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Irish America magazine - Oct/Nov '08 issue: The Legacy of the San Patricios Lives On , Stars of the South, The Legal 100, Roots: The Mighty Mahers, All Hail The Humble Spud! , Music: Still Fiddlin’ Away , The Real Bill , The Battle over Ulysses, Broadway's Irish Colleen
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Those We Lost
Michael Joseph Daly
Michael Joseph Daly, 83, died July 25 of pancreatic cancer in his home in
Fairfield, Connecticut. A lieutenant and later a captain in the Army’s Third
Infantry Division, he was awarded the Medal of Honor from President Harry
Truman on August 23, 1945. Credited with single-handedly fighting off and
killing fifteen Germans as well as demolishing three machine-gun
emplacements – one from ten yards away – during the battle for Nuremberg in
the Second World War, he was evacuated the day after the heroic event after
sustaining injuries from a bullet to the face in a separate firefight. He
was also awarded three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts
during his time in the army. On the day after Daly was awarded his Medal of
Honor, a parade was held in Fairfield for both Daly and his father, a
colonel who had been injured in France.
Daly was born in New York City in 1926, the son of a highly decorated WWI
veteran. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point but
did not graduate, instead enlisting in the Army as a private. He worked as a
salesman for an oil company and as a real estate investor after the war.
Daly leaves behind his wife, Margaret Wallace Daly, a son, Michael, and a
daughter, Deirdre Daly, as well as two sisters, a stepson and stepdaughter,
and three grandsons.
Joseph Dwyer
 Pfc.
Joseph Dwyer, 31 years old, died on June 28 in North Carolina in the tragic
aftermath of his time in Iraq, another casualty of a war that the American
public has long lost faith in.
Dwyer enlisted as an Army medic right after 9/11 and suddenly became the
face of America’s heroism in 2003, at the beginning of the invasion, when a
famous picture of Dwyer carrying a small Iraqi boy to safety was plastered
in newspapers, TV footage, and magazine covers.
With a brother in the NYPD and another serving in the U.S. Air Force, Dwyer
felt compelled to join the Army two days after 9/11, needing to do something
to protect his family and his country. When he came home to El Paso, Texas a
few months later, he was a changed man. Paranoid and gripped with fear and
shock from his experience, he began what would become years of sporadic
treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and, eventually, addiction. He
became a Baptist, trying to find peace in scripture, but also sought comfort
from drinking and inhaling spray fumes from cans of solvent. His wife
eventually left him, afraid to expose herself and their young daughter any
longer to his delusional and violent episodes. Despite countless efforts
from his friends and parents to help him recover from the war, there seemed
to be no cure. In October 2005, after an attempted intervention by friends
failed, Dwyer shot up his apartment in a fit of delusion, insisting he could
tell the SWAT team where the Iraqis were. He was arrested but discharged
after the incident, and eventually moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina.
On June 28, police discovered Joseph Dwyer alone in his apartment,
surrounded by pill bottles and aerosol cans. He was already dying.
Close Army friends expressed frustration with the military for allowing
Dwyer to slip through the cracks of programs designed to help veterans in
emotional recovery post-deployment. Dwyer had recently begun peer counseling
with a fellow Iraq veteran who could relate to Dwyer’s fear and trauma, the
only treatment that seemed to help, but he was already too far gone. Dwyer
was included in Irish America’s Top 100 Irish Americans of the Year list in
2004 for his contributions to public service.
David Herbert Greene
David Herbert Greene died July 9 of pneumonia at the age of 94 in Boynton
Beach, Florida. A professor at New York University for almost forty years,
Greene was a well-recognized scholar of Irish literature credited by some
with pioneering the field in American education.
Born in Boston in 1913, Greene earned three degrees from Harvard’s
literature department over four short years between 1936 and 1939. After
accomplishing his Ph.D. there, he served as a Navy intelligence officer in
Britain during World War II, then was hired as an English professor at NYU.
Officially retiring in 1979, Greene went on to work as an emeritus professor
there for six more years.
Greene made a name for himself through several books including J.M. Synge:
1871-1909, an authorized biography written with Edward M. Stephens. He also
worked on television and edited An Anthology of Irish Literature. Three
years ago Greene donated to NYU decades of correspondence with Irish
playwright Sean O’Casey, the result of a friendship begun when Greene was a
Harvard student in the 1930s.
David Greene is survived by his wife, formerly Catherine Healy, to whom he
had been married for sixty-nine years, a son, three daughters, four
grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
Red Foley
Red Foley, a scorer in major league baseball for nearly four decades, died
July 7 at age 79 in Flushing, Queens. He scored games from 1966 to 2002, and
worked in ten World Series between 1981 and 2001, a record number. Foley
also wrote sports stories for The Daily News for 34 years, until 1981, and a
question-and-answer column in the New York Post after that. An officer of
the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for years, he served as
chairman of the New York chapter in 1969-7. Foley’s death was made known to
the public by the family lawyer, Kevin Brosnahan.
William P. Ford.
William P. Ford, 72, died of esophageal cancer June 1 in his home in
Montclair, New Jersey. He was a former Wall Street attorney who became an
influential activist and leading advocate for justice in El Salvador after
his sister Ita Ford and three more women, including two other Maryknoll
sisters and a missionary, were murdered in Dec. 1980 during the civil war in
El Salvador. In a 2002 civil trial in Florida, the federal court jury found
José Guillermo García, El Salvador’s past defense minister, and Carlos
Eugenio Vides Casanova, its past National Guard commander, liable for $54.6
million of injuries due to pain and suffering undergone by three Salvadoran
immigrants to America who the two military officials had ordered to be
tortured. While the verdict was not expressly tied to the murders of Ita
Ford and the other churchwomen, it was clear that William Ford’s
perseverance in the case was directly linked to the conviction. At the time
of the trial, the two generals were living in Florida under U.S. permission.
Ford was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1936 to William and Mildred O’Beirne
Ford. He earned his B.A. from Fordham University in 1960 and his law degree
from St. John’s University in 1966. He began his law career as a clerk to a
federal judge and later became a founding partner of Ford Marrin Esposito
Witmeyer & Gleser.
Ford is survived by his wife, the former Mary Anne Heyman, to whom he had
been married for 47 years, two sons, William Ford III and John, four
daughters, Miriam, Ruth, Elizabeth, and Rebecca, a sister, and eight
grandchildren.
Ford’s daughter Ruth is now the director of the Maura Clarke – Ita Ford (MCIF)
Center in Brooklyn, NY, named for Ford’s sister and another of the women
murdered. The organization seeks to assist immigrant women in learning
English, discovering ways to support their families, and participating
actively in their community.
John R. Moran
John R. Moran, 82, of Plainfield, New Jersey, passed away peacefully on
August 21, 2008 at home. He and his wife, Lillian, were married for 59
years.
Born May 9, 1926 in Bayonne, New Jersey, he and his family had a summer home
at Cedar Grove Beach Club, on Staten Island, N.Y., where he met his future
wife, Lillian Quaranta, at the age 5.
John was educated by the Jesuits, at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City, before
enlisting in the Navy at the age of 17. He served aboard the U.S.S. Auburn,
where he saw action on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He also served aboard the U.S.S.
Siboney, during the Korean Conflict. Following his distinguished war
service, John served as a director of the Navy League, New York Council. He
married and raised his family on Staten Island, where he became involved in
the Democratic Party and served on various campaigns including the
Presidential Campaign for President John F. Kennedy. His commitment to his
faith and the education of his children was seen in his active involvement
in the St. Joseph Hill Academy Fathers Club and the St. Charles Church Holy
Name Society. He served as the President of the St. Joseph Hill Academy
Fathers Club during the 1960s.
John enjoyed a successful career in the insurance industry, working for 33
years with the Continental Insurance Company. During his career with
Continental, he held several senior level positions including President of
Marine Office of America Corporation, in New York City; Chairman and
President of First Insurance Company of Hawaii; and a senior officer of the
Continental Corporation.
In addition to his wife, Lillian, John is survived by his sons John R.
Moran, Jr. and his wife, Kathy, of Succasunna; Tom Moran and his wife, Joan,
of N.Y.C.; his daughter, Bess Moran Zampella, and her husband Tony of
Plainfield; his brother D. Perry Moran and sister Joan Cornell, and three
grandchildren, Lisa Moran, John R. Moran III, and A.J. Zampella; and two
great-grandchildren Kevin and Molly.
Carlin’s Last Stand
 The
last week of July George Carlin's ashes were dispersed. He had asked his
daughter, Kelly Carlin-McCall to deal with them within 30 days of his death
in a manner that would respect his philosophy and outlook on life. With
about 25 old friends from his old Irish NYC neighborhood (Morningside
Heights), his daughter Kelly with his brother Patrick, his nephew Dennis and
his son-in-law Bob McCall, started the dispersal at 120th and Riverside Dr.,
a spot called The Question Mark where George and his group of friends used
to hang out in their youth. Kelly and the family then took him to Bleecker
St. in Greenwich Village to a tree in front of the club The Bitter End to
honor his creative beginnings, then to Lake Spofford in New Hampshire
(Carlin went to camp there as a child and won many drama awards that were
precious to him), then onto the family's property in Woodstock, and then
finished with the remainder of the ashes in the Pacific Ocean underneath the
Venice Pier.
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