That was the message that hundreds of cheering Irish took away from a rally in the Bronx last Friday night organized by the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and addressed by Senator Charles Schumer, Representative Anthony Weiner and former congressman Bruce Morrison.
During his address to the crowd packed into St. Barnabas church hall — scene earlier this year of a similar event fronted by Sen. John McCain — Schumer went so far as to proclaim “tiocfaidh _r l_ (our day will come) — for years a rallying cry for Irish republicans and a statement long viewed by Irish people in general as a pledge of a positive and desired result.
The significance of Schumer’s words, frequently interrupted by applause and cheering from a crowd mostly decked out in “Legalize The Irish” t-shirts, is compounded by the fact that New York’s senior senator has emerged from the recent midterm elections as one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Party on Capitol Hill.
And though his speech to what was a friendly, home state crowd, sounded like just that, experienced observers in the room were in broad agreement that Schumer has the clout to set in motion a debate geared towards producing the kind of comprehensive reform bill that would secure President Bush’s required signature.
A successful outcome to that debate, it was stated more than once to a gathering that included Irish diplomatic representatives, would depend on the bipartisan nature of a final bill.
That reality, however, did not prevent Schumer from taking a few distinctly partisan swipes at those Republicans in the outgoing 109th Congress who had worked against reform and had campaigned against it in the months before election day.
“The last time I spoke to you, said Schumer, “the Republican leadership was playing cheap games with immigration reform. Now they are in the minority and Schumer and Weiner are in the majority,” he said to thunderous cheering and applause.
The response from the audience was typical on an evening that witnessed a new surge of hope coursing through an ILIR campaign that has had its high points and more pessimistic moments since the group was formally launched in a midtown Manhattan hotel a year ago this week.
Schumer was led into the hall – which also serves as a venue for Mass at St. Barnabas, a parish that straddles the Bronx and Yonkers – by two pipers who had to duel it out in the raising the rafters stakes with a crowd that broke into a loud and prolonged chant of Ol