Rockland march steps off despite uniform protest

By Stephen McKinley

St. Patrick was celebrated as usual in Pearl River last Sunday, with crowds of up to 50,000 in attendance. But a certain amount of controversy over the choice of the Rockland County parade’s grand marshal caused several groups of marchers to stay away in protest.

Some police and firefighter groups did not march because, they said, this year’s grand marshal, Brian Pearson, had engaged in IRA activities when he lived in County Tyrone in the 1970s.

The Orangetown Police Department Honor Guard said the choice was “poor timing” in light of the Sept. 11 events and refused to march in the parade. The Rockland County Sheriff’s Correction Officers Honor Guard, Clarkstown Police Honor Guard and Pearl River Hook and Ladder Fire Company also refrained from marching.

Pearson, a Tyrone native and a resident of Pearl River for 12 years, claimed political asylum when he came to the U.S. in the 1990s. He was granted asylum in 1997.

He had served 12 years in prison in Northern Ireland for his role in driving a getaway car during the bombing of a Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Clogher, Co. Tyrone, in 1975.

Rockland County Ancient Order of Hibernians President Cyril Hughes offered a vigorous defense of the choice of Pearson, noting that he was a respected member of the local community.

“He was voted unanimously by the divisions [for Rockland County],” Hughes said. “This wasn’t a last-minute decision. The units that didn’t march showed a lack of knowledge about what is happening in Ireland.

“Brian has been given political asylum in this country. People are entitled to express their opinions.”

He added that Pearson had been restrained in his attitude toward those who, it was alleged, had suggested that his actions in the ’70s placed him in the same bracket of condemnation as Osama bin Laden. But Pearson told reporters that he was “very hurt” by the comparison with the Saudi terrorist leader.

Neither the police and firefighter groups nor Pearson could be contacted at press time.

Pearson received support from an unusual source last week, when Elizabeth Fitton of the conservative weekly National Review wrote an article that addressed the choice of Pearson as grand marshal.

Fitton’s story, “An Irish Journey: marching with Brian Pearson from past to peace,” was a nostalgic look at Fitton’s own Irish-American childhood in Rockland County, and how Pearson’s past, in contrast to her idyllic childhood, is a complicated one from which Americans can learn a great deal. Fitton told the Echo that she wanted to present a more nuanced view of someone like Pearson and his role in the Troubles, than might normally be written in the U.S.

” ‘I still believe that we have a right to self-determination. . . . At the time it was necessary to meet violence with violence,’ ” she quotes Pearson as saying. He continued that he believed and hoped that “armed resistance” had made the current peaceful political process possible.

“My editor was very supportive,” Fitton said. “We talked about it a lot; he had no real problem with it. No one really speaks from that side.”

A British Consulate official said that some marchers’ displeasure with Pearson’s grand marshal role was understandable, “given the number of police officers in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland who’ve been murdered by the IRA,” said Paul Johnson.

Other marchers included NYPD Detective Steven McDonald, who was shot in the line of duty and is wheelchair-bound. McDonald’s special spiritual friendship with Fire Department chaplain and Sept. 11 victim Father Mychal Judge became widely known after Judge’s death. Pat Doherty of Sinn Fein also attended the march.