the mayor’s office, Megan Sheekey, Bloomberg is intent on taking part in the Sunnyside/Woodside event. “Mayor Bloomberg will be marching in every St. Patrick’s parade to which he has been invited,” Sheekey told the Echo.

At presstime, the number of such parades totaled five. In addition to the Sunnyside/Woodside parade, the mayor, according to Sheekey, was lined up to march in Rockaway, Throgg’s Neck, the main parade in Manhattan on March 16, and the Brooklyn parade the following day.

Bloomberg’s participation in the Queens parade comes despite a letter from Hurley and Ed Coyne — district leader and president, respectively, of the Woodside branch of the Republican Party — urging him to stay away from what Hurley in particular has long argued is nothing more than a radical left-wing demonstration.

Another mayor was has also been invited to march in the parade. Mayor Jimmy Mulroy of Drogheda, Co. Louth, was invited by Fay, a Drogheda native, to lead a contingent from the town that would include members of the local fire brigade and ambulance service.

However, Mulroy and the rescue service group’s participation is now doubtful following a plea from New York’s County Louth Society.

In a letter to Mulroy, the president of the Louth Society, Eileen Martin, warned Mulroy that the “self-styled Queens St. Patrick’s Parade” had been, in her view, rightly described as nothing more than a demonstration with a strong anti-law-and-order theme.

Echoing the sentiments of Hurley and Coyne, Martin stated in her letter that the Fay-organized event had been used for police bashing and for ridiculing former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

“The local Irish-America community of Woodside/Sunnyside, which has given many members to the NYPD, has been particularly offended by this parade,” Martin wrote.

According to Martin, the organizers would, as they have each year, present the event as a community-based, family-fun parade. “It enjoys negligible community support in terms of participation or attendance,” she said in her letter.

Martin told the Echo that she wrote the letter because the society had become aware of reports back in Louth that the society would be taking part in the Queens event.

“We were . . . told that flyers were being distributed stating that we were marching,” Martin said.

With regard to Mayor Mulroy and the Drogheda group’s plans, Martin said it was entirely their decision.

“It’s a free country and they can march where they like,” she said. “But we felt that they should not be misled in any way.”

Martin said that the Louth Society was conscious of the fact that the visitors would be paying their own way. The society, she said, would be delighted to include Mulroy and the Louth emergency services members in the society’s contingent in the March 16 Manhattan parade.

Martin’s letter, meanwhile, strongly echoed the sentiments expressed by the GOP branch’s letter to Bloomberg, a document scripted by Cork native Hurley.

Hurley variously described the Queens march as a “debacle,” a “demonstration of a radical, left-wing anarchistic agenda” and an event with a recurring theme, namely “an aggressive anti-law-and-order, anti-police diatribe with protest groups belligerently vocal in their support of the infamous Mumia Abu Jamal, the convicted murderer of Irish-American Philadelphian police officer, Daniel Faulkner.”

Hurley also charged in his letter that the Queens parade contained “an aggressive, exhibitionist imposition of a radical homosexual agenda.”

Hurley warned Bloomberg — a former Democrat who ran for office last year as a Republican — that his participation would “gravely offend” Irish Americans, Catholics and other religious congregations “and indeed all industrious, patriotic, law-abiding and civic-minded” people living in the Sunnyside and Woodside district.

Hurley told the Echo that he had no problem with a Queens parade in principle as long as it was what he described as a “bona fide” celebration of St. Patrick, Irish culture and Irish achievement in the U.S.

“And it would be a parade open to people of all religious affiliations and sexual orientation.” he stressed.

He remains opposed, however, to what he described as the “promotion of a left-wing political agenda” in the present event, one that he said was “out of synch” with a neighborhood that supported traditional values.

“Why can’t they have such a parade in the Village where they won’t cause offense to anybody?” Hurley, who will be watching the parade from the sidelines this Sunday, said in reference to Greenwich Village in Manhattan.

“I have nothing against Brendan Fay. But if he genuinely wants to celebrate St. Patrick and Irish achievements in the U.S., I’m sure the Louth association would invite him to march in the main [Manhattan] parade,” Hurley said.

Not surprisingly, Fay was not impressed by Hurley’s arguments.

“The parade will go on. We’re getting calls from all over,” Fay said. “I hope people in the Irish community, here and in Ireland, will make up their own minds and come and see that what we are actually doing is being misrepresented.”

Fay denied that the Queens St. Patrick’s Parade was in any way anti-law and order.

“We are meeting with the 108th precinct before the parade,” he said. “We are in touch with the civic and religious leadership of the borough and the city. We have observed all protocols. We are not anti-law and order and we’re not anti-Catholic.”

Fay’s reaction to the Hurley/Coyne letter to Bloomberg, and other recent similarly worded statements issued by Hurley to the press, was emphatic. “It’s a rant,” he said. “[Hurley] should come and help pour tea or push a wheelchair.

“The Republican mayor of the city is not rejecting us and this is a wonderful breakthrough. Anybody in our community can come out on the day, register on the spot, and march.”

Fay added that a number of other politicians are expected to march, including Sen. Charles Schumer Rep. Joe Crowley and the recently elected comptroller of New York City, Bill Thompson. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took part in the event last year, but Fay indicated this week that Clinton’s presence was less certain this weekend.

But Fay’s attention is not entirely directed at major politicians. Pat Hurley, too, would be a most welcome participant as far as Fay is concerned.

“If Pat Hurley came as a participant rather than a critic, he might actually have fun,” Fay said.

Sunday’s parade steps off at 1 p.m. at 43rd Street and Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside.

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