Inside File Did Irish apply?

By Ray O’Hanlon

Statistically, at the rate the numbers are tumbling, there will be no Irish Schumer visa winners two years from now. The reason for the precipitous drop in the number of Irish, from north and south of the border, who are laying their hands on the diversity visa green cards are both good and not so good. Obviously, Ireland, the entire island, is doing far better economically than it was a decade ago when just about any visa lottery was akin to the last lifeboat on the Titanic. The Celtic Tiger factor is clearly reducing the rate of application in Ireland itself.

In the U.S., however, there are not a few undocumented Irish who would give just about anything for a chance to be legal by way of a Schumer. So how many of them applied? That’s impossible to estimate. Certainly far, far more than the 146 Irish who secured visas in the lottery. The U.S. State Department did give a breakdown of the figures last week for all countries eligible for the 50,000 2002 Schumers.

Ten million applicants from around the world were deemed eligible for the random drawing while a million others were tossed into the garbage because the forms had been incorrectly filled out. In Europe, countries such as Poland (4,707 visas) and Ukraine (5,511) left Ireland in the dust. Doubtless there are a lot of illegals from those countries in the U.S. too, so it is quite likely that many successful applicants from these places were not twiddling their thumbs in Warsaw or Kiev waiting for Uncle Sam to send the good word.

Quite clearly so, the Schumer program isn’t doing the business for the undocumented Irish. Time indeed for another Brian Donnelly or a Bruce Morrison to step up to the plate.

Speaking of Morrison. He was in Ireland recently, where he was interviewed by Business & Finance magazine on the issue of Ireland as a destination for emigrants. "You cannot close your borders," was Morrison’s advice for the Irish government. And he should know. Where have you gone, Bruce Morrison, the undocumented Irish are turning their lonely eyes to you?

Stroke of . . .

. . . bad luck for Philadelphia Police Chief John Timoney. The Dublin native and all-around cop’s cop likes to keep fit and one of his exercise routines is rowing on the waterways that course through the city of brotherly love. Timoney was out on such a row recently when a chunk of a bridge fell into his boat, badly injuring a foot. Chief Timoney had to put the feet up for a few days, which, to say the least, is not the man’s style.

Connecticut’s say

Whatever about the debate over the Famine curriculum in New York versus the version in New Jersey, it would do well to also keep an eye on Connecticut. The Nutmeg State might be in New England, but there are patriot and rebel outposts all over the place, not least in Hamden, at Quinnipiac University, home base of John Lahey, Quinnipiac’s president and a former grand marshal of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Quinnipiac is also home to the Lender Family Special Collection, a roomful of books written about the Great Hunger and its consequences, not a few of them at or around the time of the actual Famine. Quinnipiac has produced a brochure describing what Lahey is calling "one of the most extensive compilations of literature and artwork on the subject of the Famine" and, in its introduction, the brochure makes it clear that the Great Hunger was not just an unfortunate accident of nature. The introduction states in part: "The Great Hunger was protracted by prejudice, ineptitude and indifference. At the time, Ireland was governed by Great Britain, the world’s wealthiest empire, which had the resources to lessen significantly the effects of the crop failure. Instead, the British government, during all of the years of the Great Hunger, continued to export tons of food and livestock out of Ireland and enforced tax and economic policies that lessened the availability of inexpensive food and resulted in the eviction of destitute Irish peasants from their rented homes and land. "

Given that, "IF" is not surprised that AOH National President Tom Gilligan was standing on friendly ground recently in another Connecticut community, the city of Bridgeport, where, in a speech to AOH state presidents, he took aim at history thus: "Over the past 10 years Hibernians have been at the forefront of efforts to counter one of the biggest lies of the 19th century — that over a million Irish died because there wasn’t enough food to eat."

Not so ‘Nice’

Great fuss and bluster in the auld sod about the upcoming June 7 referendums on the Treaty of Nice and other issues. Irish voters are being asked by the government to delete all reference to capital punishment in the Irish constitution, submit the country to the jurisdiction of an International Criminal Court, and sign on to the Nice treaty so as to facilitate expansion of the European Union and generate a defense role for Ireland within the expanded EU. Needless to say, the matter of Ireland’s military neutrality, real or perceived, is a matter for eager debate. But once again the irony seems to have been lost on government and the governed alike from Donegal to Cork. The government wants a "yes" vote on all three matters before voters.

But Irish citizens living outside the wee Republic but within the vaunted EU will not be able to vote in the referendum. Same goes for the Irish in the U.S., Australia, Vanuatu and, yes, believe it or not, the wee North.

Despite a pledge from Fianna Fáil to expand voting rights to emigrants back in 1997, nothing has been done. So how many "yes" votes are out there beyond the borders of the only country in the EU that does not allow voting from overseas? Probably more than enough to tip the scales firmly in the direction desired by a government that doesn’t seem to want them to vote in the first place. What was it that Pearse said about the Republic guaranteeing equal rights and opportunities to all its citizens and cherishing all the children of the nation equally? Perhaps we didn’t hear the man right.

They said

€ "I hope when the storm over this is over the center will continue with its work and we will find some creative way of healing the rift in the community." Anne O’Callaghan, chairwoman of the Philadelphia Immigration Resource Center, the the rift formed by the center’s decision to honor actor Martin Sheen and anti-war Fr. Daniel Berrigan.