February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Ray O’Hanlon
About 40 community representatives, a number of them from county associations in the New York-New Jersey area, gathered in a Manhattan church last week to listen to details of a planned Irish theme village in the East Durham area of the Catskills.
The idea of the village has been drawn up by New Jersey-based businessman Dennis Meehan.
"There was a lot of interest, enthusiasm and questions at the meeting," Debra Kameke, a spokeswoman for Irish Village U.S.A. Inc. told the Echo.
A plan for a theme village depicting the 32 counties of Ireland on a site shaped like a map of Ireland is currently under consideration in a feasibility study being carried out by the Greene County Economic Development Department.
Dennis Meehan, a native of Co. Clare, recently traveled to Ireland to discuss the proposed project with Irish government ministers and tourism officials.
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Kameke said that representatives of Irish Village U.S.A. would attend the Memorial Day Irish Festival in East Durham in order to outline plans for the village and answer any questions.
Wreck recalled
They almost reached the new world but fate intervened tragically for the passengers and crew of the U.S. ship "Mexico," which floundered off Long Island 162 years ago.
One hundred and forty-one people perished in the wreck, 60 of them Irish, when the ship went down on in a storm on Jan. 3, 1837. They will be remembered on Sunday, May 23, at a memorial ceremony on Hempstead Beach. For details, call Eddie O’Reilly at (516) 599-7467.
Johnson out
Richard Johnson, who has spent most of this decade in prison arising from his conviction in the "Boston Three" missile technology case, has been released to a halfway house. Anyone wishing to contact Johnson can write to him at P.O. Box 598, Harwich, MA O2645.
Philly tackles RUC
Philadelphia area Irish Americans gathered in the city’s Irish Center last weekend to hear a number of human rights activists and attorneys speak out against the RUC. The event was organized by the Federation of Irish American Societies in the Delaware Valley and a report on the meeting is to be submitted to the Patten Commission, which is currently considering the future of policing in Northern Ireland.
Seton Hall honors Nelson
Seton Hall University is South Orange, N.J., is to bestow a posthumous honorary degree on slain Northern Ireland attorney Rosemary Nelson during commencement exercises Monday, May 24. Democratic Rep. Donald Payne will read the citation bestowed upon Nelson and Nelson’s husband, Paul, and her children, are expected to attend and receive the honorary degree on behalf of the attorney who was killed in a car bomb on March 15 in Lurgan. Meanwhile, North peace accord broker George Mitchell will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary doctorate at Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus on Saturday, May 22.