Ireland Will Be United
So states former United Kingdom Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The British leader shared his opinion in a recent broad interview with The Guardian newspaper.
It is encouraging to hear British establishment figures acknowledging this straightforward and logical statement. A very much welcome statement, particularly in contrast to Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s disappointing, maddening and incomprehensible mealy-mouth comments that the current focus should be on handholding rather than on any border poll.
Even more frustrating is his timing, stating this shortly before his first visit with new U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burham. This weak-tea statement by the Irish Taoiseach gives the U.K. P.M. a free pass to put the Irish question on the back burner.
For goodness’s sake, if the Irish government is not pushing Irish unity, who should be? Dublin continues to fail to lead on the issue of Irish Unity.
Halloween Limerick
A ghost a witch and a broom, and a ghoul and a bat in a room,
Stayed up very late, so that they could debate,
About who should be frightened of whom.
JFK
Remember when the word “Presidential” meant something positive and consequential? To remind ourselves, I share the following quote from JFK, given at Amherst College a month before his death in Texas. The President, who was a Pulitzer Prize winner author himself, speaking on The Arts and Literature shared:
I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.
I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build and balanced cities for our future.
These words are even more beautiful and remarkable in contrast to the mono syllabic noises of the gauche resident currently defiling the White House. Viva La Resistance!
Presidential Response
Infantileis the nature of President dTrumps response to a court order to remove his name from the Kennedy Center. The dTrump Administration is threatening that The John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts will need to be torn down and replaced by an outdoor bandstand if dTrumps name is removed.
Evidently dTrump is the only one who can “save” the living memorial to the slain 35th President. If dTrumps name is forced back on The Memorial, it might be preferable to tear it down.
Evidence of Collusion
Cadawallader’s book was later made into a Royal Television Society award winning documentary, “Unquiet Graves.” Check it out free on Youtube.
The human rights organization, The Pat Finucane Center, recently unearthed documents showing that the British Government, then Prime Minister Edward Heath’s office, put pressure on the BBC to provide false and incomplete information of the Brit Army’s murder of 15-year-old Danny Hegarty in July of 1972. A memo from Northern Ireland Office (NIO) press secretary shows that the Brit authorities knew Danny was an unarmed teenager and that a Brit soldier shot him twice in the head at point blank range with his “general purpose machine gun” without provocation.
It continues to be unearthed decades after the fact. Evidence of the collusion by and between British intelligence and Loyalist paramilitary death squads. The basic case was made in Anne Cadwallader’s seminal book on the subject, “Lethal Allies.”
It continues to be unearthed decades after the fact. Evidence of the collusion by and between British intelligence and Loyalist paramilitary death squads. The basic case was made in Anne Cadwallader’s seminal book on the subject, “Lethal Allies.”
The NIO Press Secretary wrote in his August, 1972 memo that “After a major effort, the NIO managed to get the item removed from Monday’s programme.” Further evidence of Collusion was also recently shown with the admission by convicted Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) member Paul Beattie. The Belfast Telegraph recently reports that Beattie was one of the UVF’s most active gunmen and was sent to Maze prison for murder and later released under the general amnesty provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.
The NIO Press Secretary wrote in his August, 1972 memo that “After a major effort, the NIO managed to get the item removed from Monday’s programme.” Further evidence of Collusion was also recently shown with the admission by convicted Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) member Paul Beattie. The Belfast Telegraph recently reports that Beattie was one of the UVF’s most active gunmen and was sent to Maze prison for murder and later released under the general amnesty provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.
Beattie shares he fully accepts he killed people and would gladly give relatives of his victims the truth about what happened. The Telegraph goes on to quote Beattie: you see at the end of the day loyalism was run by MI5 – when Sinn Féin called us ‘death squads’ they were 100 per cent right because we were being controlled by MI5 – they were sending us out to kill people.
Note: MI5 is shorthand for British Military Intelligence, Section 5, the United Kingdom’s domestic counterintelligence and security agency and the core of the Brit secret intelligence machinery.
Irishtown Bend
Great Viewson the worldwide interweb will give you some great visuals of anticipated aspects of the proposed 25-acre Cuyahoga River front park. www.irishtownbendpark.org/irish-heritage. Of particular interest is an ability to share family history and ties that you and your relatives might have to Irishtown Bend.
The first of three phases is now complete with the stabilization of the sliding hillside. Also good to see the massive billboard at W. 25th and Detroit Rd., which sat upon the top of the former Royal Castle HQ building is now down and gone. The view of downtown is fantastic.
The second phase focuses on the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Trail and the third phase will be the actual park, anticipated to be completed in 2029 and include the following elements: Great Lawn – concerts, events, watch the fireworks; Wetland Healing Garden – sit quietly to watch butterflies, read a book; Hilltop Grill Garden – buy picnic items at West Side Market and have a meal; Amphitheater – to watch the freighters navigating the S-curves, watch rowing competitions, movies projected on the footings of the Detroit Superior Bridge; Pond, bike and walking paths, and a cafe to sit and have lunch or grab and go.
This generational project will be impactful on Cleveland and honor its waterfront heritage. The Park will beautifully link to the Greater Cleveland An Gorta Mor (Great Hunger) Memorial (aka Irish Famine Memorial) sited further up the Cuyahoga, via the Center Street Swing Bridge and across from the Flat Iron.
The Irish American Archives Society has been a significant contributor to forming the Cleveland Irish American experience story; however, it is important that as park plans continue to solidify that the Irish community continue to lobby to keep the Irish in “Irishtown” Bend. This is a great opportunity to memorialize the Irish immigrant experience and the Irish contributions to the Greater Cleveland and Great Lakes region.
