Inside File When the wind blows

By Ray O’Hanlon

"IF" was intrigued by the recent New York Times report on the planned Battery Park Irish Hunger Memorial, which is due to be unveiled at Manhattan’s southern tip next St. Patrick’s Day. It was already known that the memorial would include sod grass shipped in from the old, well, you know. But, according to the Times, visitors will also be treated to the sight and fragrance of "indigenous wildflowers, grasses and weeds that are meant to conjure the Irish countryside."

This all sounds delightful and indeed a smattering of the Irish countryside would do you no harm at all after a few hours in Manhattan. But Manhattan isn’t Mayo. What happens to the weeds when the wind from Canada blows down the Hudson River in January or the sun scorches the bejaysus out of the place in August?

The one thing that is most noticeable about the Irish climate is that it tends to avoid extremes. Perhaps there should be a retractable roof over the memorial with interior climate control, maybe even sound recordings of native Irish birds.

Perhaps, but unlikely. Still "IF" will be very interested to see how well the Irish flora does on the site during those times of the year when a soft day is as rare as snowfall in the Sahara.

Ir . . . Ir . . .

Iran actually. "IF" could not help but notice a report that described how 1.5 million Iranians living in the U.S. were being provided with ballot boxes at 50 specially set up polling stations in 33 states so that they could vote in last week’s Iranian presidential election.

No matter that the choice of candidate was hardly exhilarating, or the fact that Washington still views Tehran as being an unacceptable sponsor of global terrorism, the bottom line was that the exiled sons and daughters of an Islamic theocracy were being given a vote. Contrast this with the Treaty of Nice referendum in the wee Republic, the vote on which was confined — with the exception of overseas-based diplomats — to citizens physically present in the 26 most assuredly non-Islamic counties.

Now there’s one for the mullahs in Leinster House to ponder, even though they won’t.

And about Iran for a moment. There are Irish angles in every land on this planet and "IF", as readers well know, is dedicated to seeking out the first Irish story on the planet Mars and beyond. But first, Iran.

Back in 1981, when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was still glaring at the world from behind his beard, Bobby Sands became the first of the hunger strikers to die in Long Kesh. His death was a huge worldwide story, not least in the Iranian capital Tehran, where the British embassy was on Churchill Street. But not for long. Quicker than you could swear by a hair of the prophet’s beard, the street’s name was changed to Bobby Sands Street. Her majesty’s government, not surprisingly, was somewhat ir…ate.

Better Lahey than . . .

Fans of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade should get used to the idea of hearing more from John Lahey, the president of Quinnipiac College and a former grand marshal. Lahey is expected to emerge in the months ahead as the public relations face of the annual march up Fifth Avenue.

Lahey is but one of a number of individual’s on the parade board of directors who are expected to row in behind the longer standing parade front line that includes chairman John Dunleavy and executive secretary Jim Barker. The signs are that the parade will be run on increasingly corporate lines with various individuals applying their fields of expertise to an event that could witness many changes in form and content over the next few years.

This, of course, is a separate development altogether to the matter of the AOH’s future role in the great march, an issue that will no doubt provide further drama even as the parade seeks to present a more professional face to the world.

No Boystown these

"Suffer the Little Children," the book with the inside story on the horrors of Ireland’s 19th and 20th century industrial schools, was given its official U.S. launch in New York last week at a reception held at The Parlor on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Co-authors Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan were on hand, as was Frank McCourt, who spoke of a time when the ultimate punishment in his Limerick national school was the fear of being sent to an industrial school in nearby Glin, Co. Limerick. Lord knows, but it’s a good thing that Frank avoided that fate otherwise he might never have escaped back to America.

Anyway, Raftery, a senior producer and director at RTE, spoke eloquently about the basis for a story that has sent shock waves through Ireland in recent years. One interesting aspect of this sorry tale that Raftery highlighted was the role in it of the American priest Fr. Edward Flanagan, the founder of the famous Boystown.

Flanagan, many will recall, was famously portrayed by Spencer Tracy in the movie "Boystown" and the book includes a photo of Tracy and the Galway-born Flanagan discussing the film in 1938. Flanagan, by then a monsignor, toured the Irish industrial and reform school system in 1946 and was horrified by the many and frequent physical punishments meted out to children. He described the Irish industrial and reform school system as "a disgrace to the nation."

Sadly, before Flanagan could really have a go at this "disgrace," he died. "Suffer the Little Children" is a page-turner and is published by Continuum.

They said

€ "If Giuliani were in Ireland, media would wink, nod." Headline over the George McEvoy column in the Palm Beach Post.

€ "New York’s public schools’ Great Hunger curriculum fails to explore the role of Britain’s economic policies at the time of the Great Hunger and Britain’s failure to ameliorate the suffering in Ireland. The curriculum also fails to acknowledge the racist nature of British government in Ireland. These omissions result in an interpretation of the Great Hunger as an event that stood outside the dynamics of politics, economics and social history. I urge you to send the curriculum back to the drawing board so that New York’s public school students will receive fair and accurate information about the Great Hunger." Action request for New York Gov. George Pataki in the June issue of the American Irish Political Education Committee newsletter.